This weekend marks the thirty second annual West Indian Carnival in Brooklyn, New York. A local version of a holiday which serves as a social pressure release valve. I’m Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet, presented by the American Museum of Natural History.
Traditionally, Carnival is a Christian holiday– a kind of anything-goes period, which marks the time just before the forty day fast known as Lent. Lamuel Stanislaus, the Ambassador at large to Grenada, explains that the West Indian Carnival dates back to French culture.
“Carnival really came to the West Indies through the French. When the French came as our colonial masters to the Caribbean, they brought that custom. Because at the time you have the slaves. And they give the slave a certain portion of the carnival and the slaves use it as a time to mock the masters and so on. And then we started to migrate, especially to the United States of America so we came with that part of our culture.”
Although the Brooklyn version of Carnival takes place over Labor Day weekend to take advantage of the warmer weather, in many ways, the spirit of the celebration remains the same as in the West Indies.
“Carnival comes from two Latin words. The two Latin words mean ‘good bye to the flesh.’ So, it is a time when you let go, as we say. We celebrate perhaps by covering your face with a mask– masquerade. When you cover your face with a mask you can misbehave. We forget for a day all the problems of the city, and this sort of thing, and we just let go as we say, loosen yourself, have fun.”
Additional funding for this series has been provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities. I’m Jim Metzner.