Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign Action Group (NSCAG February 16th 2026
https://nscag.org.uk/mayo-ya-the-celebration-of-life-fertility-and-hope-for-the-coming-harvest-on-the-caribbean-coast-of-nicaragua/
Mayo Ya, the celebration of life, fertility and hope for the coming harvest on the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua
The population of the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua reflects the multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-lingual origins of its peoples. Columbus explored that coast on his fourth Voyage in 1502 but the Spanish never effectively colonized the area. It did not officially become part of Nicaragua until 1894. From the 1600’s onwards waves of migration of Africans, (escaped slaves from the Caribbean), the British (who dominated from 1655 to 1860), the Dutch (pirates), the Germans (in the 1800s), and North Americans (beginning with Cornelius Vanderbilt in 1851) gathered on Nicaragua’s South Caribbean Region. This, tragically, led to marginalisation of the region’s Indigenous Peoples.
However, all these groups have contributed to the fusion that has become the Caribbean May Pole celebrations. Is it of Celtic, ancient Egyptian or Germanic origin? ‘The only thing that we can say for certain, according to social historian Donovan Brautigam, ‘is that May Pole has a universal origin.’
Mayo Ya is an intercultural celebration of fertility, life, and the coming rains bringing together all the peoples of the Caribbean: Miskito, Garifuna, Creole, Rama, Mestizo and Afro-descendant peoples. Photo: INTUR
The flora, the weather, and the multiple customs of the Caribbean Coast merged creating a whole new take on an age-old celebration. The original Maypole of the Caribbean carries rhythms based on instruments such as a coconut grater, donkey jawbone, tortoiseshell, washing board, hand drums, maracas, guitar, banjo, accordion and violin.
The traditional genre of Maypole music is calypso and soca, popular in the English-speaking islands of the Caribbean. Some are traditional songs from Nicaragua such as ‘Sing Simon Sing My Love’, ‘Lost His Key’, ‘Launch Turn Over’, and ‘Come Down Breda Willy’. Others are songs of English origin such as ‘London Bridge is falling down’ and ‘Doing the Lambeth walk’.
There always have been many people who speak and announce things without checking the facts. Here, they announced that Judith had drowned but it turned out she was alive in her bed at home. In the song the soloist is questioning the legitimacy of the fake news against a chorus convinced that it’s true.
CHORUS: Somebadi se Judith drownded
SOLOIST: Judith no drownded Judith da bed
CHORUS: Somebadi se Judith drownded
SOLOIST: Ho se Judith drowded?
CHORUS: Somebadi se Judith drownded
SOLOIST: Where were you when Judith drownded
CHORUS: Somebadi se Judith drownded..
Mayo Ya belongs to everyone
Until 1979 Palo de Mayo was mainly celebrated by black Creole communities in Bluefields, Pearl Lagoon, Corn Island and Bragman’s Bluff in Bilwi. But as part of the government’s Caribbean Coast autonomy process after the triumph of the Sandinista Revolution in 1979, the celebrations took the name Mayo Ya (the goddess of rain) and became a celebration for all ethnic groups of the Caribbean. Many of the songs are testimonies and denunciations of injustices that communities of the Caribbean have suffered throughout history.
Mayo Ya is an intercultural celebration of fertility, life, and the coming rains bringing together all the peoples of the Caribbean: Miskito, Garifuna, Creole, Rama, Mestizo and Afro-descendant peoples in events that incorporate music, dance, food, art, and crafts.
Carlos Rigby is an Afro-Caribbean poet from the black Creole community of Pearl Lagoon. Carlos, who died in 2017, wrote in Creole, standard English and Spanish but his poems and writings are also intertwined with invented words and tongue twisters reflecting the sounds and concepts of the Caribbean oral story telling tradition.
This is an excerpt from his poem ‘If I were May’
..in the middle of the May Pole wheel
with my rain dance
and my solitude
a dance for the first rains of spring
and in the end
it is through the new green
that the voice of the people is heard
yelling from high atop the May Pole:
May, oh May, most faithful month.