Tribute to Apache A Cross-cultural Tradition
Carnival is Storytelling
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| Smoke signals or cellphones: all people cherish communication |
INDIANS PLAY INDIANS in Trinidad and Tobago
Carnival.
I mean Indians whose ancestors are from
India play Indians whose ancestors are from the Americas.
Also, Africans play Indians, and Spanish
play Indians, etc. And, because we have people in whose veins flows the blood
of our native Amerindian people, then surely Indians whose ancestors are from
the Americas play Indians whose ancestors are from the Americas.
Indian mas has been popularly played in TnT
Carnival for generations; even during the days when people used to root for the
cowboys in films starring Audie Murphy and John Wayne, and every Indian was called Apache. 2019 Carnival evinced
that this tradition is dancing on strong legs yet.
I was awestruck by the intricacy of
detailed work that went into every costume I leaned forward to eye. My photos
let me study them for even longer: beadwork and feathercraft akin to true
Native American mastery, handed down over centuries in cultures far removed
from home here.
I think we would make them proud ... to see how deeply they have inspired us to honour their tradition.
We have Red, Blue and Black Indians in the
masquerade. It’s not skin colour that’s signified by the names, but a specific
type of costuming.
By far, the Fancy Indian, like the Fancy Sailor,
is the most beloved. Headpieces are of sophisticated workmanship, colours don’t
even try to mimic pigments produced from natural-world materials. When you
think you’ve taken in everything, there’s another detail that draws attention,
so you feel you can never stop looking.
Fancy Indians are a photographer’s dream!
As these folk parade before the judges,
often in the earliest hours of Carnival Monday and Tuesday, they effect a call
and response in improvised language. And they dance. Yes. They do that special
hop on one leg three times then gracefully bounce to do the same with the other
leg, again, again, again, while curving the torso forward and back,
simultaneously swinging and bobbing the head.
Anyone who has seen a Native American
pow-wow dance in a movie or, better, in a documentary, will know the dance I
describe. How agile. How breathtaking. How calling us all to come join the sacred
spiral.
When I encountered Fancy Indians this 2019 Carnival, they had already crossed the judging stage. So I met them coming down
the street spaced apart, walking slowly, looking spent but no less striking.
Some of them walked like great warriors nonetheless. Others still actually
danced and smiled for my lens. Or stared as though they’d never seen the like
before – so in character, yet.
The next street, too, was peopled by Fancy
Indians of another band, paying tribute to a fallen Carnival warrior. These were at rest: rubbing legs, leaning on rails, sitting on
pavements, having a meal/a drink, chatting with tribefolk, taking pictures of their own, no less smiling for my
lens.
Geronimo. The names undulated on my tongue:
Pocahontas, Sitting Bull, Sacajawea, Squanto, Crazy Horse, Hyawatha, Uncas:
names from out of history, out of books, out of poet’s fancy.
I am deep into Native Indian philosophy. I
know how much creativity and honour are appreciated by them. I said before: I
think we would make them proud.
Next year, if I play Fancy Indian mas, I
will be a person whose ancestors are Indians from India, Indians from the
Americas, Africans, Portuguese, Spanish and Chinese. I will be a true, true multi-ethnic
Trinbagonian playing an Indian of the Americas.
That’s my country 😍.
Shine on
For Jhaye-Q Media-worQs of days past, link to The Jhaye-Q Brew Archive
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| The now and future face of Fancy Indian mas. For more, and free to download, photos link to Jhaye-Q Trinbago |
