Carnival Is Woman

Feminism and Performance in Caribbean Mas

Frances Henry, Dwaine Plaza

• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781496825469
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Latin American & Caribbean History
• Index: History

Contributions by Darrell Gerohn Baksh, Jan de Cosmo, Frances Henry, Jeff Henry, Adanna Kai Jones, Samantha Noel, Dwaine Plaza, Philip W. Scher, and Asha St. Bernard Women are performing an ever-growing role in Caribbean Carnival. Through a feminist perspective, this volume examines the presence of women in contemporary Carnival by demonstrating not only their strength in numbers, but also the ways in which women participate in the event. While decried by traditionalists, the bikinis, beads, and feathers of "pretty mas' " convey both a newly found empowerment as a gendered resistance to oppression from men. Although research on Carnivals is substantial, especially in the Americas, the subject of women in Carnival as a topic of inquiry remains fairly new. These essays address anthropological and historical facets of women and their practices in the Trinidad Carnival, including an analysis of how women's costuming and performance have changed over time. The modern costumes, which are well within the financial means of most mas' players, demonstrate the new power of women who can now afford these outfits. In discussing the commodification and erotization of Carnival, the book emphasizes the unveiling of the female body and the hip-rolling sexual movements called winin or it. Through display of their bodies, contemporary women in Carnival express a form of female resistance. Intent on enjoying and expressing themselves, they seem invigorated by their place in the economy, as well as their sexuality, defying the moral controls imposed on them. Through an array of methods in qualitative research, including interviews, participant observation, and ethnography, this volume explains the new power of women in the evolution of Carnival mas' in Trinidad amid the wider Caribbean diaspora.

Chapter 1

Women and the De-Africanization of Trinidad Carnival: From the Jamette to Bikini, Beads, and Feathers

—Dwaine Plaza and Jan DeCosmo

In 2010, Bunji Garlin sang a calypso entitled “De African.” This song followed a long line of twentieth-century calypsonians who regularly paid homage to Africa’s struggles for independence and the positive African influence on the culture of Trinidad.¹ This Afrocentric position was in direct opposition to the many centuries during which the white slave masters made concerted efforts to destroy every aspect of African cultural, social, and religious traditions. These were intentionally replaced by a Eurocentric value system. The legacy of this hegemonic value system continues to affect Caribbean people’s hearts and minds. There still remains a deep-seated psychological desire for things European while at the same time seeing things African as inferior, heathen, backward, and evil.² In spite of these deeply embedded psychological values, many aspects of African culture survive and continue to influence the contemporary dance, music, food, religion, language, living arrangements, and family structures in Trinidad and Tobago.³

The purpose of this chapter is to examine the evolution of Carnival traditions in Trinidad and Tobago as they relate to the historical context in which Carnival evolved from European traditions with distinct African customs as part of its DNA. The chapter seeks to examine the evolving African content in the annual Carnival celebrations from the 1950s to the present. We provide evidence to show that current trends across most Carnival bands in Trinidad and the diaspora have been moving away from epic theatrical productions with deep cultural meaning to themes and costumes that are superficial, homogenous, and intimately interwoven with the sexual objectification of female masqueraders. These trends are most apparent in the de-Africanization of mas’ bands.

Carnival in Nineteenth-Century Trinidad

European Carnival celebrations came to Trinidad in the eighteenth century with the French, who were invited by the Spanish, by then the governors of Trinidad. The French planters in Trinidad in the late eighteenth century began their Carnival festivities at Christmas and ended them on Ash Wednesday. Balls, concerts, dinners, hunts, and other festive events were held in the countryside. Of course, these French settlers brought with them their cultural baggage. As the French Creoles set up great houses and businesses in Trinidad, they held elaborate pre-Lenten masked balls. These elaborate balls continued even though the island changed ownership by force from Spain to Britain in 1797. The pre-emancipation Carnival saw whites costume themselves as Negues Jadin (Negres Jardin—Garden Negroes-French) and mulatresses.⁴ They also reenacted the cannes brulées (burning canes), which were best described as the practice of rounding up slaves to put out fires in the cane field (Green and Scher 2007). The masquerade balls were witnessed with great amusement by the enslaved Africans, who began to have private celebrations of their own incorporating their own sacred traditions, particularly masking and funerary rituals. They also used these occasions to mock and lampoon the lascivious conduct of the masters and their wives. The slave celebrations also included stick fighting (a ritual of dance-like movement also known as the kalinda), dancing, singing, and drumming. They also performed little shows or plays, organizing themselves into regiments led by individuals wearing costumes representing king and queen (Green and Scher 2007).

The conditions of slavery forced Africans of different ethnic groups to come together to construct a cultural identity that was distinct from that of the white planter class. Unable to perform the masquerades of their homelands, Africans turned to participation in European-based celebrations in which their Creolized masquerades’ primary concerns were self-representation and symbolic repositioning.⁵ The result has been a unique style of masquerade, one that departs from the canonical configuration of secrecy, total transformation, obligatory masking, and men as the preeminent performers (Franco 2000).

Even when the British took over Trinidad and set up their own colonial rule in 1802, the French Carnival tradition continued. The governor gave masked balls, and members of the upper classes would drive their carriages through Port of Spain going from house to house in masked disguises. Free persons of color could wear masks, but they were not allowed to join the festivities alongside the privileged (Franco 2000).

As Mervyn Alleyne (1988, 83) has argued, religion and rebellion were closely linked in the Caribbean. Well aware of the connection, colonial slave masters in Trinidad, as elsewhere, repeatedly attempted to outlaw the most important instrument in African ritual, the drum. Without drums, the command by spirits or deities to overthrow colonial masters could not be heard. However, enslaved Africans continued to make music using anything readily at hand, including biscuit tins, bottles, and sticks. In fact, the tambourbamboo bands, in which members strike differing lengths of bamboo on the ground to make a percussive sound, originated as a result of banning the drum and can still be found in Carnival today.

After emancipation in the early 1830s, participation in Carnival by Trinidadians of African descent increased dramatically, and African retentions in music, dance, costume, and ritual became even more predominant. At that point, Carnival took on the characteristics of a celebration of deliverance rather than a European-inspired annual nature festival. Former slaves, who numbered in the tens of thousands, celebrated their newfound freedom by marching down the road together, along with those already free. As the years passed, Chinese and South Asian Indian immigrants began to arrive and slowly join the festivities. At the same time, the French Creole elite began to describe Carnival using such phrases as “wretched buffoonery,” “an orgy indulged in by the dissolute,” “annual abomination,” “wild excess,” and “diabolical festival,” and subsequently attempted to have it banned (Green and Scher 2007).

One English visitor to Carnival in 1847 reported that “nearly naked” Negroes daubed in black varnish joined forces in groups of ten to twenty, some wearing chains around their feet to symbolize slavery. As one observer wrote, others masqueraded as whites: “Every negro, male and female, wore a white flesh colored mask, their woolly hair carefully concealed by handkerchiefs …” (Lee 1990, 25). Other groups paraded as the king and queen of England, the angel Gabriel, pirates, Turks, the strange and exotic Highlander, Indians of South America, and the personification of Death (a white skeleton painted onto a black covering). “I noticed that whenever a black mask appeared it was sure to be a white man,” wrote the visitor (Lee 1990, 26). All the while, bands played what was described as “execrable music,” making a “tremendous uproar” (Lee 1990, 25). During both of these phases of Carnival, both before and after emancipation, switches in racial and ethnic identity were common.

From the moment the newly emancipated Africans began to openly participate in the Carnival, the newspaper editorials became hostile, critical of the inclusion of anything African. That would include African dances and masking. What follows is a letter written in 1838 by “A Scotchman” [sic] in the Port of Spain Gazette that gives an indication of the feelings of some of the whites at that time for all things African:

We will not dwell on the disgusting and indecent scenes that were enacted in our streets—we will not say how many we saw in a state so nearly approaching nudity, as to outrage decency and shock modesty—we will not describe the AFRICAN custom [emphasis mine] of carrying a stuffed figure of a woman on a pole, which was followed by hundreds of negroes yelling out a savage Guinea song [we regret to say nine-tenths of these people were Creoles]…. But we will say at once that the custom of keeping Carnival, by allowing the lower order of society to run about the Streets in wretched masquerade, belongs to other days and ought to be abolished in our own.

The white plantocracy in Trinidad deeply resented and resisted any measure that appeared to favor blacks. They made their powerful influence felt in every sphere of Trinidadian society. Harsh vagrancy laws were implemented that punished Africans and later South Asian Indians who were not attached to any plantation. During the Carnival period, those in power repeatedly called for the imposition of martial law. The Trinidadian plantocracy’s paranoia was fueled by the fact that the African population still retained a strong African consciousness. In spite of the slavery, in spite of the “seasoning” processes, and especially in spite of the religious and secular education imposed upon them, many Africans still identified themselves with things African. They even went so far as to create African-centered support groups, secret societies, and so on (Green and Scher 2007).

The English traveler Charles Day was one of the first to document women’s masquerade in Trinidad. In his 1847 eyewitness account of the “Negro Carnival Day,” he described a band of “little girls dressed a la jupe” (1852, 316). The Martinican dress, as this costume was popularly called in Trinidad, comprised of two distinct styles: the a la jupe or chemisette et jupe and the douillette or la grande robe (Riggio 2004, 33). The Martinican dress was one of “high affect,” juxtaposing highly contrasting colors and designs. Traveler Lafcadio Hearn (1923 [1890]) noted that, by the late nineteenth century, Afro-Creole Martinican women had devised an elaborate program of color coordination in their costumes. Based on the complementarity of the cloth and darker skin tones, the costumes created a radiant effect. For example, a capresse, or a very fair Afro-Creole woman, reportedly looked her best in a yellow robe accented with a blue scarf. The darker negresse looked her best in either white or “any violent color,” like red (Hearn, 329). According to Lafcadio Hearn, the visual effect was further intensified by the brilliance produced by the brooch-bedecked calendered turban and the masses of jewelry worn around the neck and arms.

Most likely, this French Creole dress was introduced into Trinidad Carnival by Afro-Creole Martinican women in the late eighteenth century, via the drum dances, performances in which the drum is the primary musical accompaniment. John Cowley explains that drum dances in the French Caribbean islands were frequently organized by “black dancing societies” (1996). Trinidadian historian Pierre-Gustave-Louis Borde notes that, by 1797, the Afro-Creoles’ dance repertoire included French Creole dances like “the calinda, the jhouba, and the bel air” (1982 [1883], 313). In the nineteenth century, these dance performances were held throughout the year to mark such events as funerals or wakes and saints’ days. They were also a popular form of entertainment. Elaborate drum dances, sometimes referred to as “dignity balls” or bouquets (n3), were popular Carnival events and often featured a king and queen.

After emancipation more women began to participate in Carnival, primarily as yard “chantwells” or lead singers (the forerunners of calypsonians). In between the stick fighting contests held by men in the yards, women sang “carisos” or Carnival songs, continuing the African practice (with added French and Spanish elements) of using praise and derision to describe their contenders. The women also danced to the songs in what some observers described as an “obscene, lewd, and erotic” manner. Apparently, carisos were sung exclusively by women. While the male stick fighters did not become chantwells, some of the women chantwells did become stick fighters, especially during the next phase of Carnival.

This next phase, from 1860 to the early 1880s, is known as Jamette Carnival. “Jamette” was a term which referred to the “other half” or “the underworld.” By this time, the economically deprived subculture had taken over Carnival. Trinidadian Jamettes had continued developing their skills in stick fighting, their sharpness of wit in conversation and song (bragging especially about their sexual accomplishments), their talent in dance and music, and their indifference to colonial law and authority. As expected, the authorities set out to curb these excesses. This was especially the case with the “pissenlit,” a direct translation from French which meant “bed-wetters” or “stinker” bands, which entailed an interesting gender reversal. These bands were made up of men dressed in women’s transparent nightgowns carrying what appeared to be menstrual cloths stained with blood and singing obscene songs.

During this phase of Carnival, women chantwells not only sang fighting songs to encourage male stick fighters as they prepared to do battle, but even joined gangs themselves. Many were labeled prostitutes—whether they were in fact or not—and were arrested for indecent behavior, disorderly conduct, and for using obscene and profane language. According to Anna S. Gottreich (1993, 11), “calypsos survive which refer to these female underground characters, well-known for their brawling, drinking, and especially singing and dancing.” She described one group of women called the “Mourcelines” who in 1864 fought against another group, the “Don’t Care a Damns.” She wrote that “both groups were armed with stones, knives, and razors. They fought each other, ‘with their frocks tucked up’ in a battle which led to the arrest of twenty women, ‘being unlawfully assembled and arrayed in a warlike manner’” (Payne 1990, 13). Many of these women took on men, as well. But these groups of women did not exist for the sole purpose of engaging in violent activities. As Gottreich (1993, 11) claimed, they functioned as sororities that “served as friendship and support networks in the often difficult and alienating urban environment of the time.”

Gendered Twentieth-Century Carnival Trends

The early twentieth century saw women’s participation in Carnival as a highly regulated event. Concurrently, regulatory groups like the 1919 Carnival Deputation Committee (CDC) and the 1938 Carnival Improvement Committee (CIC) devised ways to “clean up” the festival—in other words, to remove what they perceived as obscenities and other undesirable aspects of mas’. They encouraged costume competitions that were organized by the local merchants. They also offered guidelines for “appropriate” Carnival costumes, the majority of them targeting female masqueraders. For example, in 1919 the CDC supported the government regulation “against the wearing of clothing to disguise the sexes.” The CDC had several lists of Carnival costumes they deemed appropriate for women. The list included such characters as Lorraine Peasant, Fish Girl, Goat Girl, Flower Girl, and Charity Girl. Judging from the characters, the CDC apparently endorsed peasants and non-authoritarian disguises as being suitable for women. These lists were not intended simply to prohibit cross-dressing but to ensure that women adhered to the tenets of womanhood as defined by the larger society. Despite the liminal nature of the festival, women were bound to uphold these laws.

Many Afro-Creole women accepted the external trappings associated with the local construction of womanhood, but they were able to present their concerns by using them as an encoded masquerade. The Bajan Cook (Bajan meaning “from Barbados”) was one such women’s mas’ costume. By 1911, it was well established and very popular. The masqueraders wore simple white dresses with aprons, in a style similar to nurses’ uniforms. They did not wear face masks. A decade later, this costume had evolved into calf-length white dresses with high necklines and long sleeves over ankle-length underskirts, decorated with lace and fancy edging. The layering and decorations of the underskirts reflected a hybrid Martinican costume. Acceptable Martinican costumes consisted of a headscarf, cotton skirt, and an embroidered madras blouse.

During the First and Second World Wars, numerous Jamettes in Port of Spain continued to participate through t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Women and the De-Africanization of Trinidad Carnival: From the Jamette to Bikini, Beads, and Feathers
• Chapter 2: Stories of Resistance and Oppression: Baby Doll and Dame Lorraine
• Chapter 3: Jamette!: Women and Canboulay in 1881
• Chapter 4: Taking the Queen to the Streets: The Jaycees Carnival Queen Competition and the Pretty Mas’ Aesthetic
• Chapter 5: Practicing Jametteness: The Transmission of “Bad Behavior” as a Strategy of Survival
• Chapter 6: “Thirty Gyal to One Man”: Women’s Prolific Presence in the Trinidad Carnival
• Chapter 7: From Devi to Diva: Indo-Caribbean Women Rising in Trinidad’s Chutney Soca
• Chapter 8: Caribana in Toronto: From Male Dominance to Female Agency
• Glossary
• About the Contributors