Below is information on the historical aspects of Trinidad Carnival. We have sought throughout to give credit to the writers of the various articles.

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THE CARNIVAL STORY - 162 YEARS OF MAS

By Terry Joseph

Sunday Express

February 20, 2000

Page 14

Although a major part of the Trinidad Carnival mystique lies in its unique ability to bring people of diverse backgrounds together in harmonious circumstances, the festival was not born to such noble pursuits.

 From the inception of street parades in 1839 and for more than 100 years thereafter, the celebration flowed in two distinctly different social streams - upper and lower classes - occasionally coming to confluence in times of overt patriotism.  Curiously enough, that condition was often induced by Britain's wartime adventures.

 For the most part, the upper classes held their masked balls in the great houses of sugar estates during the 19^th century Carnivals, then mobilized the mas (but maintained their distance), by using the trays of lorries as their stage until well into the 1950s.

 Over the same period, first the free blacks and later emancipated slaves took to the streets on foot with a revelry largely rooted in tribal customs, to which they added parodies of their former masters and a few inventive characterizations.   The roots music came from chantuellees, the lead singers, who were composing special songs for their bands from as early as 1785.

 During the first 50 years of the 20^th century, the Carnival was affected by global and domestic conflict.  There were World Wars and local gang riots, but creativity flourished in peacetime.

Pan was invented.  Early development of the instrument far exceeded the speed of its acceptance across the board.   Calypso went international and people actually made their own mas costumes or at least participated in the exercise.

In the second half of that same century, Carnival first rose to a level of extraordinary splendour, then hit a sharp curve.  The burst of creativity that came in its glory days radiated from both social groups and was identifiable in every component of the festival.  Historical and tribal mas presented educational and aesthetically pleasing images.  Pan development enjoyed both diversification and a sense of urgency and calypso chalked up a reprise of its golden age.

 However, by the turn of the 1990s, much of the applause earned earlier in the period had subsided, as the festival had undergone a categorical shift of focus, one that clearly pleases the majority, but continues to be a source of bother to more than a few.

 Like the rest of the society, Trinidad Carnival had in fact been touched by a number of social and economic realities.  The Black Power movement that began at the turn of the 1970s and the boom economy, that followed far too soon to keep reason intact, changed spending habits at all levels.

 This national windfall, which helped to fund the rise of disc jockeys and music bands of extraordinary amplification, dramatically changed every aspect of the festival too.  Its benefits did not however trickle down to the level of pan research and development, stalling the progress that had been made with the instrument up to that time.

 In addition, there was women's liberation, the creation of soca, a runaway cost of living, computer-aided design ad marketing of mas bands, production-line manufacture of costumes, the popularity of synthetic fabrics, emergence of the entrepreneurial producers and performers, the effect of radio and television and the fitness craze.

 Applied concurrently, these deceptively unrelated components had the capacity to irretrievably alter the form and content of the Carnival.  Slowly at first, but completely by the end of the 20^th century, the festival changed from a cutting-edge creative crucible, to a market-driven, manufactured commodity.

 Mas dumped traditional themes and elaborate portrayals, opting for minimal clothing and fantasy presentations.  Once an integral part of pre-Carnival fetes and the main parade, pan music was sequentially marginalized.  Traditional calypso first gave way to soca, and then lost further ground when the Road March became the most lucrative form of a new genre called "festival music".

 The most dramatic shift however took place in the very gender of the masquerade, with women moving from a laughably small minority of the costumed revelers back in the 1950s, to what the National Carnival Bands Association (NCBA) now estimates at fully 85 percent of the annual parade population.

 From the lower-class jamettes of the mid-20^th century, the streets largely surrendered in the latter-day to the aerobics-oriented lovelies of the middle-class.  Consider now that more than 55,000 masqueraders crossed the Queen's Park Savannah stage during the 1999 Carnival.

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STARTING THE MAS

By Terry Joseph

Episode Nine

Express

February 29, 2000

Page 24

The time at which J'Ouvert begins has been altered on several occasions and for a mixture of reasons.

The primary concern has always been about security, given the large number of disguised (and presumably inebriated) revelers parading the streets at the start of Carnival.  In addition, it has been felt by successive Carnival administrations that the later J'Ouvert extends, the greater its negative effect on the quality of mas and music on the streets on Monday afternoon.

 At the time when steelbands ruled the fetes, there was an informal agreement that J'Ouvert could begin when the Carnival Sunday night parties finished, but particular police officials have, on occasion, stopped attempts to begin the mas earlier than agreed.

 After many years of beginning at 6 a.m., the start of the street parade has been rolled back, firstly to 2 a.m., then brought forward again to 4 a.m. where it currently stands.

 But when Carnival started, its only clear limitation was that the festivities should come to a close at midnight on Shrove Tuesday (the day preceding the start of Lent).

 Until 1833, its starting time is nowhere recorded as an issue.   On occasion, the festivity began immediately after Christmas among the upper class, where it continued nightly, with the masked balls and house-to-house partying going for the duration of the season.

 Up to the time of emancipation in 1834, the slaves were still confined to the estates, but there were free blacks who took to the streets for the three official Carnival days.  Back then, the Carnival parade started on Sunday.  But that choice of opening day caused the first of many domestic conflicts suffered by the festival.  By the end of the 19^th century, clashes between masqueraders and the authorities were both predictable and bloody.

In 1833, Sergeant Peake, who was in charge of the police, attempted to stop the Sunday mas, on the premise that it was the Sabbath day.  He was stoned for his efforts.  Ten years later his point was effectively made when the Carnival was restricted to the Monday and Tuesday before Lent, beginning at midnight Sunday.  Interestingly, just last month the San Fernando Mayor threw out the suggestion that Sunday should be included as a street festival day.

 In 1989, the Inter-Religious Organisation (IRO) actually gave the nod to a street parade on Carnival Sunday, as long as it started after morning mass.

 That Sunday plan, described as Pan Day (a parade exclusive to the steelbands), was part of a proposal by the inaugural (1986 to 1991) National Carnival Commission (NCC) to extend Carnival to five days.

 The plan was scrapped after public picong boldly questioned the competence of the authorities at producing the existing two-day parade and suggested - however unfairly - that the Commission would only make a greater mess if entrusted with an extended version.  Last year the NCBA again made such a suggestion, but distrust of the mas men's motives by Pan Trinbago scuttled the idea.

 J'Ouvert's major components are pan music, old mas and costumed bands, some of which go for little else but mud, oil or coloured body painting.

 By 1960, the steelband Bomb Tune competition had been formalized, although the friendly rivalry between bands from East and West of Charlotte Street in Port of Spain existed for many years before.

 Over the years, pan was to lose its place in the wider Carnival music line-up largely as a result of unforced errors.

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THE DAYS OF MAS AND WIRE

By Colin Hosten

Sunday Express

Section 2

February 27, 2000

Page 3

"Nowadays everybody joining the 'naked mas'," says legendary wire-bender Cito Velasquez.

"They could have a section in the band called 'Adam and Eve', tell the people to come naked, charge them $1000, and it will sell out - a tie round your neck and a feather in your ear could count as a costume these days."  Because of this, the need for wire has decreased considerably from days of yore.

We visited Cito Velasquez at his home in Barataria where for decades he brought out the wire-bending creations for which he became famous.

His hands are no longer as deft as they used to be, due to a pinched nerve, but Velasquez, now 72, acknowledges philosophically that it's all part of the ageing process.

The seasoned masman, who was awarded a Hummingbird Gold Medal in 1973 for his contribution to Carnival, has been working with bands since the 1950s, when he brought out his first band, the truly spectacular Flowers and Fruits, which to this day people still talk about.

This age-old craft is now in danger of becoming extinct.

Wire-bending is certainly not as cumbersome or even as simplistic as it may sound.  Quite a lot of skill and precision is required to take a piece of wire, and twist it into the likeness of, say, an elaborate dragon.  And the more detail you want to achieve, the more work and care you have to put into it.  It's not something that can be perfected overnight.

But at one time wire-bending was, almost literally, the backbone of Carnival.  Most of the large costumes on Carnival Monday and Tuesday (not the glittered bikinis of today) would have been shapeless lumps of cloth without their wire frames.  And beneath the pomp and ceremony of the imposing and impressive King and Queen costumes seen on Dimanche Gras night, were structures made largely of wire.

So why are young people so reluctant to learn more about this craft?

According to Albert Bailey, 63, "the first thing they want to know is 'How much am I going to get?'  I am offering to teach you a skill, I expect you to come and ask questions, and learn as much as you can, work hard at it, and eventually start making some good money.  You don't get all the riches in the first step."

Velasquez, and Bailey (brother of the late great George Bailey) are two of the country's few remaining wire-benders.  They have been bending wire for many decades.

"When I first started at the age of 14," reminisces Bailey, "I paid $45 for a piece of wire, and I had to hide it from my mother, because that would have been considered a waster of money."  However, he diligently pursued the art, learning from the more experienced, and honing his skills.  Today he heads the Bailey Mas Factory, and has a team of wire-benders working with him to produce Carnival bands.  But he points out; most of them are not young people.

Nevertheless this year he has undertaken to bring out from his Woodbrook headquarters two Carnival King costumes, two Carnival Queens, along with his band Bagu Ya Watu Wasuri, Swahili for "Bagu, the land of beautiful people." 

With respect to wire-bending skills both Bailey And Velasquez named only three other professional wire-benders operating in the country, the likes of Señor Gomez, Noble Alexis and Stephen Derek.  All are over 50.  Between them, they usually handle all of Carnival's major wire-bending requirements.  And therein lies the problem.

"I haven't seen any young people getting involved in this aspect of our culture," complained Bailey.  "Everybody past 50."

Consider this: one unfortunate day, this country will lose its current generation of wire-benders.  And with no younger hands waiting in the wings to pick up the slack, or the wire as the case may be, it is a very real possibility that this craft of wire-bending, this crucial aspect of our culture, may be very well go to the grave with the present wire-benders.

It's not so far-fetched when we think about other types of mas that have all but disappeared.  When was the last time you saw a Dame Lorraine or a baby-doll mas outside of theatrical presentations?

Bailey disagrees that wire-bending is feasible only for the two months of Carnival.  It is something, he contends, that can be professionally pursued.

"The thing is, this is a traditional aspect of culture, it is an art form that is forever in demand, anywhere there is a carnival."  For example, after working through the Trinidad Carnival, Bailey is immediately off to St Thomas, then to the US, where the itinerary includes Brooklyn, Washington, New Jersey, Boston, New York, California, and Miami.  "And if I could be bending wire for four to five bands everywhere I go," he explains, "that means that there is definitely a waiting market for this skill."

Velasquez is philosophical about the situation.

"The only thing that remains the same is change Carnival is always changing, even I changed it in my day, adding my own thing to the pretty sailor mas."  A big part of this change, according to Velasquez, has to do with the type of costumes being made, and the materials being used to make them."

"Not only that," Velasquez continued, "they hardly using wire to make the big costumes any more.  Now they have fibreglass and cardboard, even cane and cocoyea."

These new materials have the advantage of being lighter, more flexible, and faster to fashion.

However, both Velasquez and Bailey noted that wire also has its advantages, such as facilitating a greater amount of detail, and being more affordable.

Neither man was against the changes and evolution of Carnival.  In fact, Velasquez stressed, with a twinkle in his eye, that he had "no problem seeing women walking around half-naked."  However, both were very wishful that more young people, or rather some young people, would get more actively involved in learning about this aspect of their culture.

"It would be so nice," Bailey said wistfully, "if a lil fella could come to me on his own, and say, "Mr. Bailey, I would like to know more about this."

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From Drums to Tamboo Bamboo to Sweet Steel

The genesis of the steelband

January 1, 2000
By Selwyn Taradath

Repressive acts by the colonial authorities such as the banning of the African drum and the attempts to stifle non-European cultural expressions, not only steeled the will of the practitioners of street culture, but also sent a message to the colonials that they would meet stiff resistance to their efforts to brutalise the masses for merely expressing themselves. It became evident in the Camboulay riot of 1881 and the Hosay riot of 1884.

The Tamboo Bamboo ensemble took the place of African drums to provide rhythmic accompaniment for the Afro-Creole street culture. Kalinda, Dame Lorraine and carnival parades all swayed to the beat of the tamboo bamboo - an ensemble made up of different lengths and sizes of bamboo which simulated the four main voices of music, soprano, alto, tenor and bass.

The year 1935 is generally accepted as the watershed year for the transition from bamboo to metal. That year the Newtown Tamboo Bamboo band led by Lord Humbugger, discarded their lengths of bamboo and took to the streets for J'Ouvert with a full complement of metal containers. These included garbage bins and covers, biscuit drums, paint cans, brake drums, chamber pots and bottles and spoons.

They took the name of Alexander's Ragtime Band from an American movie of the same name and caused a stir in Port of Spain. Led by Lord Humbugger who conducted the band with a baton, replete with top hat, gloves and coat tails and the "musicians" with their music sheets in front of them, they changed the musical course of this land forever. By Carnival Monday evening most of the bamboo bands had followed suit and the streets resonated to the raucous sounds of people chanting to the accompaniment of clanging, metallic sounds.

Tamboo bamboo was soon relegated to village activity before disappearing under the onslaught of the new and popular metal bands, which now ruled the streets on any occasion that Creoles could justify taking a good jump-up. Controversy still surrounds the issue of the first person to play a tune on the pan. There are arguments for Victor "Totie' Wilson of Alexander's Ragtime Band who it is alleged isolated four notes of different pitch on the ping pong.

The ping pong was a small hand held pan cut from a paint tin or carbide container. The indentations made by striking it with wooden sticks, were pushed upwards to form small bumps, which were then tuned to different pitch notes. Emmanuel "Fish Eye" Ollivierrie of Hell Yard is another contender for the title of first man to play a tune. He was alleged to have played "Mary had a Little Lamb." Totie Wilson tuned his four notes to the chimes of the QRC clock.

The range of the ping pong gradually expanded to accommodate the growing adventuresome of the young pan musicians. Winston "Spree" Simon soon became the acknowledged ping pong virtuoso and his performance before the Governor at the carnival celebrations of 1946 made history as both the Trinidad Guardian and The Gazette reported the impromptu concert given by the young steelbandsmen while his band Destination Tokyo was parading before the dignitaries in the Governor's box.

Up to that time the steelband was mainly a percussion ensemble, although the ping pong could carry a melody they were used along with the five-note tenor kittle to provide a rhythmic motif or riff to accompany a chant, which the crowd carried with encouragement from the band's chantwells. Other instruments included a two-note bass drum or du-dup, bottle and spoon, brake drums, a cuff boom, graters and other metal objects. This ensemble was created gradually after 1935 and many innovations came to the fore during the war years 1939-1945.

Carnival was banned from 1942-1945 and a state of emergency declared which effectively prevented assembly by more than three persons. This did not deter the young, restless steelbandsmen who took to the streets any time they felt like having a jump, which inevitably led to trouble with the police. The panmen of the East Dry River area sued the narrow alleyways, crowded yards and even the riverbed itself to defy the police who used brute force whenever they succeeded in catching up with the perpetrators.

The war was drawing to an end in 1945 and the colonial authorities decreed that when the air raid sirens sounded to declare victory on the European front, citizens would be allowed to congregate in celebration. On VE Day, March 8, 1945, the steelband was presented to the world for the first time. Throngs of happy revelers paraded the streets of Port of Spain and in the words of a reporter for the Trinidad Gazette, "They waved branches and chanted songs to the accompaniment of music thumped out of old iron."

By VJ Day when the Japanese army surrendered on the August 14, 1945, steelbandsmen were ready and not only in the capital city but also throughout the urban centres of the Colony, steelbands ruled the road. The Carnival of 1947 saw the steelband coming into its own, bands were now playing melodies and simple harmonies and were accompanied by masqueraders, this was to continue right up to the advent of the seventies when the steelband lost its place as the king of carnival.

An ugly era in the history of the steelband movement saw the fledgling art form under attack from within and without. The steelband riots started with clashes between bands on the road and carried on after Carnival with violent outbreaks, mainly at the various entertainment spots, created to cater for the thousands of US military service men stationed at the various bases in the colony.

While the steelband battles raged on in the streets, another war was being waged on a different front. Society had not accepted the steelband movement and the middle class now saw the opportunity to destroy this abomination once and for all. The editorial pages of the two daily newspapers wee filled with bitter diatribes, exhorting the authorities to ban this primitive, savage expression of the dregs of society.

Defenders arose to champion the cause; men with vision like Albert Gomes and Canon Max Farquahar used their newspaper columns to cry shame on the detractors. Lawyer and social worker Lennox Pierre, was kept busy defending steelbandsmen in the courts of law, organizing the movement into a representative body and later on teaching the panmen music. Trinidad Guardian editor Sydney Espinet also was an admirer of the steelband and used his influence to negate the effects of the vicious propaganda that the middle class was using in a futile hope to abort the steelband.

The steelpan is now the national instrument of Trinidad and Tobago. Having progressed from adversity to relative prosperity in a short space of time but this is because of the extreme dedication of members of the fraternity. Steelbands are to be found in rapidly increasing numbers in many parts of the world and the instrument has been accepted by music educators as an ideal tool for music instruction for beginners. The steelband now has 90 percent capability of the conventional symphony orchestra and attracts the attention of music purists.

All this might not have been possible had it not been for the foresight of members of the newly founded steelband association in 1950. formed under pressure from the authorities who wished to curb the escalating incidence of steelband violence, they immediately launched themselves into a project to send a representative steelband to the Festival of Britain in 1951.

They selected 12 panmen from among the member bands and had them training under the guidance of Lt Joseph Griffith of the Trinidad & Tobago Police band. The young men chosen for this important task were Sterling Betancourt, Ellie Mannette, Sonny Roach, Anthony Williams, Winston "Spree" Simon, Philmore "Boots" Davidson, Ormand "Patsy" Haynes, Kelvin Hart, Theo Stevens, Belgrave Bonaparte, Andrew "Pan" De Labastide and Granville Sealey.

Sealey dropped out early and Sonny Roach fell ill on the boat and had to be put off at Martinique and eventually sent home. They were the cream of he crop, all crack shot panmen, pan tuners and band leaders in their own right. Lt Griffith and Lennox Pierre taught them the rudiments of music and Lt Joseph, shocked to learn that the pans were not achromatized, began the task of putting together a real orchestra from the hodgepodge of instruments that were assembled before him. This was the genesis of the steel orchestra, as we now know it.

During the 50s, Anthony Williams, Ellie Mannette, Neville Jules and later Bertie Marshall were the innovators who pushed the steelband and its instruments to the levels it has obtained.

The 21st Century beckons and the steelband movement now faces the challenge of keeping up with the pace of technology and finding a marketing niche that could exploit the vast commercial potential of both instruments and music.

Edited By Amon Hotep

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T & T CARNIVAL

By Deborah John

Sunday Express

June 27, 1999

Page 19

It is a massive work encompassing the festivals of the ancient world, festivals of the corn, festivals of Egypt, the phallic processions, the masquerade of the river, Dionysus and Shiva, the bull, the snake, linking these to festivals in the New World and their corresponding deities. She has found that the 'the Gelde masquerades of Africa, the roles of Shiva, Eshu-Legbara and Shango, festivals of the indigenes of Trinidad, the old griots and the Jamets who shaped the Carnival after Emancipation are alive." She would like to see it published so that a wider public could derive some benefit from it. She herself cannot afford to publish it.

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Carnival in Trinidad

... evolution and symbolic meaning

A background to Calypso

Trinidad was discovered by Columbus in 1498 (he named the island for the Christian Holy Trinity) and was ruled by Spain for virtually 300 years, remaining one of her most 'underdeveloped' American possessions.  Only in the 1770s, with the 'Bourbon reforms' of Charles III - designed to rejuvenate flagging colonial efficiency - did the Spanish crown pay attention to this thinly-populated, almost uncultivated, Caribbean island.   A Cedula issued by the Spanish monarch in 1776 highlighted the island's neglected state: with no European Spaniards available for emigration, it invited West Indian French Catholics dissatisfied by Britain's 1763 take-over of their Antillian islands - Grenada, Dominica, St Vincent, Tobago to settle in Trinidad.  They were encouraged by land grants to set up agricultural units under their own management and to transfer slaves in quantity to work these plantations.

Influenced by France, but also set on maintaining Spanish control and the Roman Catholic faith in his American colonies, Charles III extended this provision in 1783 by issuing a further Cedula de Poblacion.  This allowed any Catholic to settle in Trinidad providing he agreed to stipulated immigration conditions, including a loyalty oath to the Spanish crown. 1

At this point the island's population was very small indeed, comprising Spanish-speaking whites, coloureds, slaves and Indians and, as has been pointed out by Andrew Pearse in his study of 'Carnival in Nineteenth Century Trinidad', because there is no concrete evidence for the existence of an annual Shrovetide festival before this date, 1783 is a convenient neutral starting point for discussing the development of the Trinidad Carnival. 2

Over the next fourteen years, due to the unsettled times in the Caribbean - the British having taken control of most of the French West Indian islands in the latter part of the eighteenth century - a great number of French planters grasped the opportunity to settle in Trinidad, bringing their slaves with them.  In consequence, when in 1797 the British took Trinidad itself, there was a significantly French-speaking and mainly Creole population.  The French whites had established themselves as a landed aristocracy and using the labour of their black slaves had created flourishing plantations growing tobacco, sugar, cotton, and coffee.

It has been necessary to outline the sequence of French settlement in Trinidad because of its utmost importance in establishing the Shrovetide celebration of Carnival on the island - at least as far as the written record is concerned.  Despite a large and speedy increase in population - in particular from the Spanish Main, North America, Africa, and the British West Indian islands - and, indeed, some French emigration, the French community remained in control of the island's economic core and, thus, were able to stamp their cultural characteristics on its ensuing festive developments.  Following emancipation, in 1833, peoples from the Near-East, Indian subcontinent and the Orient were to increase further the population and cultural-mix.

With respect to slave culture at this time, the findings of B W Higman are relevant.   In the second of five points concluding his discussion of 'African and Creole Slave Family Patterns in Trinidad', he notes that 'Distinct African ethnic/tribal groups lost their identity almost immediately as a result of extensive intermarriage.  Only those groups which constituted a substantial proportion of the total slave population, and had a relatively natural sex ratio, were able to establish family patterns which reflected however vaguely their particular [African] cultural history'.

Thus, the cultural influence of French Creole slaves would, almost certainly, have been dominant over those arriving direct from Africa and, as the former were in greatest preponderance, this was of first importance in establishing their own syncretic Afro-French culture in Trinidad.  The free coloureds too, would have come under this overwhelming French and Afro-French influence. 3

Afro-French syncretism in the Caribbean requires a great deal of further research but it is useful at this point to draw attention to Dena J Epstein's documentation of the dance called la calinda, together with its associated instrument the banza (banjo), both African in origin, which she demonstrates persist from the original seventeenth-century colonisation of the British and French West Indies to the mid-nineteenth century (the period of her research).  There are several French reports of West Indian blacks dancing the calinda; a dance which may or may not have received its name from the Roman first day of the month or season - the calends (or kalends) which, in the case of seasonal change, was usually celebrated by festivities. 4

The unusually French character of late-eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Trinidadian culture, among both blacks and whites, was observed throughout this period, and later even in his important Colonial Office memo on 'History of the Origin of the Carnival' (1881), one-time Head of Police, L M Fraser, states with surprise that, 'in an island which never belonged to France for even a single day the French element ...   largely predominates'.  In order, therefore, to understand the place of Carnival in Trinidad society, the origins and traditions of Southern European Carnival require some exploration. 5

The general assumption on the origin of European Carnival, founded on the work of J G Frazer, has been that it is based on the New Year Roman festival of the Kalends of January, which it is said, spread throughout the Roman empire and, 'was celebrated by the relaxation of all ordinary rules of conduct and the inversion of customary social status'.   This season, in turn, close to the similar Roman ploughing and sowing festival of Saturnalia, and other earlier pagan fertility rites (also identified by Frazer), was adopted by the Catholic church - witness the days of Christian celebration between All Souls Day (2 November) and Candlemas (2 February).  The Christmas festival is sometimes said to extend across this period and, by some, even to the time of Shrovetide Carnival.  More often than not, certainly in early Modern Europe, the Carnival season lasted from Christmas to Shrove Tuesday and this time-scale was also adopted by the eighteenth-century French settlers of Trinidad. 6

Although he accepts that, 'no Carnival was like any other Carnival', historian Peter Burke's discussion of these festivities in early Modern Europe, points up common elements in such celebrations.  Burke identifies four 'less formally structured- events which went on intermittently through the carnival season':

1. eating/feasting
2. drinking
3. singing and dancing in the streets
4. masks and fancy dress - 'men dressed as women, women as men; other popular costumes were those of clerics, devils, fools, wild men and wild animals'

Additionally, he distinguishes three more elements which usually occurred in the Carnivals themselves:

1. a procession with floats carrying individuals dressed as mythical figures
2. popular competitions (often of an aggressive nature)
3. the performance of some kind of play, normally in farce

And underlying these were three major themes - both real and symbolic in their enactment - 'food, sex, and violence'.

In this Burke sees this period of European Carnival as, 'not only a festival of aggression, of destruction, desecration.  Indeed, one should perhaps think of sex as the middle term connecting food and violence.  The violence, like the sex, was more or less sublimated into ritual.  Verbal aggression was licensed at this season, maskers were allowed to insult individuals, to criticise the authorities'. 7

If these elements were usual throughout the Carnival period and, in particular, at the event of Carnival itself, the reasons for their seasonal occurrence must be examined.   Perhaps the most satisfactory explanation for the focal point of festivals when 'the world is turned upside-down' is the rites of passage model conceived by French folklorist Arnold Van Gennep to describe the key ceremonial stages in the life of an individual or individuals.  Each rite is delineated by three phases (sometimes not in this order):

1. preliminal (separation from what went before)
2. liminal (threshold) and
3. postliminal (aggregation into the new state)

... which, in the case of Carnival, are paralleled by three types of ritual behaviour: 'masquerade, role reversal and formalities'.  These rituals can be seen to operate as a series of binary opposites: Shrovetide is the opposite of austere Lent in the Christian calendar, and its rituals can be said to be antithetical both to the spiritual values of Christianity and its Lenten period of physical abstinence.  Yet, the reasons as to why Carnival and, to a lesser extent, other seasonal rites should have been and continue to be such a focal point for communal 'misrule' are, perhaps, not so easily defined for, as Peter Burke points out, 'What is clear is that Carnival was polysemous, meaning different things to different people'. 8

The functionalist view of Carnival is that it serves as a safety-valve in a politically repressive society - in other words it is part of a system of social control.  In given circumstances, this argument appears the most satisfactory explanation; certainly, Carnival was probably viewed in this light by hierarchies in early Modern Europe and, indeed, by white plantation-owning societies in the West Indies.  But, as French historian Emmanuel Le Roy Laudrie has indicated, others saw Carnival as a time when social change might be effected or, at the very least, influenced.  Folklorists Roger D Abrahams and Richard Bauman express another view of the role of such festivities in two twentieth-century communities - the West Indian island of St Vincent (Carnival) and the Le Havre Islands, Nova Scotia (Christmas belsnickling - 'mumming'): 'Far from constituting events that have hostility and conflict as their organising principle, carnival and belsnickling appear to us to draw together opposing elements in the two societies in which they occur and to draw them together more closely and harmoniously than at any time in the year'. 9

Indirectly, this returns us to the celebration of Carnival in the West Indies.   Simply because they ruled Trinidad from 1797 (until Independence in 1962), the most important secondary cultural contribution to its Carnival came from the British and Afro-British inhabitants.  Like the French before them, British masters, together with their Creole slaves, came to Trinidad from other islands in the West Indian archipelago to establish and operate plantations - although, as indicated, they did this without disturbing the island's overall French cultural hegemony.

The black folklore traditions of the British West Indies have been the subject of considerable research by Roger D Abrahams.  Explaining the traditional times for festive celebration in the English-speaking territories he notes: 'In the eastern Caribbean where there was little influence from the Catholic (French and Spanish) islands, Christmas was the traditional time of freedom and licence for the slaves - so much so that their other major holiday, Easter, was often called 'Pickininny Christmas'.  Thus on islands like Jamaica, Nevis, St.  Kitts, Antigua and Barbados, the formal and licentious types of ceremonies were commingled in the observation of the Christmas season though revelry certainly was the more important activity.  In the more southern islands, most of which were at some time under French rule, Carnival is also played, thus creating the situation where motives of formality and decorousness could be attached to one celebration [Christmas], 'nonsense' and revelry the other [Carnival]'.  Abrahams points out that the latter is the situation on St Vincent. 10

If there were seasonal times in the British and, for that matter, the French West Indies, when slaves could engage in musical activities and there was at least one focal point in the year, Christmas Carnival or both, when more elaborate rituals were allowed, the question arises as to what was the African contribution to both the music and the ceremonies.  Clearly, almost wholesale adoption as well as adaptation of European traditions occurred hence the performance by blacks of British mummers' plays and other Christmas customs.  But, as there remains a strong tradition of masquerade in West Africa these might well have paralleled customs that slaves recalled from the traditional societies whence they came, and have been adopted simply because they served the same purpose.  In light, however, of the careful analysis of Sidney Mintz and Richard Price, in their discourse on 'An Anthropological Approach to the Afro-American Past', this is probably too simplistic model for the complicated development of cultural norms.   Notwithstanding, what must be stated is that there is a strong and obvious African component in Carnival, and carnivalesque, based on 'creativity and innovation' rather than particularities of 'content' characteristics of Afro-American cultures identified by Sidney Mintz. 11

In its initial period (1784-l833), Andrew Pearse points out that the Trinidad 'Carnival was an important institution for Whites and Free Coloured, particularly in the towns'.   However, their communal involvement in the festival was gradually changed by the British take-over of the island in 1797.  Firstly, there was progressive discrimination against the free coloureds by the white British administration and, secondly, as Christmas had functioned as the carnivalesque focal point in the British West Indies there was an endeavour to emphasise this festival over and above the celebration of Carnival itself: from which, in any case, the slaves remained virtually excluded.  At Christmas, Martial Law was declared (this included manoeuvres by the militia), there were parties stressing social prestige, Church attendance was expected, and slaves were given universal licence 'for dancing, feasting at the master's expense, some freedom of movement, and elaborate costuming'. 12

Whether Christmas or Carnival, when whites and coloureds masqueraded, the celebrations fit closely the 'rites of passage' model of Van Gennep and the various socially symbolic structures and functions which Carnival and carnivalesque have been shown to perform.   And, although the circumstances alter, this can also be shown to be true for Carnival after the freedom of the slaves in 1833.

From this point it was Carnival that became the principal annual celebration for freed slaves and others in the lower classes.  That it performed the role of satirical parody and other rituals associated with the masquerade, in both European and African settings, is witnessed by contemporary newspaper reports.  These show the usual elements of communal 'misrule', with an emphasis on sex and violence, and their effect of disturbing the social norm was well taken by the ruling white elite.  As the latter withdrew from public participation in Carnival so too did the newspaper reports of the event become more and more hostile, emphasising the class distinctions of the time - the elite electing for a manifest separate 'superiority'. 13

Although the white elite made it clear that they were generally hostile to the 'challenge' of Carnival, the attitude of the coloured middle-class poses more of a problem.  On the basis of his research, Andrew Pearse finds that:

'The degree of [their] participation ...  is difficult to ascertain.  The evidence seems to point to the following situations: (1) Carnival remained for them an important season of festivity and sociality ...  (2) Whilst avoiding association in the streets with the masses this class was deeply resentful of any interference with Carnival by the Government and was ready to use it if necessary as a means of indirect attack on the Governor and the upper (white) class whenever tension rose'.

This too fits the picture of a Carnival season the function and structure of which varied from year to year depending on the social conditions appertaining. 14

Before proceeding, mention must be made of the 'canboulay' ritual which appears to have originated in the white community prior to slavery's abolition and then to have been adopted by the blacks as a first of August celebration of their 1833 emancipation.   It was later transferred to the occasion of Carnival.

According to a letter published in an 1881 edition of the 'Port of Spain Gazette' (26 March), canboulay seems to have started as a Carnival masquerade in which, prior to emancipation, whites dressed up as blacks, imitated their dances (including the calinda) and their torch-lit, drum accompanied procedures which had originated in practices designed to cope with the emergency of a sugar cane plantation fire - hence cannes brulees (canboulay).  Whether or not whites did perform this masquerade (this is the only report), what is certain is that the rituals that blacks adopted midnight processions, with torches, drumming and singing - were full of symbolic meaning and eminently in the Carnival tradition, It is important to note that one of the dances mentioned was the calinda.  This, as has been pointed out, was of African origin and, as far as black Trinidadians were concerned, was associated both with stick fighting/dancing and (in its vocal version) satirical song.  Understandably, the calinda was of great significance to the black community in their adoption of Carnival as an annual positive statement of social integrity. 15

In time the canboulay parade came to initiate Carnival celebrations: it began at midnight on the Monday of festivities as, by 1841, Sunday revelry had been prohibited on account of desecration of the Sabbath.  From the mid-1850's, newspaper reports are directed increasingly against the festival as creating an unwarranted disturbance, with canboulay becoming one of the major points of friction.  During the same period, certainly as far as the controlling white elite were concerned, the character of Carnival celebrants changed more and more to represent the jamette - a class word for diametre or diamet, applied to those beneath the 'diameter' of reputable society i.e.   the underworld.  Clearly this led to greater polarisation on both sides and a clash of the two opposing values became inevitable.  As with early Modern European examples already referred to and, indeed, late-1840's-early 1850's Carnival protestations at the time of the Second French Republic, the meaning of Carnival took on special symbolic significance at a time of social and, or, political tension. 16

In Trinidad, matters came to a head in the late 1870s when the aforementioned moderate Chief of Police, L M Fraser, was dismissed and the tough Captain Baker was appointed in his place.  His measures led, ultimately, to confrontation.  In 1878 and 1879 Baker's actions were circumspect enough to avoid a direct challenge to the ceremony but in 1880 he attempted to suppress canboulay by calling on the paraders to surrender their sticks, drums and lighted torches.  They acquiesced but in the following year prepared themselves to resist more vigorously, for they believed that Baker's moves were part of a concerted effort to abolish both canboulay and Carnival.  As a consequence in 1881, canboulay was put down with violence which, almost certainly, would have become worse had not the astute Governor of the colony confined police to barracks for Shrove Monday and Tuesday and appealed to the masqueraders direct. 17

Serious trouble continued for at least two more years: 'The official view was that the Carnival of 1883 was even more disorderly than that of 1881.  The reports tell of fighting, throwing of stones and bottles, much obscenity and unmasked bands of disorderly persons through Port-of-Spain armed with long sticks'.  But the Governor's direct appeal to the maskers signalled a change of attitude among the colonial hierarchy who, from then on, consciously moved towards greater participation in the festivities.  In this, Carnival had succeeded in effecting much needed social change and the Government, realising its social implications, came to accord it official recognition. 18

Nevertheless canboulay was abolished in 1884 by an order fixing the commencement of Carnival to 6 a.m. on Mondays; bands of more than ten carrying sticks were forbidden; Pierrot maskers were obliged to obtain a police licence; and pisse-en-lit bands (men dressed as women) together with the obscene words and actions in which they specialised, were prohibited.  This stricter control, however, was accompanied by the greater participation of the white elite and, as has been noted, a recognition of the 'people' and their annual festival.  In this, Carnival's function was changed structurally from one combining binary opposites, to one embodying binary affinities: from emphasising society's stratifications, to drawing together gradually these disparate elements.   In this role it has continued. 19

It remains to note briefly the relationship of kaiso or, calypso, Trinidad Carnival's satiric song tradition, to the event itself.  Firstly, it must be emphasised that satire and satiric song are a feature of Carnival occasions worldwide.  Secondly, there is a marked tradition of satiric song in African and Afro-American societies.   These, coupled with Afro-American traditions of ceremony and eloquence, are the folk-loric foundations for this famous and popular song form.  Clearly, with such roots, calypso relates closely to the tradition of Carnival itself and, more specifically to the rivalry still maintained between bands of masqueraders.  Formerly, the most overt reflection of this competitiveness was the stick band, which fought ritualistically to the musical accompaniment of the calinda/kalinda - both danced, and sung (originally in French patois).  And, although calypso is more than just a style of challenge song, the latter forms the most tenuous link between it and celebrations of Carnival past and present. 20

John Cowley

Notes:

1. Historical data summarised from Linda A Newson Aboriginal and Spanish Colonial Trinidad, London, Academic Press, 1976; J H Parry and Philip Sherlock, A Short History of the West Indies, 3rd. ed., London, Macmillan, l971; Eric Williams, History of the People of Trinidad and Tobago, London, Andre Deutsch, 1964.
2. Andrew Pearse, 'Carnival in Nineteenth Century Trinidad', Caribbean Quarterly, Vol. 4, Nos. 3 and 4, March-June 1956, p. 175.
3. B W Higman, 'African and Creole Slave Family Patterns in Trinidad', in Margaret E Crahan and Franklin W Knight, eds., Africa and the Caribbean, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Universlty, 1979, p. 62.
4. Dena J Epstein, Sinful Tunes and Spirituals, Urbana, University of Illinois, 1977, pp. 30-38; Reginald Nettel, Sing a Song of England, London, Phoenix House, 1954, pp. 155-158; the entry for calinda in Maria Leach, ed., Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore Mythology and Legend, London, New English Library, 1975.
5. Colonial office Original Correspondence, Trinidad (Co. 293), Vol. 289 - Trinidad No. 6460, quoted in Pearse. op. cit., p. 181.
6. J G Frazer, The Golden Bough, abridged ed., London, Macmillan, 1922; Enid Welsford, The Court Masque, Cambridge, C.U.P., 1972, p. 9 and p. 12; Errol Hill, The Trinidad Carnival, Austin, University of Texas, 1972, f.n. 8, p.8.
7. Peter Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe, London, Temple Smith, 1978, pp. 179-187.
8. Arnold Van Gennep, The Rites of Passage, London, Routledge, 1960; Victor Turner, The Ritual Process, London, Routledge, 1969, pp. 94-95; Burke, op. cit., p. 190.
9. Emmanuel Le Roy Laudrie, trans, Mary Feeney, Carnival in Romans, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1981, p. 292; Roger D Abrahams and Richard Bauman, 'Ranges of Festival Behaviour', in Barbara A Babcock, The Reversible World, Ithica, Cornell University, 1978, p. 206.
10. Roger D Abrahams, 'Christmas and Carnival on St. Vincent', Western Folklore, Vol. 31, No. 4, October, 1972, p. 277.
11. Roger D Abrahams, 'Speech Mas' on Tobago', in Wilson M Hudson, ed., Tire Shrinker to Dragster, Austin, Encio Press, 1968, pp. 127-128; 'Pull Out Your Purse and Pay: A St George Mumming from the British West Indies', Folklore, 79, 1968, p. 197; 'British West Indian Folk Drama and the 'Life Cycle' Problem', Folklore, 81, 1970, p. 245.  A recent parallel African example of masquerade was cited in Yemi Olaniyan, 'The emergence of dundun sekere music as a popular music', talk at the International Council for Traditional Music, U.K. Chapter, Annual Conference, session for Friday, 25 March, 1983.  Sidney W Mintz and Richard Price, An Anthropological Approach to the Afro-Amerlcan Past, Philadelphia, Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1976. Sidney W Mintz, 'Foreword' to Norman E Whitten and John F Szwed, eds., Afr