Introduction to ‘Cover Down Yuh Bucket’ Maureen Warner-Lewis
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lombe Mottley and his co-researchers and writers have presented their audience with a mass of fascinating testaments as to the vibrancy of one of the Caribbean’s folk arts. While it is true that this particular art of stick-play is now a moribund skill, what Mottley has done is shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that this art-form did exist in Barbados. The strength of this affirmation comes against a cultural background of the island which had erased the existence of this sport from common memory or mention. Part of the further intent of this book is to encourage the revival of this sport. Cover Down Your Bucket is a credit to the persistence of those who have sought to recuperate aspects of the lost cultural heritage of a people. The impressive collection of testimonies is furthermore a magnificent monument to the efficacy of fieldwork in the task of such recuperation--the arduous process for the investigator of hunting down information from individuals who recollect past incidents and practices, and who have sometimes to be convinced that their personal stories have merit, in fact, that they hold part of the secrets which can unlock the past. The investigator then has the painstaking job of transcribing these memorials, possibly re-checking data with the informants, and then selecting extracts to collate into an exciting anthology such as this is. The information comes from various parishes of the island, and 25