We Kind ah People The Trinidad Carnival Masquerade bands of Stephen Lee Heung by Tang and Funk.

It is argued in some circles that Trinidad and Tobago does not have an intellectual culture. While there is a culture of political tribalism and plenty debate along such lines in the public discussion, there is not a critical popular public discourse on the history and social significance of  art forms such as mas, thus there is hardly ever any discussion on or about the people who made Trinidad carnival the greatest show on earth.

And even less books on the subject.

While there are articles on various mas men and band leaders written in magazine and news paper articles there are not much books written on the works of these artist or the impact and importance of their contribution to carnival history and the history of the wider society.

For example in my personal  collection of books, you can find, fashion books on Mugler, Lacroix and Rabanne, art books on Giger, Warol and Chagall, stage set and costume design books on Taymore and Ishioka , and yet, I have only ever got my hands on published books on  Wayne Berkeley and Peter Minshall. when it comes to mas, despite the fact that mas and mas bands go back to the  emancipation period in history.

Cover: We Kind ah people

In the period known as the golden age of carnival alone, there is a pantheon of mas men whose work,
talent, productions and philosophies have given  Trinidad carnival the reputation of being the greatest show on earth. As individuals, these artists may have each compiled a body of work to rival any master of art or fashion in Europe or America. Yet there are a lack biographies or documented collections on these men and women and their works.

‘We Kind ah people the Trinidad carnival Masquerade Bands of Stephen Lee Heung’, by George Tang and Ray Funk, Is however a recently published book that has in a small way documented some of the work of the late bandleaders productions.

The book takes the reader on a photographic voyage through some of Lee Heung’s presentations, from 1974 through to 1994, giving some insight of each of those presentations and the people behind them.

1987 Cocoyea Village. Pg63 in the book.

The Lee Heung name and presence was an important part of Port of Spain’s carnival genealogy and the history of Trinidad carnival. If Lee Heung and associates was a football club or basketball team it would be an all star team. Lee Heung’s band probably more than any other band boasts some of the most eminent names in mas, to come out of, or work under any one banner.

Reading this book I got the impression that Stephen Lee Heung, a product of the golden age seemed to have the eye of a strategist, choosing talents to design and work with, that ensured the Lee Heung name was in winners row (top 3) for most of four decades, securing both the lee Heung legacy and the establishment of those that worked under his organisation.  

To understand the creatively epic period in which Lee Heung existed in, and the rich intellectual environment that that flourished during that time, there is a passage in the book   that explains the production  of the band ‘Japan land of Kabuki’ in 1964 his first band after an absence of several years, the band came,

“...third after George Bailey and Harold Saldenah...some were seriously impressed including the then Trinidad Guardian arts reporter and later Nobel prize winning poet and dramatist Derek Walcott...”

As a source of information on Lee Heung and his presentations, the book is informative, while it is not a biography, the book does provide a little information on his origins, that he came from a mas family, but nothing on what were the external influences on him. The book also reveals his efforts in exporting mas around the globe. 

With about 158 photos in 120 pages there is a lot to see of the Lee Heung legacy but it is also evident that  there is still a lot that has not been revealed especially of the 1980s which would have been designed mostly by the late Wayne Berkley.

While photos of George Tang , are beautiful and capture the spirit of these past carnivals they lack the quality seen in books such as  the late Noel Norton’s  book, ‘20 years of Trinidad carnival’ the photos seem dark, sharpness and details are lost in shadows, however because of the scale of the costumes standards and headpieces shields and capes there is still that impact of the spectacular.

The images also provide evidence that the 20^th century was definitely the zenith of expression and creativity in Trinidad’s carnival and if we dig deeper into this period the assent of the golden age probably goes hand in hand with the intellectual rise of the wider society of TT.

Synopsis

Comparing  the themes and costumes of Lee Heung to those of popular bands today, it is clear that the carnivals of, History, geography, literature, Royalty and nationality has been overrun by a light weight quasi fantasy mas, with the dominating emphasis on an invisible ‘service’ and not the tangible art form that could be photographed and admired.   

Because 'We kind of people' is published by Tang and Funk in Hardcover, it comes at a somewhat high price of TT475, this can be seen as hefty when compared to Michael Anthony’s ‘The Carnivals of Trinidad and Tobago’, or Hollis Liverpool’s Rituals of power and Rebellion, two titles that come with considerably more history within the pages of the books.

 (Maybe a soft cover edition may be a good idea)

That being said we kind ah people does ‘ hold it's corner’ for what it is and will make a valuable addition to any personal library of carnival literature or carnival study collections.

Carnivals past: Part 2

By Bridget Brereton

 

In my last piece I wrote about the sources we can use to study Carnival before the 20th century, and I examined (as an example) a colonial report about the 1881 Canboulay Riots.

Today, I want to look at Carnival at the end of the 1800s, through two written sources. Both were written by upper-class Trinidadians of this era, but they held different views of the festival, and their documents differed in purpose and scope.

In 1897, EF Chalamelle published a 30-page pamphlet called Some Reflections on the Carnival of Trinidad. I don’t know who he was; but he was well educated—he writes in a flowery, very “literary” style—and may have been a French Creole living in Arima, where the pamphlet was first published.

Chalamelle was writing when the Canboulay had been abolished and Carnival as a whole, especially the more “obscene” type of mas, was coming under much stricter police regulation. But he wanted it to be entirely stamped out—no allowing it to die a “natural” death for him. Since around 1870, he believed, it had “degenerated from an innocent pastime into a foul, disgraceful and indecent proceeding” which was “unfit for a civilized community”.

Chalamelle acknowledged that Canboulay—“a savage and harassing procedure”—had been ended, and obscene costumes like the “Pissenlit”, involving men dressed in female underwear and making sexy moves, had been recently stamped out. But, he wrote, the “lewd and worthless” still carried on as before, “rowdeyism”, obscenity and crime were still basic parts of Carnival.

Above all, Chalamelle argued that Carnival had caused the “ruin” of many “respectable” (read upper and middle-class) girls and women: he wrote that he knew of “many families who have been brought to a state of degradation and sorrow upon the downfall of their daughters, who in deep repentance must own their ruin to the Carnival”.

He implies that many respectable girls used the festival to meet lovers “of low repute and inferior rank in disguise”, resulting in scandal and disgrace, and that otherwise virtuous wives had a fling, with the result that “many a household tie has been broken asunder”. In sensational prose, Chalamelle insisted that Carnival had produced “hundreds” of “ruined girls”, who could have been “virtuous mothers and wives”.

As if all this wasn’t bad enough, Chalamelle pointed to the scandalous Carnival songs (calypsoes, probably sung in Patois at this time) which insulted respectable families and “well-bred” women. Any private domestic affairs of decent families might be made “a matter for scandal among the lewd community”.

Clearly, Victorian ideas about sex, women’s sexuality, class and race clashed with the sexual theme of the Carnival, which couldn’t be suppressed even with police action against the “obscene” masques. But Chalamelle’s views were extreme, and probably not typical even within his class and generation.

Chalamelle’s pamphlet was written in order to influence public opinion and to persuade the authorities to put down Carnival.

 A very different kind of source is the autobiography or memoir by Percy Fraser (1867-1951). Fraser belonged to the white Creole upper class (his father was the local historian L M Fraser) and was a public servant all his working life. In his old age, he wrote his autobiography, which was eventually published in 2007.

Fraser looks back to the Carnivals of his youth—the 1880s and 1890s—with nostalgia and affection, quite different to Chalamelle’s disgust and outrage. He agreed that the “Pissenlit” was obscene and was glad that it had been suppressed, but he lovingly described other traditional Carnival characters and bands of this era.

There were the “Schoolgirls” in short white dresses and pink pinafores, carrying slates and books; the “Marchandes” in full Martinique costumes; the doctors, surveyors, policemen, lawyers and judges, all properly dressed and with the appropriate equipment; the “Negre Jardin”, dressed in shabby clothes but skilled stick-fighters; the “Bad Cattle”, men dressed in dry plantain leaves with large bull’s horns on their forehead who terrified children (clearly an African mas); the Moko Jumbies, also African; the Bats, with elaborate and expensive costumes made of velvet and silk; the “Bouriquits”, the donkey mas accompanied by a string musical band playing Spanish tunes, and the Maypole, both introduced from Venezuela.

Fraser especially admired the Pierrot, with his elaborate costume, heavy whip and boastful speech (known in the old days as “Jagoné” according to Fraser). “A fully dressed Pierrot was an imposing sight”, Fraser recalled; “as a very young lad, I was a great admirer of the Pierrots, and together with other boys we would follow a favourite Pierrot everywhere he went”, making sure to run away when he met an adversary and a fight seemed imminent. Fraser felt that the modern version of the Pierrot of his youth, the “Pierrot La Grenade”, was a very inferior substitute, dressed in rags and lacking the former grandeur and glamour.

So Fraser loved the Carnival of the late 1800s, quite unlike Chalamelle’s jaundiced view. Perhaps this was partly nostalgia for his youth; he had a much less rosy view of the festival in the late 1940s, when he was writing his memoirs.

• Bridget Brereton is emerita

professor of history at UWI, St Augustine

SOURCE : Trinidad Express

Carnivals past

By Bridget Brereton

Carnival has been celebrated in Trinidad for well over 200 years. The pre-Lenten festival was originally brought here by French settlers in the late 1700s (it was a tradition in many of the Roman Catholic European states) and then gradually transformed by African-Trinidadians and others during the 1800s and 1900s.
But how can we know what Carnival was like in the past? What sources are available that will allow us to reconstruct, as far as possible, the sights and sounds of the festival, and to understand the social and cultural meanings of what people did?

There are no films of Carnival before the 1930s or 1940s, and virtually no photographs before 1900. We do have a few drawings, notably the famous one by the British artist Melton Prior, showing a parade on Frederick Street during the 1888 Carnival, which was published that year in the Illustrated London News and has been often reproduced. Recordings of Carnival-related music began in 1914.
So our knowledge of what Carnival was like before the 20th century is mainly based on written descriptions and on oral traditions. Oral traditions and reminiscences about “old time” Carnival were recorded and published, for instance, by the anthropologists Andrew Pearse (British), Daniel Crowley (American) and Andrew Carr (Trinidadian) in the 1950s.

The colonial newspapers provide by far the best documentary evidence. Starting in the 1840s, each Carnival season they reported, and commented on, the events of the festival. The newspapers form the major source for studies like John Cowley’s important Carnival, Canboulay and Calypso: Traditions in the Making, which examines the festival’s evolution between the 1790s and 1920.
In addition to the reports, letters and editorials in the newspapers, other written descriptions can be found in official documents and in memoirs and travel books by residents or visitors. Of course, all these sources must be used with caution, recognising the biases and cultural ignorance usually found in accounts of popular festivals by writers of a different class and/or ethnicity.

One of the best known events of 19th-century Carnival was the 1881 Canboulay Riots, which was a violent confrontation in east Port of Spain between the colonial police under Captain Baker, and men and women who were resisting his attempt to stop the unruly torch-light procession known as Canboulay which took place on the Sunday night before Carnival Monday.
Living in 2014, it’s perhaps hard to believe no-one was killed and only a few men, on both sides, were seriously hurt; no guns were involved, and the weapons were police batons and staves (sticks) carried by the rioters, plus stones and bottles.

The local newspapers in 1881—there were three or four, though none was a daily paper—reported and commented on these events. In addition, the Colonial Office sent a British official to investigate the riots, and his report, known as “The Hamilton Report into the Disturbances in Connexion with the Carnival”, was published in the Port of Spain Gazette in October 1881.
Considering that this report was written by a British colonial official, it provides a surprisingly balanced account of the riots and their causes. Hamilton concluded that the riot was caused by the maskers’ belief that the police were planning to stop the whole Canboulay procession, based on their action in 1880 when they had forcibly put out the torches. A related cause was the “want of judgment” of some policemen in their dealings with the city’s working-class residents, and the generally poor relations between the police and the public in Trinidad.

When he came to consider the future of Carnival, Hamilton doubted that it would simply “die out” as education spread, a view held by some locals. Nor did he believe it should be entirely and forcibly repressed, as some members of the British elite advocated. Such a policy, he recognised, would be bitterly resented as an unjust interference with a legitimate working-class holiday.

Hamilton thought Carnival should be allowed to continue, but under careful regulation. The torchlight night-time procession (Canboulay) should not be banned, but should be restricted to a part of the city, perhaps the Queen’s Park Savannah, where there was less danger of fire, and less annoyance to residents. (The procession was noisy and violent, involving frequent fights between bands.) The agreed regulations about the carrying of torches and parading at night should be publicised months before each Carnival, and then rigidly enforced. Hamilton concluded his report by saying the police should be supported, but their relations with the public had to be improved.
In recommending that Carnival should be allowed to continue, and specifically that Canboulay should be regulated but not banned, Hamilton showed himself to be more open-minded, and less hostile to the African-Creole festival, than sections of the local upper and middle classes. In fact, Canboulay was permanently abolished by the local government in 1883-84, and the festival as a whole came under much stricter police regulation in the late 1880s and the 1890s.
In Part 2, I’ll look at two contrasting views of Carnival at the turn of the nineteenth century.

• Bridget Brereton is Emerita
Professor of History at UWI, St
Augustine, and has studied and written about the history of Trinidad and Tobago, and the Caribbean,
for many decades

SOURCE:Trinidad Express

MAS JUMBIES PRESENT: De Posey & Bedsheet Brigade

Brian Wong Won's Mas Jumbies  is back come J'Ouvert 2013 with "De Posey & Bedsheet Brigade".
Mas Jumbies will be drawing inspiration from the post emancipation carnivals known as the 'Jamet carnivals', where characters such as the Dame Lorine, Jab Molassie, and the Jamet, ruled the road in a Mas that was both performance and protest.

The Mas Jumbies website is now open, go see the costumes find out about the histories behind them and 'book yuh mas' with 'De Posey & Bedsheet Brigade' ! 

                                                                              http://www.masjumbies.com

Related articles

• WEST INDIAN Carnival & Parade
• Boston Carnival - A View In
• First Queen of the Bands
• Carnival Draws Thousands To Sun Life Stadium (Photos)

3 CANAL : JAM-IT!

I love this JAM-IT tune by 3 canal this year, it’s  for me its a tribute to one of the most iconic characters and symbols of social and cultural resistance the ‘Jamette’.

As the 19th century drew to an end the ruling classes saw a rise in acts of aggression and sexual profanity, in the portrayals of African masqueraders. The period became known as the ‘Jamette Carnivals’.

The word ‘Jamette’ comes from the French word ‘diametre’ and referred to the class of people ‘below the diameter of respectability’ ...the upper classes were distancing themselves from the lower classes...to emphasize the immorality...and hence the inferiority of the Africans. ( Liverpool Hollis)

During the 19th century Africans had to exist in deplorable living conditions. These conditions were witnessed in their most extreme form in the barrack yards of the capital. Due to these conditions the barrack yards were the epicentres for crime, prostitution, and other forms of lawlessness. The barrack yards being the homes of Trinidad’s Afro-Trinidadian lower classes were also the bastions of African cultural resistance and identity.

Out of theses barrack yards came some of the most iconic characters and symbols of defiance that Trinidad’s carnival has ever produced. As the century came to an end these characters, and ritual practitioners would directly confront the laws and institutions of the establishment that seemed to exist solely to erase their cultural identity.

From the poverty ridden, crime infested environments of the barrack yards the Jamette emerged. If the stick fighter was the warrior King of the Kalenda, and the Cannes Brulees procession, and the male personification of African defiance, the ‘Jamette’ was the Queen, her very physical presence was the personification of colonial defiance.

...the social, economic, and political predicament of the jametres was manifest, both physically and vocally...While masquerading, they ‘boasted their skill and bravery, verbal wit, talent in song and dance...their indifference to the law, their sexual prowess...The women more often than not were the chantuelles, who sang praises of male stick fighters, and impromptu lyrics meant to shock and entertain; they wore masks and sometimes exposed their breasts. (Noel A. Samantha)

In an era where a woman based on European standards was not supposed to be loud, vulgar, political, or display any kind immoral behaviour in public the Jamette went against all these social norms of decency making her physical body a platform of protest, bringing the economic and social conditions of the lower classes to the attention of the establishment.

“...these women were aware of how the body could be used as a form of protest...they cunningly gauged the potential of their exposed bodies as a locus of rebellious and expressive energy through which their discontent with colonial order could be channelled”. (Noel A. Samantha)



The Cannes Brulees riots (Rebellion) of 1881 saw a head to head clash between the police, representing the colonial powers who wanted to stop the traditions of the lower classes, and the Cannes Brulees, the latter being lead by the warrior Kings the stick fighters who fought shoulder to shoulder with their queens the Jamettes.

try this on any other day
and see what happens.

It is because these icons of carnival made a stand that you could get on like a real Jamette for carnival and doh make a jail.

Today you see Jamette behaviour where ever you see a Trini style carnival she is the living symbol of cultural and social resistance and while the elite and the establishment may shun her presence it is because of her the road made to walk on carnival day.

Mas Assassin .

Related articles

• Ecstatic Carnival Costumes, Made By An Architect From Folded Paper

• The world's top 10 street festivals (telegraph.co.uk)
• Lower-class people better at reading others: Study (canada.com)
• Rare piping guan rescued and recuperating in Trinidad (greenantilles.com)
• Dominica Carnival 2011 Schedule (dominica-weekly.com)