The historic Accompong Town in St. Elizabeth seeks to boost its community tourism effort through cultural activities such as their annual Accompong Maroon Celebrations which draws hundreds of international visitors each year.
This year's celebration on January 6th saw marked improvement in terms of the flow of activities throughout the day and night affair. Persons from as far as England, Canada, United States of America and even from Kenya in Africa attended the major calendar event in St. Elizabeth.
As a measure to raise funds towards the community’s development, each visitor had to pay an admission fee to enter the celebrations, which was absent at previous celebrations. Colonel Ferron Williams said some of the gate receipts will be used to fund a new education fund, and another portion will be used to partially finance a Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) student and a Grade Nine Achievement Test (GNAT) student within the community.
The annual Accompong Maroon Celebrations is celebrated on January 6 to commemorate the birthday of their former leader Kojo. Kojo fought with the British for 60 years before the signing of a Peace Treaty in 1738.
The celebration begins with the trumpeting of the abeng horn, summoning all the Maroons to assemble like they did over 250 years ago. The Abeng Horn is an old powder horn adapted from its use for carrying musket powder to an instrument used to communicate with Maroons over many miles in the Cockpit terrain.
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