Kele Music of Saint Lucia

The Kele is an Afro-Lucian religious custom from the Djine tribes of the Babonneau area. It is only one family from Resina, in the current Saint Lucia rights to have the religious power to perform and give it to the kele rituals. Kele is based around the three deities, which is known as Ogun, Ashu and Shango and is familiar to the Nigerian Ogun festivity. Kele’s rituals include contacting one’s dynasties to ask for protection, particularly good crops, good fortune and good health. Kele has been the underground for much of its record, and it is only accepted by the Lucian Roman Catholic Church during the early 1960s.

source of picture: www.kckrs.com

The Kele ceremonial are followed by percussion of the tanbou manman (mother drum) and the tanbou ich (which is child drum), which play four diverse rhythms at stated periods; these include the adan, kere rhythms, ere and koudou. Kele ceremonials also include dancing and singing, as well as feasting, praying to Ogun and other gods, the great of the calabash to settle Eshi during the end of the occasion, the show of tools created from iron and steel to honor Ogun and also a smooth stones to represent Shango, who also gets a ritualistically cleansed sacrificial ram.