Caribbean Carnival has long been heralded as an example of one of the most true culturally complex and inclusive festivals of the world, with its origins hailing from a number of truly distinct cultures. As a beautiful expression of cultural interchange, Carnival’s different facets and features have persisted and morphed over the last 200 years. 

When discussing the evolution of Carnival, the influence of French/Spanish colonisation in the region is often weighed above every other cultural input, especially that of the enslaved African population. In the region, Trinidad Carnival is the most established and well known example of Carnival. Thus, it represents what Carnival is seen as to the wider world. Given the number of customs, events and activities which owe their form and birth to African cultures— those in West Africa specifically. Carnival’s links to Africa must be addressed; the influence of West African religions and cultural identities helped shape modern-day Caribbean ‘street’ carnivals. In order to understand the true importance and beauty of these festivals, we must properly assess and celebrate their African roots. 

The emergence of ‘Creole’ culture and the process of creolisation can be observed in a number of different environments. Specifically entailing the mix of African and European backgrounds to form a new and original cultural identity, creolisation has been observed across several different former slave nations; the United States of America and Brazil both have their own examples of creole culture, with New Orleans specifically being famous for its rich and idiosyncratic view of America. The Caribbean as a region features elements of African, East Indian, Middle Eastern and European nations, with a unique blend present within each island. Amongst the nations and cities of the world where a noted ‘creole’ culture can be seen, there is almost always some form of Carnival present as well; Sao Paulo Carnival, Mardi Gras and Caribbean Carnival are all examples of this. All of these nations had a large and notable African population due to the effects of transatlantic slavery, with numerous cultural elements from West Africa surviving to this day. 

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Afro-Caribbean religions played a very important part in the evolution of Caribbean Carnival. From its earliest days, Carnival was seen primarily as a religious festival for the European minority in islands like Trinidad, Jamaica and Barbados, with various elements of Christian holidays seen as early as 1790. This festival was far more reserved and traditional than what it would eventually become, with festivities mostly involving conventionally European dinners, pageants and balls. In the slave yards and plantations of these islands, however, the African slave population were celebrating their own religious identities as a response to their oppression. These celebrations presented a far more raucous and ‘party’-like atmosphere than those of their European counterparts.Prior to emancipation in 1833, and the later Canboulay Riots in the 1880’s,, Carnival was made up of two completely separate elements: the European tradition of reserved, Christian celebrations and the uninhibited release of West African spiritual practices. Carnival found its street party element from the 1830s onwards, in which these two cultures joined and transformed into the joyous celebrations of the West African descended population in the Caribbean we see today.

When addressing the music of Carnival, the influence of West African rhythms can immediately be seen, with infusions of Indo-Caribbean Chutney and East Indian folk music fused as well. Across the region, melodies have taken on an incredibly rhythmic, drum-based nature, with genres like Ska, Reggae, Calypso and Rap-So evolving from the drum-circle-esque live performances common in the slave settlements and plantations of the pre-emancipation era. The music of the slave yards that became integrated into Carnival’s character hold very similar to the music we hear today; the storytelling elements of Calypso and Soca are a direct throughline from the oral storytelling tradition common across Africa. European music of the era typically involved instruments that were completely inaccessible to the West African descended slaves of the Caribbean, focusing mostly on the symphonies and movements of famous composers played by orchestras. The violins, brass instruments and woodwinds that typified the music of the slave owning class were far too expensive for the majority of the population to use, thus, their influence has not survived to the modern day. The drums of the Slave population built the backbone of Caribbean music, not just the music of Carnival; in a contemporary sense, the similarities between Afrobeat, Ampiano, Dancehall and Soca music illustrate this link. 

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The aesthetics of Caribbean carnival and its traditional ‘Ole Mas’ elements grew as a direct throughline from West African folklore. Characters like Anancy, Papa Bois and Mama Dlo all find representation in both Caribbean and African folklore, with depictions of these figures proving influential on both sides of the Atlantic. Along with this, one of the oldest surviving segments of contemporary Carnival is the custom of playing Ole Mas. It usually involves the satirisation of several figures and experiences; one such example can be seen in the Dame Lorraine, a caricature meant to symbolise the wife of a rich plantation owner. Many of these depictions arose directly from the West African slave population, as a means of criticising and critiquing the minority European population of Trinidad and other islands. Often featuring cultural facets taken directly from European culture and repurposed to fit the aims of revellers, this convention of parody was introduced to Carnival as a direct result of the African population.This is why a number of famous figures from Trinidadian Ole Mas have francised names, filtered through the creole dialect of Afro-Caribbean culture.

Carnival represents a number of different cultures redefined and reimagined in a completely new and unique context, forming something truly beautiful in the process. As the cultural apex of East Indian, West African, Western European cultural canons, Caribbean Carnival owes its identity to a handful of different groups. For too long, the contributions of Africa to the various carnivals of the Caribbean have not been highlighted— or rather, misattributed to European colonisation and its influence. Creolisation and the cultural forms that ensued owe their identity to both Europe and Africa, and to see one without the other is to misinterpret its origins completely. It can be argued that there would be no Carnival without either European or African influence. However, with this said, the specifically African elements of Trinidadian and Caribbean Carnival must be honoured for their impact, longevity and creativity, having helped forge one of the most unique distinctive expressions of culture in the world.