Week # 20: Carnaval!!!

As I posted on Facebook this week, I saw the exposed thighs of more beautiful women than I would have thought possible in one place at one time last Saturday. So where was I? At Carnival! No, not in Rio de Janeiro, though arguably I should have been given that it’s just a border away. But unbeknownst to me until I arrived here, Carnival in Bolivia is massive too. And in terms of Andean folklore and heritage, the event in the town of Oruro is perhaps the most significant on the continent. Significant enough for UNESCO to cite it as a ‘Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity’ (as my friend responded on Facebook, “them UNESCO folk, can’t they just say ‘nice thighs’?”)

Anyway, I’ve been looking into the global phenomenon that is Carnival, and thought I would share with you some of the highlights of my research into the World’s best-known pre-Lent street parties (all we get at home is Pancake Day!).

To know a whole lot more about what’s been going on in Bolivia this last week, please look at the separate post on ‘Living Carnaval’, featuring an interview with an expert and excellent insight into what is a fascinating cultural and social bonanza. As to the rest…

TRINIDAD & TOBAGO

Carnival in the Caribbean nation of Trinidad & Tobago is said to be the world’s best, though I expect Rio de Janeirans would have something loud to say about that…Like elsewhere in the Americas, Christian Carnival was imported there by French colonists, but the special Caribbean twist is said to have its origins in the throwing off of slavery. Calypso and, more recently, Soca music form the beating heart, with steelpans (apparently the only non-electric musical instrument invented in the 20th century) providing the keynote to a lot of ‘wining’ (i.e. hip-grinding). Stickfighting and limbo competitions also feature heavily, while the winner of the title of ‘Calypso Monarch’ receives a massive trophy along with a new car and TT $500,000. Key characters include black minstrels wearing white facepaint, as well as the Midnight Robber. Participation occurs at all levels of society; three-time calypso monarch David Rudder described it as “from bourgeois to grassroots.” And according to somewhere else on the internet, ‘Today Trinidad’s model for public celebration is the most widely imitated festival art form in the world’ – certainly it has brought great things to Notting Hill Carnival in London.

VENICE

Apparently Venice Carnival began as a commemoration of a 1162 military victory, with the slaughtering of bulls and pigs in St Mark’s Square around Shrove Tuesday, though the first Senate-declared official date was in 1296. Very famous now, in fact the celebrations only restarted in 1980 after a two-century decline (and a full ban under Mussolini). The decadence accompanying Venice’s waning as a world power made Carnival especially sumptuous in the 18th Century. A city known for its transgressive and licentious qualities, the renowned Venetian masks – of which there are many types – were often used outside of Carnival in order to gamble, defraud and seduce incognito (as well as to aid anonymous political participation). The power of disguise to disrupt social status and hierarchy is a key aspect of Carnival spirit everywhere.

RIO DE JANEIRO

The most famous Carnaval of the lot, the image of Rio worldwide is defined by the sounds of samba and sights of sexy señoritas that are broadcast from the Brazilian city at this time of year. On the Friday before Lent King Momo is handed the keys to the city and under him chaos reigns. Gender bends, paupers become princes, and a huge amount of money and booze gets spilt. 756,000 visitors were expected to spend around $559 million at this year’s Carnival, dancing along to 424 mobile street parties or ‘blocos’. According to the current King Momo, who has taken on the role for the last four years, “Carnival is the world’s biggest manifestation of happiness, merrymaking, extravagance,” he said. “It’s a massive getting rid of all the stresses of every day, and it brings a sense of peace and togetherness. I hope to do this as long as I can, God willing and my disposition holding up.”

BINCHE

Carnival in Binche, Belgium (like Oruro in Bolivia) has been recognised by UNESCO as a ‘Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity’. Arguably dating back to the 14th century, the key figure in Binche Carnival is the ‘Gille’, clown-like characters, always men, who wear wooden shoes, wax masks and ostrich feathers, and go about town on the Sunday before Lent with big sticks to ward off evil spirits and oranges to throw at spectators. They’re only allowed out on that Sunday though, while for up to six Sundays prior you can see various other masked characters out dancing and parading. According to one slightly enigmatic online description, “from 9 p.m. on the Monday preceding the Quinquagesima, the ‘beaux masques’ get all over the town, alone or in groups. They go from pub to pub, trying to find a victim to intrigue. All the inhabitants of Binche play the game. They try to identify the teaser and have him keep quiet when it comes to embarrassing matters by offering him a drink”.

NEW ORLEANS

New Orleans comes close to Rio for the notoriety of its Mardi Gras festivities, even more so after the city pulled together to throw its annual party in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Carnival in the US came mainly with French, and in the Louisiana town arrived with the colonial expedition of brothers Pierre and Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville. They claimed the spot where New Orleans stands today on March 3 1699, which so happened to be Mardi Gras, or Shrove Tuesday. New Orleans became the capital of French Louisiana in 1723, and as the city grew and creolized, so did its carnival. James R. Creecy in his book Scenes in the South, and Other Miscellaneous Pieces describes New Orleans Mardi Gras in 1835: “Shrove Tuesday is a day to be remembered by strangers in New Orleans, for that is the day for fun, frolic, and comic masquerading. All of the mischief of the city is alive and wide awake in active operation. Men and boys, women and girls, bond and free, white and black, yellow and brown, exert themselves to invent and appear in grotesque, quizzical, diabolic, horrible, strange masks, and disguises…man-bats from the moon; mermaids; satyrs, beggars, monks, and robbers parade and march…in rich confusion, up and down the streets, wildly shouting, singing, laughing, drumming, fiddling, fifeing, and all throwing flour broadcast as they wend their reckless way.”