Harvest Festival

    Barbados  1975.11.18

    In issue: Stamp(s): 4    Souvenir sheet(s): 1   

  • Number by catalogue:  Michel: 393   Yvert: 401   Scott: 424  

    Perforation type: 14 ½x14

    Subject:

    8 cents. The farmer and donkey with a cart, loaded with a crop products. At cart top - windmill model.

    Additional:

    Every summer Barbados celebrates "crop over", a five-week festival that has its roots in the eighteenth-century.

    People celebrating as a procession of carts and animals decorated with flowers that would bring the cane to the plantation owner, who would then provide a feast for the laborers. One of the carts once carried an effigy known as Mr. Harding made from sugar can refuse and the effigy would by dressed in black coat, top hat, and mask. The effigy once represented the cruel gang drivers and symbolized the hard times that lay ahead for the laborers until the next crop.

    Crop over today is a civic celebration. It is held in the last three weeks of June and into July. In some areas of Barbados there are fairs, cane-cutting contests, open-air concerts, native dancing. Also other events occur throughout this event.