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Tuesday, July 15, 2025

Teach culture in our schools

by

20140228

In­stead of in­creased po­lice pa­trols and po­lice posts in the East Dry Riv­er, Port-of-Spain com­mu­ni­ty, there should be an in­crease in the cul­tur­al aware­ness of the peo­ple and the teach­ing of lo­cal cul­ture in the schools.The ap­peal came from Ein­tou Pearl Springer, play­wright for yes­ter­day's Kam­bule (for­mer­ly Can­boulay) re-en­act­ment at the Pic­cadil­ly Greens, East Dry Riv­er.In an in­ter­view fol­low­ing the re-en­act­ment of the 1881 Can­boulay ri­ots, Springer said it was time East Dry Riv­er, the birth­place of Car­ni­val, "be giv­en some re­al at­ten­tion".

She added that every­thing is now mov­ing west­ward."In our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem none of the chil­dren know about this Kam­bule. They think Car­ni­val is wine and jam, they don't know that peo­ple fought to have this Car­ni­val the way it is," Springer said."Maybe this area should be giv­en the recog­ni­tion for the part it played in the cul­ture. It would make a big­ger im­pact than all the po­lice posts. Cul­ture is life, it gives a sense of self and iden­ti­ty. It is not (found) any­where (any more), def­i­nite­ly not in the schools."

Springer, who ded­i­cat­ed yes­ter­day's cel­e­bra­tion to Dr Hol­lis "Chalk­dust" Liv­er­pool, called for Liv­er­pool's book Rit­u­als of Pow­er and Re­bel­lion: The Car­ni­val Tra­di­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go 1763-1962, to be used in the na­tion's schools. She com­mend­ed those who came out for the 5 am re-en­act­ment, adding that it is grow­ing an­nu­al­ly.

Tight se­cu­ri­ty

Ear­li­er, the sun was nowhere in sight, yet young, old and those in be­tween, yawn­ing and sip­ping on cof­fee, were in place to wit­ness the birth of what we now know as Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day.On stand­by in the event of an emer­gency were heav­i­ly armed po­lice of­fi­cers.Out­side of the con­fined "stage" ven­dors sold drinks out of cool­ers packed in gro­cery carts while one man shout­ed "pies, pies", his eyes fix­at­ed in the cool­er in front of him as he sought to ac­com­mo­date a cus­tomer.

The cast, a mix of Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), St James Youth Club, Bel­mont Free­town Cul­tur­al Arts Folk Com­pa­ny and oth­er groups, thrilled the au­di­ence with their ren­di­tion of what tran­spired that fate­ful day in 1881 when the po­lice force, head­ed by Cap­tain Arthur Bak­er, sought to bring Can­boulay to an end as it was deemed a threat to pub­lic safe­ty fol­low­ing clash­es be­tween groups of stick and torch-car­ry­ing rev­ellers in pre­vi­ous years.

The scene was set in a stick fight­ing com­mu­ni­ty, sim­ply called "The Bar­racks". De­scen­dants of and freed slaves chat­ted and chant­ed among them­selves of the pains they went through each time they at­tempt­ed to cel­e­brate their African her­itage with a flam­beau and stick fight­ing. They vowed, how­ev­er, that this time around they would not back down.

Af­ter the po­lice re­ceived a sound beat­ing from the stick fight­ers, called "Bois men/women", as they at­tempt­ed to stop them from their cel­e­bra­tions, British Gov­er­nor Freel­ing, played by Bren­don La­caille, vowed not to in­ter­fere with the de­scen­dants any­more and gave them the city to en­joy the fes­tiv­i­ties for two days un­in­ter­rupt­ed.

Crowds jos­tle for im­ages

The name Can­boulay was changed to Kam­bule in 2010 by play­wright and di­rec­tor Springer. Kam­bule is the Kikon­go word for "pro­ces­sion".Spec­ta­tors with cam­eras, smart­phones and ipads ea­ger to im­mor­talise the re-en­act­ment jos­tled each oth­er to cap­ture what was tak­ing place, whether it was the mock stick fight­ing or the con­fu­sion be­tween two women over a man.Chil­dren were seen with their eyes wide open and smiles on their faces look­ing on as the lead­ers in the play ex­e­cut­ed their lines, seem­ing­ly flaw­less­ly.

At the end of the re-en­act­ment spec­ta­tors were treat­ed to Blue Dev­ils, jab-jab, moko jumbies and pan mu­sic. The Blue Dev­ils had some chil­dren and one or two ma­ture women run­ning, while oth­ers sim­ply paid them they mon­ey they were seek­ing to stay off. One woman was seen run­ning un­der the re­cent­ly con­struct­ed bleach­ers to es­cape a Blue Dev­il.

Two women, who said they had to wake up as ear­ly as 3.30 am to reach on time, said yes­ter­day's re-en­act­ment was the first they had seen live, as in years past they looked at it on tele­vi­sion. They promised it would not be their last.


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