Flambeaux, light our way

Culture Matters

DARA E HEALY

“The torch was a symbol of African enslavement and its ending.”

From Rituals of Power & Rebellion – Prof Hollis “Chalkdust” Liverpool

THE PLAINTIVE call of the conch shell breaks the quiet of early morning, in the time when sleep moves into its deepest state. Wearily but quickly, they gather and move in procession to put out the burning canes, possibly a fire that the enslaved themselves had set. In their hands, flambeaux to guide their way, spurred on by the powerful singing of the chantwell who leads them to the fire. Perhaps he would have sung something like this – “Arú me í mí o/ Ayé lálá! Oh, I am laden with worry, life is full of trouble!” Not all of them would return...

After emancipation, this solemn procession into the cane became known as the Cannes Brulees and then Canboulay. It merged into the Carnival celebration of the community, re-enacted on the Sunday before the masquerade. As Liverpool notes, “evidence shows that Cannes Brulees, besides being a celebration of freedom, marked the beginning of the organisation of masquerade bands.”

Eventually, the procession grew with hundreds parading through the streets carrying flambeaux, bois and all the other forms of revelry. Today, as we search for our ancestral heritage, we celebrate Kambule, the Kikongo word for procession. In addition to paying respect to the ancestors who walked to put out fires on the plantation, the word recalls the 1881 rebellion or Canboulay Riots, when stick-fighters and ordinary people successfully defended Carnival against the colonial administration.

In this battle, the flambeau was key. Although a symbol of freedom and resistance for some, this simple yet ingenious light was viewed with distrust by the upper classes and the colonial administration of the time. It must be remembered that Port of Spain and other urban areas were comprised primarily of wooden structures. As such, the flambeau in the hands of ordinary people was seen as a dangerous combination. In fact, in 1880, Capt Baker, the recently installed superintendent of police, had ordered attacks on the stick-fighters and barrack yard people, taking away their bois and their flambeaux.

In 1954, Dr JD Elder and playwright Tony Hall were fortunate to meet an elderly woman who was able to give a first-hand account of the riots; her tale demonstrated the pivotal role that the flambeaux played. Initially, the revellers were moving about the capital city in darkness. “The old lady told us how there was an old patois woman at the front of the band ... just about where All Stars (steel orchestra) have their headquarters now. And at that signal the fellows light their torches and start up the drums and went for Baker. The story that she gave me … was that the Canboulay revellers swept the ground with the police.”

For some of our celebrated novelists, the flambeaux formed part of a social mosaic that represented home. VS Naipaul in his book The Middle Passage returns from England to find that Port of Spain was almost the same as when he left. “When one arrives for the first time at a city ... the people in the streets have ... a special quality ... But driving now through Port of Spain, seeing the groups lounging at corners, around flambeau-lit stall and coconut carts, I missed this thrill, and was distressed, not so much by the familiarity, as by the feeling of continuation.”

The visceral link between fire, mas and African traditions is represented in dramatic fashion in Lovelace’s Dragon Can’t Dance: “... For two full days Aldrick was a dragon in Port of Spain, moving through the loud, hot streets, dancing the bad-devil dance, dancing the stickman dance ... He was Manzanilla, Calvary Hill, Congo, Dahomey, Ghana. He was Africa, the ancestral masker, affirming the power of the warrior, prancing and bowing, breathing out fire, lunging against his chains, threatening with his claws, saying to the city, ‘I is dragon. I have fire in my belly and claws on my hands; watch me! Note me well, for I am ready to burn down your city. I am ready to tear you apart, limb by limb.’”

The concepts of light, fire, resistance and transformation are common to the beliefs of many of the peoples who make up our nation. As we danced, chanted and held up our flambeaux on an overcast emancipation evening, I thought of the power of the flambeaux through time, and prayed that they would continue to light our way, even in the darkest of times.

Dara Healy is a performance artist and founder of the NGO, the Indigenous Creative Arts Network – ICAN