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15 So Who Was the Mother of Jamaican Art? She was the first nameless woman who created images of her children sold away from her. She suspended those wood babies from a rope round her neck, before she ate she fed them, touched bits of pounded yam and plantains to sealed lips; always urged them to sip water. She carved them of heartwood, teeth and nails her first tools, later she wielded a blunt blade. Her spit cleaned face and limbs, the pitch oil of her skin burnished. When the woodworms bored into their bellies, she warmed castor oil; they purged. She learned her art by breaking hard rockstones. She did not sign her work. ...

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