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Where Is the Carnival Madness? Reflection and Review

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Where Is the Carnival Madness? Reflection and Review Garth L. Green, Philip W. Scher, eds. Trinidad Carnival: The Cultural Politics of a Transnational Festival. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007. 240 pp. $21.95, paper, ISBN 978-0-253-21883-4. Reviewed by John Nunley Published on H-AfrArts (October, 2009) Commissioned by Jean M. Borgatti (Clark Univeristy) Before setting forth this reflection and review, Louis as well as Trinidad and Tobago. As editors of I would like to acknowledge the National Endow‐ this book under review might say, our discussions ment for the Humanities, the Rockefeller Founda‐ were transnational! tion, and the Fulbright Program (Post-Doctoral Re‐ The constructs of us and other, or insider-out‐ search) for supporting my many projects in sider, never framed my working relationships in Trinidad and Tobago as well as other West Indian an anthropological way. Yet these constructs ap‐ countries and places where Trinidad Carnival vari‐ pear to dominate many of the interesting and re‐ ations have emerged in the metropoles of North vealing essays in this book. Perhaps as a conse‐ America. Since 1983, I have been living in and trav‐ quence of an obsession with classification con‐ eling back and forth to the Caribbean Basin. With structs, the magic of Carnival and the imbedded the help and friendship of many people, I have ob‐ memories of it that make it so transcending are tained a broadly based experience in Carnival never magically conveyed. The reader must find and, indeed, many other festivals in Trinidad and the engine room of the phenomenon elsewhere. As Tobago. My oldest son Boyd has become a con‐ a discursive text, the publication is comprehensive summate tenor Pan artist and he played with regarding the various realms of Carnival. In gener‐ Phase II Pan Grove at Panorama in 1998. Boyd was al, the essays dealing with music are excellent and lucky enough to work with Boogsie Sharpe. Boyd those concerning the visual arts much less so. and his brother Avery played in Kiddies Carnival in Garth L. Green and Philip W. Scher's introduc‐ the band Kites directed by renowned artist Albert tion follows Carnival from the nineteenth century Bailey. Through Raoul Patin, I met the great Soca to its present global complexion. They move from artist David Rubber who then resided in the descriptions of early European style inside balls, projects in Belmont. I worked with many band through post-emancipation and the Jamette scene, leaders, including Wayne Berkeley who celebrated and the developments of Calypso, Pan, and Soca, his fiftieth birthday in 1990 with a party of three to the greater role of women in the festival. This is hundred. Peter Minshall and I have argued over followed by Pamela Franco's chapter on gender the nature of Carnival and his role in it for many politics and Carnival. Franco concludes that men years. Our heated debates accompanied by feast‐ have controlled its scholarly production as well as ing have taken place in Washington DC and St. H-Net Reviews the event itself. She cites essays by Daniel Crowley tion (hers) in a Carnival event, although it is some‐ and Andrew Pearse published in the 1956 issue of what academic. Jouvay is the heart and soul of Car‐ Caribbean Quarterly, where, she claims, Mas or nival, as it builds on so many imbedded memories Carnival is defined as the rightful turf of men as it of the slave trade. I have many times been swept grew out of the suppressive colonial experience. away by its power and the feeling of liberation it Expressing the opposition of black males to the generates as I, with so many thousands of revelers, dominant white upper class are such male Carni‐ have descended on Independence Square as the val characters as Midnight Robber, Dragon, and sun rises over the Lavantile Hills lighting up our Pierrot Grenade. Franco posits that the Caribbean stained and painted bodies. The pan, iron, and tas‐ Quarterly labels these as authentic and the most sa drums, the scrap bands, and the smeared im‐ traditional characters, and therefore maintains agery of bodies in motion mark the rite of passage that they constitute the real Carnival. Toward the into Carnival. Albert Bailey once told me that "Jou‐ end of her essay, she focuses on the resistance of vay is opening the genie's lantern, filling the air men to women's greater participation in Carnival, with magic." as they "rebel," wearing skimpy suits in pretty Mas, Green's chapter examines the role of nostalgia and rejecting the older, traditional male charac‐ in the Carnival Commission's desire to bring back ters (p. 39). Franco quotes many newspaper arti‐ into the spectacle the characters of "the old yard," cles that condemn the lewd display and sexually such as jab jab, robber, devils, imps, jumbies, aggressive behavior of women, who, according to clowns, and pierrots (p. 66). He argues here that the author, emasculate men. I would argue that this hegemonic nostalgia derives from the middle- many Trinidadians, especially those reporting in class memory of the event and the desire to con‐ the media, are ironically the "other," playing up trol Carnival for commercial purposes. Most inter‐ emotional issues like sex and gender for commer‐ estingly, he introduces into his discussion an elabo‐ cial reasons. I limed, or partied, in pretty Mas rate diorama that includes several hundred carv‐ bands in 1987 and 1988, and it was great fun for ings of steel band players and masqueraders from both men and women from the inside. The gender the famous 1959 band Flowers and Fruits con‐ revolution was being combusted within the bands, structed by Geraldo Veira. He labels the nostalgia not on the written page created by "outsiders." Ca‐ associated with this experience as "resistant," and lypso artist Denise Plumber enjoyed a great hit in argues that its purpose is to capture the existential the late 1980s entitled "Woman is Boss"; it was en‐ moment of that great band (p.78). joyed by both men and women. Scher focuses in chapter 4 on Trinidadians re‐ The following chapter written by Patricia A. De turning home to play Mas and as expatriates who Freitas concerns her participation in Jouvay; as have created their own versions of Carnival in both native of Port of Spain and an anthropologist, such places as Toronto, New York City, and Not‐ she struggles with her "us" and "other" identities in tinghill Gate. He views this diaspora project as feeling and covering this opening event to Carni‐ transnational. His treatment of Jason Griffith and val Monday. A good discussion of the politics of in‐ his late assistant Jim Harding and their fancy sider-outsider, positions from above and below, sailor band is excellent. I have spent many nights and "us" and "other" follow. She calls for more an‐ at Jason's place on Pelham Street in Belmont, talk‐ thropology by locals, but seems not to know of the ing with makers including the late Jim Harding, many "amateur" anthropologists, whose names I who I may add was nicknamed Diamond Jim be‐ will not mention, who have collaborated with me cause he still holds the record for the number of on many cultural projects in Trinidad. De Freitas soccer points scored in a season in the city league. offers the only narrative description of participa‐ 2 H-Net Reviews Jason brought out a band dedicated to Diamond in Minshall's River Band. The next day the media Jim in the year 2000. A good discussion of the im‐ questioned: "Can this really be Carnival?" Today, pact of the oil boom and the shift from Pan to Soca tassa is part of the "tradition" of Carnival. follows. Victoria M. Kazak offers an interesting varia‐ Scher also discusses the internationalization tion of Carnival in the former Dutch island of Aru‐ of Carnival cultural products, such as the susu, roti ba. This essay on the pre-Lenten festival looks at skins, and Carib beer. The susu is a Yoruba based the origins of the event in association with "native" banking system resembling a credit union where Arubians and then its further development by members take out loans for various projects. In black English islanders arriving in the early twen‐ this regard, I once met a Trinidadian woman from tieth century to work in the oil fields. Many of Toronto who was stopping in Miami on the way to these newcomers were from Trinidad. A very good Trinidad to get a susu loan to mount a Carnival description of the events of Carnival follows with band. This person seems to personify Scher's no‐ attention given to clashes of cultures. tion of transnational. Moreover, she exemplifies Shannon Dudley presents a richly textured women's greater participation in the nuts and chapter on the Steel Band and one of its star ar‐ bolts of Carnival. Lacking in many of these essays, rangers and writers, Ray Holman. In wonderful de‐ however, is the mention that women, at least since tail, the history of Pan is presented by its very the 1950s, have played a major role in producing agents. We learn that Holman as an artist became the costumes. critical of the rule that only Calypso arrangements Lyndon Phillips's essay on the Toronto Carib‐ could be played at the Panorama competitions. ana of 1997 is excellent for many reasons. First, he Holman eventually broke with that tradition and presents a complete review of the origins of the wrote "Pan on the Run." This caused great contro‐ festival using the words and points of view of key versy, but set a precedent for future competitions individuals involved, such as Charles Roach who for which composers and arrangers were freed to organized the first Mas in an old fire station--not write "we own tune" (p.
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