By Danik Ibraheem Zandwonis
Caribbean Net News Guadeloupe Correspondent
Email: danik@caribbeannetnews.com
POINTE À PITRE, Guadeloupe: When you travel all through the Caribbean, you realise all the islands --including the largest, such as Cuba, Jamaica or the Dominican Republic -- have something in common -- Carnival fever. Most of these islands celebrate Carnival in the same state of mind. Though everywhere the costumes and music are a bit different, carnival means: colourful parades, elaborate and colourful costumes, joyful music and sometimes jump pop or j’ouvert.
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| The 'Akiyo' group during the Guadeloupe carnival |
Some observers think most of these national carnivals throughout the islands took some influence from Brazilian patterns, and are somewhat a mixture of Brazil‘s samba schools style and the Caribbean culture.
Except in Guadeloupe, one of the French speaking islands.
Until the early 80’s, Carnival in Guadeloupe was really the same as in any of the small Caribbean islands.
Each weekend, during the carnival time ( from January to March) Guadeloupeans used to celebrate what they call “Vaval” (a nickname from Carnival) with colourful parades, musical jump up, and also some local events called in the creole of Guadeloupe: “Mas”.
Mas is just a group of people (young and old) wearing some ugly and funny masks, dancing to ethnic music, and running through the streets every Sunday, trying to frighten children and asking for some coins after their show. The Mas may portray, with some irony, any scene of current life, like policemen, burglars, lovers, politicians. After the long period of Mas, the most important days of Carnival in Guadeloupe, were always the last 5 days of Carnival, called here “Jours Gras” (Shrove Days) from Saturday to Wednesday. This is Carnival. Most shops and public offices are closed. During these Carnival days, like anywhere in the Caribbean, all the people gather in the streets of Basse Terre (Capital of Guadeloupe) and Pointe à Pitre (the most important town) to see the parade shows. Thousands of people are in the streets, with bands and mas parades.
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| Carnival in Guadeloupe |
In 1978, some young radical Guadeloupeans from Pointe à Pitre districts, decided to break with this too traditional and tame carnival. According to the leaders of this group called “AKIYO” (in creole, who are they?), it was a way to renew Guadeloupean Carnival and put an end to the “Brazilianisation” of our carnival.
What is the situation now, almost 30 years after this true cultural revolution in Guadeloupean Carnival?
Nowadays, in Guadeloupe, you have two Carnivals. On the one hand, the traditional one, a Brazilian style of Carnival parades, with elaborate decorations, very colourful fancy costumes (what we call here the spangle carnival). The groups are nice and the costumes very expensive, the music is played with European instruments (saxophone, trumpets, organs, and, over all, snare drums).
On the other hand, you now get hundreds of natives and ethnic cultural carnival groups. Even if you are not Guadeloupean, you can easily see the differences.
The ethnic carnival groups, used to play their music, with true traditional drums (made with goat skins covering a small woooden cylinder) and conch shells. The sound is very distinctive and tribal. The natives decided to play music from slave ancestors' rhythms. As you can imagine, when they are in the streets these groups are really cheered by the crowd because most of them came from the popular districts, but overall because of the music they play. The themes of their parades are deeply ethnic, cultural and sometimes critical towards politics. In fact, these native groups consider carnival as a way to contest political life. But also, it’s a means to awaken minds about the situation in Guadeloupe, and to show all the cultural resources of the island.
And in the Caribbean, this kind of popular Carnival is unique. It’s now a real sociological phenomenon. This carnival deeply expresses the Guadeloupean soul. Maybe a part of the African heritage, but mainly a true self-awareness of the Guadloupean in the daily colonial situation. Many of these groups, even when they didn’t discuss political situations, are somewhat political.
In 1981, a Prefet (the French representative of French government in Guadeloupe) tried to ban a native parade, because the French prefet thought the theme chosen by the native group was too political. This decision showed how the local French authority didn’t understand the political and cultural problem in Guadeloupe. In spite of the French prohibition, more than 5,000 of Akiyo’s members organised a real carnival rally in the streets of Pointe à Pitre. All of them mockingly wore uniforms of French colonial police and army. Nobody could stop their demonstrations.
This last Sunday, about 60 days before the French presidential elections, Akiyo decided to go through the streets with caricatures of all French and local pro-French politicians and shouted, “We don’t need this kind of elections and politicians here.”
Meanwhile in other streets of the town, the traditional carnival was walking sedately with all its colourful style. Last year, Victorin Lurel, Regional Council President, went to Trinidad to see how they work with their carnival, because now it is about making carnival a commercial and tourism business in Guadeloupe. But, it is clear the native carnival will never be a tourism product, although it’s really attractive and so different, so unique. |
