STOP! You imperfect speaker!

As we all know, Carnival is a barometer, the mirror of the society. The tempo, the feel of the mass, reflects the society. Art imitating life imitating art: evolving through the centuries, Carnival has at times provided the means for various styles of self-expression and a ready vehicle for confrontation, which could be played out between the competing revellers themselves or against the authorities.

Carnival bands were by their origins aggressive, led by chantwells who encouraged the stickmen, who were, in turn, enervated by the music, which, together with the heat and the rum, also drove the crowds, both members and onlookers, into a frenzy.

Carnival for the outsider is often unnerving in its disorder and abandon. To the European of the 1880s, the dancing was nothing but the most disgusting obscenity, "being an imitation more or less vigorous and lustful by the male and female performer of the motions of the respective sexes in the act of coition".

The contemporary writer goes on to add that together with the rum and the excitement, "performers and spectators then disperse with their passions excited to go and put into immediate practice the immoral lessons they have been greedily imbibing." Ent.

Undoubtedly, there was a grain of truth in this observation. But there was more to it than that. The portrayals expressed the grandeur of the imagination of a subject people, yearning for the "other". Let's go and look at mas in 1937.

Dressed in several textures of black, his shoes replicas of coffins, his very wide-brimmed hat a castle of crossed destinies, armed with cutlasses, knives and pistols, his face painted white like a skull, his whistle rings loud above the surrounding noise, his prey embarrassed in their uncostumed role of spectator grin sheepishly, trying to edge away, but already a small crowd has gathered and they now find themselves as a part of street theater, protagonist, antagonist and audience -

"STOP! You imperfect speaker! Stop!

Drop your keys and bend you knees,

and call me the Prince of Darkness, Criminal Master.

I have no compassion. In this time of execution,

Master of Masters, King of Kings,

man who can compel men and women to die,

I following the star of the unconquered will,

which makes me inexorable and unbeaten still,

as a burning diadem upon my breast,

invulnerable and calm and self-possessed.

Now my fabulous verses will befuddle your dunce head.

I will have fun and I will give you rocks for bread.

So stand and deliver all the "King's Head" (pennies)

that jangle in your pocket or I will blast your tail like a rocket!"

The crowd, much larger now, applauds. The undisguised shuffle and pay up. They seek to escape, for another robber is on the way, dressed from head to foot in red with tiny silver mirrors sparkling in the brilliant light of noon. From the distance, loud cracks like gunshots. The crowd shout and scatters.

"Jab Jab!" shouts a boy. "Look they coming from Erthig Road!"

In the clearing crowd appear three tall, strapping men dressed in red and yellow tights. Golden hearts cover their chests, and they wear jester's hats like horns, tipped with bells. Their trousers' ends are also sequined with bells, and bells surround their waists. They wield 15 foot long bull whips that crack the sky. Their eyes are wild. Men, women and children flee before their impertinence!

Now what's that smell? Oh Lord no! I thought they would stay in Jouvay. They must have slept out last night - it's a Pissenlit band. these dreadful people have soaked nighties in urine for days or weeks and are wearing them. Run, they coming to rub up on you! Run, quick!

"Look, look what is that?"

It's bats - a bat band on roller skates, all dressed in gray and brown fur, huge wings catching the breeze. Look, one little boy bat! He is jumping, trying to fly. How fantastic! Their masks so real, like bats.

Moko Jumbies always have a dwarf with them to make them look even taller, stalking on stilts 15 or 20 feet above the crowd, dressed in striped pants, a wide skirt and a colourful shirt. They wear torshon for a hat and carry a small umbrella. They collect money from the people in the upstairs windows, but have to be careful about electric wires.

Oh, how cute! Look a baby doll band, all dressed in pink and blue with lots of fru-fru and baby powder! How sweet - what that he's drinking from his bottle? Rum! And look that one, it look like curry running down his legs out of his diapers. What's that he wants to show you? A shilling to see Cain and Abel - well, there it is in a little black box, a piece of cane and a bell.

Carnival is something else again, yes. Oh, look a truck disguised as a radio full of pretty girls! They all work at Rediffusion, Trinidad , you know.

Come let's go and see what Mr. Strasser playing this year. I hear he's coming out from Victoria Square. Last year he played a penny, a huge thing about 12 foot high. No one could see him until he stepped out from where he had formed a part of Britannia.

Look, there is something coming - it's Strasser. Everybody say it's Strasser. What is that - a stamp? Strasser playing six-pence stamp, a huge red stamp depicting Raleigh at the Pitch Lake! How real - look the detail, perfect! It's made of painted cloth with black and gold appliqués. Where is Strasser? He must be there - oh look, he's climbing up onto the float and he's gone, he has disappeared the moment he walked past it, he just stopped still and vanished - how fantastic! I want to see the Seven Ages of Man, they coming out from by Norville's drugstore. That so far, come go.

We go take a drink by Crown Lion Bar. Ah hear they have stick fight tonight!  Look, Mahalle. Eh, Mahalle, give us a drop! - "Not in this car, it not for hiring, it's a private vehicle," he said, slipping into first and driving off his invisible car just missing the orange man.

Patrick Jones and them fellers playing Beelzebub and the Forty Thieves. That is devil mas! They have a Satan with a face, almost as big as you. Eleven devils chained together in the everlasting darkness. Gilbert Scamaroni is plying the beast from the apocalypse, chained to female imps dressed in red with shimmering wings. They have a dance - very sexy. Look skullboxman, bookman, keyman and bellman, and Lucifer the Demon straight from hell. Shiffer Fabien father is play that. They does meet in Lapeyrouse to practice that mas every night for nine nights before Carnival! They collect dead dogs and boil them till they get the bones. Look he have a dog's skull round his neck and look that one have a cowfoot. Take care, they will throw the water they boil the dead dogs in on you. If that hit you, you blight for life!

Look the Belmont tram coming. Let we go by Crown Lion, ah could take a beer.

And several years later:

"Invaders beating sweet - ah ha

Coming down Park Street,

Tokyo coming up, beating very slow

and when the two bands clash

if you see cutlass

never me again to jump up in a steelband in Port of Spain!"

Look the devil dey!

Somebody, I forget now who, once said to me that Jab Molassi (the Molasses Devil) came out of cannes brulées and was played in depiction of the worst thing that could happen on a cane estate: a person meeting his or her death by falling into a vat of boiling molasses. The molasses devil was the ghost of the cane estate.

Jab Jab, whip-cracking, mirrored mass decorated with red and green satin skirts, mauve moiré taffeta and orange stockings, is the father of the Dragon Band or Devil Band. This metamorphosis commenced in 1906, when Patrick Jones assisted by Gilbert Scamaroni prompted by a sacred picture, illustrating the exorcising of the devil from a sick person, displayed in a shop at what is now 65 Queen Street, prompted the organising of the first Dragon mas. Khaki and slate were the colours chosen, cow horns and rope tails were used. They wore flexible wings that flapped. The band was comprised of about 70 or 80 men and women, who carried long forks. There were presidents with even more elaborate costumes, covered with brass buttons and gold fringe, diamante spangles and gold cord. Everyone wore small face masks. There was one central character called Lucifer who wore a golden crown and was even more elaborately costumed. He was portrayed by Gilbert Scamaroni who used a large head mask imported from Germany by the firm Waterman Brothers of Frederick Street. Between 1906 and 1909, cowtails held upright by wire were added. In 1909, Patrick Jones, along with 'Skeedo' Phillips and the Valere brought out the "Red Devil Band". Patrick Jones was a man who loved to read and was able to put his hands on to an illustrated copy of Dante's Inferno, and as a result was able to add a host of diabolical characters to his already charming retinue from hell.

In 1910, Jones brought out a band called "Demonites" and introduced the character of Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies. He was enclosed in an iron cage and bound by nine chains. Beelzebub was made of papier mache. Fearsome in character, the entire contraption was carried aloft on poles. In 1911, Satan was introduced. His costume was similar to Lucifer's and Beelzebub's, but he carried a book and a pen in which to record sins. This was the year in which the Beast appeared for the first time, and it was portrayed by a man called "Georgie". This costume of the Beast was made of large fish scales and so constructed that they could bustle up or be made to lie flat.

Professor Gordon Rohlehr tells us a lot about Patrick Jones in his book "Calypso and Society". Jones, he says, was one of the earliest devotees to serious masquerades in the early 20th century. he was a pyrotechnicist and a calypsonian. Known as Chinee Patrick, he was "hakwi", that is, half Chinese and half African. As a calypsonian, he sang under the name Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector, and his songs were in the tradition of Atilla the Hun and Lord Executor. He was a powerful calypsonian, so much so that his challenges were often hardly taken up by even the most significant aficionados of the art.

His daring to put the devil and his hordes from hell on the streets of Port of Spain created an enormous impact on the city, its institutions and citizens and on the calypsoes of the time, and was to be retained in memory and folklore, still imitated, albeit poorly, to this day.

Bruce Procope, from whose paper most of this valuable information has been gleaned, points out that by 1911 the main features of the Dragon Band were already established and were to survive more or less intact for another fifty years. Fresh characters emerged, such as the devil as "gentlemen Jim", who, together with his devil mask, wore a tail coat and carried a stick, behaving in a courtly manner with much bowing and kissing of hands.

Various theories have been brought forward concerning the devil band. Procope writes:

"The theory is that the dragon band is an ambulatory depiction of Satan and his horde cast from heaven ... he and his followers return to earth on the two days before the Lenten season commences in order to try the virtue of the faithful."

The people who played this mas had no reluctance in playing the devil and the forces of evil, although many felt a great excitement, even fear, to be associated with it. By the 1930s, Patrick Jones' band was big, some 200 or 300 people. The devil mas generated mixed feelings. As there was much delving into occult literature, looking for information to enhance the portrayals. Such books as "Hope and the Race" by Frank Patterson and the "Chronicles of Leviathan", an anonymous work, were consulted. This was a time when, not only in Trinidad, there was a great interest in the esoteric. Dealing with the devil in exchange for souls was a minor industry amongst both the unscrupulous and the foolish. The fact that it was frowned upon by the religious was sufficient to make it desirable. Others followed Jones' idea. Devil bands had tents, bamboo and carat affairs, where members met to build their mas and to practice their 'pass' or dance steps, and its 'chantwell' to compose songs. The Dragon's head was built in secrecy, so that when it appeared, it would astound even the band members.

The green Beast would have a movable tongue with an iron band around the waist attached to three or four iron chains, held in different directions to control the progress of the character. The dance of the Beast consists of a lunging movement as it strikes out attempting to bring down the horde of surrounding red imps, who would constantly goad him, sometimes there would be several Beasts in a band with one being the chief Beast.

There would be a king imp in red tights, mask, wings, a tail, attended by other imps who would carry axes, scrolls, horns, bells, dice, face cards and scales with weights. The showing of the face card was vital for the water crossing. One authority affirmed that there should be 42 characters in a devil band, some of these would be a gown man, expensively dressed with a mask imported from Europe, a Queen Patroness with her court, Lilith, Eve's mother, a Bookman with a large book and an imp to carry it. The character of Beelzebub would have a host of blue flies, sexy girls, buzzing about. All this produced an amazing sight, with the imps taunting the Beasts and dancing away with highly complicated steps, as other imps would dance, twirl and skip, maintaining a constant activity and providing interesting contrast with the noble mien and stately bowing of the Satanic characters.

Long ago, the fight of the Beast was a feature of Carnival. The corner of Duke and Frederick Streets, midday Carnival Tuesday: the great Beast Zatog the Invincible met and destroyed Azoth, Keeper of the Inferno. This challenge to combat occurred automatically when two devil bands met. Bruce Procope recalls:

"The combat took the form of the execution by the reigning Beast of various dance steps, which the challenger had to imitate. If he succeeded, he then had to demonstrate his own for the reigning monster to imitate. The one who failed was dishonoured. To be the reigning Beast was considered the highest honour."

"Mr. Jones says that the Dragon or Beast was suggested to him by a picture of St. Mark and the Beast which he saw at Laventille church," writes Procope. "Another of our informants, Mr. William La Borde (alias Willie the Beast) also remembers Georgie. Georgie was the reigning Beast from whom Willie captured the crown. The step that brought him victory was one which was shown to him in a dream. One night after practice at the tent of his band, Willie went home to sleep. He dreamt that a man came to him dressed in a top hat and tail coat. The man suddenly turned into a zandolie and started to wriggle on the ground. Willie awoke, told his wife about the dream and immediately began to practice a step in imitation of the movements of the zandolie. He perfected this dance and by it won the crown from Georgie."

With regard to the crossing of the water, Procope recounts the "coming out" or the "invocation", which takes place as the band is coming from the place where it has assembled onto the streets to parade. Led by the King Imp and his sexy quick-stepping horde, the music band blasting live music on their feet in the road. they would burst upon the streets, the Beast itself, green-scaled with its clawed dragon's feet straining at the chains held by the musclemen, barely able to contain it. As the Beast approaches the first drain, the King Imp or "tempter" steps forward, confronts him, and rings a big brass bell. He shows him a face card to bring him to a halt. The imps, in blazing red, their wings quivering, sequins sparkling in the noonday sun, show their "pass" and perform their play with cutesy antics and much teasing of the Beast.

The Beast, head rearing, claws slashing the air, attempts the crossing, feigning fear lest any part of his person should touch the water flowing in the street's canal. With the Beast "over the water" other characters blaze out, bats temporarily traveling with the band, big with black huge wings; zombies, a section of jumbies in black and red. Two robbers also moving with the ban enter Piccadilly Street, glowing, pulsating with human energy, Lucifer last of all, elegant, black satin cape lined in red velvet, dressed in the costume of a grand duke with scarlet sashes and jeweled orders, and ceremonial sword in hand. Before him, mincing and cringing, his court of sycophants. They mime a play that none but they can understand. A coffin carries a man. A live black cat looks out from the Queen's hair piece. They have real dwarves who are old men, seen dragging chains to which are attached souls waiting to be reincarnated. The performance of crossing the water is repeated. The teasing of the Beast continues. Small boys run up with slapsticks to make him jump, and old women throw pails of water before Lucifer to stop him - isn't that a tradition from Catholic Ireland, throwing water before a hearse? But he just laughs hideously and shows them a morocoy and two live frogs he has in a small black and gold box.

The Beast makes a bolt for it, catching the musclemen unawares - but don't worry, he's not going far - just for a cold Carib from his nennen in the planning!

Some lyrics of the day relfect the Red Devil Bands, but that was long ago. Now we are afraid of a weather vane on top the Red House - the old iron dragon. They should put it back!

"I am a monarch from heart and soul

Whenever I go I bound to control

I am guided by the three stars

Jupiter, Mercury and mars.

And if tonight I shall lose my name

Blood is going to flow from every vein

They call me Beginner the terror, the brutal conqueror

Santimanite."

(Lord Beginner)

"Come into my den and there you shall see

Skeletons and bones of your family.

Your body shall be placed on a mountain peak

And there you shall say your prayers for a week

And after that dreadful pain you shall meet a hurricane

Santimanite.

From the very first day that I was born

Men like Houdini started to mourn

Monarchs wept and princes cried

When they saw this new star up in the sky

Astronomers in my horoscope state

He'll be proud, grand, illustrious and great

And they named me Atilla, the terror, the brutal conqueror

Master Mi Minor."

(Atilla the Hun)

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African Kingdoms

The vastness of the African continent contains many mysteries, not the least are those that surround the origins of the human race. Some of the world’s more spectacular and mysterious monuments built of everlasting stone are found in the majestic ruins of Great Zimbabwe and in the awesome grandeur of the great pyramids and the enigmatic sphinx.

Against these enormous panorama of Africa’s past, one glimpses outstanding empires and great centres of learning and technological advancement at a time when the future’s master civilisations were still in their infancies. The rise, decline and fall of bygone civilisations are now often obscure and in the realm of myth, barely defined under mountains of sand. The vast sweep of peoples the African continent contains, ranges from proto-stone age to the genius of those who had mastered the mysteries of advanced astronomy, mathematics and other sciences, wome of which have not yet been discovered by western man and are still considered by him as occult.

It is from this world that millions were snatched, stolen, sold, sent or banished over a period of close to 400 years to another continent an ocean away, never to return. It was their fate, their unbelievable misfortune to become enslaved. It was the destiny of their descendants to form a significant proportion of the New World’s population. Their descendants’ challenge is to view themselves as heroic survivors of this terrifying passage, and not as its victims.

The great West African kingdoms, in fact empires of Ghana, Mali and Songhay, were centres of learning, science, political order, social progress and trade. It was from this cradle that many of our people - in fact, half of the population of Trinidad and Tobago - have come.

In ancient days, the migrations of people escaping the encroaching desert established a state that was later called Ghana by the west - the word ‘ghana’ meaning ‘king’ or ‘leader’.

“The people who migrated into the country from all directions had every reason to believe that they were far enough into the interior to be free and secure at last in a kingdom that had never been conquered either by the forces of nature or of men,” writes Chancellor Williams in his book ‘The destruction of black civilisations’.

The history of this reign goes back into time to well beyond recorded history, and may be glimpsed from its lists of kings dating from a period before the Christian era. This list of some 44 rulers takes on back to a period of about 700 B.C. Some claim the founding fathers came following the trade routes from ancient Ethiopia, the mother of Egypt. And some havew speculated whether it was an outpost in the west of that empire.

The kingdoms of Ghana, Mali and Songhay were known as the ‘Land of Gold’ and had expanded their territories by both peaceful alliances and conquest. Its dependencies included Sama, Garantel, Gadiano, Galam, Diara, Soso and Tekrur. The empire was a vast source of gold, but was also famous for its iron mining and iron manufacture for more than 1000 years. Leadership in this industry made her dominant over less progressive peoples and provided the impetus for a powerful army with enough gold to equip and support it.

Williams describes the caravan trade routes to the north east, Ethiopia and Egypt, and concludes that this was the most important factor in the ever growing wealth of this nation. There were import and export taxes, a system of weights and measures and the control of inflation by limiting the supply of gold.

At its heart were the twin cities of Kumbi-Kumbi, built of stone, with mansions for the nobles, temples, mosques and schools. The great Niger river was the road for trade, travel and conquest.

The most famous schools were at Kumbi-Saleh and Djenne. The world renowned university of Sankore was at Timbuktu.

The agricultural economy was mixed: wheat, millet, cotton, corn, yams, cattle raising. The guilds or societies of craftsmen included blacksmiths, goldsmiths, stonemasons, water diviners, carpenters, weavers, dyers, potters and cabinet makers, to name just a few.

The chief exports were gold, ivory, rubber and slaves. Its imports were salt, textiles, cowqrie shells, brass, dates, figs, pearls, sugar and dried raisins amongst others.

Under the emperor Tenkamenin, the imperial army stood at 200,000, of which 100,000 were mounted and 40,000 were bowmen.

The changing climate conditions over the millennia would affect this great nation, drying up its lakes, causing its rivers to vanish and its people to disperse. This was followed by Muslim conquest. But the memory of its greatness, its majesty and its genius will survive forever.

The inheritors of this great tradition now live still in their African homelands. They also live on in these islands on the world’s western rim. You may glance their souls in the eyes of the children. You may hear their wisdom in the worlds of the elders. All you need to do is look and listen!

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Longtime Days

Notes taken from the reminiscences of a truly grand old man, Lionel Inniss, born in the late 1840s.

Lionel Inniss could remember when anyone wishing to go to Arima would have to hire a carriage and a pair (two horses) for six dollars a day or a saddle horse for three dollars, and be responsible for any damage or injury which might occur to it during the journey. There were many stables around the town of Port-of-Spain in those days, hiring out horses, and there were several grass markets where one could buy fodder for animals: at Victoria Square for example, where there was open pasture land, and another behind the Catholic Cathedral.

Olga Comma Maynard remembers in her book ‘My Yesterdays’:

“One of the things that deterred my fiancé and me from selecting Hanover as the venue for our wedding was the fact that the hoi polloi had an unfortunate tendency to take over wedding ceremonies conducted at the nearby church. The Grass Market at the corner of Duke and St. Vincent Streets, established since 1857, had for many years been the site favoured by fish vendors, seldom the most disciplined of mortals. At the slightest hint of a wedding they would rush to occupy points of vantage either in or outside of the church, to watch the bride and her guests as they arrived and to make comments about their array and about anything else - derogatory, scurrilous or just plain outrageous - that would delight lawless bystanders. Wisely, I felt, we turned our thoughts to Tranquility.”

The roads were not paved in those days, so it was mud in the rainy season in dust in the dry season. Travelling also had its cost: two pence at the toll gate, which was situated at the boundary of Port-of-Spain, at the foot of the hill where the powder magazine stands (now the flyover at the bottom of Laventille Road). When the railway was extended to Arima in 1875, the toll gate was abolished.

Communication southward was by sailing boat, which plied from Port-of-Spain to Chaguanas, Couva, Claxton Bay and San Fernando, and by sloops which sailed occasionally to La Brea, Cedros, Icacos and around to the Bande de l’Est, as Mayaro was called. They did not run on schedule, anytime was their time of arrival, and it was anybody’s guess - but then noone was in that much of a hurry, so it could take two or three days to go to Mayaro, or three weeks for that matter, depending...

The Guiacara rivers was an entry port to San Fernando in those days. It was bad enough being cramped up in these boats during the journey to places between Port-of-Spain and San Fernando, but what was worse was to find that when you reached the mouth of the river, the tide was too low to allow the boat to cross the sand bar. Then you had to wait for high tide, while being devoured by hords of mosquitoes and sandflies. When the steamer began to ply the gulf, it was almost as bad rowing out to the mouth of the river to meet it at all hourse in the sun or the rain.

Travel along the Eastern Main Road in the 1860s was facilitated by a horse-drawn van, capable of seating a dozen persons,which made one trip a day between Port-of-Spain and Arima. The fare was ten cents per mile. This van was patronised by ‘the aristocracy’ (white people). Those of the ‘hoi polloi’ (ordinary people) who wanted to save their legs negotiated at the Cart Market - the spot which is now Columbus Square - for a lift on one of the numerous estate carts or wagons for eight cents for the journey.

Between Port-of-Spain and Arouca, there were twelve sugar estates worked by steam, water or animal power. During the crop season the air along the road was beautifully perfumed with the smell of hot liquor. The sugar was produced by common process and was called ‘Mundungo’.

“When I was twelve years of age, I walked from Port-of-Spain to Mayaro,” writes L.O. Inniss. “I remember the festivities when the two sons of the then Prince of Wales, Prince Edward and Prince George, visited Trinidad, the principal feature of which was a grand ball which Leon Agostini gave in their honour at ‘Coblentz’, St. Anns. The grounds were brilliantly illuminated and the preparations were upon a magnificient scale, the cost running in tens of thousands.”

(At the occasion of another grand ball, a lady is remembered who wore an outstanding evening dress: all in white, her skirt and bodice had been decorated with live fireflies that were attached to the lace, and the lady created a fantastic appearance at the evening party!)

Hippolyte Borde, a rich cocoa planter, entertained the two Princes to lunch on his cocoa estate ‘La Pastora’, situated in Santa Cruz. Inniss:

“In this connection, I also recollect another scion of Royalty (though on a much humbler scale) who resided in Trinidad for some years. I refer to Prince Kofi Inti of Ashanti, who was sent by the British government and placed in charge of Mr. Collens, the headmaster of the Boys’ Model School. He was small in stature, and a crowd usually followed him when he went to Trinity Cathedral with Mr. Collens, but the novelty soon wore off and people became used to seeing the ‘Black Prince’, as they called him. He had some sort of a job in the Public Works Office, and it is said that he designed the Signal House at Fort George. After a few years residence here he went to England and died there not long afterwards of consumption.”