The Guyana Carnival is now in its fourth year. The nation reintroduced carnival to celebrate its Jubilee – the 50th Anniversary of Independence – in 2016, and the festivity has remained ever since. It is an interesting factor of cultural change, of the popular culture and the rise of commercial carnivals around the Caribbean. But in a post-colonial context, it is confounded with ironies.
Carnival and J’ouvert (jouvay) are now settled in Guyana’s cultural vocabulary, they have inserted themselves in local popular entertainment, and are fairly consistent with cultural change, and particularly with the continuing rule of the popular culture. They now present themselves as fascinating subjects in the study of festivals in Guyana.
Carnival in Guyana is not new. Guyana is not a carnival country, it falls outside of the carnival belt, but carnival in the country dates back to the 1960s.
It is neither strange nor surprising that Guyana, a country that is not within the carnival belt, would celebrate carnival. Countries within the carnival belt are those territories in the Caribbean (and South America – viz. Brazil) for whom carnival is a part of the calendar – where carnival evolved from traditional roots in the nation’s history. These are those countries with a history of African slavery compounded with a strong Roman Catholic presence – such as Trinidad, Brazil, and Eastern Caribbean islands with French heritage – St Lucia, Dominica, St Vincent, Grenada.
However, almost every island in the Caribbean now has a carnival. Countries outside of the belt were English colonies that were mainly Anglican, such as Jamaica, the Bahamas, and now Guyana. Byron Lee invented the Jamaica Carnival as a commercial venture for the purpose of high popular entertainment at Easter, and it stuck around since it appeals to the popular culture, and perchance to tourism. The Bahamas also imported carnival for the same reason, and it is there as an annual event for popular entertainment.
But in those countries, carnival is a manufactured, commercial festival, an imported imitation with good measures of revelry but which makes no impression upon the cultural identity of the country. Further, the festival has not been there long enough to have any traditional roots and remains a fairly superficial commercial venture.
Guyana has now also imported carnival as a manufactured, popular and commercial festival. It is also an imitation of the Trinidad Carnival but is very superficial although it has much currency in the popular culture and appeals to a significant sector of the population. As practiced in Guyana it has none of the traditional roots as in Trinidad. It is a cultural and a traditional festival in that country where it is implanted in the calendar (a calendar festival) and has evolved into a profound culture.
In Guyana, it has no roots in traditional indigenous culture, but was brought in to celebrate independence during a one-week period around May 26. From roughly about May 20 to 30 there is a series of fetes, parties and stage shows at the stadium and National Park with visiting soca and dance hall artistes, and heightened revelry. Carnival bands are formed, which revelers can join by paying for the costumes, and the bands parade on the streets on Independence Day, exactly as they do for Mashramani.
It is a period of high commercial activity related to night clubs, the bands and revelry. Just as happens for Mashramani, several persons set up stalls along the road march route selling drinks and refreshments. There is potential for earnings for the vendors and the City Council which rents the space along the streets.
One element of fun that has crept in is the playing with powder and water which revelers will throw on each other. This is an adaptation from Trinidad Carnival where it is a tradition with cultural significance, and there is a popular saying “yu can’t play mas if yu fraid powder”. It is a part of the popular ‘devil mas’, and there is a famous calypso which plays on this – commenting on the prevalence of devils at J’ouvert and carnival time, using it to warn of the equal prevalence of evil and malevolence in the society. Penguin sings “Look the devil dey /Look de devil dey/. . . Shaking up he tail in people face.” Another calypso describes a devil “with a bag a white powder /An he don’t want to powder yu face /But to bring shame and disgrace /to the human race.”
That is an example of the cultural depth in Trinidad as against the relative shallowness of the custom in the Guyana carnival. In Guyana, powder has no more significance than its throwing about in fun and frolic at a party. It is a simple imitation without symbolic meaning.
Another example of this is the adoption J’ouvert in Guyana. During the carnival there will be a number of “J’ouverts.” The word is borrowed from the Trinidad Carnival and is now in popular terminology in the Guyana entertainment industry. It has come down from French “Jour Ouvert” through Patois (French Creole) “jouvay” and means “opening of the day”. It is in Trinidad the traditional beginning/opening of carnival. Very early morning on Carnival Monday is J’ouvert. The revelry truly starts. Today revelers congregate at various starting points and march, prance, dance behind the big trucks through the streets until after the sun rises.
The other part of it is the more traditional – the performance tradition of “Ol Mas”. In this part of J’ouvert, before sunrise, there are ol mas competitions where groups perform satirical skits on the streets commenting on social and political issues in costumes and masques. At the same time, the devils roam, and persons get daubed with mud or grease or powder.
That is the tradition from which the word comes, but it has no such meaning or symbolic significance in Guyana. In this country, there are many “J’ouverts” but they are not restricted to carnival. A J’ouvert is merely a fete, a party or a stage show that goes on from the late night through the early hours of the morning. It has no further meaning. A popular time to have them is around public holidays, and one is likely to see advertisements for a J’ouvert anywhere. Last Easter, for example, there were a few, and one is likely to see more during independence celebrations.
J’ouvert began to develop in Guyana in recent years at Mashramani time when there were mega concerts with mainly Trinidadian soca artistes such as Machel Montano, Bunji Garling, Fay Ann Lyons, Destra Garcia and others. These were public events held late at night, running over into the early morning hours, followed by fete revelry after the show ended. The use of the name has been entrenched since then for fetes.
In 2016 when the government mounted a carnival to celebrate the Golden Jubilee, Mashramani was truncated. The parade of costumed bands was not held in February on Republic Day as was the norm but moved to Independence Day. After that, private commercial interests took it over and the most intense Guyana carnival took place last year from May 18 to May 26 with the parade of bands on Independence Day. Advertisements and public build-up reached fever pitch and it was a highly publicized and hyped-up event, surpassing Mashramani in advertising and promotion.
But carnival in Guyana has a longer history. There was an Independence Carnival in 1966 staged by the Jaycees in Georgetown. At that time an annual carnival was held – an imitation of Trinidad with Calypso King competition, Carnival Queen, Band of the Year, taken from the costumed bands and floats which paraded on the road on May 26. The Jaycees then took it to Linden, where, in 1969, it reached its zenith when the biggest, most popular and most successful Guyana Independence carnival was held, given national official status by the attendance of government ministers.
The first irony was that Guyana was now independent but using a foreign imitation to celebrate its sovereign state. When the government declared republican status in 1970, the same group of Jaycees recognised the irony. They then set about converting the carnival into something with a more Guyanese identity and indigenous flavour. They spent nearly one year working on this – using the same carnival format, but making changes, seeking indigenous components and searching for a traditional Guyanese name – preferably Amerindian.
This search ended with the name ‘Mashramani’ which they erroneously thought was an Arawak word describing a native tradition. The government adopted this Mashramani in 1971 and it became the official national celebration on Republic Day, February 23. The government then took it over from the Jaycees and moved it to Georgetown in 1973. By that time, the carnival in Georgetown had long phased out.
The greatest irony now is that the government went back to an Independence Carnival 50 years after it was shelved, and attempts were made to replace it with something with a more local identity. However, while there was a festival for the republic anniversary, there was nothing for independence. But now, in 2019, independence is marked by a foreign imitation. This, however, does not bother the revelers in a time of cultural change when the popular culture rules.
Furthermore, there is more enthusiasm in some quarters for carnival than for Mashramani. The foremost Guyanese soca artistes, for example, do not compete in the Mashramani Soca Monarchy, but feverishly promote and appear in the Independence Carnival J’ouverts. Of all the leading stars, only Jumo Primo and Kwasi Ace competed in Mashramani 2019. Those who see themselves as having made it, seem not to recognise Mashramani as important or big enough for them.
Those ironies multiply when it is noted that the most prominent and successful soca stars in Trinidad compete fiercely for the Carnival Soca Monarchy, which they see as advantageous to their careers. Yet this is the model that Guyana is imitating. To add insult to injury, as the cliché goes, those same Trinidadian superstars come over to perform at J’ouverts during Mashramani.
The Guyana government reduced and emasculated Mashramani in 2016 by taking out the parade of bands and floats and all that relates to it in order to insert it in the Jubilee Independence carnival. It chose to threaten a tradition that has been building for decades in order to enhance one borrowed from Trinidad.
Carnival has not yet replaced the fervour of Mashramani, but there seems to be an erroneous thought that one is to be built at the expense of the other. The truth is that both can be built, and there seems to be enough room for both at the top. It appears that there are sufficient commercial resources available to support both festivals, but the same energies are not being driven into Mashramani, while the carnival fever is jamming to the extreme.
