Introduction: “Who Karkalay?”

This chapter examines the traditional (wedding-based) kweh-kweh as an African retention or African continuity that developed among enslaved Africans in Guyana, South America. It also demonstrates the ways that traditional kweh-kweh indexes indigenous African rites of passage, such as Ïgba Nkwü, a wine-carrying ceremony practiced by the Igbos of Nigeria. Moreover, this chapter explores how African-Guyanese migration to the United States necessitated the reenactment of the traditional kweh-kweh, and thus, an invention of tradition in the form of Come to My Kwe-Kwe, also known as Kwe-Kwe Nite. This chapter further demonstrates how the African-Guyanese diaspora in the United States (African-Guyanese-Americans) is comprised of smaller interconnected factions or diasporas, such as the migrated diaspora, procreated diaspora, and affinal diaspora. It also demonstrates how the celebration of Come to My Kwe-Kwe serves to transition the African-Guyanese-American community from an imagined community to a tangible one that is uniquely African, Guyanese, and American.