It
is perhaps understandable, event natural, that some of the earliest and purest
glimpses we have of the lifestyle in these islands in the formative years of
our history, comes form the record of the development of the folk arts:
Calypso, carnival and, in another sense, folklore.
Thanks
to the remarkable work done by individuals such as Andrew Carr, Harry Pitts,
Mitto Sampson, Andrew Pearse and David Crowley, we have preserved a view of how
it was to live in Creole society from the 1800s onwards. In this issue, we
trace the development of Calypso from the myths of calypsonian Surisima the
Carib, on through to the slave calypsonians Gros Jean, So So, Papa Cochon, and
Ofuba the Slave, to the great ones of the mid-19th century, such as the Mighty
Thunderstone, Hannibal, and Cedric Le Blanc.
Mitto
Sampson achieves the hangman’s drop
It
was, however, Mitto Sampson who, through his endeavour in collecting oral
traditions in the 1940s and 50s, saved much of the body of information that
came down to us. Mitto Sampson was a known personality around Port of Spain. I
knew him when I was a boy; I seem to think that he lived at Gonzales. I know he
used to lime on an ice box at the end of Observatory Street, opposite to the
Hospice. He was known as “Strong Man”.
When
Mitto was young, he was a scrawny boy. As a teenager, he took up weightlifting
and became phenomenally strong over the years. “A daring acrobat, he dived from
heights into crowded streets, and he even achieved the “hangman’s drop” on his
17th birthday,” reports Andrew Pearse (Caribbean Quarterly, 1958).
Mitto
told Pearse in an interview how he had read of Palmer Berns who had developed
his neck to such an extent that he was able to resist the hangman’s noose. He
put himself in training, developing his neck muscles and those of his back and
shoulders.
One
Monday morning, followed by an entourage of well-wishers, Mitto arrived at the
Washhouse Bridge - the bridge over the Dry River on Belmont Circular Road, just
after the Hospital. Without much ado - but after saying a prayer - he tied a
hangman’s “slippery knot” around his neck, tied the other end of the rope to
the bridge’s railings and jumped!
The
small crowd gasped at his daring and ran to the rail. Mitto was dangling
several feet from the Dry River bed. The thick rope was taunt with his
considerable weight. It took several strong men to haul him up! Mitto climbed
back over the railing, and under the thundering cheers of the crowd took of the
rope from around his bull’s neck. He had done it!
Mahalle,
who had parked his invisible car nearby, immediately got in and drove off so as
to inform the town of this incredible act.
Naturally,
Mitto acquired the reputation of a man of power, a science man. In fact, he was
well educated. He had attended Nelson Boy’s R.C. School, Belmont Intermediate
and St. Mary’s College. In true Trini style, his background was cosmopolitan -
his father, an Arima druggist, was a “dougla” of mixed Indian and African
descent, and his mother was half Portuguese and half quadroon, that is a
mixture of three parts white and one part black.
Mitto
got his information about 19th century calypsonians from his grandmother, Mme
Florence Atherley, who was a noted genealogist and whose hobby was reminiscing
about old Trinidad. His other informant was Remmy Roberts, who at the age of
93, in the 1940s, could remember well people and incidences way back into 19th
century.
Remmy
was one of the great “raconteurs”, story tellers, of his time. He was a “sweet
man”, a gigolo, and a “maco” (formerly this word meant a pander or tout, but
now it has come to mean someone who minds other people’s business). He had
spent his life in the Behind the Bridge world of east Port of Spain. He had
known the famous ladies of the night: Britan Boobooloops, Alice Sugar, Mossie
Millie, Ocean Lizzie, Sybil Steele to name but a few. He had met the famous
homosexuals of his day such as Papy/Mamy, Darling Dan and Ling Mama. He had
encountered badjohns like Congo Jack and Tiny Satan, and of course all the
chantwells, stickmen and mad people that walked the city in those days. Remmy
told Mitto who told Dan Crowley: “Son, calypso today come from the mouth, but
longtime it come from the soul.”
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