Ode to the road

Culture Matters

DARA E HEALY

“The Carnivals of the period meant something special to the Africans. After 1838, they actually took over the street Carnivals by masking, dancing, stickfighting, mocking the whites and re-enacting scenes of their past enslavement.”

– Hollis Liverpool, Rituals of Power and Rebellion

I HELD onto the railings and peeped out at the masqueraders wending their way down Frederick Street. All of us children were relegated to a safe space behind the bars of Woodford Square. As the Carnival swirled around us, families sprawled everywhere on blankets, baskets of food and drink readily available. I so wanted to join the beautiful, costumed characters; some of them had children jumping as well. Instinctively, I knew my over-protective brood would never consider allowing me to play mas. I am pretty sure I never even bothered to ask. I peered through the bars and bided my time.

This year, there will be no street parade, the pandemic made sure of that. No reason to zanté our bodies in full costume, no chance to transform ourselves under the mas or perhaps become who we were meant to be. Why is the road so important to us?

In the 1960s, Lord Kitchener warned “the road make to walk on Carnival day/Constable ah don’t want to talk/But ah got to say/Any steelband man/Only venture to break this band/Is a long funeral/From the Royal Hospital.” As various elements of the mas began to claim their space, increasingly, “the road” represented a space of contestation. It was the place where either beauty paraded or battles took place – there could be no in-between.

There was a time when all forms of the mas met on Frederick Street. Pan, pretty mas and the traditional characters. In another era, long before Minshall, before Berkeley and Kallicharan, even before McWilliams and Bailey – this street held the pulse of the TT Carnival.

In 1888, Milton Prior, an artist from the Illustrated London News, drew his impression of mas on Frederick Street. Prof Jeff Henry notes that during this era costumed characters travelled up Frederick Street, “across the Memorial Park, up Charlotte Street and then stopped at the corner of Queen’s Park East and Belmont Valley Road.” Prior’s vibrant illustration depicts a riotous, uninhibited and mostly barefooted parade of characters – from baby doll and sailor, to jab molassie, dame Lorraine and an indigenous masquerade, possibly Kalingo – all intensely wrapped in the portrayal of their particular character.

The drawing also reveals the subtle class and colour divisions of society of the time. High above the streets, in New Orleans-styled buildings, members of the white elite are shown looking down at the scenes below them. Their facial expressions display a mild interest in the parade, as they casually observe the revelry of the ordinary people, from the safety of the narrow balconies. As Liverpool notes, for them “to masquerade with the Africans on the streets would have been a degraded act.”

Significantly, in other major carnival cities such as New Orleans, London and Brazil, the concepts of carnival, freedom and public spaces are also intertwined. In 2020, as covid19 terrorised us all, a lone masquerader in London astonished the world by putting on his costume and walking the Nottinghill parade route, in defiance of the rules.

In New Orleans, the first Mardi Gras celebration started as far back as 1699 but for a time was banned for being too “rowdy” (sounds familiar?). In Brazil, the famous samba music and dance rhythms now performed in the streets were introduced by enslaved Africans. Today, samba is an essential creative forum to express dissatisfaction with the government or advocate for social rights.

In TT, the former enslaved celebrated their freedom by holding up flambeaux and taking over the streets that had formerly imprisoned them. In 1881, the streets in east Port of Spain became the battleground when the stickfighters successfully took on the heavily armed soldiers of the colonial government. Ordinary citizens fought again in 1884, in 1970 and across the decades, through the Carnival, in the streets.

Thus, the road is more than a place for us to parade or party. The streets offer ordinary people a channel to express their creativity, demonstrate resistance and, importantly, celebrate their freedom.

I think I must have felt all of this peering through the bars, waiting until I could put on my costume. Waiting to summon the energy of all who dared to walk the streets before me. This Carnival, come walk the road with me, if only in spirit.

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