Jouvay Ayiti: Haiti's New Day, from Mas to Mas Action

Abstract

IntroductionchARLes DAy, An engLishMAn, in A JouRnAL oF his soJouRn in the Caribbean in the late nineteenth century, noted the following about a mas1 he witnessed in the Trinidad Carnival in 1847:The primitives were negroes, as nearly naked as might be, bedaubed with a black varnish. One of this gang had a long chain and padlock attached to his leg, which chain the other pulled. What this typified I was unable to learn; but as the chained one was occasionally thrown down on the ground and treated with a mock bastinadoing [beating] it probably represented slavery.2Whatever accounts for Day's tentativeness in deciphering the meaning of the performance, notwithstanding the event that the mas sought to re-present, there are two things that are clear here. First, by situating itself on the street, the theatre of the mas (or what is given to the audience) makes visible, in this peculiar play, a grave tragedy: African enslavement in the West Indies, presented by performers who themselves might have been until recently enslaved. Second, Day's comment is not merely an early account of mas in Trinidad. It seems, also, to be a documentation of an early manifestation of what we know today as Jabmolassi, or the molasses-covered devil (Jab or Djab from the French word diable). Therein lies the drama, the internal narrative guiding the performance.This f/act alone, though, demands consideration of mas as a sort of protest performance, in light of molasses being a by-product of the sugar cane production process, for which task these masqueraders were previously enslaved.In the Caribbean and West Africa, there are other masquerades which perform similarly, using substances which allow for the (further) blackening of the skin. In revisiting Day's account we confront another critical truth about mas. To remember and to create performance - especially one from the place of one's origin, in a New World, whose re/order/ing of human existence is based on amnesia and the rendering of our early masquerader as labour, as commodity, and consumer - are essentially acts of defiance. Mas amplifies and makes what might not be known, conscious.T he 2010 earthquake and J o u v ay Ayi tiWhen the shocking news of the tragedy of Haiti's 2010 earthquake hit us in Trinidad, some of us resolved to be part of Haiti's regeneration. In our reasoning, though, more than cans and clothing were demanded in this effort. Under the auspices of the Lloyd Best Institute of the West Indies, an independent think tank in Trinidad and Tobago - its late founder a long-standing advocate of Haiti in the region - the initial caucus comprised artists, intellectuals, and academics, all of whom shared a long-term commitment to Haiti's role as a beacon of Caribbean civilisation. These meetings would continue over the course of that year as we explored the most effective ways within our means to alter the paradigm of consciousness about Haiti. We regarded ourselves as a Group on or a Convois (the name given to African secret societies in nineteenthcentury Trinidad).Our conception of ourselves as a Convois recalled a historical/biological connection between Trinidad and Haiti, one that is perhaps not well known. The Cedula de Poblacion of 1783 enfranchised Roman Catholic French planters from neighbouring Caribbean islands as landowners, so that their enslaved workforce might develop the Trinidad plantation economy. These same labourers would constitute the Convois (later known as Regiments), which were said to be set up for dancing and innocent amusements.3 These activities, however, masked a number of hidden transcripts, not the least among which was rebellion - clearly inspired by the Haitian Revolution, and evidenced in this song-plot, discovered on the Shand Estate in Diego Martin in 1805:Pain nous ka mangeC'est viande bekeDu vin ka boueC'est sang bekeThe bread we eatIs the white man's fleshThe wine we drinkIs the white man's bloodHe St DomingoSonge St DomingoHe St DomingoRemember St Domingo4Among the initial efforts of our Convois or Working Group were: providing support for the faith-based initiative Is There Not a Cause; organising public seminars on Haiti; exploring the possibilities of a Haitian band participating in Emancipation celebrations in Trinidad and Tobago in August 2010; and publishing material on Haiti in the Trinidad and Tobago Review. …