Students Urged to Embrace Their Jamaican Heritage

Students are being urged to embrace their Jamaican heritage, which can shape their identity, build unity and connect them to their past.

The call comes from Founder/Artistic Director, Ntukuma, The Storytelling Foundation of Jamaica, Dr. Amina Blackwood Meeks, who delivered the keynote address during the Jamaica Information Service (JIS) Heritage Competition Awards Ceremony, held on Tuesday (December 10), at the Terra Nova All-Suite Hotel in Kingston.

She reflected on the Jamaican proverb, ‘Cow neva kno di use ah im tail til im lose it’.

“At first glance, it’s a simple observation about a cow and its tail, but like all great Jamaican proverbs, it carries a deeper meaning – a message about gratitude, mindfulness and the way we often take the small but vital things in our life for granted,” Dr. Blackwood Meeks explained.

She pointed out that the cow’s tail represents Jamaica’s traditions, customs, history and cultural expressions, passed down through generations.

Dr. Blackwood Meeks argued that the challenge is that the cow does not always stop to think about its tail, it simply assumes that it will always be there.

“But what happens if we lose it? One day the cow finds that it comes face to face with some things it had never imagined. Modernisation – that means wi lose wi traditional practices and languages; globalisation – everybody must look like everybody else, diluting our unique identity; neglect – lack of preservation of historical sites and artefacts and yes, climate change – impacting our natural heritage like our beaches and ecosystems. Suppose we think of those things as the flies. They come in droves, the discomfort grows and suddenly that little tail becomes the most important thing in the world,” she said.

Dr. Blackwood Meeks commended the over 200 students who participated in the competition, noting that by doing so, they have become stewards of Jamaica’s heritage.

“Everything we’re calling heritage and every action we take to protect it, is connected to everything we value – our health, our family, our culture and even our environment. Sometimes it is easy to overlook the connections. We don’t think about the value of clean air until it is polluted, we don’t think about the importance of a kind word until we are in need of one, but that too is part of the heritage. We don’t think about the richness and uniqueness of our cultural heritage until it begins to fade,” she said.

Dr. Blackwood Meeks charged the students not to wait until the tail is gone to realise its worth, as heritage is not only what is inherited, but what is passed on.