There are many things that shape the ethos of a space. Chief among them is culture. And by culture here I do not refer to just the visual and performing arts, nor do I refer to only specific aspects of those arts. Rather I refer to our habits and norms, daily practices and rituals coupled with our artistic practices.
In Trinidad and Tobago we have a lot of schizoid issues with culture. This is a society and space whose indigenous people were murdered, so that few of them remained while a new culture, belonging to the Europeans imposed itself. But the interesting with culture is that it doesn't die (yet we complain about that every year); it may not remain in its original form, but because of retention it will still live on. So aspects of Amerindian culture remained with us, (tapia houses, rookoo food colouring, hammocks and the many Amerindian words we still use etc.) despite the best practices of the Europeans that settled here.
Every culture that has settled here since 1598 (that's around when when the first Spanish colony was established) has had to juxtapose itself in some way to European culture. European culture is not homogenous. Here in Trinidad we had Spanish, French, Corsicans, Germans, Italians, Irish, English and Scot. The Spanish were few and their contribution to culture here was minimal. Indeed, much of what we consider to be Spanish culture here is really the contributions of Venezuelan peasanst (who were Spanish, Amerindian and African in their composition) who came in the latter half of the 1800s to assist with the cocoa industry here. Indeed, their arrival helped to reinfuse Amerindian culture into the space ( hence the pastelles, basket making, payme etc).
But under European rule, any other culture that had to survive here had to be clever enough to mimic and submerge. In short it had to know how to show the Europeans the aspects of their culture that the Europeans would be comfortable and happy with, and mask the other aspects of their culture. This was especially true of the Africans. To this day African culture is frowned upon and viewed with suspicion. The closest Trinidad and Tobago has gotten to acknowledging Africans (as opposed to Afro-French) and their culture in this space is through the Emancipation holiday and Shouter Baptist Liberation Day (both done withing the last 30years of our history). And the Shouter Baptist Religion is a Euro/Afro hybrid. I doubt that Orisa worship will be treated with any civility in my lifetime and that is perhaps the lone AFRICAN cultural form we have here. Yet there are many things about Trinidad and Tobago that are inaccurately defined and described as African culture.. in this space,despite all the ramajay about words and how to use them we are very politically incorrect...and what is called African is really Afro-Creole. I know some people won't see the difference....but is just like how Indians from Trinidad are not the same as Indians from India!
It is indisputable that this space has been occupied by very many groups, the majority of them not "Western": Africans, Indians, Chinese, Arab/Levantine. Yet when we interrogate this space we refuse to accept that non-Western philosophical traditions must also be employed to tackle the issues that are rampant here.
I want to address Carnival, moreso because I see it being attacked annually and I am not sure that people have an accurate grasp of what they are attacking. The festival called Carnival was introduced here by French immigrants in the late 1700s. Back then they didn't have street parades, they had masquerade balls in private homes. The enslaved people there witnessed this. Many of them with knowledge of their ancestral traditions in Africa, regardless of which ethnic group they were from, saw how this festival of masquerade could be useful to them.
Masquerade is the backbone of African drama. In Africa a festival can last as little as three days or as long as three months with all the requisite masking and ritual taking place. This ability for sustained masquerade, didn't die. Check our parliament.
The Carnival that we know now, though still based structurally on what the French brought here, has been systematically informed by the Afro-French creole population that settled here in large numbers from 1783 onward. The predominant culture seemed to be that of the Yoruba ethnic group (although there is enough evidence to show the presence of other ethnic groups here).
Now most Trinbagonians haven't the slightest clue what I am talking about when I start discussing ethnic groups and their respective culture. They see things as black, white, indian, chinese, syrian (interesting how the first two groups always reduced to their colour, while the others retain their immigrant nationalities). But the cultures of the ethnic groups that settled here played an important role in structuring the culture of this space.
French Roman Catholocism has made a lifestyle out of the idea of guilt and redemption. Just ask author Lawrence Scott. This need for release and redemption has made Carnival an absolute need here. People who don't come from a culture that is predominantly Catholic will therefore not quite grasp our fascination with catholic and absolute need for it.
Carnival because useful too as a space in which to continue the artforms and ancestor veneration practices of the Africans here. Their merging of Carnival with their religio-cultural forms, hybridised it. But no one bothered to tell the Europeans that the Africans here were using the Carnival for spiritual reasons so, for all intents and purposes it continued to be considered a secular holiday. The drumming, always a source of unease for Europeans (hence the reason it is still illegal in our Constitution), along with the dancing was considered to be evil, lascivious....WOTLISS! Sexuality and shame go hand in hand in Catholicism....it doesn't in the Yoruba tradition simply because sexuality is viewed as being sacred and transcendental. So it is celebrated through the body and this celebration of our sexual selves becomes apparent during Carnival (although it is there all year long) and continues to coupled with guilt, shame and seen as a "black people thing".
Carnival today is still considered to be very much a "Black" cultural form. And it's significance to the retention of African culture is very much misunderstood. It is seen as a season of sexual permissiveness, wild and loose behaviour, time to free up and do what you want. That aspect of Carnival was original to it. Brought here by the Europeans. It is evident in the root of the word Carne Vale: farewell to the flesh. Yet the loose sexual behaviour is something associated ONLY with "Black" people. I find that bit of stereotyping particularly interesting.
Guilt, in the way Catholicism understands it, does not exist in the Yoruba system for a very simple reason, the way the cosmology is structured. There is no bi-polar structure to life...no Heaven and Hell. Yoruba culture is not linear but cyclical. A person is not all good or all bad but possessed of both essences that they will display according to circumstances. The same with their deities. No deity is one-sided there is no ALL GOOD God and ALL EVIL Satan. Rather each deity has the potential to be both positive and negative. But that is not a Christian value system, it is one that is very African and what they Europeans didn't understand they labelled as evil...it's the basis of xenophobia all over the world. If I can't understand you, then you bad.
Yoruba introduced into Carnival parody, mimicry, satire, irony, sarcasm, resistance, revolt, ancestral veneration and secrecy. For two days you could be someone else and "play ah mas" this was the equivalent of being possessed by the ancestors after donning a mask. Very few people understand this.
Carnival is the sort of lifeblood festival that this country will not give up, because our entire society is structured around it a fact that pisses off people who don't come from a culture in which Carnival is important.
There is a very important reason that chutney music remains the lone Indo-centric artform that has been able to successfully enter the Carnival space. Chutney music is derived from the Matikor tradition. That Friday night of the wedding preparations when the women get together to prepare the bride for her passage into the world of marriage. It is a ritual that is mischievous, rebellious and sexy. Carnival's guiding deity in the African tradition is Esu, the god of choice, mischief, decision, sex and ritual ecstasy. His equivalents in the European tradition are Bacchuss/Dionysus/Pan. There is no other Indian cultural form that could have so easily made the accommodation for something likeCcarnival and its grassroots origins (as opposed to the more upscale origins of bhajans for eg) made it all the more accessible.
What for me is disturbing is how the history of our traditions have now gotten lost in the pursuit of the dollar. If you ask me what is killing Carnival and undermining the very valuable contribution it can make to our society I'd say competitions and sponsorship.
The guidelines of competition now force artists to fit a mould to get crowd response to get the $$$$, because everybody have to eat ah food..Ent it?
This shift in our approach to Carnival has resulted in a change in our culture and of course the society.
(To be continued...)
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