How did the festival of Carnival come to Trinidad and Tobago?

Was it started by Trinidadians?

Did it come from Europe?

What are the meanings behind the several masks and provocative dances in Trinidad’s carnival?

These are soul-searching questions that anyone interested in the festival would necessarily want to know.

It is a known fact that Carnival as a festival was indeed a feature in many French cities from the 16^th century onwards, and since Frenchmen took over the tilling of Trinidad’s soils in the late 18^th century, it is believed in many circles that the origin of Trinidad’s Carnival can be traced back to France.

My research has shown, however, that with the advent of the Europeans (mainly English, French, Spaniards and the Dutch) and Africans, traditions of festivity brought to Trinidad by migrants were practiced and developed for different reasons, into what became the Trinidad Carnival.

Just as Europeans brought their traditions to Trinidad, so too did the Africans during the era of the Atlantic slave trade, and these African traits survived to colour the festival and make it into what it is today.

It is fair to say, however, that the carnival developed in Trinidad and Tobago over the centuries is, to a large extent, African in form and function.

The africans

Met in the yards and held dances

Mocked their owners

Performed ancestral rituals

THE BARRACK YARD

The Africans, however, especially before 1838 when they were legally freed, used not only the carnival, but their worksongs, their calypsos, their wakes, and other religious and social settings as forms of resistance.

Carnival for them meant thanking God for their harvests, for being able to survive in that era of violence, and to demonstrate, above all, that they were not animals as the Whites believed, but a dignified people.

Such resistance continued throughout the 19^th century and the nature of their masquerades, namely: devils, pierrot grenades, jab jabs and negres jardins underscore their aim to laugh at Whites, resist the elites and promote their own self esteem.

 Collective resistance could be seen too in Trinidad in 1805 when there was a confrontation between Whites and Africans.

To a large extent, the structure and management of the warring bands of Africans complemented the structure and management of the carnival bands of the era.

As early as 1834 too, Africans were prevented from wearing masks.

Mrs. Carmichael wrote of the resistance nature of their songs and of the fact that they would set fires deliberately to the canes and then re-enact the Canees Brulees procession to laugh derisively at the losses of their masters.

An aged stickfighter informed me that he learnt from his grandmother that the kalenda dance and stickfight was one of defiance intended to challenge the ruling of whites who had sought to ban it in 1810.

For Professor Gordon Rohlehr :

Mrs. Carmichael’s work shows that Africans not only resisted through song and dance, and had an offstage life of satire, but that many African melodies survived the Atlantic crossing to become part of the armoury of New World Africans.

In 1834 too, the Africans, by way of the masquerade, brought out an Artillery band mocking the English Militia.

The English Commandant agreed that the Africans were making a “mockery of the best Militia band that has ever been embodied in the West.”

Yet another meaning of Trinidad’s carnival was seen in the mid-twentieth century unto the 1970s when the masqueraders, anxious like the populace to learn of the history and culture of other lands; when the value of education was paramount, and when to be educated was to be versed in History especially :

Although for some bandleaders it was tantamount to mimicry, it was for many a learning experience. Thus, bandleaders like Harold Saldenah, George Bailey, Bobby Ammon, Edmund Hart, Stephen Lee Heung and Irvin McWilliams, to name a few, brought to the streets of Trinidad the princely warlords of “Imperial Rome;” “Norse Gods and Vikings;” “Relics of Egypt;” “Byzantine Glory;” “China, The Forbidden City;” and the citizens and architecture of “Bright Africa” as well as the “Amerindians” of North and South America.

The carnival during that era was for most people who, having won for themselves independence, found in carnival, a basis for demonstrating nationalism and freedom from colonialism.

As such, they were anxious to examine the cultures of other nations, especially those who had also suffered a similar fate.

Finally, ever since carnival was played in Trinidad and Tobago, there were those who played to steal from whites, to display their sexual prowess, to mimic the covered but nevertheless dirty linens of the upper class, and above all, to simply have a good time.

Famed historian and author who studied carnival, deceased Andrew Carr, informed me way back in 1966, that while 

There were those who after Emancipation simply wore masks to terrorize Whites; there were those who at the turn of the century played certain masquerades, such as “Police and Thief” and “Highway Robbers” to simply extort from the rich elite, money or any form of material wealth.

Similarly, with the global economy opening up more and more to bandleaders, and with the prospects of making more money from the art form, there are those bandleaders who, from the 1990s and thereabout, placed the emphasis on what I call “Fast- Food Mas.”

They emphasize sequins and beads and design the masquerade, not with art or history in mind, but in terms of women and the women’s love for showing off their sexual dimensions and sensual indulgences on carnival day.

When I asked why he composed such trivialities today, instead of putting the emphasis on lyrics that make sense, famed calypso singer and song writer, Iwer George, retorted: “I have to eat a food.”

9 TIMES WINNER OF CALYPSO MONARCH

AN AUTHOR