Bringing in the Sheaves
Ease and prosperity have been a long time coming. Slavery on Tobago was followed by long economic hardship, and one place where you can still feel that heritage of suffering is in the local Baptist Church. Spiritual Baptists endured a ban earlier this century, imposed on grounds of the noise nuisance they constituted to a neighborhood. I could understand why: Charlotteville's congregation was small, but I heard the din of singing, clapping, drums, and bass long before I found the church.
The pastor, robed in black and purple and stationed behind an electric keyboard, struggled desperately to find the right chords. A dozen grand women in long yellow robes, their hair tied up in yellow turbans, eyed Clare and me severely as we edged into the nearest pew. Then one of the yellow-clad "mothers of the church" shuffled down to give us a hymnal.
Running past a painted wall.
Tobago Baptists are not like other Baptists. While we sang to the electronic chords, and the women danced and swayed to the beat, now and then someone would go stiff and start to bounce on their feet. From visits to Trinidadian Shango ceremonies (which are something like Voodoo), I recognized this as one of the signs of oncoming spirit possession. Here the Holy Ghost was not just a belief.
Occasionally someone would lurch up the center of the church, seize a heavy handbell, and beat it furiously, pacing out to all corners of the church, clanging the good tidings of the Holy Ghost's arrival as hard as they could. Then they would spin a candle round and round on a curious, revolving candelabra and strew blossoms from brass bowls along the aisles. Finally, they would kneel in the middle, before the still-spinning candle, and pump their arms back and forth, holding a Bible in either hand, reciting unintelligible prayers.
The combination of the passionate wail of singing broken in upon by the sudden clanging of the bell intensified the longing and hope and sadness in the little church. I could not help thinking of the long centuries of suffering that the displaced Africans had endured.
"We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves," the little congregation sang - and sang so you knew they meant it, and that it wasn't just about a wheat harvest. It seemed incredible that they had kept such hopefulness alive. And finally it was paying off.