The Set Girls are long gone

Jonkonnu masquerade celebrations were a major feature of slavery-day and post-slavery-day Christmas festivities. Co-existing with Jonkonnu bands were the Set Girls masquerades, a more flamboyant and elaborate type of street performance than Jonkonnu.

“ These sets have been cited as early as 1776, and probably began in Kingston, and then spread to other towns and throughout the countryside,” Olive Senior writes in Encyclopedia of Jamaican Heritage.

In an article published in The Sunday Gleaner this week under the headline, ‘Jonkonnu bands battle for survival’, it was noted that that funding and interest in the centuries-old tradition are dwindling, thus the challenges faced by nowadays Jonkonnu bands. At least there are remnants of Jonkonnu struggling to stay alive, but the Set Girls are long gone, never to return, it seems.

Senior describes their parade as, “ Carnivalesque processions of beautifully dressed young women who formed a central part of the elaborate Christmas celebrations in the late 18th and early 19th centuries and which were also closely associated with Jonkonnu.”

RANKING SYSTEMS

They were called ‘Sets’, because they paraded in sets (batches) just as nowadays carnival revellers do. The colour scheme for members of each set is identical, thus the red, blue, yellow, green sets. Some sets would name themselves after jewels. The sets, led by an older woman called ‘Ma’am’, would sing and dance competitively on the streets. Older women, as well as children, too, took part. At one stage, the colour of the skin mattered, as only brown girls and women were allowed to participate.

Under a storyboard carrying sub-heading, ‘The Ma’am and Hierarchies Within Sets’, at an exhibition titled, ‘The Set Girls None So fine’, hosted at the African Caribbean Institute of Jamaica/Jamaica Memory Bank in December 2022, the text states, “ Sets established internal ranking systems among themselves. The queen of the Sets paraded at the front and centre of the Sets as the most beautiful, but not the most powerful member of this Set, who was the Ma’am.

“The Ma’am is ‘invested with absolute authority, which she exercises with unsparing severity as may be inferred by the cow-skin whip borne in her hand’. Only the Ma’am carried a purse. She collected the money that audience provided as tributes to her set.”

The more popular sets were the red and blue ones, and Senior says those from Kingston were said to have come from the guests at balls hosted by military and naval officers, red representing the army, and blue the navy. There were competitions for best song lyrics, music, and costumes. Rivalry could also get physical. They write their own lyrics (some of them attacking and mocking), which musicians set to music.

“ The rivalry perhaps originated in the taverns frequented by the sailors or soldiers, or their respective female attachments,” Senior writes.

THE FLARE OF COSTUMES

The parades were a culmination of much preparation in the weeks leading to Christmas. The masqueraders planned and prepared out of the sight of the colonialists, whose fashion sensibilities were copied by the Set Girls. They would design new thematic outfits every year, taking into consideration what was trending. The dresses, usually consisting of wide skirts made of soft cotton and muslin, were the centrepieces of the get-ups, which were accessorised by fashion jewellery and personal paraphernalia.

It is not known exactly when the Set Girl parades started to wane, but they were certainly around during the Apprenticeship/Emancipation era, 1834-1838.

“ The prints by Belisario (1837) show some of the Set Girls in their splendour in the early 19th Century. But, there is little reference to them after this time,” Senior writes.

“ The connection between Emancipation Day celebrations and the Sets became more solid in 1834 and 1838, when the Reds and the Blue became part of the celebrations called Bruckins,” a None So Fine storyboard reads.

“After 1838 Sets continued to perform at Christmas, but ‘the Reds and Blues’ became a main performance act at August 1 events. In some locations like Manchioneal in Portland, the Reds and the Blues continued to compete with each other at Bruckins and added new characters.”

The Set Girls then seem to be buried forever in the annals of Jamaican history, where they really belong. There is no space in popular culture for them, as they belonged to a different time of different cultural sensibilities.

Another None So Fine storyboard, ‘The Sets in Modern Memory’, says partially, “ This exhibition is designed to provide an opportunity to explore the experience of the Set Girls. They are particularly important in the understanding and interpreting of woman’s history within the broader context of the Jamaican past ...

“ Although women on other islands form performing groups, the Set Girls were distinctive to Jamaica and became extremely popular in the early nineteenth century. The Sets died out in the later nineteenth century, but became important symbols in post-Independence Jamaica.”

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