'Nuff About Notting Hill! Let's hear it from the North
Words by Ismael Ali Nasreldin | 25.08.23
If we look at Carnival culture through an all encompassing lens and as a generalised custom, we see a long standing global phenomena that has adapted, evolved and self-preserved with its roots and rituals in ancient civilisations. First found in Ancient Egypt and continued within Ancient Greek civilisation, the Carnival we have come to know in the UK marinated its immersive style in Trinidad, the festival has travelled the globe getting fuelled and fed by various influences.
Bacchanal
Jamaican based researcher Marvin George cites the river Nile as the source of the spectacle that is Carnival. The river watered the first advanced civilisation, providing nourishment for a technically, philosophically and culturally rich society. From this stream advancement trickled down and out through the mediterranean, a current that would inform our modern way of being.
The Ancient Egyptian Godking Osiris, representative of fertility, life and other beacons of pleasure was honoured with parades, street parties and processional festivals giving thanks to the annual flooding of the Nile as long ago as 2300 BCE. Almost 1000 years later, we see a similar Godking character named Dionysus, who Marvin George suggests is simply Osiris transplanted into Greek folklore, his values still resonating with the Greeks. Dionysus to the more hedonistic Greeks, came to embody festivity, revelry, illusion, pleasure and wine. Accordingly the celebration of Dionysia began, the largest annual festival that occurred in ancient Athens, with the sole purpose seemingly to ignite and allow for unrestricted yet jovial revelry. Dionysus also went by Bacchus, stemming the idea and word for Bacchanal, meaning a wild and drunken celebration. This term has been fused into Trini vernacular and colloquialisms, used exactly as the Greeks intended ‘behaving in an unruly manner during a fete (festival) or mas (masquerade)’.
Trinidad, like most Caribbean nation states, was formed at many intersections of Eastern and Western civilisations. African, European and Indigenous American ideologies and ways of being all came to meet at the crossroads in Trinidad specifically in restoring and refining the ancient tradition of the Bacchanal.
There is an undeniable global spirit for revelry across communities. Trinidad can be seen as a place where the many streams of processional celebration were brought side by side, then organically fused together as a multi-cultural Caribbean Carnival, embracing diversity and championing resilience. Similarly to Jamaica’s slogan of solidarity ‘out of many, one people’, we can see Caribbean Carnival culture as something that came about through the variety, difference and embrace, into one, inclusive Carnival.
As we see revelry and fundamental Carnival behaviour to be rooted in the respectable Ancient Civilisations of Egypt and Greece, we must question how and why it came to have such a negative press when practised in England, and challenge such dismissal of Carnival’s culturally rich history.
Similarly to Jamaica’s slogan of solidarity ‘out of many, one people’, we can see Caribbean Carnival culture as something that came about through the variety, difference and embrace, into one, inclusive Carnival.
J’ouvert Morning
Since this spread of festivities we see the roots of Trinidad Carnival, celebrated by bands of indigenous Caribs, characterised by bright colours, singing, stomping and roaring - yes, revelling! At one time or another, Spanish, English, Dutch and French colonists ruled the island of Trinidad & Tobago, meaning it saw a range of different influences and impositions. The upper classes, and aristocrats among the French colonists in the late Eighteenth Century would perform ‘masked’ Carnivals, adopting the clothes and costumes of the indigenous and enslaved on the Island. Performative costume is a signifier and characteristic of Caribbean Carnival culture today, while staying true to the spirit of resurrection that Osiris represented and the illusion that Dionysus was celebrated for. Another aspect of Dionysia was reignited on the Island of Trinidad with the arrival of English Colonists, who in the early 19th century turned the Carnival period that shared the season with Chrstmas into riotous drinking and disorder.
After enslaved people led rebellions forcing the abolition of slavery in 1834, African-Caribbeans continued developing Cariso singing (the spanish term used to describe processional celebrations and ceremonial customs long present on the island) into mercilessly satirical, scandalous and often sexually explicit songs in English and Patois. Another term used to name Carnivals in Trinidad is ‘jamette’, from the French ‘diametre’, referring to people deemed as undeserving of respectability. The natural revelry and bacchanalian element of Carnival has meant that it was often condemned or suppressed by the Trinidadian elites. Despite this, as a fundamentally resilient and working class festival of precedented revelry, parading and costume making, Caribbean Carnival thrived. We can now see Carnival culture holistically was nurtured and strengthened on the islands of Trinidad & Tobago, and this fascinating history is inextricably linked to the culture and resiliency of the Trinidadian people. Drums were banned by the ruling class in the 1880s out of fear that they were being used to communicate secret messages. As a protest, the Tamboo Bamboo movement evolved — cutting lengths of bamboo and rhythmically stomping them on the ground, an artform that was fused with political discontent and expression until the 1930s, until Tamboo Bamboo bands were outlawed. In retaliation, bands then picked up metal dust bins, biscuit tins or anything sonorous and began beating on them. Funnily enough, this clanging metal in rhythm is the authentic alarm or wake-up call of Caribbean Carnival, in a ritual called J’ouvert Morning, still happening today. Sounds of metal eventually replaced bamboo, so the idea of steel pan was born. Figures such as Ellie Mannette, Winston “Spree” Simon, and Tony Williams are credited as pioneers of the steel drum, indenting the complete twelve notes of the chromatic scale on a single pan.
Carni
Carnival Culture then spread the world. Arriving in Britain on ships the colourful Caribbean Carnival reminded the grey British Isles of the authentic revelry and performative processions that characterise ancient sources of celebration.
On the 22nd of June 1948, HMT Empire Windrush left Jamaica, with 492 passengers of mixed Grenedan, Trinidadian and Jamaican nationals and arrived in Britain, marking the first wave of a wider mass-migration that followed until 1971, now known as the Windrush generation. The many national Caribbean and West Indian Carnival events occurring in the UK today stem from the memorised and recreated cultural knowledge of that initial population.
Some seeds of Caribbean Carnival activity were sowed in Britain by Claudia Jones, often credited as the ‘mother of Notting Hill Carnival’, while already known as a feminist, black nationalist, and community leader. Part of Jones’ all-encompassing community work was to make a case for the importance of Caribbean Carnival celebrations to be recreated, seen and celebrated in the UK. One such seed she planted was called Claudia’s Caribbean Carnival, first taking place on 30th January 1959 and televised by the BBC, an annual showcase for Caribbean talent aiming to uplift the community by celebrating its heritage. The next six years saw the annual occasion housed inside community centres and town halls. Another precursor to today's Caribbean Carnival procession was the “Notting Hill Fayre and Pageant” of 1966, a realised vision of Rhuane Laslett’s, who devised a multicultural street festival aimed at bringing together and uplifting the community at a time of high racial tension. Laslett was instrumental in promoting communication in Notting Hill. To voice this initiative she brought about a steelpan procession that strolled up Portobello Road and back.
Although the pot cooking up Caribbean Carnival happenings was bubbling in London, the familiar scenes and sounds conjured when we hear of Caribbean ‘Carni’ in the UK actually saw its spark in Leeds. A fusion of political activism and home-sickness were the motivators that enabled the realisation of a processional Caribbean Carnival on British streets. The notable origin of the Leeds’ Carnival lies in a fete organised in 1966 at Kitson College (now Leeds College of Technology) by two Caribbean students, Frankie Davis and Tony Lewis. Less than a year later, a rather radical member of the United Caribbean Association, Arthur France too developed symptoms of home-sickness. Consequently, he, partnered up with Ian Charles, organised Europe's first open-air Caribbean Carnival, intended as a way of cooling off from politics and to have some fun amidst the campaigns against racial discrimination the UCA would frequently launch. This new annual occasion was named Leeds West Indian Carnival, conceived as an idea in 1966, then birthed on the August Bank Holiday of 1967, its public birthday each year has seen its growth and development as the first authentic Caribbean Carnival in the UK. Leeds West Indian Carnival holds the legacy as the first one in Europe to be organised entirely by British Caribbeans, and conducted specifically on the rules, regulations and footwork laid down by Carnivals in the Caribbean.
Carnival culture is deeply rooted in and informed by Ancient civilisation but it was the Caribbean diaspora that allowed the spirit of a Trini bacchanal to be spread across all seas. It is a phenomena of a richly abundant culture and spirit that is found all over the world, the people of Trinidad only refined the art of revelry through resilience, adaptation and a consistent emphasis on heritage.
The age-old roots of Carnival as a celebration have been forgotten to some and with an estimated 2 million people visiting Notting Hill every year the heritage of Leeds has lost emphasis in the legacy. Northern England continues to celebrate Carnival yearly from Leicester to Leeds, Manchester, Preston and more.
Photographs by Babycakes Romero, Peter Anderson & Gordon Munro