Carnival on Nelson Island

Legend has it that a “long, long, long time ago there was a very wicked woman with five daughters living in the Northern Range. She treated one of the daughters so badly; that a witch intervened and she turned the daughter and the other sisters into Parakeets that lived in the area. They were chased from the Northern Range and were making their way across the Gulf of Paria when they were turned into stone, set heavily into the Gulf of Paria and became our rocky five islands.”

The Matapal Tress, the legend says, came from the feathers of the Parakeet. Although there are six islands, it is said to be five because the “devil who, had a hand in the whole business, can’t count.”

Lenagan, Rock, Nelson, Caledonia (to which Craig is attached) and Pelican form part of not only TT’s mythology but also its history. Nelson Island, particularly, played a role in “the peopling of Trinidad and Tobago.”

And it was on Nelson Island that Trinbagonains and visitors of all shades and colour attended the National Trust’s Traditional Carnival on Nelson Island on February 6.