Dear Editor,
The nation has been, during the past couple of weeks, paying tribute to Basil Butcher for his contributions to the County of Berbice, the nation of Guyana, and the West Indies. Those praises have been for his outstanding role in the field of cricket. There is, however, another important role that he played in national development that has generally gone unacknowledged, undocumented and uncelebrated. That is his significant role in the field of culture.
Within the next two months Guyana will be celebrating the Golden Jubilee – the 50th Anniversary of Mashramani, the festival used to celebrate Guyana’s Republic Day on February 23. It is not widely known that Butcher was part of a team that created Mashramani in Linden between 1969 and 1970, and performed specific functions in the process. In the Republic celebrations of 2020, the nation should pay special tribute to Jimmy Hamilton, who led that group, and to Basil Butcher, who was a member of it.
The part he played has been documented in a publication The Origins and Development of Guyana’s Mashramani (Al Creighton, 2010). What follows, below, is taken from that document.
In 1969 Guyana celebrated an annual Independence Carnival on May 26, which was planned and organised by the JAYCEES of Greater MacKenzie (the townships of Mackenzie, Wismar and Christianburg) later renamed Linden. When Guyana became a Republic in 1970, the group of young men who managed this festival decided to change the Independence Carnival into a new festival to mark Republic Day. The publication states:
“There was no doubt that the Linden Independence Carnival had achieved the status of a national event with both popular and official recognition. Jimmy Hamilton, a photographer, former Public Relations Officer and by that time President of the Greater Mackenzie Jaycees, and Walter Melville, Executive Member of the Jaycees and a middle manager in DEMBA, . . . led a team that included Basil Butcher, a hero of test cricket, and at different points in the planning, Manager of Guynet Claude Saul, Jim Blackman, Michael Brassington, a manager at Barclay’s Bank, and an Antiguan Clavis Joseph. When in 1969, it was declared that Guyana would become a republic in February 1970, they immediately felt compelled to respond to a national need. The organisers seemed to agree among themselves that they had a responsibility to transform the (carnival) into a national Republic day celebration. They had a clear understanding that the best way to respond to the political context was with a thorough redesign of the ‘independence carnival’.”
The redesigned festival is known as “Mashramani”. Butcher was most directly involved in the finding and adoption of that name. the committee wanted an Amerindian name to give the republic festival an indigenous Guyanese identity, so they set about a search for a name.
“A committee headed by Basil Butcher was established to embark on a search. This included extensive fieldwork among the surrounding Amerindian communities and out of these enquiries the researchers reported to the committee that they had found evidence of a custom of celebration after work which was called ‘mashramani’.” (Creighton, 2010)
“Mashramani”, however, was not an Arawak word and did not describe such a custom, as reported to the committee, and as everyone was made to believe; but it was never clear where the word came from. When interviewed in Linden in 2010 by research assistant Krishana Elliott, Butcher explained that “the committee co-opted a number of young Amerindian men who went into their various home villages to consult the elders of their families and one of them came back with the name. They were the sons of highly placed members of the Amerindian communities and were able to access information from their fathers and knowledgeable elders about ancestral information and traditions”.
That was Butcher’s account of the naming process. There were other versions, and Hamilton reported they were not able to confirm the word or its custom. The committee decided to adopt the name anyway, but really where it came from remains unknown. (Creighton, 2010)
The publication notes “The members saw Butcher’s presence on their committee as a distinct public relations advantage, given his fame and popularity as a test cricketer, although this also meant he would be absent for some of their planning period. When he left to tour Australia with the West Indies team late in 1969, the committee was headed by Jim Blackman. Another member, Herman Nobrega, has also been named as a chairman of this committee” in Butcher’s absence.
The nation, then, owes a debt to Basil Butcher for his part in the creation of Mashramani.
Yours faithfully
Al Creighton
