Bekita - Elis Juliana

Lady Bekita lifted up her skirt

And stalked into the ballroom

With a smile, with coquetry

With calculated steps

And complete body control

Bekita, Bekita,

Bekita, Bekita.

The gentlemen said:

This lady is just a pretty flower

filling the room with its perfume

smiling and showing her golden teeth

And swinging her red coral earrings

Bekita, Bekita,

Bekita, Bekita.

But when a gutsy old man

Dared to invite Bekita

To join him in the tumba,

He was flabbergasted

That such a delicate lady

Could sway her hips in total abandon:

Bekita, Bekita,

For whom did you take

Bekita, Bekita

Who did you think she was

Bekita, Bekita

Bekita, Bekita

Bekita, Bekita

---

Elis Juliana (1927 - 2013) Curaçao
Translated by Aart G. Broek
Source: Caraïbische Uitzicht
Elis Juliana, Kolokólo di mi wea. Willemstad, Curaçao: [Scherpenheuvel], 1977, p. 6
© translation: Aart G. Broek; published in: Callaloo; Journal of African-American and Afri-
can Arts and Letters, [Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore], volume 21, no. 3. p. 57

Bekita is the pet name of a young Jewish woman Rebecca. Although forbidden by her
own social circle, Bekita slips away to join a tumba-party, which is primarily an Afro-
Antillean cultural phenomenon. This Jewish woman stupefies everyone present by dancing
the tumba just like any black woman would, by which she actually becomes a symbol of
'creolisation'. In the original Papiamentu version the poem has the rhythm of a tumba.