The Transition of a Culture Managing to keep its Roots

Gladys Sama

Art of the African Diaspora

Section 01

September 9, 2020
 Due to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, the descendants of captured Africans can be found

worldwide. These various groups of African descendants have all been displaced from their roots

and many had to endure the pain and discomfort of forcibly leaving their homes and adjusting to

a new system of life. In spite of this displacement, African slaves created a new identity which

infused some of their original culture and traditions with those of their capturers and the

marginalized indigenous people of their new home. It would seem like a difficult task for the

ancestors to hold on to their roots after everything that they were put through, but somehow, they

did it. This research paper will discuss how the ritualization of masquerade helped the original

captured Africans and the Africans of the diaspora keep hold of some of their culture and

traditions through the festival of carnival which contains many aspects from masquerade.

In the Caribbean, carnival is a festival that is celebrated heavily throughout the early

months of the year. It falls in line with the Catholic calendar for the celebration of Easter. The

celebration of carnival roots all the way back to the middles ages, only, back then it was not

referred to as carnival. It was a feast that many European countries celebrated before the start of

the Lenten season. During this feast, the celebrants would eat and drink as much as their hearts

desired and they would stay up all night dancing and just having a good time. This is noticeably

similar to how carnival is celebrated today, but with an African twist. Masquerade, in simplest

terms, is a spiritual celebration where the ancestors or the divinities are called upon to interact

with the living. This was particularly important to the African people because they hold their

ancestors on a reverent pedestal. Of course, when Europeans made their way into African, where

they began to enslave people, and saw their practices and way of living, there was no way that

they were going to allow the African slaves to continue those practices in the new world.
 The Africans brought over everything that they could remember of their home, but soon

many of those cultural traditions would slowly wither into small grains of memory because of

the forced acculturation by the Europeans. It was not easy for the enslaved and their descendants

to uphold their homeland traditions and culture, but fortunate for them, a majority of their

practices were rituals. In Africa, most of their cultural or traditional ceremonies are ritualized

which means that the events and actions that take place within the ceremony have a designated

sequence. Through constant repetition of these rituals, these events and actions became

committed to memory in the mind and body (Irobi 2007). Whether the slaves knew it or not,

their ritual traditions and cultural aspects were embedded in them. Once something is committed

to memory in the mind and the body, it is extremely hard to erase, not to say that it could not be

erased or altered over time, it is just difficult to do so. This commitment of African rituals to the

body and mind assisted in keeping African cultures and traditions alive in the new mixtures of

identities within the diaspora.

Carnival incorporates features from the European culture, the African cultures, and the

indigenous cultures. Caribbean carnival can also be said to have derived from the African

festival of masquerade. In African, before colonization, only initiates of the numerous

masquerade societies could participate in the masquerade activities. The celebrations were

extremely extravagant with various steps and processes. The African masquerade is ritual

ceremony that the slaves were able to commit to the memory through their mind and body.

Memory of the body for masquerade (and other African rituals) comes from the constant use of

music (rhythm) and dancing. The tones and melodies of musical instruments are like signals sent

to the body that requires it to respond with movement. When these rituals are performed often,
the celebrants hear the tones and melodies repeatedly and the body has to respond to these

signals being sent from the music.

The dances of masquerade transcended the emotional state of being and the human

presence into a language that was understandable beyond the human realm. The moves mostly

free flowing that required a lot of energy and the ability for the performer and on lookers to feel

the rhythm of the beat. The music is what guided the performers step; during that time period,

the music was just instruments, mostly the drums. Sometimes, a circle or ring of performers will

form and they will dance and express themselves while moving within the circle. During these

celebrations, there are also moments where the masquerader is performing by themselves which

can symbolized that specific ancestor or divinities moment to be acknowledge and they make

their presence known. In today's carnival, the dances are a little different and their meaning has

definitely changed. Carnival consist of various processions where people are dancing to a certain

area which is different from the ring type dances that took place during masquerade. The

movements still require a signal from rhythm of the music, but the music is not always a live

drum. Since a live drum is not always present during carnival celebrations, it is safe to say that

idea of communicating with the spiritual realm with the body is not present.

Even as some of the important ritual aspects have changed, the feeling of the music

(rhythm) is still the same, so the body is able to respond in similar ways as before. The

movements of these dances may seem simple, but as I stated previously, the movements are a

specific response to the signal of the music. During the celebration of masquerade, the

performers and celebrants are constantly in motion dancing to the rhythm of the drums that are

being played. African drums are essential to almost every ceremony that takes place in west

Africa. Through the drums, living beings can communicate with each other and with beings from
the spiritual realm. The dances were also a way for the people to communicate with the ancestor

or divinity that has made themselves present during masquerade. Dancing in carnival requires

free flowing movement and heavy footwork. The hips, the bottom, and the legs are in constant

motion as the music, whether it be live drums, or an electronic beat, or both, plays. The body’s

memory has proven to be efficient in keeping this ritual aspect alive.

Masquerade has always been an outlet for people to tell a vivid story of remembrance and

it continued to be that for the African slaves who were fighting to remember their home, their

people, and their way of life (Njoku 2020). A very essential process in masquerade includes the

art of costuming which allows the celebrant to establish the presence of the ancestor or a certain

divinity that is being called upon. This particular part of masquerade is considered a performance

ritual. In traditional west African masquerade, the costumes used for the celebration were usually

layered traditional fabric material with fine jewels and flashy accessories such as glitter, fringes,

and other ornaments (Njoku 2020). The mask that is worn during a masquerade performance

disguises the performers entire appearance. It is extremely important because it represents the

face or head of the divinity or ancestor. A masquerade mask can be an actual mask that covers

the entire face of a performer or it can be a headdress that contains fringes or drapes that hide the

face of the individual who wears it (Njoku 2020). There is usually some type of representation of

the ancestor or divinity that is being called upon whether it be the head/face or their specific

symbol. The masquerader performs a ritual aimed at transforming him or her into a spirit

medium. In the moments of their performance, they are no longer themselves. The masquerader

is possessed by the spirit of the divinity or ancestor hence the covering of the masquerader's face.

Costuming is still present in carnival but layers have literally been removed over time. A

typical costume for a female carnival attendee may include a two-piece bralette and shorts. A
male attendee may just have on shorts with a bare chest. Both of these individuals are likely to

have some type of fishnet on, an extravagant head piece, and glitter, sequence, and feathers on

their costume. The abundance aspect of masquerade can still be seen in the presence of the

significant number of accessories worn and used to decorate the costume. The meaning behind

this abundance has changed from being able to represent your ancestor or divinity in the most

reverent and extravagant way possible to be able to represent yourself in the most extravagant

way possible. Several of the ideas behind these rituals changed because of the Europeans forcing

their culture on the captured slaves but as stated earlier, once a ritual is embedded in your mind

and body it is difficult to erase.

As time passed and the cultures in the new world began to mix, the original aspects of

masquerade became less and less centered around calling on the ancestors and divinities. The

festival itself was later infused with the European pre-Lenten feast thus became the carnival

festival. The enslaved Africans used their “performative language and kinesics” of masquerade

as a way to vent out the frustration that they were feeling (Njoku 2020). At the time they did not

know this, but their performative language and kinesics was also a technique that contributed to

their memory of the traditions and culture of their homeland. Masquerade served a different

purpose in Africa than it did in the new world which led to the changes of masquerade into what

is now known as carnival. As stated earlier, the Europeans also joined in the festivities of

masquerade but it did not take long for them to catch on to what was being proclaimed in these

masquerade narratives. They did not want to end the celebrations but they also did not want the

concepts surrounding carnival to continue to marinate on the past. Masquerade became a

modernized festival that embodied the enslaved Africans “spirit of resistance and rebellion

against oppression, inequality, and human rights abuses” (Njoku 2020). Through this
modernization, some of the African aspects of masquerade were lost or reconfigured to fit into

the new idea of masquerade.

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