Reminiscences: Lent, Easter and…

As we come to the end of the Christian Lenten season and welcome the Easter resurrection, permit me to share some reminiscences with you relevant to these seasons from an historical context. I must admit that I am not a religious person in spite of my early upbringing and the efforts of my parents. But, certainly up until my mid-teens I took my religious instruction very seriously and developed a healthy respect for the religious views of others which has remained with me up until today. I do believe that religious tolerance is an essential aspect of any democracy.

Like most of my generation, the Lenten season had a profound effect on my social activities. In those days, before we succumbed to commercial pressures, Lent was preceded by Carnival and what a contrast it was! We were at the height of “bacchanal” one day and into Lent and abstinence the very next, no time for transition.

People in those days took Lent very seriously, or at least appeared to do so. You were supposed to give up all activities which involved frolic, and for adults, males in particular, to give up drinking alcohol and smoking until Lent was finished.

“Respectable” women were not expected to drink and smoke in any case. That frolic had a generous interpretation according to your religious affiliation, but it even extended to such harmless activities as picnics. The strict interpretation was religiously enforced on Good Friday in particular, when you were practically forbidden from taking a sea bath, with all kinds of superstitions evolving around supposed punishments if you did.

Significantly, this Anglo-Saxon and colonial interpretation of what one should give up for Lent had a negative effect on our Caribbean culture. Our traditional calypso was not supposed to be sung during Lent, and the steel band, already frowned upon by colonial authorities, was a no-no during this time. In fact, such was the attitude towards steel band, that the Mighty Sparrow even had a popular calypso in 1966, the chorus of which began with the lines, “Big Sunday morning, dey cussing, dey fighting ,dey gambling, Beating pan,
dey beating and bottle and stone pelting”.

In other words, “beating pan” was associated with such anti-social activities as cursing, gambling and violence. Definitely not for Sunday!

This ban on calypso was hard to take for those like me for whom calypso was not only the preferred choice but one essential to our enjoyment. Calypso was not to be played on the radio, the only public outlet those days. Could you imagine 40 days without any public entertainment? But worse, it was the enforcement of what I call cultural imperialism, instilling in our minds that something is wrong, even sinful with calypso and steel band.

It continued to torture me, and I am sure many others of my generation. Through the influence of my mother and father, himself was a masquerader whom I vaguely remember playing in the legendary “Tower Guards” band, I started out in Children’s carnival, (a pity we no longer say “Children” these days, relegating our young ones to “kiddies”).

In those days the Children’s Carnival took place in the Court House yard, just outside the Prisons.

With this background I graduated to Carnival Tuesday, baptized as Mardi Gras in those days playing with both Bridge Boys and “Samo”, outstanding bandleader Winston Samuel.

With a group of friends, including veteran masman Sibert “Dove” Liverpool, a key member of the “Boys from the Hill” (Kingstown Hill) with the likes of Paddy Corea, Moby Dick and Sevens Knights, we organized a successful “ole mas” band in the mid-sixties.

So, could you imagine every Carnival Tuesday night, in the midst of the “las lap” , your mind running on the restrictions to follow the very next day. Yet we were respectful and toed the line, at least before the political awakening of the seventies. Besides, Lent had its own attractions. You got a chance to chat girls after “Stations of the Cross” on Friday nights. When else could girls of our age have a chance to be out on Friday nights?

Yet, the spartan restrictions rankled, for except for a little-remembered St. Joseph’s Day when radio stations were permitted to play calypso, we suffered from a cultural lockdown. Then came Holy Week and Good Friday itself, replete with the Good Friday meals which some of us did not enjoy, to say the least. So, Easter came like liberation – picnic on Easter Monday, fete and all. But we still found time for religious observations, including the big Easter services.

That seemed to give real meaning to the resurrection for our indigenous culture could now be resurrected. By that time however, many of the calypsos, deprived of air play for popular acceptance had faded into the background.

Calypsonians and pannists had to pack up until the next year.

Such was the effect of colonial rule on our society, using religion to promote and prolong deculturalization.

It is an experience of which our young people know very little, but which must form part of OUR STORY.

Renwick Rose is a community activist and social commentator.