Bacchanal!: The Carnival Culture of TrinidadOn the days preceding Ash Wednesday, Trinidad erupts in an orgy of excitement, noise, color, and energy known as carnival. Other countries celebrate carnival, but none quite like Trinidad, where carnival is not just a two-day event; it is an all-year-round statement of identity Up to 100,000 Trinidadians, or almost 10 percent of the population, actively take part in carnival. Everyone talks and argues about it, some boycott it, but no one ignores it. Calypsonian SuperBlue has called it one of the most awesome moods in the world. Trinidadians have a word to describe it: Bacchanal!In this vivid and exuberant book, journalist Peter Mason looks at the past, present, and future of carnival, using not just personal observations and printed sources but also interviews with a wide variety of participants, including performers, pan tuners, designers, and stick fighters. Mason examines the three essential elements of Trinidadian carnival -- steelband, calypso, and masquerade. He also discusses recent developments like the growing influence of women and the effects of commercialism. As Mason demonstrates, carnival brings together nearly all aspects of Trinidad's cultural identity -- religion, music, language, humor, folk traditions, politics, gender roles, ethnic traditions, even food and sport. It also has an influence, outside the country, on how people view the island and as an export in itself. Mason weaves all these facets of carnival together to create a vibrant sense of the phenomenon itself -- its wit and its vulgarity, its sumptuous colors and heart-pounding noise, its competitiveness and spontaneity, the months of hard work to produce two days of exuberant self-abandonment -- allthe complex energies that lead to Bacchanal! |
Contents
Contents | 7 |
The Social Dimension | 24 |
The Carnival Tents | 30 |
But Dey Forget Calypso | 45 |
Steel Pan | 57 |
Playing Mas | 79 |
JOuvert Morning | 89 |
Dont Stop the Carnival | 121 |
Woman is Boss | 133 |
Past and Future | 147 |
This | 156 |
Influences and Evolution | 158 |
The Balance of Payments | 166 |
Notes | 172 |
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Common terms and phrases
African arena artists audience bamboo bands band leaders become began big trucks Black Stalin bring Calypso Monarch competition Calypso Rose calypso tent Caribbean carnival Monday carnival season carnival Tuesday carnival's celebrations cent chantwells chutney soca costumes creative crowd culture dance David Rudder Denyse Plummer dominated drinking drums event extempo feel female calypsonians festival fetes fight huge Indian J'Ouvert jam and wine judges kings and queens less male masqueraders modern move National Carnival organised Panorama panyard participation party music performance Peter Minshall picong play popular Port of Spain Queen's Park Savannah reggae Road March title robber San Fernando Savannah stage semi-final sexual singers singing soca social songs Sparrow steel pan steelbands stick stickfighting streets SuperBlue tamboo bamboo themes thing Tobago topic tourists Trinidad carnival Trinidad Guardian Trinidadian Trinidadian women tune tuners usually Wayne Berkeley winners woman