The Beji-Nite Churches of My Youth

This is Lloyd Lovindeer, master of
Pocomania Day in Jamaica, who typifies
the elements of the Beji-Nite Church.

As promised in previous posts in which I chronicled religious ceremonies I witnessed in Panama, I will delve a little deeper into the African derived religious practices in our American continent. Actually, it wasn’t until I began my university studies that I discovered a greater interest in studying the subject of our religions and I had to resort to my childhood experiences to find a point of reference to claim that our Silver People of Panama had anything similar in their religious practices.

Once I became old enough to walk away from home and return before anyone missed me at age four, perhaps, I began noticing a small two-room first floor center of worship in one of those “board buildings” like the one I had been living in since I had any knowledge of the City of Colon back when I was living with my maternal grandparents in the late 1930’s. These simple remembrances would be the only concrete experiences I would see for years that would make that connection for me to those African derived religions that I have always been so curious about.

Anyway, on this occasion I observed black people leaving and entering this center dressed in the most curious manner. The women normally were dressed in white, blue or green dresses with brightly colored cords tied around their waists and wore a turban on their heads of an equally curious color. The men, like the women, were dressed in the same colors with multicolored cords around their waists and also wore turbans when they were moved to.

At one point I caught a glimpse of some kind of strange dance they seemed to be practising right in front of their center. It involved a fascinating twirling and gyrating between this particular pair but, at least in my young eyes, didn’t seem like any kind of dancing between grown-ups that I had ever seen. I will go into further detail about their “dancing” in my next post. I would discover much later that these individuals belonged to the Beji-Nite Church.

Later on in my adolescence, after goading my grandmother and my Aunt Bernice into conversations about what they knew about those Beji-Nite churches they were always conversing about, I would begin, in bits and pieces, to put together some of these puzzles. Gradually I grew conscious of just how far I had been indoctrinated in these practices in my early childhood whether I liked it or not, just as it had been with me and Catholicism, a religion they would not even discuss.

At any rate, upon reviewing my notes on the subject I can safely say that the information I now share with you, our respected readers, is true. Since no one has been careful to take photographs of these religious practices in Panama or, as I have asserted, has written anything about their location or their participants, I’ve had to rely upon my own experiences and observations.

I would later be able to see first-hand the religious practices and even to remember the names of the very special organizing “Mothers” of these native cults of our isthmian culture. By the time I was nine years of age I could point out Mother Arms and her Deacon Edmond Toppin and my Uncle Carlos Green, my Aunt Dora Green’s brother, who later became a deacon also in her Beji-Nite church, a church which first started at the top of San Miguel Hill and then moved around the same area of our Calidonia District.

I had a more personal experience in the case of my Mother Campbell who my grandmother and aunts respectfully and lovingly called “Madame.” I gradually became as attached to Madame Campbell as I had to my grandmother when I would accompany her into the forested areas of what today is known as Curundu. We would always stop at her finca which was generously dotted with tall coconut palms that were always heavy with coconuts. She never failed to offer us the delicious coconut water right from the hard fruit which she was expert at cutting open with her trusty machete. She was a diminutive, almost delicate woman, but had a very powerful constitution and even more commanding presence. While on her finca you would never find her idle or without the presence of her rubber boots that she wore like any other woman would wear an apron.

Later in life I would meet up with Madame Campbell again as I accredited her with having healed me of the great sickness of our modern times, a stress related ailment. Much later Madame would move her “Pocomania” center from her original Curundu location right behind the Olympic stadium to a parcel of land in the well known Rio Abajo area which was the only other place in the capital city of Panama that was available for purchase by “Silver” or Westindian people.

There was also the figure of Mother Wright of the old Barrio of Chorrillo who, in that extremely populous area of the city, would stay and become a comfort to the people throughout their vibrant history as an urban people but especially during the disastrous invasion of 1989 brought down upon Panama by the United States of America. Through fire raining from the sky, missiles and bombs the Spirit of our ancestors would have invoked our God to prevail against the Gates of Hell that poured tragedy down on our Panamanian people.

On my customary excursions with my grandmother, Fanny, and my aunts, even up until my entry into secondary school, I would mark my visits to the suburb of San Francisco de la Caleta which housed a small chapel- a shack really- where Mother Lindo would hold her colorful weekly African derived religious services.

Having commenced my first year at the National Institute, I would find myself looking forward to accompanying my grandmother to these African like services that never gave way to a dull moment and involved the singing of stirring hymns, dancing, trance, healing and much blessing. The hours would pass quickly when, after the service would end, we, in the darkness the night, would leave filled with optimism and try to catch a bus back home to our old Magnolia Building in the heart of Calidonia.

These were the times to remember and give thanks to the valuable legacy that my family shared with me in particular, a youngster who seemed to have been destined to be just what I am today, a scribe who would chronicle the existence of the strong “Mothers” of Africa amongst the Silver People of Panama.

This story continues.