Can you help Fantastic Negrito identify the man in this old picture?
February 23, 2022 9:35 PM Subscribe
One of my favorite musicians is reaching out for help:
This is the picture of the man I knew as grandpapa. I would like to know who this guy really is. I don’t regret this image of a powerful dignified mighty glorious black king it helped deter me from a life of bad choices crime and drugs please help me identify this person.
The man's features read more as southern or western African to me, versus eastern African, which would be consistent with his dad being from the Bahamas. I did some image and name searching but didn't get anything else that might be useful.
posted by bluedaisy at 10:42 PM on February 23, 2022
posted by bluedaisy at 10:42 PM on February 23, 2022
It's an interesting image; I'm not sure how trained I am, but the knife looks very much in the style of a khanjar, which is iconically -- on the national emblem, on the money -- from Oman (although there are somewhat similar versions used elsewhere -- in the same way that the bald eagle has a similar symbolic role to the khanjar in the US, but there are plenty of bald eagles in Canada).
The headwear is pretty clearly a ghutra/keffiyeh. It's being worn with the agal (the black cord around the top that holds it on); this is fairly common throughout the Gulf, although interestingly not in Oman (at least when I was there a decade ago -- it's entirely possible the style has changed over a century or is different in the areas I didn't visit). In the crowd shots I took in Oman, the people wearing ghutra wore it turban style without the agal, but more people wore the cylindrical kumma cap.
That said, Oman has a history of trade and cultural influence both across the Indian Ocean as far as the west coast of India, and southward along the horn of Africa to Zanzibar, an area that does include Somalia.
posted by Superilla at 10:46 PM on February 23, 2022
The headwear is pretty clearly a ghutra/keffiyeh. It's being worn with the agal (the black cord around the top that holds it on); this is fairly common throughout the Gulf, although interestingly not in Oman (at least when I was there a decade ago -- it's entirely possible the style has changed over a century or is different in the areas I didn't visit). In the crowd shots I took in Oman, the people wearing ghutra wore it turban style without the agal, but more people wore the cylindrical kumma cap.
That said, Oman has a history of trade and cultural influence both across the Indian Ocean as far as the west coast of India, and southward along the horn of Africa to Zanzibar, an area that does include Somalia.
posted by Superilla at 10:46 PM on February 23, 2022
Maybe it’s just because it is mardi gras season, but I immediately wondered whether it could be connected with junkanoo. The contemporary costumes now are sparkly and stylized but maybe a long time ago there was more room for a fantasy like this (if it is a fantasy rather than cultural dress).
posted by umbú at 5:06 AM on February 24, 2022
posted by umbú at 5:06 AM on February 24, 2022
Because of his last name, though, it seems possible that he may have been like Sun Ra, but with an origin story on another continent rather than on another planet.
posted by umbú at 6:34 AM on February 24, 2022
posted by umbú at 6:34 AM on February 24, 2022
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 9:47 PM on February 23, 2022