Joel Julien

Tracey Sankar-Charleau and her son Jude cap­ti­vat­ed the crowd last Car­ni­val when they crossed the Adam Smith Square stage at the Tra­di­tion­al Car­ni­val Char­ac­ter com­pe­ti­tion.

Sankar-Charleau was La­dy Solanaceae the La­ga­hoo while Jude, 10, was a Douen.

The two folk­lore char­ac­ters were en­tered and won the Demons and Dev­ils com­pe­ti­tion.

This was not Sankar-Charleau's first time por­tray­ing a folk­lore char­ac­ter in the Car­ni­val and God spare life, she said she hopes it will not be the last.

In fact, Sankar-Charleau hopes to por­tray each one of our rich folk­lore char­ac­ters in her own unique way.

She al­ready has plans of play­ing an­oth­er folk­lore char­ac­ter for Car­ni­val 2019.

Ex­act­ly which one we will not re­veal.

Sankar-Charleau's moth­er, June, is renowned for her por­tray­al of the tra­di­tion­al Car­ni­val char­ac­ter the Dame Lor­raine.

And as such, this mas was an ex­pect­ed start­ing point for Sankar-Charleau.

But then she moved away from that mas and moved on to play­ing the fire breath­ing Jab Mo­lassie.

She even­tu­al­ly merged the busty and fem­i­nine Dame Lor­raine with the blue dev­il in her Car­ni­val pre­sen­ta­tions.

How­ev­er, Sankar-Charleau yearned for more cre­ative­ly.

And so be­gan her use of folk­lore in her pre­sen­ta­tions.

'I go through my per­son­al rit­u­al'

Sankar-Charleau opt­ed to por­tray the La Di­a­b­lesse or the dev­il woman.

"I was just sit­ting down a day and I was bored and I did not want to bring out the same things, it just not mak­ing any sense. I said, but wait, folk­lore is our own.

"I went through the archives when I was in the li­brary and I re­alised a lot of things don't get played any more, and I am go­ing to still keep bring­ing it and God spare my life I am go­ing to bring every char­ac­ter and I am putting in ones that were nev­er seen be­fore," she said.

The dev­il woman, ac­cord­ing to lo­cal folk­lore, is a se­duc­tress whose wiles would en­trap any man who was un­lucky enough to cross her path.

It is this La Di­a­b­lesse that got Sankar-Charleau in­ter­est­ed in folk­lore from a young age.

"When my moth­er first read folk­lore to me, I was fas­ci­nat­ed by the La Di­a­b­lesse," Sankar-Charleau told the Sun­day Guardian dur­ing an in­ter­view at her fam­i­ly's Orop­une Gar­dens home.

"I was fas­ci­nat­ed by her per­fume, what was the smell that he was get­ting from her? Why didn't she like cig­a­rette smoke? Why does she have a hoof? I had so many ques­tions," she said.

So it was on­ly ex­pect­ed that when Sankar-Charleau delved in­to folk­lore she would re­turn to her first love.

That lead to her haunt­ing­ly beau­ti­ful por­tray­al of Erzulie The La Di­a­b­lesse in 2015.

Erzulie dressed in a white dress and hat was com­plete with horns and a cow's hoof.

Sankar-Charleau be­lieves all folk­lore char­ac­ters were all based on re­al­i­ty.

"I go through my per­son­al rit­u­al be­fore por­tray­ing each char­ac­ter, we bless the cos­tumes, it is not just a char­ac­ter you play, you be­come the thing," she said.

From La Di­a­b­lesse to La­ga­hoo

Com­ing down from play­ing Erzulie was in­tense, she said.

Stem­ming from this, Sankar-Charleau took up her next chal­lenge, the La­ga­hoo.

For most, the La­ga­hoo re­turned to the na­tion­al fore in 2013 when then prime min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­ferred to Jack Warn­er as such dur­ing the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions be­cause of his ear­ly morn­ing work eth­ic.

Ac­cord­ing to lo­cal folk­lore, the La­ga­hoo is a shape shifter.

"Every­body is so ac­cus­tomed to know­ing the La­ga­hoo is a male but I watched in one of the books and I said but there are fe­males in this, it is a shape-shifter, why does it al­ways have to be male bear­ing all the time. I said no, I will take it as a fe­male and then I got the idea why don't I bring a Douen and so said so done," Sankar-Charleau said.

When Sankar-Charleau was prepar­ing for the tra­di­tion­al char­ac­ter com­pe­ti­tion peo­ple thought she was again play­ing the La Di­a­b­lesse.

"Peo­ple were watch­ing me and they were like 'but she didn't play La Di­a­b­lesse last year? That is the La Di­a­b­lesse but wait, no, she has two hooves now in­stead of one'. And when I lit the cof­fin then every­one went crazy and they start­ed to put two and two to­geth­er," Sankar-Charleau said.

"I was hop­ing to get the same ef­fect and when I came out and light­ed the cof­fin, so said so done," she said.

Get­ting peo­ple to fo­cus on our folk­lore

La­dy Solanaceae took over.

"I don't re­mem­ber much, you know some­thing is there and it takes you over. It comes like it puts me to sleep, has full con­trol of my whole body and puts me to move," she said.

"I was se­ri­ous­ly get­ting bad man­i­fes­ta­tions, I would get up like some­thing was suck­ing my skin and scratch­es and a few hours af­ter it would fade," Sankar-Charleau said.

Jude's por­tray­al of the douen al­so stunned the crowd that Car­ni­val Wednes­day night.

Douens are said to be the souls of chil­dren who have died be­fore they were bap­tised.

Jude's por­tray­al was hor­ri­fy­ing­ly per­fect.

Sankar-Charleau's por­tray­al of La­dy Solanaceae got peo­ple talk­ing on so­cial me­dia about the La­ga­hoo and folk­lore in gen­er­al.

She is hap­py that she has done her part to get peo­ple to fo­cus on our own tra­di­tions.

But Sankar-Charleau be­lieves chil­dren need to be taught this coun­try's folk­lore in the pri­ma­ry schools.

"This is ours, it has to be re­mem­bered if you have it in school. Chil­dren are learn­ing about Math, Eng­lish and even about (Bri­an) Lara's records in crick­et or even our Miss Uni­verse wins, but when you come to the ba­sis of be­fore all that they don’t even know what folk­lore is," she said.

Be­cause of the short Car­ni­val sea­son this year, Sankar-Charleau said she has re­vert­ed to her first mas the Dame Lor­raine.

Jude will be por­tray­ing the Ba­by Doll.

This year, Sankar-Charleau, her daugh­ter, Nathaniel, 21; son Joshua, 19; and sis­ter Na­dia and moth­er, June all in­tend to por­tray the Dame Lor­raine.

Sankar-Charleau said it will be a good fam­i­ly com­pe­ti­tion to see who comes out on top.