Carnival of Trinidad and Tobago : Dr. Hollis Liverpool tells us more about the history of this Carnival. Richès Karayib presents the brilliant Hollis Liverpool better known as Chalkdust. A calypso singer originally from Trinidad and Tobago he holds a doctorate in history and ethnomusicology from the University of Michigan.
- He has been a Calypso singer since 1967 and has recorded over 300 tracks.
- He has won Trinidad’s Calypso Monarch 9 times, most recently in 2017.
- He is also the author of books about carnival and the history of Calypso .
How did Carnival come to Trinidad & Tobago?
Was it initiated by the Trinidadians?
Did he come from Europe?
What are the meanings behind the various masks and provocative dances of Trinidad Carnival?
These are intriguing questions that anyone interested in the Carnival of Trinidad and Tobago might ask. It’s a well-known fact that the Carnival of Trinidad and Tobago as a festival was a feature of many 16th-century French towns, and since the French were cultivating the land of Trinidad in the late 18th century, it’s believed in many quarters that the origin of the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival can be traced back to France.
My research has shown, however, that with the advent of Europeans (mainly English, French, Spanish and Dutch) and Africans, the festive traditions brought to Trinidad by the migrants were practiced and developed for different reasons, in what became known as the Carnival of Trinidad and Tobago.
Europeans brought their traditions to Trinidad, as did Africans during the Atlantic slave trade. These African traits have survived to color the festival and make it what it is today.
It’s fair to say, however, that the Trinidad and Tobago carnival developed over the centuries is, to a large extent, African in form and function.
The Africans
Meet and dance in the courtyards
Didn’t care who owned them
practiced ancestral rituals.
The period of white domination
During the pre-emancipation era, Europeans held their carnivals in ballrooms, went from house to house and passed laws that kept Mulattos and Africans out of their party halls. Indeed, the Europeans feasted generously in the midst of the near-starvation experienced by the Africans.
In addition to feasting and going from house to house, Europeans dressed up as Mulattos and country slaves during Carnival.
A young German noted in 1831: “The dances are generally African dances, and the enthusiasm of the Negroes and Negresses amuses us greatly.” Whites were on top; they laughed at the misfortunes of those they oppressed as a way of asserting their dominance.
Resistance and rebellion
The Africans, especially before 1838, when they were legally liberated, used as forms of resistance not only the Carnival of Trinidad and Tobago, but their works, calypsos, wakes, and other religious and social arrangements .
For them, the Carnival of Trinidad and Tobago was a way of thanking God for their harvests, for having survived in this era of violence, and, above all, to demonstrate that they were not animals, as the whites believed, but a dignified people.
This resistance continued throughout the 19th century, and the nature of their accoutrements: devils, pierrot grenades, jab jabs and negres jardins – underscored their willingness to mock whites, resist elites and promote their own self-esteem.
Their masks, satirical songs, kalenda songs and dances show their resistance. Collective resistance could also be seen in Trinidad in 1805, when there was a confrontation between whites and Africans.
To a large extent, the structure and management of African fighting groups was similar to the structure and management of carnival groups of the time.
By 1834, too, Africans were no longer allowed to wear masks. Ms. Carmichael wrote about the resistance nature of their songs and the fact that they deliberately set fire to the canes and then re-enacted the procession of the Burnt Canes to mock their masters’ losses.
An elderly stickfighter told me he had learned from his grandmother that the kalenda dance and stickfighting were a challenge to the whites who had sought to ban it in 1810.
For Professor Gordon Rohlehr: kalenda “reinforced the spirit of rebellion” and the act of burning canes “was often an act of rebellion”. Ms. Carmichael’s work shows that Africans not only resisted through song and dance, and lived a life of behind-the-scenes satire, but that many African melodies survived the Atlantic crossing to become part of the arsenal of Africans in the New World.
In 1834, too, the Africans mocked the English militia wearing their uniforms on parade.
The English commander was forced to conclude that the Africans were making a mockery of the finest militia ever embodied in the West.
The period of growth and self-esteem
For the freedmen after emancipation, Carnival of Trinidad and Tobago had an entirely different meaning.
The white plantocracy had economic problems, and the English were trying to Anglicize the island’s institutions, which offended the French and Spanish. The way was thus clear for the Africans to organize the carnival.
The Europeans and mulattos refused to parade in the streets with the Africans, so the latter organized their carnival “mas” parade.
This cultivates their self-esteem and, for them, a way of showing white people that they were indeed free, if not in terms of education and economics, at least in spirit and through the ability to move freely on the land, the old estates and the streets. As a result, they marched everywhere in the streets; without any limits of area or place.
In addition, Professor Errol Hill’s research and my own have shown that: “Africans have associated carnival with the celebration of freedom” by holding their festivities in the post-emancipation era for many years on August 1ᵉʳ, the date of their liberation.
There are many places in the Caribbean, including the BVI, where Trinidad and Tobago Carnival is still celebrated on “August Monday”. celebrated on “August Monday”. as they call August 1st. In Barbados, it is associated with “Crop Over reminds us of the cane harvest, and “Mr. Harding”, representative of the elite planters, is always ceremoniously burned.
The continuation of Open Day into the 20ᵉ century and to this day is further proof of the determination of Africans in Trinidad to continue their African traditions and African-inspired masks, despite the laws and regulations of the 19ᵉ and 20ᵉ century, governments passed to eradicate the practices and, in their view, sanitize the festival.
In the early 19ᵉ century, whites intervened in the carnival and defended European values, supposedly to call for “respectability”.
From 1873 to 1962, there was a constant struggle between whites and Africans, whites and Creoles, Creoles and Africans, upper class and lower class, upper class and middle class, Catholics and Anglicans, jamettes and police, colonialists and carnivalists, legislators and calypso players, pressure groups and steelpan groups, for control of the right to artistic freedom of expression.. The laws passed in 1868 and 1884 in particular sought to drown out all the African features associated with carnival.
And yet, the stick fighters survived, through their exuberance and violent opposition to the colonials in 1881 and 1884. Even in the 20th century, after all the attempts to clean up the festival and get rid of certaines of its “jamette” characteristics, Africans ensured that the festival survived by continuing their stick-fighting, albeit in distant neighborhoods, and by displaying all their Africanisms in “Open Day” parades and with masks on Carnival Monday.
The mimetic period: themes of war and history
Encore another aspect the Carnival of Trinidad and Tobago was seen in the mid-20th century through to the 1970s, when carnival-goers, like the general public, were keen to learn more about the history and culture of other countries; when the value of education was paramount, and a good education was synonymous with a good knowledge of history : masqueraders decided to focus on world history themes for display on carnival day.
Although for some bandleaders it was mimicry, for many it was a learning experience. Bandleaders like Harold Saldenah, George Bailey, Bobby Ammon, Edmund Hart, Stephen Lee Heung and Irvin McWilliams, to name but a few, brought the princely warlords of Trinidad to the streets. ” Imperial Rome; ” ” Norse and Viking gods; ” ” Egyptian relics; ” ” Byzantine glory; ” ” China, the Forbidden City; ” ” and citizens and architecture. and the citizens and architecture of “Brilliant Africa”, as well as the “Amerindians” of North America.
Carnival in those days was for most people who, having won independence for themselves, found in carnival a basis for demonstrating nationalismand freedom from colonialism.
As such, they were eager to examine the cultures of other nations, particularly those that had also suffered a similar fate.
The steel band, in particular, which was seen in the 1940s and 1950s by the middle and upper classes as a disruption to the social order, has now received official Government support and has been seen as a cultural feature that has underlined the emergence and development of the proud people of Trinidad & Tobago.
Art movement: the age of Peter Minshall
The late 1970s and 1980s were so overwhelmed by Peter Minshall’s art that it’s hard not to call this period the “Minshall era”. Here, carnival has taken on a whole new meaning.
His entry into the “mas” (emptied) was described as “the biggest popular event since the historic Canboulay riots of Trinidad carnival 150 years ago, when revelers defied the authorities because they wanted to do their parade as they saw fit.” He was concerned with society on a global level, and was more engaged “with the image of the world” than by “the microscopic image of Trinidad”.
Consequently, he saw carnival as an artistic movement artistic movement and theater. He commented, “I put color and form on these people so that they pass before the viewer like a visual symphony.” Minshall’s Paradise Lost (1976), Danse Macabre (1980), Papillon (1982), The River (1983), Callaloo (1984) and The Golden Calabash, to name just a few of his presentations, breathed new life into carnival. He represented “much more than feathers and sequins.
They are sculptures, poles and fabrics articulated by the body’s limbs, which acquire life because they are based on and follow the movements of the performers in a combination of dance and music, producing constantly evolving forms in Dionysian explosions.
The human body was seen as an integral part of the costume, and the carnival dancer and the spectator together produced not just the parade (mas), but the theater.
Finally, since the beginning of carnival in Trinidad & Tobago, there were those who participated in the “run the gauntlet” parades to steal from whites, others to display their sexual prowess, to imitate the upper class washing dirty laundry in public, and above all, to simply have a good time.
The late Andrew Carr, a famous historian and author who studied carnival, informed me in 1966 that while for Africans before emancipation, “carnival was the 3Rs: religion, ritual and remembrances, for whites, it was the 3F: Amusement, Exposition, Sexe – (Fun, Fair and …Sex)”.
The 90s: Carnival as industry, business and entertainment
Finally, since the beginning of carnival of Trinidad and Tobago, there were those who participated in the “run the gauntlet” parades to steal from whites, others to display their sexual prowess, to imitate the upper class washing dirty laundry in public, and above all, to simply have a good time.
The late Andrew Carr, a famous historian and author who studied carnival, informed me in 1966 that, if for Africans before emancipation, “carnival was the 3Rs: religion, ritual and remembrances, for whites it was the 3Fs: Amusement, Exposition, Sexe – (Fun, Fair and …Sex)”.
There were those who, after emancipation, simply wore masks to terrorize the whites; there were those who amused themselves by wearing accoutrements and playing roles like “Police and Thief” and “highwaymen” simply to extort money or any form of material wealth from the rich elite.
Likewise, with an increasingly open global economy, bandleaders, see opportunities and the prospect of making more money from this art form. There are those bandleaders who, from the 1990s onwards, developed what I call the “Fast-Food Mas.”
They emphasize sequins and pearls, and design the parade not with art or history in mind, but with women and the love of women in mind. the love of women, who show off their sexual dimensions and all their sensuality on carnival day.
Calypso music followed the trend of “Mas” (parades), and today many singers emphasize the theme of “wine and jam”.“wine and jaminstead of the serious lyrics of the calypso songs of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. When I asked why he composed such banalities today, instead of emphasizing meaningful lyrics, the famous calypso singer and songwriter, Iwer Georgeretorted: “I’ve got to make a living.
The 90s: Carnival as industry, business and entertainment
The evidence suggests that Trinidad’s carnival over the years meant much more than a release valve for revelers and spectators, and certainly much more than Bakhtin’s idea of the carnival marketplace: “the place of unabashed speech”, to use his (Bakhtin’s) words.
If it had been a simple release valve, there would not have been the rebellions year after year; there would have been greater forms of conciliation on the part of oppressed groups who saw the doors to freedom opening wider and wider.
It’s worth noting that, unlike Bakhtin’s Market Square, where “non-dominant discourse (and) decomplexed speech prevailed”, in Trinidad, “decomplexed speech” was partly the product of discourse that had been repressed by the elite and the colonial government.
As such, the ridicule, aggression and mockery observed in Trinidad Carnival only make sense in the context of the effect of the power relations that took place during the rest of the year.
Moreover, the explosiveness and vigor of the Carnival players and the extent to which the lower classes went to mock and ridicule were, to a large extent, the result of inequalities of status and power between the opposing classes.
In the case of Trinidad & Tobago, through the costumes of “mas”, through music, song and dance, carnival-goers have brought and continue to bring together the legal and the illicit, the permitted and the forbidden, the ritual and the non-ritual, the vagaries of morality and immorality, the formal and the informal to create a social field of encounter, comedy, art, theater, entertainment, mediation, power and rebellion.
What’s unique about Trinidad Carnival is that, on a single day, several ethnic groups draw multiple meanings from the festival and consequently display multiple behaviors.
Some seek to have fun despite the high cost; others seek competitive advantage; some seek to show their power: economic, sexual, energetic, and more; others seek to show and highlight the Africanisms of their ancestors.
One Response
Very informative however not much emphasis was placed on the fact that kanaval, inspired of its African and European origin, was actually started in the french territories of Dominica , Guadeloupe and Martinique and was taken tby former slaves who were hired as labourers on the plantations of TnT .