When
Carnival and Lent
From the very beginning
there were two Carnivals in Trinidad and Tobago, one on the two days before Ash
Wednesday (the first day of Lent), and the other on Emancipation Day. The
British colonial authorities were more inclined to tolerate the pre-Lenten
Carnival. However, the Emancipation Day Carnival was the one which had the
greatest significance for our African ancestors here in Trinidad and Tobago.
In Christendom, Carnival
was a period of feasting and merrymaking prior to the forty days of Lent, days
of fasting and abstinence. Thus the period of merrymaking was described as the
immediate preparation for carnem levare,
[depriving oneself of flesh (that is, meat to eat as well as the pleasures of
the flesh)]. Over the years, the term carnem
levare evolved into carnavale.
The conquering
Europeans, whom Columbus unleashed upon the Western Hemisphere, were agents of
Christendom. Christendom was not a spirituality system, but a sociopolitical,
economic entity which supposedly had Christianity as its guiding ideology. The
conquering Europeans consequently imposed their ideology on the New World.
Africans understood that
Christendom was a betrayal of the spirit of Christianity. They also understood
that Christendom was a new system considerably less developed than the ones set
in place by Africans thousands upon thousands of years ago. The ancient and
venerable African systems taught our ancestors to put up with the barbaric
world order created by the agents of Christendom. Accordingly, Africans in the
New World opted to go along with Christendom’s timing of the festival called
Carnival. Nevertheless, these Africans understood that Carnival had its roots
in the original civilization.
Under unrelenting
resistance from the enslaved Africans, the British were forced to end the evil
system of enslavement. The term Emancipation was given to this process, and for
their convenience, the British set up the process in two phases. The first
phase was more symbolic than anything else. And so in 1833, the enslaved
Africans were declared emancipated. Still, as part of the reparation made to
the Europeans who had brutalized Africans, the enslaved Africans were forced to
remain on the plantations as unpaid laborers until 1838.
In spite of the cruel
imposition of five more years of hard labor working for brutal Whites, Africans
celebrated their partial victory of 1833. Their celebration took the form which
had been in place from the dawn of civilization, namely a festival. The
festival par excellence for Africans has the same basic form and content as the
Christian festival known as Carnival. The name given to the festival and the
time of the year at which it is celebrated are not of great significance
therefore. In Haiti today, for example, the festivities associated with
Carnival carry over into Lent. Christian theology accordingly takes a back seat
to another set of cultural values.
In Brazil today,
Carnival festivities also spill over into Lent. This goes against the very
meaning of Carnival as a Christian festival. In Cuba, Carnival festivities took
place on the Christian holy day known as the Feast of the Epiphany, celebrated
traditionally on January 6. After the revolution, the main Cuban Carnival was
made to coincide with the most important civic holiday, July 26, Revolution
Day.
TO BE CONTINUED
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