Caribbean
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Barbados.
Barbados.
Culture:
Barbados's culture is primarily of European (British), African, and Native origins.
The influence of the English on Barbados is more noticeable than on other islands in the West Indies. A good example of this is the island's national sport: cricket. Barbados has brought forth several great cricketers, including Sir Garfield Sobers and Sir Frank Worrell.
Citizens are officially called Barbadians. The term "Bajan" (pronounced BAY-jun) may have come from a localised pronunciation of the word Barbadian, which at times can sound more like "Bar-bajan".
The largest carnival-like cultural event that takes place on the island is the Crop Over festival. As in many other Caribbean and Latin American countries, Crop Over is an important event for many people on the island, as well as the thousands of tourists that flock to there to participate in the annual events. The festival includes musical competitions and other traditional activities, and features the majority of the island's homegrown calypso and soca music for the year. The male and female Barbadians who harvested the most sugarcane are crowned as the King and Queen of the crop.[71] Crop Over gets under way at the beginning of July and ends with the costumed parade on Kadooment Day, held on the first Monday of August.
Cuisine:
Bajan cuisine includes a unique blend of foods with African, Indian and British influences.[6]
The national dish of Barbados is Cou-Cou & Flying Fish.[7]
In addition to flying fish, many other varieties of fish are found in the waters surrounding Barbados, including kingfish, swordfish, red snapper, yellow-fin tuna, albacore tuna, marlin, shark and dolphin. Staples include sweet potato, yam, breadfruit, cassava, rice, English potato, pasta and cou-cou.
Other very popular dishes include fried fish cakes, fish & chips, souse (a pickled pork dish), black pudding, macaroni pie, and sweet desserts such as tamarind balls and baked custard.
Food sold by street vendors is popular on the island, and key locations include Baxter's Road near Bridgetown, and Oistins, with its Friday Night Fish Fry.
Music:
The music of Barbados includes distinctive national styles of folk and popular music, including elements of Western classical and religious music. The culture of Barbados is a syncretic mix of African and British elements, and the island's music reflects this mix through song types and styles, instrumentation, dances, and aesthetic principles.
Barbadian folk traditions include the Landship movement, which is a satirical, informal organization based on the British navy, tea meetings, tuk bands and numerous traditional songs and dances. In modern Barbados, popular styles include calypso, spouge, contemporary folk and world music. Barbados is, along with Guadeloupe, Martinique, Trinidad, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands, one of the few centers for Caribbean jazz.
Music is an important part of the country's culture. Modern Barbados has produced popular stars of calypso and the indigenous spouge style, and also has a large jazz scene. Reggae, soca, and tuk are popular as well.
The vast majority of contemporary Bajan calypso and soca music centers around the five-week Crop Over festival, whose events begin in late May and run throughout the summer, climaxing in the first week of August with the Grand Kadooment[2] (also known as Kadooment Day), a national holiday in Barbados.[3]
Every January, Barbados hosts the Barbados Jazz Festival. In mid-February, Barbados hosts the Barbados Holetown Festival which celebrates the arrival of the first English settlers.
Singer Rihanna was born and raised in Barbados. Although the better portion of her work mainly appeals to R&B audiences, her first album Music of the Sun contains a mixture of Barbadian rhythms and American urban-pop songwriting,[4] just as her Loud album has a mixture of Ragga / Ska rhythms, along with Pop music and R&B / Hip Hop. Robyn "Rihanna" Fenty was also declared Barbados' ambassador of Tourism, which secured her a seat in the island's political arena from 2011 - 2014.
Ethnic Racial Composition:
* 93% Black & Mulatto (includes an element of East Indian, Amerindian, and Chinese)
* 3.2% White
* 2.6% Multiracial
* 1% East Indian
* 0.2% Others
Languages:
The official language of Barbados is English. They also speak a local dialect known as Bajan which is English with West African influences. Bajan has it's roots with 17th century Southern Irish (Hiberno English), British English, and West Country English with influences from African languages (such as Africanisms, pronunciations, vocabulary, and some local words).
Religion:
According to the 2000 official census, more than 95 percent of the population of Barbados is considered Christian, although persons may not be active in any particular denomination.
Anglicanism constitutes the largest religious group, with 70,000 members; an estimated 67 percent are active. It is represented by the Church in the Province of the West Indies, within which the island belongs to the Diocese of Barbados. The next largest group is the Seventh-day Adventists, numbering 16,000 members, 10,000 of whom are active. There are 11,000 Roman Catholics; an estimated 20 percent are active. Pentecostals number 7,000; more than 50 percent are active. Methodists number 5,000, according to church officials, although many more claimed Methodist affiliation in the previous official census; an estimated 60 percent are active. There are 2,500 members of Jehovah's Witnesses; more than 95 percent are active. Baptists, Moravians, and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) are present in small numbers.[1]
The number of non-Christians is small. There are 4,000 Muslims, most of whom are immigrants or descendants of Indian immigrants from the Indian state of Gujarat. There are three mosques and an Islamic centre. Other religious groups include the Rastafarian Movement, which was introduced to Barbados in 1975,[2] Hinduism, Buddhists, and the Bahá'í Faith.
Sports:
As in other Caribbean countries of British colonial heritage, cricket is very popular on the island. The West Indies cricket team usually includes several Barbadian players. In addition to several warm-up matches and six "Super Eight" matches, the country hosted the final of the 2007 Cricket World Cup. Barbados has produced many great cricketers including Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Frank Worrell, Sir Clyde Walcott, Sir Everton Weekes, Gordon Greenidge, Wes Hall, Charlie Griffith, Joel Garner and Malcolm Marshall.
Horse racing takes place at the Historic Garrison Savannah close to Bridgetown. Spectators can pay for admission to the stands, or else can watch races from the public "rail", which encompasses the track.
Obadele Thompson is a world-class sprinter from Barbados; he won a bronze medal at the Olympic Games of 2000 in the 100m sprint. Ryan Brathwaite, a hurdler, reached the 2008 Olympic semi-finals in Beijing. Brathwaite also earned Barbados its first ever medal at the world championships in Berlin, Germany on 20 August 2009, when he won the men's 110 meter hurdles title. The 21-year-old timed a national record of 13.14 seconds to win the Gold Medal.
Basketball is an increasingly popular sport, played at school or college. Barbados' national team has shown some unexpected results as in the past it beat many much larger countries.
Polo is very popular amongst the rich elite on the island and the "High-Goal" Apes Hill team is based at the St James's Club.[72] It is also played at the private Holders Festival ground.
In golf, the Barbados Open is an annual stop on the European Seniors Tour. In December 2006 the WGC-World Cup took place at the country's Sandy Lane resort on the Country Club course, an 18-hole course designed by Tom Fazio. The Barbados Golf Club is the other main course on the island. Sanctioned by the PGA European Tour to host a PGA Seniors Tournament in 2003 and it has also hosted the Barbados Open on several occasions.
Volleyball is also popular, though volleyball is mainly played indoors.
Tennis is gaining popularity and Barbados is home to Darian King, currently ranked 270th in the world and is the 2nd highest ranked player in the Caribbean.
Motorsports also play a role, with Rally Barbados occurring each summer and being listed on the FIA NACAM calendar. Also, the Bushy Park Circuit hosted the Race of Champions and Global RallyCross Championship in 2014.
The presence of the trade winds along with favourable swells make the southern tip of the island an ideal location for wave sailing (an extreme form of the sport of windsurfing).
Netball is also popular with women in Barbados.
Barbadian team The Flyin' Fish, are the 2009 Segway Polo World Champions.
Bajan videos
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