African influence flavors carnivals in the Americas
In the Caribbean and the Americas, Carnival is a festive celebration that brings all cultures together. The African presence can be seen as the dance and percussive engine that fuels the collective body of the communities participating in Carnival.
As a massive street party, the celebration is a meeting place where social differences and castes can be bridged, even though many of these differences have been nurtured as a way to continue to make distinctions and reinforce wealth. The Carnival is a reaffirmation of the African diaspora.
In Cuba, African creativity is shown in the Comparsas Congas (originating from the Kongo/Angola/Congo ethnic group) and the Comparsa Carabalí (from the old Calabar city in Nigeria) of Oriente and Havana. This Carnival is the origin of the Conga as a musical genre from which virtuoso musicians such as Ernesto Lecuona composed a classic piece of Cuban music entitled “La Comparsa.” This comparsa includes the so-called trompeta china, which came by way of the forced migration of thousands of Chinese who were transferred to Cuba to replace the enslaved labor of the Africans. The telluric movement of this comparsa is marked by Quintos, Congas, Tumbadoras, Bombos “Galleta,” Campanas, Sartenes, and Chequerés.
Bahia: Sadness has no end…happiness does…
Carnival in Brazil is where the African presence and the continuous process of creativity from the favelas can be seen. It’s evident in the joy throughout the four festive days that end when Ash Wednesday arrives.
The Rio de Janeiro Carnival is known worldwide today, but there is also the Bahia Carnival, which reclaims an African heritage. What is different from the Rio Carnival is that the Afro Bahians themselves are the ones who are economically and symbolically controlling their Carnival. They promote the mpuita (frotativo with the widow inside the drum) and the batuques or drums of Congos and Yoruba origin, as well as the ancestral African spirituality.
Trinidad, New Orleans, and El Callao
Another creative expression of Carnival comes from the island of Trinidad and Tobago with the creation of calypso, born from the remains of oil barrels that give way to the steel drums best known as steel bands that accompany the parades, full of creativity and esthetic irreverence in that island.
New Orleans, where Carnival is called Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday), is the Third World reference for Carnival. Here, troupes parade through upscale neighborhoods such as Saint Charles, the French Quarter, and Bourbon Street in typical European costumes, with one or two floats with African reminiscences, sprinkled with street jazz.
But in New Orleans, there is another Mardi Gras. The Black Indian Mardi Gras (Afro Indigenous) is a traditional meeting between Afrodescendants and Indigenous people in the impoverished Afrodescendant neighborhoods, recalling the anti-slavery alliances in colonial times, with performances featuring tambourines and traditional dances. These dances are performed gesturally and in the costumes of the original Indigenous people from the state of Louisiana.
Finally, there is the Carnival of El Callao, in the state of Bolivar (Venezuela), where migrants from the English- and French-speaking Caribbean settled under the sound of calypso. The dress of the madams, the half-pinto, and above all the Creole spoken in that city is an extraordinary act of conservation of the African presence that arrived due to the extractive mining exploitation of gold.
To this day, having gold teeth is part of a tradition that is also observed by the Afro Indians of New Orleans.
Carnival is, without a doubt, the highest festive expression of the African maroonage in the Americas and the Caribbean.
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