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MANDATE FOR A NATIONAL THEATRE
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International Standard Book Number 0-292-78000-1
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 71-37255
© 1972 by Errol Hill
All rights reserved
Type set by G&S Typesetters, Austin
Printed by The University of Texas Printing Division, Austin
Color plates printed by Steck-Warlick Company, Austin
Bound by Universal Bookbinder;y, Inc" San Antonio
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You got the great big long wall in China,
And the Indian Taj Mahal,
I know that the greatest wonder of them all
Is mr Trinidad carnival.
Mightr Dougla
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The Trinidad carnival provides a striking record of
mass participation in what is undoubtedly the
greatest annual theatrical spectacle of all time.
From a total population of around one million people, more than 100,000 citizens appear in masquerade bands year after year. These masqueraders
parade the streets, dancing, singing, and miming
their assumed characters to the accompaniment of
music produced mostly from old oil drums. The
revelers are followed by thousands of supporters in
everyday dress who are as fully involved in the
carnival performance as the elaborately costumed
principals. In the daytime, the rest of the population may seem resigned to the passive role of spectators. But by sundown they too will be jumping
in the streets to the pan rhythms, identities only
partly obscured by the mask of a tropical evening.
To the stranger, carnival is a breath-taking ex-
perience, not least because of the polygenetic character of the participants. When, on August 31,
1962, the people of Trinidad and Tobago became
an independent nation, they had endured more
than a century and a half of British colonial rule.
In that time Trinidad, the senior partner of the
two-island nation, became possibly the most cosmopolitan country for its size anywhere in the world.
With a population descended from natives of black
Africa, India, China, several European countries,
the Middle East, and North and South America,
Trinidad has produced one festival that has so
caught the imagination of its multiracial people
that they contribute voluntarily to its annual celebration at great personal cost and effort. The
money value of materials expended on the two-day
carnival has been conservatively estimated to be
around $4 million. The cost in man-hours of un-
4
paid labor expended in planning and organizing
masquerade bands and building costumes would
easily double that figure.
More important than cost is the national exuberance unleashed at carnival time. Ethnic and social
divisions in multicolored Trinidad society are submerged under a national will to make each successive carnival "the greatest ever." Painstaking research is carried out into the history of the many
peoples portrayed in carnival, and imaginative fantasies take shape mingled with pertinent verbal
and visual commentary on current and past life in
the island. The talents of native artists, poets, musicians, actors, dancers, and craftsmen are tapped
every year to produce a truly mammoth spectacle.
For many years the focus of expression for the
variegated cultures in the island, carnival remains
the principal cultural repository and contains indigenous materials from which a national drama
and theatre can be fashioned. Indeed, carnival history vividly illustrates how aspects of local culture
have been structured and presented in a variety of
essentially theatrical forms by thousands of native
artists to an audience that for over half a century
has comprised the great majority of the Trinidad
people.
The propensity of a national festival, secular or
religious, to give birth to national theatre is no new
phenomenon. The great Athenian drama grew out
of annual Dionysian festivities. The drama of India
originated in dances associated with fertility cult
ceremonies. The earliest German comedy was a direct product of carnival celebrations. The strolling
Italian players drew heavily on the carnival for
much of their comedy. In France the grand court
ballets of the sixteenth century with recited and
sung dialogues had their origin in carnival masquerades inserted in elegant court dances. The basis of all Mexican drama was for a long time the
mimetic dances performed at popular fiestas, and
Mexico's world-famed Ballet Folklorico has a rep-
THE TRINIDAD CARNIVAL
ertoire derived from dances and dance-dramas performed at festivals throughout the country. The
catalogue can be extended.
In looking at the Trinidad carnival, therefore,
we should not be surprised to find that it too contains ingredients from which a national theatre
can be developed that would give permanent artistic form to aspects of indigenous culture. But we
may be astonished at the quality, variety, and high
theatrical content of these ingredients, no less than
at the discovery that on numerous occasions in carnival history actual theatre and drama have been
in all but name a part of the annual festivities.
Theatre, in this context, should not be interpreted narrowly as acting a dramatic dialogue. On the
Western stage we have many acceptable forms-the musical theatre, the dance theatre, the mime,
and the dramatic play, Such separation and specialization of performing skills are not found in
traditional types of entertainment: The Ananse
storyteller, for instance, sings, drums, and moves
when reciting his folk tale; the calypsonian is actor
and mime as well as singer and composer, often accompanying himself on his guitar and sometimes
dancing in performance; the dead-wake observances include singing, competitive dancing, and
rhetorical speechmaking. Accordingly, carnival
theatre exists not merely in recorded dialogue,
which is, however, to be found, but also in the
presentation of characters in dramatic situations
and confrontations, in conflict, in parody, in dumb
show, in dance forms, and in songs.
Since the first masquerade held in pre-Christian
times, carnival has exhibited certain recognizable
features wherever it has taken root and flourished.
Clearly originating in the worship of a nature
diety-whether the Egyptian Isis, the Greek Dionysus, the Roman Saturn, or some other is immaterial--carnival proceedings have included
street processions, costuming and masking, music
making, energetic dancing, singing of satiric or
INTRODUCTION
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laudatory songs, jesting, munnnery, feasting, and
general revelry. Specific practices that have survived over centuries are torch carrying, bonfire
lighting (originally ainned at purifying the fields
and frightening off demons, thereby ensuring a
good crop), and pitched batdes between contesting
bands symbclic of the struggle between Life and
Death, Sunnner and Winter, New Year and Old
Year, or the more mystic combat between the
forces of Good and Evil. Among the earliest characters innpersonated at these festivities and still associated with carnival are the demon (in a variety
of shapes and dresses), the clown or buffoon, and
the transvestite.
When the Roman Catholic church adopted carnival as a pre-Lenten festival, it gave religious sanction to a pagan rite too profoundly rooted in the
sustenance of life to be effectively suppressed.
5
Church warrant, however, did not change the
festival in any of its significant forms, but had the
effect of spreading the observance of carnival to
those countries, including several in the New
World, where the Roman church held sway as the
dominant religion. In this way carnival came to
Trinidad.
But the Trinidad carnival is not sinnply a retention of a European-inspired festival. It may resemble in many characteristic ways the carnivals of
other countries, but its ancestry is different: in
Trinidad the carnival underwent a complete metamorphosis, a rebirth, resulting from peculiar historical and social pressures of the early nineteenth
century. The effect of this metamorphosis was to
make the Trinidad carnival essentially a local
product in form, content, and inner significance.
Rain can't wet me
When I have my poui in my hand.
Rain can't wet me,
I advancing on the foe like a roaring lion!
Traditional Calinda
4 ~ CIlH6oulIlY: ..A
~itulll f.;egiHHiHB
The artillery masquerade band of 1834 mimicking
"the best Militia Band that has ever been embodied
in the 'West" represents a secular starting point for
the post-emancipation carnival. Implicit in this
exhibition are theatrical elements of comic satire
and farce. But the carnival also had a ritual beginning that profoundly affected its subsequent development and that was responsible for serious
elements in the street masquerade. For a clue to
this ritual origin we turn once again to Fraser's
memorandum of 1881, where he alludes to the
practice known as "canboulay":
In the days of slavery whenever fire broke out upon
an Estate, the slaves on the surrounding properties
were immediately mustered and marched to the spot,
horns and shells were blown to collect them and the
gangs were followed by the drivers cracking their
whips and urging with cries and blows to their work.
Mter Emancipation the negroes began to represent
this scene as a kind of commemoration of the change
in their condition, and the procession of the "cannes
brulees" used to take place on the night of the 1st of
August, the date of their emancipation .. . After a
time the day was changed and for many years past
the Carnival days have been inaugurated by the
I'cannes brUlees."l
According to this statement, each year on August
1, the anniversary of emancipation day, ex-slaves
reenacted scenes associated with slavery in commemoration of their freedom. The anonymous
French planter writing in the Port-oJ-Spain Gazette in 1881 corroborates Fraser's account about
the fIre drill on sugar estates during the slave period. But he added that, before emancipation, the
1 L. M. Fraser, "History of Carnival," Colonial Office
Onginal Correspondence, Trinidad, (C.O.295), vol. 289,
Trinidad No. 6460.
24
planters themselves used to represent a similar
scene at carnival time when they disguised as
estate Negroes (negue ;adin) and carried torches
in procession through the streets of the town. This
correspondent did not mention, however, that
"drivers cracking whips and urging with cries and
blows" were part of the masquerade. Is it that the
freed slaves were imitating the white planters who
had, in their turn, previously been imitating the
bonded slaves? And what precisely went on at the
annual rituals held by emancipated slaves?
The nineteenth-century newspapers are silent on
this matter. Not one report is given of an emancipation-day ceremony such as Fraser described, nor
is it possible to say defrnitely when this ceremony
was shifted from August 1 to the beginning of the
annual pre-Lenten carnival. As stated earlier, carnival was held on three days, from Sunday to
Tuesday. When the street masquerades grew unduIy boisterous following the freeing of the slaves,
religious susceptibilities were outraged at the desecration of the Christian Sabbath, and by 1841 the
festival was restricted to two days instead of three.
But, as pointed out in the French planter's letter,
masqueraders assumed that Sunday ended at midnight; thus, the ex-slaves began to usher in the
carnival with midnight processions, in which they
carried torches, with drummings, singing, and
dancing. The torches were symbolic both of their
past bondage and of their newly won freedom,
which they proclaimed by vigorous participation
in a festival that, according to Fraser, they had
previously been excluded from.
The frrst notice of a masquerade band enacting
scenes from slavery is that recounted by Charles
Day of the 1848 carnival. He described a gang of
almost naked primitives bedaubed with black varnish, puIling at a chain attached by padlock to one
of their number who was occasionally knocked
down and "treated with a mock bastinadoing."
Each masker carried a "good stout quarterstaff,"
THE TRINIDAD CARNIVAL
which was no doubt wielded in the munnnery. Day
did not say whether this scene took place at night
during a torchlight procession. He did remark that
carnival began at midnight on Sunday. He was a
meticulous reporter and, since this band is at the
top of his list, we can assume it was the first masquerade he encountered on the streets after midnight.
The black varnish applied to already dark skins
might suggest a direct imitation of the make-up of
white planters masquerading as the negue ;adin.
On the other hand, a similar masquerade, called the
"molasses negro," was seen by Lafcaruo Hearn in
Martinique in 1888. This character wore "nothing
but a cloth about his loins; his whole body and face
being smeared with an atrocious mixture of soot
and molasses. He is supposed to represent the
original Mrican ancestor."2 Blacking the face is, of
course, an ancient practice related to underworld
(devil) figures in West African and Indo-European
cuItures. The Greeks used it as a funerary rite to
make them unrecognizable to the dead man's spirit
until the corpse was safely interred. In the theatre
the black leather mask worn by the Italian clown
Arlecchino was probably a retention from Roman
comedy, where African characters (e.g., the cook)
were supposedly played with blackened face or
mask. In the West Indian carnival, blacking the
face and body with soot and molasses couId have
had different connotations. Molasses, a product of
the sugar cane, whose cultivation might well have
been hateful to the plantation slaves, couId be yet
another of the freedom symbols used in the masquerade. In Trinidad, the "jab-molassi" (French
diable), or molasses devil, is still a prevalent and
much despised character in the masquerade. But
to return to Day's report: the chains and bastinadoing were clearly related to slavery, and they
(
2 Lalcadio Hearn, Two Years in th£ French West Indies,
p.210.
L
CANBOULAY
1
coincide with Fraser's description of the treatment
of estate gangs en route to a cane fIre.
The quarterstaff is the fIrst mention in carnival
of the dreaded hardwood sticks (the poui, gasparee,
balata, anare, called after trees of these names),
which later became the favorite weapon of the
canboulay bands. Negro slaves were apparently
allowed to carry sticks as a protection against
snakes and for use in cane-cutting operations.
These sticks became a habitual item of Negro dress,
especially on holidays, and were used as weapons
in violent quarrels. An 1810 Cabildo order prohibited all Negroes, bonded or free, from carrying
sticks, on pain of one month's imprisonment for
the free person and twenty-fIve lashes for the
slave.8
At the same time, the calinda,' a stick dance,
probably of African origin, was a popular form of
entertainment for male slaves throughout the plantation islands. It was witnessed in Bequia, a small
island dependency of St. Vincent, by E. L. Joseph
who described it in 1838 as an agile, dexterous
dance performed to Negro drums, while the dancers engaged in mock combat with their "beausticks," which were about thirty inches in length.
Sometimes, Joseph said, blows would land on a
participant's head, whereupon the mock contest
would degenerate into a real fIght under the heat
of the dance and after large quantities of rum had
been consumed.' Lafcadio Hearn also saw a "holiday caleinda" danced in Martinique in 1888, when
it was accompanied by song-chants as well as
drums,' and, in the eighteenth century, slaves in
San Domingo were heard singing calinda airs to
entertain themselves in the evening."
The calinda is one of the dances referred to in
the French planter's version of the origin of the
canboulay. Certain members of the ruling class,
both before and after emancipation, indulged in
this dance and sought to become profIcient in the
stick play, or bataille bois as it was called, priding
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themselves on their mastery of what was, by all
accounts, a highly skilful and dangerous exercise.
As late as 1897 Chalamelle expressed horror at the
spectacle of an ex-mayor and chief magistrate of
the town of Arima disguising himself as a negue
;adin at carnival and, armed with a stick, "having
a free fIght in the middle of the street with a character said to be lower than him."·
Whether or not the combative element in carnival began as a ritual observance of slavery, it is
true that throughout the second half of the nineteenth century canboulay and stick fIghting dominated the masquerade. In 1856 a writer in the Portof-Spain Gazette of February 6 complained of the
"devils [who] fIlled the streets of Port-of-Spain
from half-past ten o'clock on Sunday night to 3
A.M. on Monday." In 1858 another correspondent,
writing in the February 27 edition of this paper,
was appalled at "the orgies of Sunday night,"
which included "the hooting of a parcel of semisavages ... exhibiting hellish scenes and the most
demoniacal representations of the days of slavery
as they were forty years ago." In that year an attempt by the governor to ban the wearing of masks
led to open conflict between the police and the
masqueraders, who defended themselves with their
hardwood sticks.
From this year until 1884, when the canboulay
was abolished by an order fIxing the commencement of carnival at six o'clock on Monday morn3 Historical Society of Trinidad and Tobago, Publication
No. 653, Cabildo Order of September 12, 1810.
4 Alternate fonns: "calends," "calender," "caleinda," and
"kalinda." For a summary of the earliest references 10 this
song and dance among West Indian slaves see Janheinz Jahn,
Muntu: An Outline of the New African Culture, pp. 79-83.
5 E. L. Joseph, Walter Arundell: The Adventures 0/ a
Creole, I, 84.
e Hearn, Two Years in the French West Indies, pp. 143146.
7 Pierre de Vaissiere, Saint Dominigue: La societe et la
vie creole sous rancien regime, 1629-1789, p. 170.
8 E. F. Chalamelle, Reflections on the Carnival of Trini·
dad, p. 25 .
26
ing, the negue jadin bands proliferated. They were
particularly active in Port-of-Spain, where they
formed belligerent groups whose main object was
to forge a reputation for stick-fighting prowess or
to defend one already established_ 'When these
bands were not united against the repressive forces
of law and order, they spent the carnival proving
their supremacy over each other with the stick. The
carnivals of 1881 and 1884 were marked by memorable clashes between the police and the batonniers, leading not only to the banning of the canboulay procession but also to the prohibition of any
assembly of more than ten persons armed with
sticks. The heyday of the bands was over, though
notable encounters between attenuated bands, as
well as between individual stick-fighting champions, continued up to 1908. Eventually, however,
regulations were enforced causing the decline of
the stick-playing art, which is seldom practised
today except at carnival time when it is stripped of
much of its glamour and spectacular appeal. It is
to the credit of the present administration that it
has given encouragement to efforts to revive this
historic and skilful art.
Of particular interest are the legends and lore
that grew up around the stick-playing game. These
form part of a largely oral tradition that, properly
recorded and preserved, would be a source of vivid
material for drama. The legends have inspired at
least one Trinidad musical drama, which was successfully produced in the United States and later in
Trinidad for export to the 1965 Commonwealth
Arts Festival in Great Britain· For the Trinidad
production of the playa special overture was added
consisting of a canboulay procession of stick fighters chanting their warrior song and supported by
women bearing lighted torches.
9 The play is entitled Man Better Man, by Errol Hill. It
was twice produced at the Yale School of Drama in 1960 and
1962, later produced in Trinidad in August 1965, and sent to
Britain in September 1965. It is published in John Gassner
(ed.), The Yale School 01 Drama Presents.
THE TRINIDAD CARNIVAL
A sampling of beliefs and practices associated
with stick playing demonstrates the theatrical nature of this material. Although at its peak the calinda was ruled by the jamets of the town (French
diametre, the "other half," or underworld character), due regard was paid to unwritten laws that
ensured fair play. A man was not struck below the
belt line, or when he was down, Or if his stick was
broken in combat. Curing of sticks was developed
to a high degree of perfection to obtain pliability,
strength, and a balanced weight. Superstition was
rife, particularly about the ability of obeah menthe local witchdoctors-to cbarm or ''mount'' sticks,
thus making the batonnier invincible. The charm,
however, could be broken by laying the stick flat on
the earth. There were special ways of preparin!l1(the skin drums that accompanied the dancing stick- .
men, so that the tones and rhythms could talk to
a combatant and warn him of some errOr in his
strategy or instruct him on how to take advantage
of an enemy's weakness.
Amazing feats of great batonniers are stored in
the memories of old devotees of the sport, and a few
anecdotes have been recorded for posterity. The
players carried colorful names. Mungo the Dentist
earned his nickname by fulfilling a boast to extract
a tooth from his opponent's mouth during battle.
They took their art seriously, these stickmen, and
practiced with the single-mindedness of renowned
athletes and artists. One practice method, which
sounds suicidal, is described by an old stickman
whose memoires were published in the Trinidad
Guardian of March 2, 1919: "In practising, one of
the best methods for quickening the eye, steadying
the nerves and improving one's judgment was
'Breaking' [i.e., parrying a blow with your stick].
It consisted in having one or two fellows stand 15
or 20 yards off and hurl stones at you in rapid succession, and it was your business--and, of course to
your interest-to 'break' these stones successfully.
A very proficient 'breaker' would often have three
(
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CANBOULAY
men hurling stones at him, and it was seldom, indeed, that he got hit." Champion batonniers
reigned as kings in their districts. They were handsomely cared for by admiring women known as
matadors, and their violent encounters with rival
kings on the two days of carnival are never-to-beforgotten episodes in the history of Trinidad.
The stick fight was both a dance and a combat.
The fighter was first a performer conscious that his
play was watched by a critical audience. He had to
demonstrate complete mastery of the art by executing intricate dance steps up to the moment of an
attacking or a defensive maneuver. The calinda
dance with sticks has entered the national dance
repertoire of Trinidad. Calinda chants, some of
which memorialize great heroes of the sport, were
sung by the stickmen themselves with a supporting chorus, thus earning them the title by one writer of "battling troubadours." These song forms
were later adopted by the calypso singer and are
responsible for the warlike tradition in calypso
repertory. Old calinda melodies are still being used
for "roadmarch" calypsoes, composed primarily to
be played and sung by the dancing, promenading
masquerade bands on carnival days.
The stick-fighting argot-the challenges and rebuttals-is a picturesque, metaphoric language, the
stuff of which dramatic dialogue is made. Apart
from calinda chants, only fragmentary expressions
of this colorful speech survive today. "I come to
measure your grave," spoken as a solemn greeting
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while the challenger shows the length of his pouistick to a prospective adversary, is a sample of this
language. Another is the exultant boast: "Rain
can't wet me when I have my poui in my hand";
or again, as the stickman waves his weapon in the
center of the backyard arena where daily practices
were held: "Who is my friend don't come in the
ring!"-a clear warning that friendship was no
shield once another batonnier dared to enter the
ring and square off before the challenger. "Every
zandolie [lizard] fmd your hole!" the stickman
would shout as he danced through the streets
searching for a worthy opponent. In the height of
battle when, outnumbered, his supporters driven
back, he alone confronted the bloodthirsty enemy,
he would hurl defiance in this chant:
Me alone, me alone
Me alone like a man
I will face hell-battalion,
Only me alone I
Some idea of the indestructible courage of these
folk heroes can be sensed in the following verses
by the calypsonian Lord Executor (Philip Garcia)
on his blindness. Executor began singing in 1899
and went blind in 1950, when he was still making
occasional appearances on the calypso stage. He
had ruled the calypso world for decades and, like
any king slickman, was reluctant to accept eventual defeat. The juxtaposition of past triumphs and
present infirmity has a tragic ring in the following
selected verses:
I follow the star of the unconquered will,
VVhich makes me inexorable and unbeaten still,
As a burning diadem upon my breast,
Invulnerable and calm and self-possessed.
But today I cannot see at all
Much more to fight and charge my cannon-ball,
So come and hear the story of my fatal misfortune
In this colony.
How often I have told pretenders in war
That I am a terror, four by four,
'Vith heavy-weight cannon, powder, and gun,
To make every contender tremble and ru~
But now all that happen to pass,
Lord Executor is running out last,
So come and hear the story of my fatal misfortune
In this colony.
The technical beauty of my elaborate praise
Will be mentioned by generations for many days,
I, Executor, Calypso King,
Now at this very moment I was called to sing.
What I've done for all mankind
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THE TRINIDAD CARNIVAL
Must be remembered as I'm getting blind.
So come and hear the story o£ my fatal misfortune
In this colony.1O
As stick fighting became a highly regarded art
whose devotees were drawn from different social
levels, the masquerade dress of the batonnier grew
more extravagant and expensive. Originally, the
costume of the negue iadin was crudely simple in
keeping with the poverty of the old garden slave
represented by the maskers. An ordinary pair of
working trousers turned inside out, a bright shirt,
and a belt from which were suspended ribbons and
colored handkerchiefs completed the outfit, along
with a scarf to hold in place a pad or iron pot worn
on the head as protection against blows from the
poui-stick. These humble garments were soon discarded by the kings who led their warriors to battle.
The new, fancy costume consisted of tight-fitting
satin or velvet breeches called "kandal," which extended to just above the knee, and an embroidered
shirt or short-sleeved jacket with a "fol," or heartshaped panel of cloth of contrasting color, se,,'II
loosely or fastened with hooks and eyes over the
chest. The fol was decorated with swansdown,
rhinestones, and mirrors, and in exhibition matches
each stickman aimed to "lick off" his opponent's
fol as a mark of victory. The costume was completed by "alpargatos" (rope sandals) and a cap,
hat, or paper crown decorated with spangles and
swansdown worn over the head pad. The costume
was trimmed with little metal bells that tinkled as
the stick fighter moved. In the calinda dance, the
performer jingled these bells in rhythmic harmony
with the drums and the shack-shack (a gutted calabash filled with seeds or pebbles), which, together
with choral singing, formed the musical accompa10 From a tape recording in the calypso archive of Dr.
Daniel J. Crowley, University of California at Davis.
11 It has been suggested that the Trinidad PielTOt is a misnomer for "Pays Rai." The masquerade is certainly more
princely than clownish. See Andrew Carr, "Pierrot Grenade,"
Caribbean Quarterly 4:281-314.
niment for the dance. When regulations were
passed restricting the use of skin drums for these
and other native dances, the "tambour-bamboo"
orchestras made their appearance and provided
for many years a rhythmic accompaniment for the
calinda dance and the stick fight.
With the decline of stick-fighting bands following the suppression of canboulay, individual batonniers, now dressed as the Pierrot, came to the fore
as one of the principal maskers. The Pierrot is a
traditional European carnival character whose disguise was popular with the propertied classes in the
pre-emancipation era. In 1848, Day remarked that
Punchinello was the predominant character for
men in that year's carnival. Thirty to forty years
later, however, though the masquerade retained its
European name and some semblance of its original
costume, it had undergone a marked change. From
the prankish, witty but harmless, European clown,
the Pierrot in Trinidad became a loquacious, combative, and fearless masker whose rhetorical skill
was merely a prelude to a violent duel with whips
or sticks.l1
The Trinidad Pierrot is thus a descendant of the
battonier and, accordingly, can trace his lineage
back to ex-slave rituals. In fact, the old stick fighter whose reminiscences appeared in the Trinidad
Guardian in 1919 remembered the days when the
king stickman, dressed as a Pierrot, led his warriors
to the fray. As an individual masker, the Pierrot
was accompanied only by one or two uncostumed
attendants who hore his long train and carried
his weapon-whip or stick. That this masquerade
was played by persons of a higher social rank than
the older, outlawed batonnier is evidenced, fIrst, by
the costliness of his costume, second, by his knowledge of history and literature, and third, by the
attitude of the press toward this particular disguise.
In 1888 the usually critical Port-ol-Spain Gazette
thought the Pierrots were "gorgeous as peacocks
and ridiculous in their strut as the solemn and silly
1
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29
CANBOULAY
.(
turkey-cock." When some years later police restrictions were placed on the masquerade because of
fighting, the same paper felt the ruling to be unfair,
since the Pierrots wore "a rich and ornamental
dress [and] are among the least objectional of the
masquers. "
It is necessary to distinguish between the princely Pierrot, to which we refer here, and his satirical
alter ego, the Pierrot Grenade ("Grenada Clown"),
who appeared later and will be discussed in another
chapter. The dress of the Pierrot had some features
resembling the costnme of his ancestor, the batonruer. It is described as
a gown of satin which feU to the knees. The gown was
completely covered with three inch alternating triangular pieces of satin sometimes in white or white
and gold, and frequently in colours of red and mauve,
or pink and mauve, each neatly worked around the
edges and so placed as to overlap each other. The
numerous triangles hung downwards in row~ and a
small round beU caUed a "glenglen" hung from each
'.
r
I
r
point. He wore a row of similar bells on the cuffs of
his spacious sleeves. Around the base of the gown
were more bells, a little larger in size and of deeper
tones called "wooloes," and bells adorned the shoes.,
so that each slow stately step was made to the accompaniment of the rich, resonant, and varied jingling of bells. A red or green velvet breastpiece, usually heart-shaped, bordered with swansdown and
decorated with sequins, spangles and tiny mirrors,
adorned the front of his costume. He wore a loose
beret of velvet, which amply concealed an iron pot
turned down on the head for protection ... He ",rore
a long narrow train of 12 to 18 feet made from long
strips of satin of different colours, bordered and embroidered with gold braid, which was supported by a
page, usually an uncostumed attendant. His shoes
were light, sometimes of canvas with rubber soles, or
alpargatos (woven twine top with leather soles) and
decorated with swansdown and bells. His stockinged
feet were often cross-gartered with coloured ribbons. 12
Theatrically, this handsomely costumed figure
represents a further step toward the establishment
of carnival drama. Whereas the batonnier was con-
tent with his war chants and short verbal challenges, the Pierrot recited grandiose speeches dwelling on his own prowess, his invincibility, his
impressive lineal descent, and the dire things in
store for all his enemies. His speeches were based
on historical writings of the careers of great kings
and military campaigners, or they were adaptations from the classics of English literature, including orations from Shakespeare's plays. Since all
Pierrots were expected to be familiar with these
writings, failure to respond satisfactorily to a
spoken challenge meant that one was an imposter
and had to be repulsed. Thus, a duel in words
invariably led to a duel with whips or sticks.
Like the stick-fighting cbampion, the Pierrot also
assumed overlordship of the district from which he
hailed and resented intrusion by another Pierrot
into his domain. When an intrusion occurred, the
invader would be stopped in his tracks and questioned by the defending ruler in such language as
this opening speech recalled by an old veteran: "I
am the King of Dahomey, but I also rule over
many countries that I have conquered. Do you now
visit my dominions to offer your subjugation, or do
you come as an enemy to dispute my rule?""
From both maskers would then come the boastful speeches of dangers encountered, victories won,
and rivals defeated. Further questions testing the
combatants' knowledge of history and literature
would be asked and answered. The gathering
crowd of bystanders would follow these tests with
keen expectation, waiting for the key challenge
that would surely come if the speeches led to disagreement, or if the insults hurled at each other
were too sharply worded to be ignored. Finally,
one Pierrot would demand: "Do you wish to do
battle with me?" and, in the absence of a conciliatory reply, the fight would commence.
The long multicolored train worn by each Pier12 Ibid.,
13
p. 281.
Ibid., p. 282.
f
30
rot was quickly wound around one ann to form a
thick pad that served as a shield. Besides this protection, the Pierrot wore, hidden under his dazzling
satin dress, padding of sheep- or goatskin from
shoulder to knee to protect him from the cut of the
whip or stick. The fray might end in a free-far-all
as partisans among the spectators joined in with
sticks, bottles, and stones, or it might conclude with
the retreat of one of the Pierrots, or by agreement
between them, whereupon they would move on to
another street and a further encounter with a new
challenger.
Like the batonnier, this warring prince of maskers was deemed too bellicose by the authorities,
and, in 1892, a government order required that all
would-be Pierrot masqueraders should first obtain
a license from the police. The order violated the
cardinal protection of anonymity in a masquerade
still subject to social sanction, and thereafter the
numbers who were prepared to play the Pierrot
under police permission steadily declined. In 1895
sixty Pierrots were licenced in Port-<>f-Spain. This
number was halved by 1900. Some two decades
later the authorities had achieved their aim in the
total disappearance of one of the most colorful
characters of the Trinidad carnival. The Pierrot
was no more.
I have postulated a ritual origin for the postemancipation carnival. Ritual gave rise to serious
and combative elements. I have mentioned that the
canboulay procession derived from ex-slaves celebrating their day of freedom and that this observance first took place on August 1 but was transferred to midnight of Dimanche Gras, the Sunday
innnediately preceding carnival. When this transfer took place is unknown; it was probably as early
as 1848 (the carnival witnessed by Charles Day)
and certainly before 1858, when the canboulay
was firmly established. It is recorded that, during
the latter part of the nineteenth century, emancipation day was celebrated in Port-of-Spain by a
THE TRINIDAD CARNIVAL
race meeting called the Carters' Races. This nomenclature arose because cartennen plying on the
wharf and around the stores organized the occasion. They entered their nags under the names of
popular race horses, appointed their own officials,
and "had a high old time."U We can surmise that
the Carters' Races replaced the older freedom day
ceremony of August 1, when the latter became part
of carnival."
I have shown that the canboulay in its early
fonn consisted of a torchlight procession of revelers
dressed in menial costume, of drnnnning and singing, possibly also some mock beating of characters
in chains, representing the wanton beating of
slaves. Contemporary records, however, give no infonnation of the ritual from which the canboulay
supposedly came, and, in the absence of further
evidence on the subject, the allegation of an August
1 ceremony by ex-slaves remains doubtful.
Fortunately it is possible to confirm that this
ritual was held annually, though once again the
account stops short of full details on its observance.
The source is the journal of a Dominican priest
named Father Bertrand Cothonay, who spent some
time in Trinidad in 1883. Father Bertrand records
an experience he had in the parish of Carenage, a
fishing village some eight miles west of Port-ofSpain, where he was visiting with the local curate.
Relevant excerpts from the journal are given in
Father Bertrand's own words:
Je VOllS ai dit que nos noirs de Trinidad, et ceux du
Carenage en particulier, sont d'anciens esclaves au fils
d'esclaves. Lors de l'emancipation, qui tomba Ie 1er
aout [1838J, iIs reS01UTen! de ceiebrer chaque annee,
ce jour-la., une fete solennelle, pour perpetuelle memoire. Cette fete commen~ait le matin par une grand'messe, avec force musique, pain benit, procession,
etc., et se prolongeait trois jours durant au milieu de
14 L. O. Imriss, Reminiscences of Ola Trinidad, p. 14.
Uj J. N. Brierley, Trinidad: Then and Now, p. 320.
CANBOULAY
festins, de danses et d'orgies sans nom., souvenirs de
1a vie africaine. 16
The journal goes on to explain that the parish
priest resolved to put an end to this "fete du diable"
and was so successful that, at the time of writing,
the ceremonies had not been held for six years.
Then a quarrel occurred between the priest and his
parishioners who decided to revert to their old
custom.
1
'I
lIs el€~verent done nne case en bambous, couverte en
feuilles de carates, et la decorerent du nom pompeux
de palais. Un negre fut nomme Toi ... Le 1er aout amva ... Le soir, Ie bon cure entendit battre de nouveau
rhomble tambour africain. Plus de doute; c'etait la
fete des negres. Pendant trois jours et trois nuits, Ie
Carenage fut souille par des bacchanales comrne jamais il n'en avait vu, sans doute pour -compenser celIes
16 "I told you that the Trinidad blacks, particularly those
in Carenage, are ex-slaves or sons of slaves. Following emancipation, which took place on August 1, 1838, they resolved
annually to celebrate this day by a solemn festival for perpetual memory. The festival began at daybreak with a high
mass, loud music, consecrated bread, a procession, etc. and it
continued for three days during which, in the course of festivities, there were indescribable dances and orgies, remembrances of African life" CR. P. M. Bertrand Cothonay, D.P.,
Trinidad: Journal d'un missionairc dominicain des antilles
anglaises, p. 62).
17 "Then they erected a bamboo hut covered with carat
leaves and pompously called it a palace. A Negro was elected
king ... The first of August arrived . . . That evening the
good curate once again heard the sound of the horrible African drum. There could be no doubt, the Negro festival had
begun. For three days and nights Carenage was defiled with
bacchanals such as it had never witnessed, doubtless to compensate for the years of suppression . . _ In these kinds of
festivals, the king, usually elected by acclamation, is the
person who collects the funds, issues the invitations, offers
the holy bread, etc. and opens the dance" (ibid., p. 63).
31
qu'on avait supprimees les annees precedentes .
Dans ces sortes de fetes, Ie roi, ordinairement elu par
acclamation, est celui qui reunit les fonds necessaires,
fait les invitations, presente Ie pain benit, etc. et ouvre
la danse.17
The account, besides confirming the emancipation-day celebration by Negroes, gives a few more
details about it. The "solemn fete" was held for
three days and nights; it began on the morning of
August 1 with a special religious service, there was
much music ("the horrible African drum"), feasting, a procession (at night with torches perhaps?),
dancing, and "orgies without name, reminiscent
of Mrican life." A bamboo hut was erected as the
base for operations, and a king chosen for the occasion and given certain duties to perform.
Let us leave the question of origins. Our curiosity, satisfied about the existence of a freedom-day
ceremony that produced the canboulay, must now
be directed to the bamboo hut, or "palace," which
was headquarters for the ceremony. This crude
shelter, known in Trinidad vernacular as a tent,
existed in the backyards of Port-of-Spain and other
urban areas during the second half of the nineteenth century. A few tents are still in use at the
present time. They served a variety of purposes.
They were meeting places for bands preparing for
the masquerade, as well as practice areas for dancers, musicians, stick fighters, singers, and actors.
They became the home of calypso concerts and of
Dame Lorraine performances. The bamboo tent
referred to by Father Bertrand as "a palace of the
devil" was, in fact, the backyard theatre of the
carnival.
If the steel band get me delirious,
I going to roar like a lion in the circus,
With my spear in my hand, playing Wild Indian,
And I {lying like Superman.
Mighty Zebra
9 ~ ~lte 'masquetaiJe: ~lteatte
Nothing less than an explosion of theatrical talent
fills the main streets of Trinidad and Tobago on the
two days of caTIlival. Months of painstalcing labor
on costumes, properties, and scenic floats, nightly
practices in tents, careful rehearsals of dances and
speeches, dozens of new calypsoes on the lips of
young and old, all contribute to a crescendo of activity that culminates in the masquerade. As the
"glorious morning" approaches, the true masker
becomes a changed person. For weeks he has been
getting into his part. No seasoned actor ever
worked harder on a role. He has visualized his
character a hundred times over. He has watched
its outward form take shape slowly under skilful
hands. All that remains for his complete metamorphosis is to enter his costume and step into the
street. For two days he will be the living embodiment of his most fancied imagination.
0/ tlte
Stteets
The night of Dimanche Gras is not for sleep.
Frenzied activity goes on in countless houses and
backyards, last touches are put on thousands
of costumes and other paraphernalia. A new Calypso King has been crowned, but the people's
choice of the Roadmarch King is still to be made.
Private coronation ceremonies take place in masquerade tents, and new sovereigns prepare to lead
their bands into battle. To take to the streets disguised on carnival day is to join battle with a host
of rival masqueraders whose every word and action
is a challenge that must be met. Contest, competition, the desire to excel all others in perfection of
representation is the keynote of the Trinidad caTIlival. Here, two maskers, meeting in the middle of
the road, stand facing each other, displaying their
costumes with peacock spread, rocking on their
heels, arms outstretched, pivoting to the music,
85
THE MASQUERADE
each confident he has outshone the other in fidelity
and magnificence. "The Field of the Cloth of
Gold" is repeated in every encounter between
bands. There are physical combats too. Walking
the dimly lit streets of the city, that Dimanche
Gras night of 1911l, a famous stick fighter, veteran
of many battles, "held his stick up in the air,
looked up at it, and with a gesture of appeal to
heaven shouted out the following little verse in one
of the familiar tunes:
'0 Gad, 0 Gad,
Gad have mercy pan dem deme-matin.'
"1
The air is charged with expectancy on that night
before carnival. Yet there is no hectic scamper to be
frrst on the road, as the dawn breaks to usher in the
masquerade. The maskers observe an order of appearance befitting the characters they portray.
There are five acts to the Carnival Monday performance; and the Tuesday parade elaborates the
highlights of Monday's spectacle. First is the jouvay turnout from daybreak to 9:00 A.M. Characters
from folklore, satiric "old masks" including Dame
Lorraine types, and nondisguised revelers from allnight festivities flood the streets dancing and singing calypso choruses. Next come the traditional
maskers and mummers who rule the road until
midday. After them, the military bands, sailors,
and small "original" bands appear. By 2:00 P.M. in
the high afternoon, when the sun is sharpest, the
big historical and fantastical bands take to the road
in dazzling array.·This spectacle is the climax to
the day's presentation. The last act begins at dusk,
when once again the streets are packed with revelers in and out of costome, celebrating the triumph
of the day's magnificence.
Carnival took a decided upward swing at the end
of last century. Twenty-six organized bands, with
an average membership of between twenty and
1 Joseph Belgrave, "Reflections on Carnival," The Beacon,
May, 1932, pp. 16-17.
twenty-five, were listed in Port-of-Spain alone in
the 1900 revitalized masquerade. This list was exclusive of traditional masks, such as Devils, Pierrots, Clowns, and others. The decade following the
First World War witnessed a steady increase in
the number and variety of bands. Formal competition centers were established in Port-of-Spain, and
for the frrst time a class of "Historical Bands" was
added to the categories of maskers presenting themselves before judges. In the next decade "Oriental
Bands" were added, and by 1935 a total of fourteen
different categories of masquerade bands appeared
at seven competition oenters in the city.
At the carnival held in t 946, after W arid War
II, the number of registered bands rose to 11l5, and
it was then estimated that close to one-third of the
city's population took an active part in the masquerade. In 1965 bands registered in Port-of-Spain
numbered 171, to which should be added diverse
numbers of individual maskers. It is roughly estimated that nowadays over 100,000 people are in
costome during the two-day festival.
At the time of this writing there has been a
noticeable decline in the number of masquerade
bands with a corresponding increase in the size of
individual bands. The reason for this shift of allegiance is said to be the high cost of hiring a firstclass steel band for the parade. The price for music,
it is said, can go as high as five thousand dollars. As
a consequence, smaller bands are forced to combine
into larger units, the diversity of bands and hence
the variety of masquerade is diminished, and
eventually, if this trend is not arrested, we can expect to see a masquerade of twenty or thirty enormous bands that alone can afford the astronomical
fees charged by the steel orchestras. Gentlemen of
the steel bands: let it not be said that you who have
done so much to advance the carnival are now unwittingly going to preside over its slow demise!
It is not possible to describe adequately all facets
of the masquerade or to mention more than a
86
representative selection of bands or individuals that
illustrate the theatrical potential of this national
fete. Carnival has in its time encompassed almost
every aspect of life and thought of the Trinidad
people, and, thus, in content alone, it is a reservoir
of material uniquely valuable for a national theatre. The point can be illustrated by reference to
two other aspects of native culture, namely, folklore and superstition.
The first part of the masquerade is called jouvay.
The origin of this term according to my informant,
ex-Councillor E. Mortimer Mitchell, is the folk
tale about a soucouyant, or bloodsucker (French
sucer), who sheds her skin at midnight before flying through the air to attack a victim, knowing
that she must resume her natural form before daybreak. In the story, however, the soucouyant is
unable to recover her skin because someone has
sprinkled salt upon it, and as day approaches she
is left crying: "jouvay, jou paka ouvay?" (daybreak or no daybreak?)" It is perhaps not a coincidence in view of the background of Trinidad
French Creoles that Lafcadio Hearn found a similar masquerade in the carnival of Martinique in
1888. These characters were called diablesses (a
character also found in Trinidad folklore), and,
according to Hearn, "the tallest among the devilesses always walks first, chanting the question, 'lou
ouve?' (Is it yet daybreak?). And all the others
reply in chorus, 'lou pdnco ouve.' ,,.
The Trinidad jouvay must have begun soon after
canboulay stopped in 1884. Strange creatures of
folklore, the soucouyant, diablesse, phantom, loup
garou, Papa Bois, and others appeared in the streets
making weird noises while it was still dark, since
as nocturnal beings they could not face the full
light of day. An "Old Timer" writing in 1961 of
the carnival of forty years ago and more says that,
since the territory teemed with many superstitions,
"it was not strange that these fictitious and legend-
THE TRINIDAD CARNIVAL
ary characters were parodied and burlesqued by
demonstrators, to the amusement of onlookers in
the bye-gone days. Hence it was in this context
the term 'Jour Ouvert' became identified with
carnival as it was used then specifically to describe
the bands in which revellers depicted those legendary characters."4
As belief in these mythological figures dwindled,
their representation at the masquerade decreased.
The jouvay parade was taken over by "old-mask"
characters, such as those already discussed in the
Dame Lorraine tent. The purpose of the old mask is
satire and buffoonery. It is a popular, cheap, and
witty form of masquerade, much indulged in by
upper-class Creoles in their social clubs during the
carnival season. The specie has developed from a
few individual characters to whole bands organized
around selected themes or institutions, with local
or global connotation.
One of the earliest old-mask characters recorded
was in 1900 during the Boer War, when a masker
depicted General Cranje "seated on an old decrepit
mule, dressed in long loose hanging old robes of
striped white and blue, his head bent low in dejection and bearing in his right hand the White mag
of surrender with the motto 'Defeat of Cronje' in
black."o Among more recent old-mask bands the
most memorable include "Cheaty [i.e., City]
Council," "Man Must Live," presenting various
types of honest but distasteful jobs, such as hangman and garbage collector, and "The Seven Stages
of Man," in which grown men played mewling
and pulcing infants, mischievous schoolboys, and
inconsolable lovers with very masculine-looking
2 E. Mortimer Mitchell, Diego Martin, Trinida~ personal
communication, February 3, 1962.
3 Lafcadio Hearn, Two Years in the French West Indies,
p.210.
4 "Some Facts About the Jour Ouvert by Old Timer," in
Humming Bird Carnival Number 1961 (edited by Aubrey
Jame,), p. 15.
6Port-o/~pain
Gazette, February 27,1900.
THE MASQUERADE
I
~
mistresses, and an ancient hearse contained a very
lively corpse.'
Nothing is too sacrosanct for old·mask ridicule.
Even the carnival itself is not safe from its barbs.
Recently the burlesque of a prize-winning historical band was excellently done when "The Glory of
Greece" became "The Glory that was Grease," and
all the majestic Greek gods and heroes who had ap·
peared in splendor at the previous carnival were
revived in old·mask attire begrimed with black
motor oil. The success of these bands is due not
only to their witty conception but also to the ex·
cellence of mimed performances by actors in the
most incongruous apparel imaginable.
Carnival mockery extends to the crowning of an
old·mask king and queen as part of the jouvay
competition. Leading contestants for these honors
in 1963 were "The First Lady of Independent
Trinidad and Tobago," "Princess Royal at the State
Ball," "Lady Woodford" (wife of an ex·governor),
and "Princess Alice at the Opening of the Engi·
neering Faculty of the University." The Dame Lorraine performances are no more; but the parody of
high society, which has always been a traditional
feature of the masquerade, continues under an·
other guise.
The second act of the masquerade presents some
of the most interesting characters of the whole
carnival. These characters are generally referred to
as traditional masks because they reappear in essentially the same type of costumes, though the
dresses are made afresh each year, elaborated up·
on, and have a different design of basic colors.
Among these masks are the Wild Indians, already
discussed, the Clowns and Bats, Devils, Midnight
Robbers, Pierrot Grenade, and others. It is not un·
usual to find an individual playing one of these
6 Daniel J. Crowley, "The Traditional Masques of Carni·
val," Caribbean Quarterly 4:223.
87
characters for upward of twenty years, until he be·
comes known as the Clown-man, the Bat-man, or
the Beast-man [i.e., a character in the Devil Band].
In one instance a traditional mask was played by
the same family over three generations, so that the
accumulated traditions of mask making, dancing,
singing, speech, and band organization associated
with this particular masquerade were handed
down intact from father to son to grandson.
Admittedly, the traditional masks are declining.
This decline is due to the attraction of big historical and fantasy bands, and the desire to enlarge
costumes beyond utility, in the belief that the more
elaborate the costume, the better chance of winning
a prize. A further reason is the growing professionalism in carnival, whereby one or a few band
organizers take full responsibility for providing
costumes and floats, while the general members
simply select which role they wish to play and pay
the cost over to the organizer. The days of personal
involvement with choosing, making, and rehearsing a masquerade character are fast disappearing.
The craft guild is giving way to the mass-production factory.
I have selected three traditional masks to indicate their theatrical character. They are (a) Devils,
for the use of dance-mime; (b) Midnight Robbers,
for monologue speeches; and (c) Pierrot Grenade, for duologue exhibitions. Monographs on
each of these characters appear in the carnival
issue of Caribbean Quarterly (March-June 1956).
Masquerades involving more than two speaking
characters appeared in earlier times when mock
trials were enacted on the carnival streets, but
these are no longer seen. Brief notice should be
taken of these trials.
The first recorded masquerade trial was in 1866,
when a recent case before the Supreme Court was
burlesqued, and, according to the Port-of-Spain
Gazette of February 17, "extravagant imitations
.0
88
given of one or two of the legal and lay personnages who were engaged on that trial." Between
that date and 1906, seven more masquerade trials
are mentioned. In one instance, noted in the Mirror
of February 27, 1900, a bogus lawyer ably defended a prisoner, the former having "written out a
most elaborately prepared defence of a supposed
criminal." In this case, the improvised dialogue is
supplanted by a written script. At another time,
also reported in the Mirror (February 16, 1904),
"one man represented a jury of twelve and when
the good men and true retired to consider their
verdict, the discussion in the jury room was most
remarkable." This discussion must have been a
virtuoso performance by an actor playing several
characters simultaneously.
After 1906 there is no further mention of masquerade trials, until 1932, when a Divorce and
Bigamy Case was represented with a Chief Justice,
Lawyers, and Prisoner. This singular revival, reported in the Trinidad Guardian of February 9,
was inspired by the recent passage of divorce laws
in a largely Roman Catholic community. The masquerade trial may, in turn, have influenced the
first calypso drama performed in the tent. This
drama took place the following year and dealt with
divorce.
The parody of the legal profession in these masquerades was paralleled by any number of mock
professionals and tradesmen who used to appear
with traditional maskers on Carnival Monday
morning. Doctors, nurses, tailors, bailiffs, surveyors, policemen, street-sweepers, even thieves (giving rise to a "Police and Thief' mime) extorted
money from passersby for work that they ostensibly performed on behalf of their victims. These
professionals are worth noting as a group, no longer extant, that developed an expertise in dumbmime performances of amazing speed and clarity.
To return to traditional masks: old religious
doctrine held that music and dance were both in-
THE TRINIDAD CARNrvAL
ventions of the devil. Hence no carnival could be
considered complete without the representation of
His Satanic Majesty in one or another of his many
forms. In Trinidad there were at least three varieties of diabolic mask, or "jab" (French diable).
The specie tha t interests us is the devil, or dragon,
band, which is organized into a remarkable hierarchy of demons.
The earliest mention of devils in the carnival occurs in the Port-ot-Spam Gazette of February 15,
1888, when they wore "close fitting all-in-ones
with long tails all in red." This appearance hardly
represents their first, however, for as early as 1848
Charles Day had noted the portrayal of Death, "a
skeleton painted on a coal-black shape." There exists a close association between death and the devil
as, for instance, in the medieval pageant of the
danse macabre. In fact, in the Trinidad carnival
the figure of Death, or, as he is familiarly called,
the Ghost, features prominently in the devil band.
By 1898 the Port-of-Spain Gazette of February
22 could report that "to dress as the devil seemed to
be most people's ambition," and some elaboration
of costume was noted in the Mirror of Fehruary 14,
1899, to the effect that headmasks and horns were
becoming more fearful, tails were thicker, and
forks longer. However, not until 1908 was the first
devil band organized. The leader, Patrick Jones,
was inspired by illustrations in a copy of Dante's
Inferno. The colors he chose for the costume were
khaki and slate, and his band included the characters of Lucifer, a Dragon, and the previously noted
red devils now renamed Imps.
The Khaki-and-Slate Devil Band was an immediate success. It won two prizes at the 1909 carnival
and within three or four years Jones formed two
more devil bands, Red Dragon and Demonites. By
this time, the presentation of devil bands on the
road merited special praise in carnival reports. The
character of Beelzebub in a cage was introduced
in 1923. In 1930 the King Beast, "looking almost
89
THE MASQUERADE
terrifying as he performed a fantastic step-dance,"
wore an "outstanding costume ... made of papiermach" scales, painted in metallic green, with
touches of amethyst, gold and crimson; the headpiece representing a dragon, being in keeping with
his excellent general make-up.'" In the decades of
the 1920's and 1930's, devil bands were at their
best. Since then they have steadily diminished.
From a maximum membership of nearly ninety to
a band, present-day bands can hardly muster a
dozen players.
There are three groups of characters in the devil
band: Imps, Beasts, and Rulers, the last group
sometimes referred to as Gownmen, since their costume comprises a loose robe, in contrast to other
characters whose basic dress is tight fitting. In addition, there is the Ghost figure, representative of
Death. The costume of the Beast has been indicated. His source is probably the Revelation of St.
John, where several species are described, in particular the seven-headed beast. His headmask often
has moveable ears, eyes, and tongue, and until an
unfortunate accident some years ago, when a masquerader was burnt about the face, the Beast used
to emit flames and smoke from his open mouth.
Around his waist are three or four lengths of chain
held taut by Imps who control his progress. Other
Imps surround him, goading him with their axes,
and as he strikes out at them in a lunging movement their companions restrain his attacks by
pulling on the chains. This pantomime provides
the characteristic shape of the Beast's dance. The
character is a popular one, and bands may have
several beasts, carrying such names as King Beast,
Monster Beast, Stray Beast, and Baby Beast.
The Imps wear skin-fits with wings, tails, and
half·masks with horns. In their hands they carry
an assortment of properties including axes, scrolls,
horns, bells, dice, and face cards used in the dance.
They are servants and messengers of hell and are
ranked according to their functions. Their move-
ment is sprightly, sliding on the balls of the feet
from side to side, swaying at the hips, with sudden
darts, leaps, and high kicks.
The principal characters, or Rulers, of the band
wear richly embroidered gowns made of velvet and
satin with accordion-pleated skirts, and a flowing
cape on which is painted a scene from demonic
legend or literature. The over-sized head mask carries a gloating expression, has small horns, and is
surrounded by a beaded ruff that fans out from the
shoulders. Chief among the gownmen are the
Prince, Crown Prince, Beelzebub, Satan, and King
Lucifer who wears a crown on his mask. He carries
a fork. His scepter is borne by the Patroness, who
is the only female member of the band.
The assemblage of this remarkable band is performed according to strict protocol. The King Imp
conducts the lesser members and musicians to the
Stray Beast who then takes charge of the band,
which is handed over to the Crown Prince, then to
the King Beast, then to Beelzebub, Satan, and so to
Lucifer. According to my chief informant, Charles
Bennett, who has been playing this masquerade for
over fifty years: "Devil Band is not like the ordinary bands, such like historical bands. To every
character that the band goes to take up there is a
certain piece of music to play to bring that fellow
out and if that piece is not played that man is not
moving."s
When finally the full band arrives at the house
of the individual playing Lucifer, this masker
checks the band in the "Book of Laws" carried by
Beelzebub, makes sure all members have paid their
dues, directs that the band be roped to keep out
nonmaskers from mixing with masqueraders, and
then goes to put on his mask: "When the moment
comes for me to take up that mask, and I take the
mask and put it on, I become a different being enTrinidad Guardian, March 5~ 1930.
Charles Bennett, Lavantille, Trinidad, personal communication, August 27, 1965.
7
8
T·.,'
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90
tirely. I never feel as if I'm human at all. All I see
in front of me is devils! Real! Until a long while
after before I get myself to knowledge again."
The orchestra plays a fast pasillo. The characters
take up their positions; two Beasts stand on either
side of the entrance to Lucifer's house, the Ghost
faces the door, and with an armor-bearer and Beelzebub in attendance Lucifer moves out to take
command of his infernal army. Mr. Bennett declared that once he took thirty-five minutes to
dance five feet from the threshold of his house to
the pavement where the band was awaiting him,
"rocking my body to and fro, shoulders moving for
the wings, fancy footwork, dancing the headmask.
My wings, top to bottom, were six feet long." On
the competition stage, the devil band enacts a
struggle between Lucifer and the Beast, which ends
in victory for Lucifer, who stabs the Monster with
his fork and tramples him under foot. In all essentials this is the story of St. George and the
Dragon reverted to its pagan origin. Another equally elaborate ballet takes place on the streets when
the devil band has to cross over a drain or gutter
of water. As creatures of hell these devils born of
fire are mortally afraid of water.- For them the
drain symbolizes not simply water but holy water.
The Imps at the front of the band leap sideways,
backward, and forward before the drain, expressing
great fear. Finally they leap over backward, the
only position, according to Mr. Bennett, in which
they can cross over.
Then comes the beast straining on its chains. As the
beast approaches the drain the King Imp or "Tempter" goes towards him and rings a bell, shows him a
"face" card or blows a horn, symbolically to stop him
THE TRINIDAD CARNIVAL
Demons, it is said, inherited their dancing ability
from aerial spirits who were too ethereal to walk
prosaically on earth, and Dante described his devil
"with wings/Bouyant outstretch'd and feet of
nimblest tread." The devil band in Trinidad is a
contemporary manifestation of deeply entrenched
spiritual belief.
One of the most beloved characters of the masquerade is the Midnight Robber. An extravagant
braggart of imagined fearsome experiences, he is
popular for the same reasons that the Miles Glorioso of Plautine comedy and n Capitano of the commedia dell'arte were favorite figures of stage bombast and ridicule. The Midnight Robber, however,
can claim no lineage from his Roman and Italian
counterparts. His was a more humble background.
In 1906 a novel carnival pageant was held at the
Queen's Park Oval in Port-of-Spain. The proceedings began with a wild gallop by a dozen cowboys,
careering frantically round the cycle track to the
accompaniment of revolver shots. With the passing
of years, the cowboys became known as Wild West
Ranchers, American Hunters, American Bandits,
and finally Midnight Robbers. The last named,
wearing jet black costumes, armed with revolvers,
daggers, and other weapons of violence, was the
type that survived.
From the simple cowboy outfit of tasseled trousers, a brightly patterned cotton shirt, and a widebrinuned straw hat, the Midnight Robber evolved
a variety of fancy costumes of which the most
representative style today is the Elizabethan doublet and breeches enriched with beading and braid,
an enormously exaggerated and elaborated hat
with fringed brim and a crown molded into some
or make him fall into the drain. All the while the
imps prance and show their H pas" and the play goes
on with much taunting and many antics. The beast
is goaded and provoked but finally allowed to cross
the drain which he does with much fuss and a tre-
mendous leap feigning fear lest any part of his body
should go into the drain. lo
9 Among the defeats of the devil are holy water and bells
"which f'llied the air with their pealing voices, calling the
faithful to the rites of worship" (Arturo GraIl The Story of
the Devil, p. 199).
10
Bruce Procope, "The Dragon Band or Devil Band,"
Caribbean Quarterly 4,275-280.
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91
THE MASQUERADE
creature or edifice, and shoes usually in the form
of an animal with moving eyes. The whole is set
off with a flowing cape on which symbols of death
and destruction are embroidered or painted. In his
hands he carries a revolver and a wooden moneybox in the shape of a coflin. A cartridge belt and
more guns adorn his waist. A whistle, upon which
he blows constantly, completes his outfit.
If this costume seems absurd, it is no more droll
than the stream of language that issues from the
lips of this fearsome desperado. When did the Cowboy-turned-Robber acquire speech? It is not known
exactly. One theory is that when the combative
and loquacious Pierrot masquerade eventually disappeared around 1920, the individuals who used to
appear as. Pierrots adopted the mask of Midnight
Robbers.
The Pierrots engaged in verbal battles before exchanging blows, but the Midnight Robbers do not
fight and seldom converse with each other. Their
speeches are monologues rattled off at prospective
victims who are harangued until they pay a ransom to secure their release. The language of the
Robber is so full of empty threats and braggadocio
that it has added to Trinidad vernacular the colloquial expression "robber talk." The following two
excerpts from robber speeches can still be heard in
the carnival today:
,.
I fen in combat with Beelzebub the devil. He was
beaten to death, robbed of his brass helmet and his
iron boots from off his feet. Mter I found this earth
was too poor a place for me to dwell, I took my exit
and went and robbed the devil's position in hell. I
robbed all the golden treasures I met there. I brought
hell to a ruin that cause Lucifer's wife to take things
to heart and die in despair, then I came back to this
civilise world with one million pounds in solid virgin
gold. So don't be surprise of the beautiful costume
that I wear, for I am quest by the unknown, I am the
symbolic of manage. I struggled to master the earth.
I braved the sea, I pierce the jungle. I scale the Mountain. I conquered the desert, and the last thing on
\
±
earth I am going to do is to rob the last breath of life
that was place in you. ll
For the day my mother gave birth to me, the sun
refuse to shine and the wind ceased blowing. Many
mothers that day gave birth, but to deformed children. Plagues and pestilence pestered the cities, for
atomic eruption raged in the mountains. Philosophers,
scientists, professors said "the world is come to an
end" but no, it was me, a monarch, was born. Master
of all I survey and my right where none could dis-
pute."
These verbal extravagances, uttered with the rapidity of rifle shots, impress the listener as much
with sound as with sense. The Bible, school readers, and other literary texts provide source materials for the speeches, which are, of course, freely
adapted by the masker from the original. This recital is combined with appropriate movements and
gestures, for the Midnight Robber, like so many
other masquerade characters, has developed characteristic dance movements and expressive gestures
performed to the rhythm of his speech and the
tooting of his whistle. One cannot resist feeling that
the famous commedia dell'arte actor, II Capitano
Spavente da Valle Inferna, would have found a
comfortable role as Midnight Robber in the Trinidad masquerade.
If I may continue the comparison with the Italian improvised comedy, the next traditional mask
on our list, the Pierrot Grenade, is an echo of II
Dottore. According to Andrew Carr, Trinidad folklorist who has investigated this masquerade character, the Pierrot Grenade is a scholar who boasts
deep learning and delights in displaying his erudition.'" Scholarship is exhibited in his ability to
spell polysyllabic words in a style that exercises
11 Albert Roberts, "The Auto biography of Charles Peace
(The Lion Hearted)," unpublished manuscript.
12 Daniel J. Crowley, "The Midnight Robbers," Caribbean
Quarterly 4,263-274.
13 Andrew T. Carr, "Pierrot Grenade," Caribbean QuCU'terlr 4,281-314.
-
92
his imagffiation and ingenuity but is wholly unconventional. The Pierrot Grenade is moreover a
straight satire on his richer and more respectable
brother, the Pierrot, as well as on people from the
neighboring small island of Grenada (and by extension on all "small islanders") who migrate to
Trinidad in search of work.
In marked contrast to his princely attired kin,
the Pierrot Grenade dresses in rags and tatters.
Tied to his costume are odd pieces of discarded tins
and small boxes that make a rattling sound. An old
felt or straw hat on his head is also disguised with
rags or shrubbery. He wears a grotesque face mask,
anonymity being an important shield for someone
who delights in making pointed references to local
conditions and personages. These maskers go about
either in pairs or in a group of three or four. When
a sizable crowd forms around them, they open
their discourse in English and French patois, using
the Creole as a screen for their most telling barbs
and vulgarities.
The spelling technique adopted by the Pierrot
Grenade is to break a given word into its syllabic
components, to make of each syllable a new word,
and to build a story around all the new syllablewords. By developing his story upon one syllable
at a time, he reaches a point where he can bring
them all together to spell the origffial word. For
example, he is asked to spell "constabulary." He
invents a story about himself, a poor immigrant
from Grenada who is housed and looked after by a
Trinidad woman called Constance. In the course
of the tale they become lovers, and her name is
endearingly shortened to "Con." Eventually they
quarrel because he was led astray by some rumdrinking Trinidad companions and spent his earnings on a spree. "We are not accustomed to do that
in Grenada ... the way of Trinidad, nuh." There
is a fight between the two lovers during which Con
stabs him. "Con stab you?" asks his interlocutor.
"Yes," he responds, "Con stab you." The wound is
THE TRINIDAD CARNIVAL
serious. A lorry [truck] is summoned to take him
to the hospital. "Multiply, subtract and add: Con
is con; stab is stab; you is you; lorry is lorry. Not
Constabulary, nub?" He has spelt the word correctly after his own fashion.
The actual spelling exercise is little more than
an excuse for a dialogue sparkling with wit and
innuendo on a variety of topics. The dialogue is
completely improvised and therefore seldom repetitive. The speakers accompany their discourse with
much prancing and twirling around, advancing,
and retrea ting to emphasize their expressions of
doubt, impatience, and disgust, while they shake
long hibiscus or tamarind rods in their hands after
the manner of irate schoolmasters. Mr. Carr calls
the Pierrot Grenade "the supreme jester in the
Trinidad carnival," which is a well-deserved tribute.
It is apparent that the traditional masquerades
are dwindling and may soon disappear from the
Trinidad carnival unless positive action is taken
to regenerate them. This challenge belongs to
the government-appointed Carnival Development
Committee. The committee, under the inspired
chairmanship of Senator Ronald Williams, has
done a magnificent job in helping to organize the
festival without at the same time crushing its spontaneity by too much control. Yet, almost inevitably, the carnival has become too centralized in the
city. Big bands are glorified at the expense of the
small, and traditional masks fade into insignificance. Because the traditional masks are more demanding on the player, since he has to learn set
speeches or dances, young maskers opt to join the
big bands in which they have less responsibility
and can share in the glory of being a Band-of-theYear winner. To encourage the revival of traditional masquerades, it is necessary to diversify the
competition centers in Port-of-Spain and elsewhere, in order to give the smaller bands a chance
to win top prizes at district competitions. Also,
THE MASQUERADE
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more attention could be paid in the press and public media to these masquerades. Finally, a special
precarnival show can be devoted to them at which
Bats, Clowns, Devils, Pierrot Grenades, Robbers,
and the like are invited to perform their traditional speeches, mimes, and ballets for the instruction
and delight of the younger generation who are ignorant of them.
Traditional masquerades comprise the second
act of the Carnival Monday parade. In the third
act the tempo quickens as big bands take to the
road. Among these, the largest and perhaps the
oldest of organized bands are military and sailor
companies. Recall that during slavery carnival season was ushered in with martial law and military
parades. One of the first carnival bands in the year
of emancipation gave a burlesque performance of
the artillery militia at exercises. From this time on,
military and naval bands were in the front rank of
the carnival display, performing mock engagements with increasing skill and variety.
In 1859 there was a band called "The Veterans
of Sebastopol." That year the Sentinel of March 15
records that in a skirmish with police "a large
canoe on wheels was taken away from a certain
band and a canopy viciously destroyed." In 1878
the newspaper Fair Play and Trinidad News of
March 5 reported that the most amusing feature
of the masquerade was a band that mimicked the
taking of Constantinople: "They were costumed to
represent Russian and Turkish soldiers and carried
long wooden muskets, with bayonets. The Fort of
Constantinople was represented by a large box,
roof-shaped on four wheels, and was defended by
two wooden cannons ... What with the drollery
of the drilling and the farce of the ultimate capture of the Fort, spectators were kept in roars of
laughter by the conceits of this amusing band." A
Venezuelan army band, composed of artillery and
infantry, is first mentioned in the press in 1882,
but was in existence several years earlier. The
93
band was large for those days, about 150 strong,
and gave annual performances of its "military evolutions" at Government House. According to the
Daily News of February 27, 1895, the band fought
battles "with wooden swords and bamboo rifles and
the General delivered patriotic speeches in the
Spanish tongue to the victorious army." This band
was still in the masquerade in 1905, having had a
life of some thirty years.
As for naval bands, a number of wharf workers
got together a masquerade band in 1886 called
"Naval Heroes." They built a large model of a
fully rigged ship, which was mounted on wheels.
"They were all very smartly dressed in full naval
uniform," notes the Port-aI-Spain Gazette of February 15, "all being apparently officers. They carried wooden swords and besides exhibiting their
vessel, which was very nicely eqnipped, they performed a species of short drill, going round their
miniature craft."
The heyday of military masquerades was the
turn of the century, when the Boer War was in
progress. Trinidadians felt very loyal toward Britain at this time. Feelings of unity were reinforced
by the island's celebration of a centenary of British
rule in 1897. Artillery, Cavalry, Brigade, Scottish
Highlanders, Admirals, Volunteers, and Lancers
are among the bands, organized as "Social Unions," which participated in the carnivals of 1899,
1900, 1901, and 1902. Keen rivalry developed
among these bands in costuming and singing, since
this was the period when the shantwell led his
band in song on the carnival streets.
Canopied kings and queens were paraded
through the streets on floats drawn by white
horses. Occasionally a coronation ceremony was
performed at a public square or crossroads. Each
band carried a large distinctive banner, handsomely painted and embroidered, announcing its name
and date of formation, with scenes or emblems denoting the band's valor. The Brigade Union banner
T
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94
THE TRINIDAD CARNIVAL
was ten feet by twelve feet, and its painting depicted a fIre brigade in action on a burning building
and the rescue of a young girl trapped by flames.
The Artillery Band banner showed a gun carriage
drawn by six white horses across a veldt. Around
this painting was an elaborate design of crossed
swords, guns, and shells, and in the four corners
of the banner were fIeld guns ready for action.
These paintings were so well executed that a competition was held in 1902 when the banners were
exhibited as works of art.
The earnestness of the contest between bands is
preserved in their roadmarch calypsoes:
Tell the Artillery to meet me by the grocery,
Tell the Artillery to meet me by the grocery,
Some of us may be wounded,
Some of us may be slain,
The balance remain will fight for victory.
[To which the Artillery chorus responded heatedly: 1
Charge one on them, Artillery.
Charge one on them, Artillery.
Artillery charge another volley
To make men surrender.
The hand then discharged a volley from their miniature cannon, a practice that was stopped when a
member of the band was seriously hurt. One band
from the poorer section of the city decided to make
co=on cause with the enemies of Britain. They
masqueraded as Boers, constructed in their district
a model of Majuba Hill completely fortifIed with
entrenchments and weapons, and dared any of the
"British soldiers" to capture it. None tock the bait.
A turning point in the military and sailor bands
occurred in 1907 when Trinidad was host to an unprecedented visit by the United States Atlantic
Fleet. The subsequent carnival produced a large
number of "Yankee Sailors" outfItted, in the words
of a contemporary report, even to the hats exactly
like those of the fleet. A model of the battleship
Alabama formed part of the parade. This event
started the vogue for representing American sailors and marines in the Trinidad masquerade.
The most popular of all masks is the sailor.
Nowadays a sailor band can number up to two
thousand players. The costume is inexpensive and
lightweight, allows full freedom of movement, and
can be used after carnival. If this masquerade
sounds uninteresting, local variations of the sailor
band are anything but dull. There are "Bad Behavior" sailors with characteristic rolling gait as
they stagger and pirouette on the streets in a mimic dance of drunkenness, sometimes turning somersaults or performing balancing acts. There are
Stokers, dressed in merinos and blue denims, wearing thick gloves and heavy goggles with moving
discs for eyes, and pushing before them long iron
rods while they shuffle forward, bent low at the
knees, shoulders held back, in what is called the
HFireman's Dance." There are also richly costumed King Sailors, with their own particular
dance, who excel in pantomime of all kinds.
From the elongated nose in the face mask of the
King Sailor developed a further specie known as
Fancy Sailors. This group appears in fantastic
papier-mache headpieces, decorated and painted to
provide excellent likenesses of birds, animals, or
plants. Sometimes the papier-mache headgear illustrates a theme taken from literature. The sailor
dress is decorated with medallions, ribbons, rosettes, braiding, and other embellishments to match
the colorful headpieces. The burden of toting these
sizable molded forms has considerably restrained
the usual lively movements associated with sailors.
Accordingly, amusing mummeries by sailor bands
are seldom seen on the crowded streets of the present-day carnival, but it is satisfying to know that
the dances they created now belong in the national
dance repertoire.
While sailor bands have grown fanciful, the
masquerades of army, marine, and air corps per-
95
THE MASQUERADE
sonnel have tended to become more realistic. Frequently, a section of these bands appears in battle
dress, camouflaged with bits of shrubbery, carrying rifles, machine guns, and other weapons of
modern warfare. Others drive real jeeps and lifesized tanks discharging rockets and smoke. Arriving on the carnival competition stage, the marines
reenact a commando raid. They crawl on hands
and knees, shoot from a prostrate position, get
wounded, and are helped off by fighting companions, all in the best tradition of Aroerican war
movies. For the ten minutes that it takes the band
to cross the stage, a desperate battle is in progress
from which everyone of hundreds of maskers
emerges a war hero.
The climactic Act Four of this brilliant pageant
is the appearance of sumptuously arrayed historical and original bands. The former recall outstanding events or epochs from modern and ancient history, real, legendary, or literary. Original bands,
on the other hand, concentrate on exhibiting the
most imaginative masquerades based on historical
or topical themes. An example of this kind of band
is "Fan Fair," a prizewinning presentation in
1 965, which displayed various kinds and uses of
fans through the ages.
The attraction of the historical band is twofold.
First, the masker is able for two days to become a
famous character of fact or fiction: a Croesus displaying untold wealth, a Saladin defying the crusading might of Europe, or a Cromwell presiding
over the execution of a dissolute king. The second
attraction is in the show of "scholarship"-an aspect of the masquerade especially relevant to our
study. The development of a sense of history and
authenticity in preparing costumes and appurtenances for historical bands represents one of the
remarkable achievements of the carnival. It finds
a parallel in the history of costume and scenery
for the legitimate stage.
I
During the nineteenth century, masquerades
occasionally depicted some historical personage or
incident; for example, the 1878 band mimed the
taking of Constantinople. Although we have no details of the costumes worn, we can assume they
were generalized pictures of the period without
any serious notion of authenticity. The patriotic
quasi-military bands of the fin de sike/e, which had
characters taken from history, made no attempt to
dress authentically. Band leaders selected two basic colors, white being a popular choice for one
color, and designed their costumes around these
colors to produce a somewhat military-cum-carnivalesque effect. In the case of one band, the White
Rose Imperial Defenders, whose characters included Edward the Confessor, the Prince of Orange, and Julius Caesar, the costume worn at the
1902 carnival consisted of military jackets extravagantly braided with silver cord, the lappets being
trimmed with silver leaves "imitating the uniforms
of Horse Guards"; white satin hose; long satin
cloaks bordered with fur and studded with sequins;
and hats copied from the Australian Volunteers,
one side being turned up and the whole surmounted by a profusion of pale green and white drooping
feathers, "strangely out of accord with the rest of
the costume though very picturesque. "U
At a Queen's Park Oval pageant organized for
the 1906 carnival, several small parties of well-todD maskers, wearing costumes of Greek, Roman,
Louis XIV, and Victorian times, promenaded in
decorated floats and carriages. It was not until
1927, however, that a special class of "Historical
Bands" was added to the competitions, which implies that this category of masquerade was becoming popuIar_ The consequence of this formal recognition is best shown in the work of two band
leaders, Martin Hill and Harold Saldenba.
Mr. Hill, a commercial and studio artist by pro14 POTt-o/-Spain Gazette, February 12, 1902.
96
fession, produced the following historical bands between 1928 and 1938:
Roman Emperors
The Three Musketeers
De Soto and His Warriors
Philistine Warriors
The Mummies of Tutankhamen's Tomb
Ali Baba and the Magicians ,/'
Abyssinians
The Gladiators
Sir Francis Drake and the Buccaneers
,.
I
I
After the hiatus caused by the 1939-1945 war, Mr.
Hill further presented:
Nelson and the Battle of Trafalgar
The Hanoverians
Richard the Lion Heart and Saladin
At this time band membership was about forty
to fifty, occasionally reaching to eighty members.
Two or three leading characters were dressed differently from the main body of members, who
wore identical costumes. After the war, however,
and particularly in the 1950's, lead characters
were increased in each band as masqueraders began to present whole epochs rather than particular
events of history. "The Hanoverians," produced by
lVIr. Hill in 1948, was one of the earliest bands to
cover the reign of a dynasty. As an artist, Mr. Hill
decorated all the dresses himself, using paint instead of needlework for costume embellishments,
since the former was a cheaper and faster method.
In general, his costuming followed the main outline and cut of the dress for the period represented,
but neither in color, in texture, nor in other detail
was any attempt made to reproduce historically accurate dress. Costumes had to be inexpensive; the
basic dress never cost more than fifteen dollars.
Consequently, fabrics used were mostly satins and
dyed cottons, which were colodul and lightweight
but did not always retain shape. Where armor was
THE TRINIDAD CARNIVAL
needed, stiffened fabric or cardboard was painted to
look like metal.
A similar general treatment was given to scenic
appurtenances carried by masquerade bands, but a
desire for authenticity is already evident in the
presentation on the competition stage of short
scenes from history. In 1934, for example, a tableau was arranged portraying the opening of Tutankhamen's tomb. A float made in the shape of a
pyramid swung open to reveal a golden mummy
on a black leopard; the mummy was unwrapped
to show a blackened corpse within. This role was
played by Mr. Hill himself because no other member would undertake the part! A spoken commentary explained the action. In 1946 Mr. Hill staged
the Battle of Trafalgar on the deck of a ship converted from a truck. With squibbs bursting and
sailors scampering back and forth, Nelson expired
in the arms of his lieutenant, Hardy, uttering the
famous words, "England expects that every man
will do his duty!" According to Mr. Hill, who
played the lead, his pedormance was so realistic
that spectators ran onto the float, fearing he had
been hurt in the mock battle.
In the period of the 1930's and 1940's masquerade bands representing events and characters from
Oriental and biblical history became fashionable.
Many colodul but inaccurate illustrations were
available in religious books, and bands copied these
pictures meticulously to produce stunning pageantries of color. One disgruntled masker of an earlier
age resented this innovation: "There are too many
Davids and Goliaths, too many Sauls, and the
most technical point of today's carnival is that the
players all have to carry a picture to show what
they represent; all they can say is 'I'm playing
historical.' V\'hat beautiful colours set off to confuse the eye with all pleats, frills, paintings and
whatnot. "15
15 Charles Jones, Calypso &: Carnival of Long Ago and To-day, p. 19.
I
THE MASQUERADE
By the time Harold Saldenha came on the scene,
in 1952, historical bands were growing larger,
more professional, and more authentic. Mr. Saldenha began by basing his fIrst bands on film extravaganzas like Quo Vadis and Samson and Delilah.
For costume designs he used still pictures put out as
advertising material by the motion picture companies, and he even wrote to Hollywood for additional information. In 1955 he presented one of his
most spectacular bands, "Imperial Rome, 44 B.C.
to 96 A.D.," in which all twelve Caesars, centurions,
standard-bearers, gladiators, and vestal virgins appeared. This band introduced real metal in masquerade costuming, thereby contributing to the
growth of metal craftsmanship and the production
of artistic pieces of metalwork in subsequent carnivals. Other historic bands produced by Mr. Saldenha are "Norse Gods and Vikings," "The Glory
of Greece," "The Holy War," "The Conquest of
Gaul," and "Mexico, 1519-1521." Assigning historical dates to the bands is an indication of the
scrupulous research now pursued in presenting
epochal masquerades.
Apart from encouraging the use of metal armor,
Mr. Saldenha has been responsible for introducing
short skirts in carnival and for presenting bands in
"sections." Before his time, it was considered indecorous for a masker to show his bare legs, hence
the popularity of Oriental and biblical scenes in
which characters wore long flowing robes. When
breeches or skirts were worn, the legs were covered
in hose or tights. Following his passion for accuracy Mr. Saldenha dispensed with leg covering in his
Roman masquerades, an innovation that was
greeted with less dismay than Macklin experienced
when he dressed Macbeth in a kilt and garters.
"Section mask" is a method of presentation that
replaced the acting of short historical scenes on
the competition stage. Masquerade bands have
grown so large (Saldenha's "Mexico" had eight
hundred members), the competition stage so im-
97
mense, and the time for presenting the band so
short, that bands now split up their large numbers
into sections. The maskers in each section are
dressed alike and depict one aspect or group of
characters in the whole portrayal. As the sections
appear, one after the other, chunks of color clash
and blend, combine, contrast, and reflect each other
in a rapid succession of climaxes that can only be
described as theatrically arresting in total impact.
Saldenha's "Mexico" had twenty-seven sections,
including conquistadors, Aztec warriors, bird men,
bear men, and others. In addition to the sections
there were, of course, extravagantly costumed individual characters, such as Moctezuma, Cortez, and
various Aztec gods and goddesses.
Along with Saldenha, the principal leaders of the
big bands that have made carnival the biggest spectacle on earth include Stephen Lee Heung, Cito
Velasquez, Edmond Hart, Irvin McvVilliams, Horace Lovelace, and the remarkable George Bailey.
In the past decade Mr. Bailey has won the coveted
Band-of-the-Year award more times than any other
masquerader, having four successive fIrst prizes to
his credit, which is an impressive achievement. No
praise can be too high for these band captains, who
year after year undertake the most artistic and
laborious task of the carnival. It may be spiritually
exhilarating when the work is completed and a resplendent band numbering several hundred hits the
road on carnival day, but the months of preparation for this feat are physically exacting. More
than one leader has been forced into retirement
because his health has been shattered in the process. I say more power and long life to them.!O
An example of the scrupulous care taken by
band organizers to obtain authenticity may be
cited from an incident at the 1965 competition for
King of the Bands. One contestant was the Bandit
16 The above was written when the news of George Bailey's premature death reached Ui. His name belongs in the
carnival Hall oJ Fame.
f,
r,
98
of Garu from the band "She and the Tibetans."
This name was partly based on the novel by Rider
Haggard. As he advanced onto the stage with mincing step, toes turned out in high-soled Oriental
clogs, wearing an extraordinarily imaginative and
striking costume, the Bandit carried in one hand a
curious lamplike object, which he swung from side
to side. The uninformed announcer referred to the
object as an Oriental lantern. This misstatement
distressed the masquerader, who later explained
that the so·called lantern was actually a Tibetan
prayer-wheel, which is swung around each time a
prayer is recited. His distress did not last long,
however, for it was soon announced that the Bandit of Garu was elected King of the Bands for that
year.
Despite the awareness of historical costuming,
masqueraders do not slavishly copy costumes and
properties from textbooks. They are presenting a
spectacle for the streets, not museum pieces for
the antiquarian. Massing and blending of color,
visual impact, and mobility are more important
considerations than the display of scholarship. The
masquerader begins by studying the period, characters, and fashion, and he tries to make his designs
recapture the outward appearance as well as the
spirit of the age or region, all of which are then
suitably heightened for an outdoor pageanL The
successful integration of carnival demands with
due respect for authenticity has been achieved in
the work of severnl masquernders, notably Carlisle
Chang.
To turn from historical to original costumes, I
wish especially to mention the work of one masquerader, Terry Evelyn. This young man has
established a reputation for outstandingly imaginative portrayals, which have won him the coveted
title of Individual of the Year on several occasions.
Among his memorable presentations are St. George
in a tableau "St. George and the Dragon," "Constantine the Great," and "God of Paradise" in a
THE TRINIDAD CARNIVAL
band set in New Guinea; but of all his original costumes, none has ever rivaled the one turned out in
1963 for George Bailey's band "Fancy Clowns and
Bats." Taking his cue from the tradition of the
Fancy Clown disguise in which the masquerader
builds his costume around a selected theme, Mr.
Evelyn called his creation "Beauty in Perpetuity"
(see Frontispiece). The symbolic thinking that
went into the preparation of this costume is best
expressed in Mr. Evelyn's own description.
In this design I tried to represent God and the planets, the creation of the earth and the immediate solar
system. God is beautiful and all that stems from him
is beautiful also. My head emerges from the fann of a
womb; that symbolizes the coming of man and we
can assume, from ancient mythology, that God also
came from the same fonn. Then He set in motion all
other things connected with the heavens which are
represented in my costume. The three yellow discs
on the outer perimeter show the progress of the sunmorning, noon, and night. They also form the triangle of the Rosicrucians which represents man on
the psychic plane ... The stars are shown at the end
of green sticks; the colour green also stands for the
aura of an individual. There are twenty-eight red
circles. These are planets nearest the sun. They also
stand for the duality in nature; they are the fourteen
stations of the cross doubled. On my head is painted
a heart in red. That represents love, the supreme
force, the gift of God to man ... 17
The eyes tire with gazing, the pulse weakens
with exhaustion. You long for the pageant to end,
yet fear you may have missed something important. Perhaps you will pick it up on the repeat performance tomorrow. Dusk comes. The fillal act of
the day's spectacle is about to begin. The maskers,
saving their costumes for the next day, hurry
home to change and return to join the merry
throngs singing, leaping, hugging each other on
the streets to the hypnotic beat of the steel drums.
It is a joyous thanksgiving. An exultant shout of
17 Terry Evelyn, Lavantille, Trinidad, personal communication, September 8, 1965.
99
THE MASQUERADE
victory. The fIrst day ends; and tomorrow night,
after another hectic day of illcredible spectacle,
music, dancing, singing, miming, will be the fInal
bacchanal:
Last lap we go make bassa-bassa!18
18 The word bassa-bassa is Yoruba, meaning "wanton destruction," It is one of the West African terms that has
survived intact in Trinidad argot.
1.9 Derek Walcott, "Batai" (Dimanche Gras Spectacle).
Unpublished manuscript in author's files.
That will be the chant on the streets as maskers
and spectators abandon their challenges, combats,
and contests to reach out ill common cry of supreme achievement. The masquerade is over. Next
year agaill.
And every year we dance and sing,
And every year we kill the king,
Because the old king must be slain
For the new king to rise again,19
In this nationalist struggle / am confident that the
man of culture has an important role, and that the
political leader can onlr succeed by enlisting culture
in the struggle and placing it in the vanguard of the
nationalist movement. 1
Dr. Eric Williams
11 ~ttOHllltiJ II 'i1l1tiOHIIl ttltellftf.J
There is discontent with the theatre in Trinidad.
Writing in a government-party journal published
to mark the political independence of Trinidad and
Tobago in 1962, a local theatre critic had the following to say: "Until there is a theatre based on a
drama rooted in Trinidad the theatre and drama
in Trinidad will remain essentially artificial, colonial things, interesting chiefly as symptoms of
the psychological sickness of a fragmented, confused people-a people who contain the possibility
of a unique cultural syuthesis and inventiveness,
but who prevent the fulfilment of this possibility
by not having the courage or the intelligence to become what they in fact are."2
Like the carnival, the art theatre was brought to
Trinidad from Europe in the late eighteenth century as entertainment for the plantocracy. But
whereas the carnival changed its character and acquired an identity becoming to a national institution, the theatre retained an alien form and tradition that continue to dictate the material presented
within its walls.
Bernard Shaw long ago declared that it is the
drama that makes the theatre, not the theatre that
makes drama. This lesson has yet to be learned by
Trinidad writers, choreographers, and composers.
Plays written by native authors are about Trinidadians or I'Vest Indians and are set in Trinidad
or the West Indies. But the form of these plays is
European inspired, and their manner of presenta1 Eric Williams, "The Political Leader Considered as a
Man of Cul~" Presence A/ricaine 24-25: 110.
2 Slade Hopkinson, "Theatre and Drama," in This Country of OUTS: Independence Brochure of The Nation, pp. 6773.
TOWARD A NATIONAL THEATRE
tion is European. The dance theatre has developed
a repertoire based on indigenous dances, but the
physical theatre has likewise imposed restrictions
on the art form. Moreover, the dance has remained
isolated from the drama despite the fact that indigenous dance is indivisible from drama. The
musical theatre is still wholly foreign despite the
appeal of calypso drama and the demonstrated
musical inventiveness of the Trinidad people.
Trained musicians and composers have in the past
mostly turned their backs on the rich heritage of
carnival and folk music that is theirs. Instead, they
have perpetuated a musical tradition alien to their
country, but a tradition in which they were formally educated.
No one would argue that the finest plays,
dances, and music from the international theatre
should not be produced in Trinidad and Tobago.
By the same token, none would claim that a national theatre can exist on a repertoire that is
foreign or even a repertcire originating locally
that is imitative of foreign models. Political independence of Trinidad and Tobago was achieved
in 1962, but full cultural independence is yet to
assert itself.
Independence does not mean a rejection of existing institutions simply because they are foreign.
It does mean an honest reassessment of values that
were established under an alien regime and a
courageous effort tc retain what is good from the
past while introduc-ing new ideas and institutions
of greater relevance to the present and future. The
Trinidad carnival has achieved a synthesis between old and new, between folk forms and art
fOnTIs, between native and alien traditions. It is
considered by many the essential cultural product
of Trinidad and Tobago. We have seen that much
of its material is suited to the theatre. Is it possible
to enunciate principles, based on the experience of
carnival, for the establishment of a national the~trp that will truly represent the cultural attitudes,
rt
115
expressions, and aspirations of the people of Trinidad and Tobago? What follows is no more than a
rough guide to those who may embark upon the
experiment of starting a national theatre.
First of all, it is obvious that a sense of rhythm
is pervasive in all forms of the carnival. This
quality of rhythm is most obvious in carnival
music, in calypso songs, and in the percussion instruments of the skin-drum set and the steel band,
but it serves also as a basis for movement and
speech. Masqueraders are seldom still; their bodies
are constantly seeking identity with the beat of
the music that is all around them on carnival days.
They dance and move either as part of the music,
as a complement to it, or in opposition to it. Under
the influence of this rhythmic beat, masqueraders
have created characteristic movement and gesture
that have become identified with the roles they
play. We need to remind ourselves of the origin
of this rhythmic sensibility and how much it permeates all bodily expression. Robert Thompson
refers to West Africa as a "percussive culture" and
in a penetrating essay says "it is West African
dancing that is percussive, regardless of whether
or not it is expressed with a striking of one part of
the body against another (the chest whacking with
the hands of Dahomean Kpe) or ,,-ith stamping
patterns and rattles. Percussive flavoring governs
the motion of those parts of the body that carry no
weight-the gestures-as well as the steps that do.
U nsurprisingl y, a good drummer in West Africa
is a good dancer, and vice versa, although the degree of specialty and professionalism varies with
each individual."3
Speech patterns are also part of the polyrhythmic symphony of sound and movement. The language of the masquerader, no less than of the
calypsonian, is metrical. Whether verse or prose~
this kind of utterance has great audience appeal. It
3 Robert Farris Thompson, "An Aesthetic of the Cool:
West African Dance," African Forum 2:89,
116
is recognized, and not only when speaking of a
Trinidad audience, that sound and rhythm in
speech are as important in communication as the
strict sense of the words. A national theatre will
take notice of this acute sense of rhythm, which
should be an integral part of productions emanating from it.
Next, the carnival illustrates vividly that
speech, song, dance, and music should be inseparahle components in the Trinidad and Tobago
theatre. To the masquerader, movement and singing come as naturally as the spoken word, more
naturally some would allege. In other forms of folk
performances, as we have seen, no hard and fast
distinction is made between speech, singing, dancing, and even music making. Since these types of
expression all form part of a complex rhythmic
whole, it should be possible to control and pattern
them with something of the order, precision, and
smoothness achieved by a good concert orchestra.
Transition from speech to song should be as unforced as moving from one speech to another.
Choral speech and especially choral singing can
have high theatrical value and should be judiciously employed. The use of dramatic movement and
gesture, either hy themselves as dumb mime or as
accompaniment to speech and song, would need to
be carefully investigated. The resulting stage piece
should not be simply a play with musical or dance
numbers inserted at given moments, hut rather a
unified production where movement, song, or music can replace language, while at the same time
enhancing the dramatic action. The closest parallel
known to the type of theatre presentation advocated here is the stage version of the American
musical West Side Story, and even nearer in spirit
and form is the Nigerian opera Oba Koso, which
was part of that country's contrihution to the Commonwealth Arts Festival in Great Britain in 1965.
It follows that, in a theatre of the kind projected,
Actors will need to be trained as dancers, singers,
THE TRINIDAD CARNIVAL
and possihly as musicians. The specialization of
these departments and the resultant fragmentation
of the performing art into play theatre, dance theatre, musical theatre, and so forth, is another imported tradition from the past that continues in the
present. To continue to work only in this tradition
will hamper the development of a national theatre.
Verhal imagery is a quality we should expect to
find in works written for the national theatre. The
calypsonians have shown how expressive Trinidad
English can be. French patois is still a source of
lively idiom and metaphor, while Venezuelan
Spanish continues to enrich the language with
colorful expressions. ''Vriters for the theatre must
learn to torn their eyes away from the play texts
of other lands and, like J. M. Synge, attune their
ears to the language of the people in their own
country. We have noted, further, a tradition for
rhetorical speech, for the heroic statement, for
lusty expression. The theatre thrives hest on vigorous language. The bold use of metaphor has become a lost art in modern Western theatre. It may
be that the Trinidad and Tobago national theatre
will help to rediscover it.
Verbal metaphor will be matched by visual
symbol. The mask, an ancient theatrical device,
which has also largely disappeared from the modern theatre, is still a powerful symbol in countries
with traditional religious and ritual practices. In
Trinidad, through the carnival, masks and masquerades have acquired an urban sophistication
that extends their meaning and utility in the theatre. We do not expect that every national theatre
production will become a masquerade play, but
the theatricality of mask and masquerade types
and the value of audience recognition of these types
are factors too potent to be disregarded by a national theatre.
In structuring our stories for the theatre we
need to reexamine the Aristotelian formula of exposition-climax-resolution. If this formula is ac-
I
TOWARD A NATIONAL THEATRE
cepted as a parallel of the seasonal cycle of birthlife-death, then the resolution is foreknown and
the drama becomes less of a problem-solving deviae than a reflection of existence and a celebration
of life. In this regard, the traditional dramas of
our people are once again a surer guide than the
standard Euro-American import. Roger Abrahams
analyses the folk drama of the English-speaking
West Indies and finds that "Progression of action
is a secondary consideration to the audience at folk
drama. Much more important is the presentation
of character and the development of inter-action
between the types.'" Note that he says "presentation of character" and not Hanalysis of character."
The somewhat dated but still prevalent Freudian
approach to character drama is also likely to prove
a blind alley for our national playwrights.
In costuming and stage scenery, there is evidence of widespread talent for designing and
building carnival costumes and properties. Along
with this talent is an awareness of historical truth
tempered by a keen sense of what is visually attractive and effective--valuable resources to be
fully exploited in a national theatre enterprise.
Questions of audience involvement and participation are crucial in planning the establishment
of a Trinidad and Tobago national theatre. In the
proscenium playhouse, performers and audience
are separated by a nonexistent fourth wall. When
this is broken by the use of an apron stage extending beyond the proscenium, the separation is still
evident in the convention of a darkened auditorium and a lighted acting area. The practice of
placing the orchestra between the audience and
the stage is another barrier to audience-actor contact. Even when an arena stage is employed, the
audience, though brought closer to the actors, remains a docile partner in the theatrical experience.
Audience participation is reduced to rendering
4 Roger Abrahams, "British ",'Vest Indies Folk Drama:
The 'Life Cycle' Problem," unpublished manuscript.
117
polite applause at appropriate points in the play,
as well-trained guests might express thanks to their
hosts for a pleasant evening's entertainment.
The tradition of the carnival tent or the street
theatre, however, is to involve the audience fully
in the performance. The calypsonian expects listeners to join in singing the chorus to his songs.
Until very recently tent audiences were not made
anonymous by a darkened auditorium but were
recognized as individuals at whom the songsters
directed their witticisms and about whom, at times,
they would sing. The street masquerader involves
the spectator in his act. He confronts him, obstructs him, commands his attention and response.
The intercourse hetween actor and spectator is
direct and individual. Such matters must be seriously considered when designing the national
playhouse. The arena or semiarena stage is preferable to the proscenium. Scenery, as in the masquerade, could conceivably take the form of floats
on wheels. The disposition of the orchestra would
have to be carefully thought out and experimented
with, since musicians are more involved in the
action than is usual in the conventional theatre.
Two other considerations that might influence
the shape of the physical theatre are suggested by
carnival practice: the procession as a choreographic form and the frequent use of ceremony evident in the coronations. Often, the choice of a
ruler is subject to a contest of some sort. The
processional dance with choral singing is of course
prominent in the masquerade, but it also occurs
with singular regularity outside the carnival pageant. A victory celebration of a football or cricket
team is likely to take the form of a street parade.
When the West Indies cricket team defeated the
English at Lords in 1950, the calypsonian Lord
Kitchener led a large band of West Indian supporters in a dancing and singing procession over
the hallowed grounds of the Lords' Cricket Club in
a memorable victory celebration. It is possible that
£U
118
a procession of actors passing through the audience
on to the stage to start a performance, or leaving
the stage at the end of a performance, may become
a standing convention of the national theatre. The
actors might sing or chant an appropriate song in
which the audience would be expected to join.
Regarding the ceremonial aspect of performances, it is also possible to envisage the election of
some worthy individual to preside over a production. The actors would recognize his presence, and,
since he represents the public, the audience, in
turn, is likely to feel more a part of the proceedings. Or perhaps the national theatre ought simply
to grow out of the carnival festival theatre, with
playwrights and performers competing before the
public for an annual crown. Thus, the very prevalent factor of the competition would give the
audience a stake in picking the winners. But if the
carnival theatre is to grow into a national art theatre, it will need to find another and more permanent home than the temporary pageant stage on the
race track of the Queen's Park Savannah. A new
auditorium and stage will have to be built, probably open air, but with much-improved facilities
for seeing, hearing, and audience participation
than have been possible in the past.
In making projections on the possible forms of
a national theatre, I have said much about externals and little about the principal purpose of
drama, which is the communication of imaginative experience. I have taken the view that what is
communicated is the business of the creator and
his alone. How it is communicated is within the
province of the theorist. One might reasonably
expect that the Trinidad and Tobago playwright
will fmd themes of relevance to his societythemes drawn from past and present conditions of
life of which he is an inalienable part. One can
expect him to write with passion and exultation
characteristic of the struggle and the triumph that
have made carnival a national fete.
THE TRINIDAD CARNIVAL
It can be assumed, moreover, that under the
pervasive influence of carnival the ancient arts of
burlesque and satire, lamentably absent from present-day 'Western theatre, may well be rediscovered and given a prominent place in our national
drama repertoire. There are exciting possibilities
for new forms of writing, acting, and production
that will give a distinctive stamp to our theatre
and enhance its power of communication. The
next step is to get on with the experiment.
No experiment can proceed without adequate
tools and resources, and it must be admitted, as I
write this, that conditions are not yet conducive
for embarking on a na tional thea tre program. The
quotation at the head of this chapter was written
by Dr. Eric Williams, who, for the past fourteen
years, has led the government of the country. Dr.
Williams is clearly aware of the importance of
culture to the national well-being, even though the
realities of public office seem to demand a reordering of priorities. As far back as 1950, in an address
to Trinidad youth, he is quoted as saying: "It is no
longer a question of whether we are satisfied with
our culture, whether it is good, not so good, or very
bad. It must be adopted and supported in principle; supported materially and spiritually.'" In
February, 1970, riot, mutiny, and rumors of a
general revolt erupted in Trinidad. As the situation returned to normal, Dr. Williams, political
leader of the party in power, issued his "Perspectives for the New Society," in which he renewed
the government's pledge "to promote the Arts and
Culture (especially Drama) as part of the process
of Nation-building and achieving self-awareness."·
Soon thereafter government announced plans to
build a multimillion-dollar complex in Port-ofSpain to house the national archives, the national
5 Trinidad Guardian, June 5, 1950.
e The Sunday Express, Supplement, Trinidad, September
27, 1970.
TOWARD A NATIONAL THEATRE
museum, and a creative arts center. The decision
is universally 'welcomed.
The Trinidad carnival has been called "the outstanding folk festival of the ''Vestern ·World.'" It
has given birth to new music and song, to language
and dance, to costumes and masks, but it has made
no lasting mark on the emotional experience of
mankind. Its nature is against such achievement.
7 Daniel J. Crowley, "The Meanings of Carnival," The
Clarion (Port·or·Spain), February 27, 1954.
119
The carnival is rooted in its soil. It cannot travel,
except as a second-hand fihn image of itself. It is
transitory; a momentary escape from order and
reason. Its death on Ash Wednesday morning
brings a sigh of satisfaction from everyone. Yet
the carnival has sustained a rich theatrical talent
of gifted people coming from many races. A national theatre can organize this talent to express
the wide range of human experience in ways that
could be vivid, vital, and enduring.