Carnival!

Mikinee Moses ’06 used a St. Lawrence Center for International and Intercultural Studies travel grant to research a project in her homeland, Trinidad. She says, “My research was based on the traditional characters of Carnival in Trinidad and Tobago.  I believe they are a very important aspect of the festival, one that embodies the cultural history of the people and the society.

"I pursued this project because although I am Trinidadian I was not familiar with these characters,” Moses continues.  “In fact, some of the people I interviewed were not familiar with them.  So I found it necessary to do deeper research, which will eventually benefit the schools and the general public by educating them about their own heritage.”

Citing her research, Moses explains that “Although slaves were prohibited from the masked balls of the aristocratic French planters, they held their own carnivals, using their own rituals and folklore. They did not simply mimic their masters’ festivals; they infused them with their own traditions and beliefs, which had survived their trans-Atlantic voyage to foreign lands. According to Corey Gilkes, author of Trinidad Carnival: Afri-Caribbean Resistance (www.trinicenter.com/Gilkes/2003/2302.htm), ‘In (them) we see reversal of social situation, gay revelry, pantomime, street parades, hand clapping, music and masking.”