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Mermaids, Imps and Goddesses: the Folklore of Trinidad and Tobago the Beliefs That Informed Our Identity

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Mermaids, Imps and Goddesses: the Folklore of Trinidad and Tobago the Beliefs That Informed Our Identity HISTORY mermaids, imps and goddesses: the folklore of trinidad and tobago The beliefs that informed our identity he identification of what He couldn’t say, exactly. It took a while to work is our national heritage is out, but it went something like this: in Tobago, something of a challenge, like other places, the experience of slavery served whether as colonial to erase most memories of origin and identity, Tbuildings, history or as folk traditions. This is but could do little about intuition and belief in the case because of the nature of Trinidad and the higher powers that both mirror and shape Tobago’s historical experience, especially as our own experiences, destinies and so forth, so, expressed in the work of those who take upon although the memory of names like Yemanja themselves the Sisyphusian task of recording and Oshun had faded, the certain knowledge and interpreting this unfolding landscape. that the Waters beneath the Earth and in the These thinkers have had to contend with not Sea were the vehicles of Divinity had endured. GÉRARD A. BESSON HBM, just the changing times, but also with competing This notion remained strong amongst a people Historian and Author, narratives in a segmented society. who had been taught to forget themselves. But, Trinidad when seeing the contents of the cartouches of Tobago Mermaids the world maps on the walls of the Great Houses You see, as one would expect, these islands are that depicted the antics of a crowned Neptune not like other islands. In the case of Tobago, with an Oceanus trident in hand surrounded our elder sister, she was once a part of an older by a court of denizens of the deep out on the British Empire, some say the first one, along with rolling sea, the old folks of Tobago smiled and Barbados and Antigua, St Kitts, Jamaica and the understood that they were always right in the North American colonies. These are all places understanding of the universality of the Divine, where historical traces, in terms of European while not bothering too much with the vagaries residue, are still stumbled upon in bushy of gender. The colonial experience demanded outcrops. I myself have stumped my toe on a a twin-framed view of the world, where one’s bell almost buried in the red earth of Parlatuvier visions were viewed through another’s lenses. in Tobago that might have rung on a plantation when these islands served as depots for the mass Becoming Trinidadian transmigration of souls in transit from a suffering In Trinidad we had something of a different beyond belief to a place that one would hope experience. Trinidad is new, as Caribbean would be the Paradise of the just. experiences go. Before 1783 and the Cedula of That being the case, Tobago’s windmills stand Population, which should be regarded, according today as silent reminders of that residue, which to Professor Carl Campbell of the University the “Tobago Wedding” as a folk festival parodies of the West Indies, as our first constitution, as it catches and contains, like a breath caught Trinidad was a very sparsely populated place. between laughing and crying, a moment in its There were just over a thousand people living cultural treasury. here, that is counting the handful of those who Opposite: Duennes, the Tobago has, and maintains, that quality. thought that they were of European descent, spirits of children who When I asked the old man at Black Rock about those who actually were and the few blacks that died before they were it, he answered, “Mermaids, I don’t know hovered between bondage and idleness – you baptised, roam the forests anything about that.” When pressed, persuaded see, there was no real economy. As far as the of Trinidad playing and flattered, he said, “Mermaids, they look First People were concerned, they lived “here” tricks on living children. like Kings of old, or warriors of long ago.” which meant, as far as the eye could see and the Illustration by Stuart Hahn “Mermaids! Kings? Warriors! How you mean?” heart imagine. This included these islands and 52 TRINIDAD & TOBAGO: 50 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE P52-56 Gerard Besson HISTORY.indd 52 23/08/2012 10:45 HISTORY mermaids, imps and goddesses: the folklore of trinidad and tobago the mountains of the Paria peninsula as seen, the beginning, there was the Cedula, and the Th e Afro-French- washed on a clear day, all the way to Venezuela. Cedula was made Law. Whereas most islands in the Caribbean Th e fi rst recasting of history to make a usable Creole culture went Sea took hundreds of years to develop a past began then. Th is was where we created our underground so as to comprehensive society, Spanish Trinidad fi rst myths. Th e fi xed mental architecture that acquired one, virtually fully structured, sought to explain the unexplainable, and to survive and as such overnight. In the space of less than fi ft een achieve this miracle we had to become experts became the principal years, 1783–1797, suddenly there were 1,500 in the art of what the scientists call Creole Europeans, half of whom were French, and orality. Storytelling. Which may be thought of method for our 18-20,000 Africans, who were enslaved. in the Patois of the French islands in which they identity formation. And some 11,000 “Free Blacks and People were told: “Sé lè van ka vanté, moun ka wè lapo of Colour.” Almost all of these were French- poul,” or, “it is when the wind is blowing that we In fact, the British speaking, Catholic, and, interestingly, one see the skin of the fowl.” suppression of could say uniquely, that they were products of All this suff ered something of a shock and a miscegenation. Th ey formed the vast majority setback with the conquest of the island by the the culture made of the free population. British in 1797. Th ey proceeded to teach us it blossom It was around this demographic that our fi rst English, introduce the Anglican Church and blush with identity-forming mechanisms took attempted to cause us to forget our heroes like place. Th is was where our fi rst attempts to make Phillip Roume, the coloniser, a French Creole sense of what we could barely comprehend in who was instrumental in the promulgation of terms of self-realisation began. We started off as the Spanish Cedula of 1783, and Jean Baptiste sojourners, Afro-French-Creoles, in a strange Phillippe, an Afro Creole, the petitioner, who land. In someone else’s place. One’s identity must made certain in 1824 that the conditions of the of necessity relate to something and as such has Cedula were maintained by the conqueror. Th is to be ‘invented’ at the appropriate historical may have been our fi rst identity crisis. moment. So this was the place to which this crowd brought their collective memories of past Becoming subversive experiences. Th e born Creole. Th e Afro-French-Creole culture Some had memories of a West African went underground so as to culture, already mature when they were sold survive and as such became the to the ship, others had memories of suff ering principal method for our identity and of triumphs on other islands, the most formation. In fact, the British important being manumitted, naturally, suppression of the culture made while there were those who were transporting it blossom. All folk forms by memories of a Europe that was just emerging their nature are subversive. In its from the enfi efdom of the Altar and the Th rone. subversion we were able give to the In a manner of speaking all were marooned. world our music, Th is then for Trinidadians was to be home, our Carnival arts, where we would create our fi rst attempt at which contained forming a common imagination. 1783 and during its hey-day the Cedula was ground zero. It was to be from such characters as here that we would proceed to remember our Dame Lorraine, past; this is our fi rst historical narrative. In a take off on TRINIDAD & TOBAGO: 50 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE 53 P52-56 Gerard Besson HISTORY.indd 53 23/08/2012 10:45 HISTORY Papa Bois, the the posturing of the pretend French aristocracy, of the woman who had been wronged by men. Piss n’ lit, mostly about unmentionables, and “Ki mélé wòz nan paké bwa Jacques?” said custodian of all the Diab’ Molasse, which is the worst thing that Angelique Romany, who had been listening to fl ora and fauna, could happen on a cane plantation, a slave falls the conversation, “what business has a rose in into a boiling vat of molasses: that ghost still Jacques’ bundle of wood?” He also explained is the most widely haunts the carnival; and of course calypso, which that the Duenn did not haunt children, “No, not known of all our at its best contains the subtle double entendre, at all, the Duenn is haunt the parent.” perhaps the most subversive of all, and fi nally, “How you mean?” folklore characters. as we entered modern times the steelband. It is “Well, she didn’t have time for the boy. She too He is the old fascinating to enter the imagination of Trinidad’s busy wid she business. Th en the night come, she 19th century. “Folklore, ent see the boy, she man of the forest folklore,” she said it like a gone outside, she calling and is known foreign word. “What you calling, she standing mean?” “Tell me about up in the road under by many names, La Diablesse,” I said, I the street lamp, alone, including Mâitre was interviewing Miss everyone inside, she Fairy – actually Miss calling him, ‘Robie, Bois, the master Augustine Fournillier of Robie!’ She going mad of the woods, and Paramin.
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