Wordsworth McAndrew, a pioneering Guyanese artist, has passed on

From Claire A. Goring, Cultural Director, Guyana Cultural Association, NY, Inc.:

WORDSWORTH McANDREW (pictured below) . . .

a national treasure, a man who for the past five decades dedicated his life to creating, collecting, preserving, and celebrating Guyanese folk culture life, died today, Friday April 25, 2008 (age 71), at the East Orange General Hospital, East Orange, New Jersey, after a short illness.

THE ELDER STATESMAN OF GUYANESE FOLK CULTURE, THE PILOT INTO OUR FOLK, IS NO LONGER WITH US ... (Read more of Goring's tribute here.)

[The following is John Rickford's tribute to Wordsworth McAndrew]

(L-John Rickford, R-Wordsworth McAndrew, May 2003) I got to know Mac quite well from about 1974 when I returned to Guyana to teach at UG and do fieldwork in Better Hope and other rural areas.  He accompanied me on several occasions, joining in the interviewing about language, folklore, folk life and culture with great interest and delight, and branching into other areas (like the Kali Mai Puja ceremonies held weekly at the house of Dora, a Better Hope/East coast legend).  Some of that material found its way into his radio show, "What Else?" and into the slim but informative "Ooiy!" magazine he published.

He also participated in the "Festival of Guyanese Words" conference that we held in Georgetown, featuring research presentations by students and faculty and others, but with valuable feedback from non-academics whose expertise as farmers, stevedores, or just a native Guyanese qualified them to extend and challenge our findings. He contributed a paper on Guyanese folksongs, with a short example from each "chapter" of the folksong book, as he put it ("Representational," "Congo," "Queh-Queh," "Pork-Knocker," "Ring Play," "Cumfa" and "East Indian Rhyming Song," which he described repeatedly as the newest chapter in the folk-song book, and the one that was being augmented most extensively).  And he helped immeasurably with proof-reading, the word-index,  and other aspects of the publication that resulted from that conference, and he even stood with us on street corners to sell the publication.  (Thanks in part to his street smarts, the first edition of 500 sold out in one week.)

I learned a lot from Mac over the years.  He had an absolute love for Guyanese "culchuh" as he put it--and an infinite interest in every variant of every tradition (queh queh, obeah, cumfa), song, story, game, way of cooking, eating, celebrating, and so on  that Guyanese and West Indian peoples of every ethnic group had inherited and transformed.  I learned a lot from him about how to do fieldwork well.  For instance, if someone said they played a game called "Airy Dory," and asked if he'd ever heard of it, he'd either say "No," (although I knew he had heard several accounts of it already) or otherwise indicate that he wanted to hear this particular person's version.  Invariably, some new detail, some local variant would emerge in the course of the narration, and his understanding of the full range and complexity (and perhaps history) of that cultural institution would be enriched in the process. 

I also learned, from observation and practice, the importance of lavishing time and attention to people in the course of fieldwork--taking time not only to ask them about the particular things you were interested in, but just to "lime" with them, take a drink and eat some food with them, show them that you cared about them as human beings.  I contrast this, when I teach my own fieldwork course, with the experience the author Studs Terkel reports in one of his books in which an interviewee asked him to stay and shoot the breeze after he'd conducted an interview.  Because he had another interview across town, he said he couldn't stay,  But the interviewee rebuked him: "Hey, how's it gonna sound--this guy, Studs, comes to my house, gets my whole life on tape, and says he's gotta run?"  As Terkel put it, afterwards, he cancelled his other appointments and spent a memorable evening at the guy's home.  But in retrospect, he wondered how he could have been so thoughtless.  Wordsworth, who thoroughly enjoyed human interaction (even when it involved arguing about something, for the sheer love of argument) helped me avoid that kind of mistake.  I always thought his name was well suited to his love of words, and wrote "Words worth it!" on the title page when I gave him a book of mine one year.

I could go on and on about Mac's other skills as a folklorist and culturologist and radio broadcaster and personality and his power as a poet and performer (anyone who has ever read his "Ole Higue" poem or heard him perform it will know whereof I speak), and about my other experiences with him (like the memorable "Turn back the clock" party he held in the late 70's when Burnham decided to change Guyana's time). 

I hope someone will establish a website soon on which we can trade and exchange our stories about Mac and what he meant to Guyana and to us.  Vibert Cambridge at the University of Ohio has already started thinking about this and a symposium in his honor is being planned for the week before Carifesta.  There will undoubtedly be other occasions for us to reflect on his significance and celebrate his life orally and in print.  I also hope that some of his recordings and notes and articles will find their way into the University of Guyana or a similar library or archives for future generations of Guyanese scholars to study and future generations of Guyanese to enjoy.  For the moment, and for a start, I merely wanted to share some of my thoughts on the passing of Guyana's greatest folklorist.

Walk good, my friend, or as our Surinamese neighbours say, Waka bunu.

[For more on Wordsworth McAndrew's contributions to the distinctive "Guyanese identity," read Vibert Cambridge's profile of him here.  And read more tributes here.]

Comments

[Allison Skeete]

Words cannot express the legacy, the gratitude , or the loss for this extraordinary son of Guyana; his life was eptiome of our culture and high standards of excellence! We owe him much thanks for years of laughter, love and pride! RIP Wordsworth...