Traditionally, major festivals have been mediums for bringing about change. The same is true today. Festivals allow people to not only speak about daily living but also to give voice to their inner griefs, resentments and joys. Today like in times past festivals carried peace and conflict. The masks and the songs can teach or curse while also highlighting issues to which authorities must respond or change.
Contrary to what we believe, the complex of ideas and practices that distinguish the festival we know as Carnival and call the “Real Mas” did originate in Africa. Evidence of this African festival complex can be found on the continent particularly Egypt as far back as 6000 years ago.
This festival complex was subsequently adapted by Greece then the rest of Europe including Christian Rome while at the same time, continuing to thrive in other parts of the African continent. These two radically different streams clashed on the Caribbean slave plantations giving birth to the Dominican adaptation that we now call the “Real Mas”.
Kimani Nehusi in his essay ‘The Origins of Carnival’ describes the Wosirian Drama Festival which took place 6000 years ago on the banks of the Nile in Egypt. Those Egyptians (Africans) committed three to five days between the old and new year to the suspension of all human laws; no ordinary business was conducted.
The suspension of social conventions and political order coupled with the FREEDOM of expression were the order of those three to five days. Interestingly, that festival was intimately connected with their agricultural rituals but more importantly signified a periodic return to NATURE, a time to let go of restrictions, tensions, neuroses and social conventions.
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