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FRENCH GUIANA
One of Guyanese's strongest traditions for over a century. Cayenne, the Mecca of the country's Creole culture, hosts the Carnival, without doubt the most festive event in French Guiana, with parades and parades on Sundays and public holidays.
The first event on the Guyanese calendar, carnival occupies all of French Guiana from Epiphany to Ash Wednesday. A festival imported from Europe by the colonists, forbidden to slaves who nevertheless appropriated it clandestinely, the tradition spread to the entire Creole community in the 19th century. The carnival then played the role of a decompression chamber in a very unequal society; it annihilated the scale of power, overturned social order, gave free rein to popular jubilation and opened up a space of freedom.
Every year, the carnival opens with the arrival of King Vaval at Epiphany, and ends on Ash Wednesday with his cremation, until he is resurrected the following year. Even today, the Guyanese are still very attached to these festivities under the authority of King Vaval; they participate enthusiastically in the evenings at the dancings and in the street parades. Street parades, cavalcades, float parades, night parades, without forgetting the election of the Miss, the mini-king and the mini-queen of the carnival.
The masked ball is a purely Guyanese specificity, now classified as Intangible Cultural Heritage. It is a synthesis between the receptions of bourgeois society, where waltzes and biguine were danced, and popular balls with mazurkas, polkas and "kaseko" rhythms. Temporary dancings, called "universities" (Nana in Cayenne, Polina in Matoury...), welcomed orchestras and carnivals in festive dress on Saturday evenings. Stars and specificities of the Guyanese carnival, the touloulous, these women in costume and masks, are particularly impressive. They dance around with the men. In the context of contemporary masked balls (since the 1950s) more than in any other event, the Touloulou embodies the inversion of roles, here linked to gender relations, a strong characteristic of carnival.The carnival in French Guiana is one of the longest in the world!
After almost 2 months, the carnival ends in apotheosis with Shrove Tuesday and Shrove Tuesday. On the 2 Sundays preceding Ash Wednesday, the big parades take place, first the coastal parade in Kourou, then the parade in Cayenne. Structured, large groups of musicians and dancers parade in imaginative costumes and perform skilfully rehearsed choreographies to the sound of drums or sound systems along a secure route. At the end of the day, the best performance is rewarded.
Shrove Monday is dedicated to burlesque weddings, grotesque stagings of role reversal and cross-dressing. On Tuesday, the Red Devils (Djabrouj) invade the public space. The spectators also repect these colour codes.
Finally, Ash Wednesday is the funeral of Vaval, the king of carnival. His majesty is cremated on the Place des Palmistes in Cayenne, in front of his subjects wearing the colours of mourning, black and white. The Diablesses (dyablès) show their sorrow by firing all sorts of sound objects on the pavement..
Several codified characters embody the carnival spirit. Find some examples just behind:
Mythical figure of the carnival. He is the king of the carnival. He is inducted at the beginning of the carnival. He dies on Ash Wednesday, to be reborn like the Phoenix the following year.
The most famous character. She is a lady elegantly dressed from head to toe. She wears a petticoat, a bonnet, a wolf (mask) and long gloves, so that not a single centimetre of skin can be seen. The aim is that the woman disguised as a touloulou is not recognised. She parades in the street but she also takes part in masked balls. She represents the bourgeois women of the 18th and 19th centuries.
They are groups of men dressed in kalimbe (red loincloth) and coated with oil and soot. They also have an Awara seed in their mouths. They try to put order (to get all the spectators out of the street where the parades take place). They represent fugitive slaves, called "marrons" (brown in english).
He is a devil dressed in red and black. We see him in the streets during Shrove Tuesday.
The Bobi is a duo formed by an animal half bear, half elephant symbolising Afro-European crossbreeding and held on a leash by a trainer dressed like an English policeman (the Bobby).
Zombis baréyo, in a white dress and pillowcase on their head, are chained together and can encircle onlookers. Jéfarin represents the baker and throws flour at the children.
New characters have appeared recently, such as the big heads in the effigy of politicians, or the gorilla masks of the so-called dirty and lonely Touloulous.
HAVE A LOOK
Written by Rodolph RODRIC, on 11/24/2020
Biodiversity Reserve