On the Origin of the Term Calypso

Author(s): Errol Hill

Source: Ethnomusicology , Sep., 1967, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Sep., 1967), pp. 359-367
Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of Society for Ethnomusicology

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/850271

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 ON THE ORIGIN OF THE TERM CALYPSO

Errol Hill

In his follow-up article on the etymology of calypso, Daniel J.

Crowley (1966:81-82) mentioned three sources which he hoped
might eventually help to establish the origin of this elusive word.
One source is the lost manuscript on the "History of Calypso" by
Raymond Quevedo who, as Atilla the Hun, was a leading calypso
singer during the 1930 to 1950 period. The second source is Jacob
D. Elder's study on the evolution of the calypso as indicative of sta-
tus change in the Trinidad Negro. The third is my own research
into the problem.
I have not seen Elder's recently completed thesis but from ear-
lier discussions with him I gathered he was not attempting to estab-
lish the origin of the term "calypso." Although Atilla's manuscript
has been reported lost, several important sections have appeared in
print (Quevedo 1962, 1964), and I have seen enough of the unpublished
parts in various stages of composition to say that he advances no
conclusive evidence on the question. The closest Atilla comes to ex-
plaining how the calypso got its name is in his unpublished Introduc-
tion, a copy of which is in my files. He writes:

In my own experience of over half a century's association with

kaiso, carnival, and kaiso tents, the first word which I heard used
to describe this song and dance form was kaiso. Kaiso was used
to describe the song when sung as well as a means of expressing
ecstatic satisfaction over what was in the opinion of the audience
a particularly excellent kaiso.... Through the years I have heard
the words kaiso, caliso, rouso and wouso, and finally calypso in
that order. It is my profound conviction that the word kaiso will
be restored before long to its rightful function as the descriptive
name for our most typically West Indian song and dance form.

There remains my own inquiry and the following is a summary of

my findings to date.
The earliest use of the name "calypso" for the Trinidad carnival
song appears in the Port-of-Spain Gazette of January 20, 1900. This
newspaper published the lyric, in English and Creole, of a current
calypso under the heading "1900 Masquerade Calipso." It contains
seven two-line stanzas, the sixth of which reads:
Climbing up, climbing up, climbing up Majouba Hill
We are all a contingent and foremen calipso.

The title "Masquerade Calipso" suggests that the song was a lavway
(French: la voix) or what is nowadays called a "road-march," i.e., a
359

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360 HILL: ON THE ORIGIN OF THE TERM CALYPSO

calypso composed especially to be chanted by a band of masqueraders

in procession on the streets. "Majouba Hill" was a reference to the
Boer War then in progress and the marching revellers obviously pic-
tured themselves as an attacking army led by their calypso singers.
From the appearance of the word "calipso" in the lyric of this
song it is clear that the term was already in common use by calypso
composers, though I have failed to find it in written records before
the date given above. In another newspaper that year, The Mirror of
March 1, a report on the carnival in the country district of Arouca
refers to certain masqueraders as "the marksmen in calypso." Thus
in 1900 the word appeared three times in two Trinidad newspapers
with two different spellings. Alternative forms used in the press
during the first two decades of the century are callypsos in 1902;
caliysoes in 1911; and in 1912 careso and carisoes.
These are the earliest written forms of calypso. But what of the
origin of the word? Crowley has noted some eight or more theories,
most of them highly improbable, which have been advanced over the
years by various authorities and calypso devotees (1959a:59-60). Of
the notion that the song was named after an insecticide (Crowley's
derivation no. 5), my searches turned up the first reference to an
ant killer with the trade name "Calypso" in an advertisement in the
Port-of-Spain Gazette of March 1, 1904, thus disposing of that claim.
However, as Crowley points out with chagrin, imaginative accounts
will continue to crop up faster than we can disprove them. One un-
likely story, which he apparently missed, is given in a travel book
published in 1942:

a resident here [i.e., in Trinidad] of many years recalls the ar-

rival in the island in past days from Curacao of a lady singer of
easy virtue named Calypso (Creole: calyso) but more commonly
known as Bim-Bim. Her songs were pronouncedly risque; neither
she nor they were mentioned in polite society. It seems probable
that the lady's songs were called by her name and, by the asso-
ciation of ideas, the name became adopted for carnival improvisa-
tions, some of which are still regrettably improper.
(Russell 1942:203)

Several West Indian territories have claimed the calypso as their own
product, but this is the first time I have heard that the Dutch island
of Curacao was among the claimants.
While I have not found calypso used for a song type before 1900,
the word appeared occasionally in Trinidad records from the late
eighteenth century. In 1793 the frigate "Calypso" brought French
loyalist refugees from Martinique to Trinidad (Wise 1934-38:II, 87-91).
In the 1830's and 1840's a barque called "Calypso" plied between
London and Port-of-Spain (Port-of-Spain Gazette, Sept. 9, 1835; Tru-
man 1844:100); and in 1893 the H.M.S. "Calypso," 16 guns, arrived
from Madeira (Port-of-Spain Gazette, Jan. 25, 1893), no doubt as a

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 HILL: ON THE ORIGIN OF THE TERM CALYPSO 361

precautionary measure for the carnival that year. This practice was
instituted on the recommendation of Commissioner Hamilton to the
Secretary of State in London after the 1881 carnival disturbances. It
continued annually until recent times. I do not however suggest a
correlation between the naval calypso and the song.
A more tempting link is found in Deed No. 33 of 1821 recording
a transaction in respect of the Laurel Hill Estate of Arouca. One of
the estate slaves listed in the deed is named Cecile Calipso. It is
pardonable to assume that hers was an occupational name when in
our own time Calypso Rose is a prominent lady calypsonian. Upon
reflection, however, one must reject this theory since in those days
the use of classical names for slaves was a commonplace. For in-
stance in the 1776 slave inventory on the Studley Park Plantation in
Tobago we find the following names: Hannibal, Apollo, Venus, Diana,
Vestal, Ajax, Caesar, Aeneas, Jupiter, Hector, Scipio, Brutus, Vulcan,
Nero, Chloe and Flora.
My own view on the origin of calypso coincides with that of Edric
Connor (Crowley's derivation no. 1) and Atilla that it comes from
kaiso, which Connor alleges is an "African word." The evidence in
support of this theory, though not conclusive, is I think fairly con-
vincing in the absence of more positive data. There is in the Hausa
language of West Africa the word kaito or kaico which I am informed
could be pronounced either kaitso or kaicho. It has the following
dictionary definition:

An exclamation expressing great feeling on hearing distressing news.

Alas! What a pity! ba ka da kaito, You will get no sympathy; you
deserve no pity; it serves you right.
(Bargery 1934:531)

Hausa is the language of the largest tribal group in Nigeria who in-
habit the northern region of the country. It is also, very probably,
the most widely used West African language as it is spoken by var-
ious tribes throughout the interior regions of coastal states from
Nigeria to Senegal. That Hausa-speaking Africans must have formed
a significant part of the slave traffic to the West Indies is hardly
open to dispute. But this by itself does not account for the retention
of a Hausa word in Trinidad as recently as the nineteenth and twen-
tieth centuries. Further explanation is necessary.
It is well known that of all the West Indian colonies, Trinidad
was the last to develop a slave plantation economy. This occurred
after 1783 when French planters moved from the northern islands to
Trinidad, which was then a Spanish possession. The British seized
Trinidad soon after, in 1797, abolished the slave trade in 1807, and
emancipated the slaves in 1834, upon which the island began to suf-
fer an acute shortage of agricultural labour for its expanding planta-
tions. Immigrant labour was sought from many countries, including

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362 HILL: ON THE ORIGIN OF THE TERM CALYPSO

new imports of apprenticed workers from West Africa.

In the two-and-a-half years from the beginning of 1839 to June
1841, immigrants to Trinidad numbered 3,897, the greater part being
"first rate labourers from the coast of Africa" (Capadose 1845:I, 167).
In 1848 or 1849 Charles Day witnessed the unloading in Port-of-Spain
from H.M.S. "Growler" of 150 men, 37 women, and 254 children, all
Negroes recaptured from a slaving vessel (Day 1952:I, 274). This
new injection of indigenous African language and culture into Trinidad
continued for some decades after emancipation; the 1857 Report of
the Standing Committee on Immigration showed that, since the freeing
of the slaves, not less than 20,000 persons of African descent were
brought into the colony at public expense, "either from other West
Indian colonies or from the coast of Africa" (Port-of-Spain Gazette,
August 5, 1857).
Crowley and others have spoken of the pervasive influence of
West African improvised songs of praise and derision on the devel-
opment of the calypso. To this day Hausa singers in northern Nige-
ria sing such songs. A recent commercial recording (Tabansi No.
45-TAN-409, 45 rpm) of an extemporaneous praise song by Alhaji
Shata Katsina and Group in honour of one Abba Siri-Siri, an ex-
prison warder, includes the following first four lines:

Ab! Dodo na cikin gadi yayi na ina kam?

Anya zatona cikin opis.
Hum-hum! Bawan Allah.
Kaico! Mutumin kirki.

Where is the terror of the force?

I doubt if he is in the office.
Hum-hum! A devoted servant of God.
Oh! What a nice man!

According to my Hausa informant, the word kaico (pronounced

by the singer) as used here refers to the fact that Abba Siri
not in to receive the praise-singers when they arrived. So the solo-
ist says, in effect, "Oh what a pity he is not here." I was further
informed that the term kaico could be used as an expression of re-
gret, of triumph, of contempt, or of condemnation, according to its
context.
In Trinidad to this day the ejaculation most often heard in the
calypso tents when patrons wish to show their approval of a calypso
rendition is kaiso! although the local variants of calyso, cariso or
ruso are sometimes used. I would like to suggest that the term
kaico might have been introduced (or indeed reintroduced) into the
argot of the Trinidad carnival songsters and masqueraders by the
newly arrived Hausa-speaking immigrants sometime in the first half
of the nineteenth century. At an early stage the word was prob-
ably changed to the more euphonious kaiso, which served as an

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 HILL: ON THE ORIGIN OF THE TERM CALYPSO 363

expression of both approval or disapproval as the context warranted.

The probable subsequent etymology of the term is of particular in-
terest.
It is alleged that the earliest Trinidad calypsoes were sung in an
African tongue (Quevedo 1962:81-82). However, since both the carni-
val and calypso in Trinidad date from the late eighteenth-century in-
flux of French planters from neighbouring islands whose slaves were
already Creole-speaking, this allegation is debatable. It is more like-
ly that by the time the calypso became established in the island it
was sung in a mixture of Creole and African, although the possibility
of wholly African songs introduced by new immigrants after emanci-
pation is not to be ruled out. In 1838, for example, the Port-of-Spain
Gazette of March 2 deplored such "disgusting and indecent scenes" at
the carnival as "the African custom of carrying a stuffed figure of a
woman on a pole, which was followed by hundreds of Negroes yelling
out a savage Guinea song"; but the writer was quick to add that
"nine-tenths of these people were Creoles."
Creole became the accepted language for the calypso in the sec-
ond half of the nineteenth century until its close when English lyrics
began to supersede the French patois. In 1881 the Trinidad Chronicle
of March 2, referring to songs at the recent carnival, says they were
"sung extempore in Creole of course." In 1898 the Port-of-Spain
Gazette of February 17 criticised the "grossly indecent nature" of the
songs being practised for the coming carnival and reported that "they
are all in patois"; although a contemporary journal, The Mirror of
February 23, 1898, published the fragment of a popular calypso re-
frain with English words. Two years later in its issue of February
7, 1900, the Port-of-Spain Gazette with obvious pleasure announced
that at the approaching carnival "the singing will be patriotic tunes
in English, a decided improvement on the old patois style."
Our interest in the use of Creole lyrics for the calypso focuses
on an odd phrase with which most verses or choruses of an early
type of calypso were concluded. The phrase is sans humanite and,
while I am unable to say when it was initially employed as a calypso
refrain, it occurs in the first two calypsoes to be published in their
entirety. The first of these is the "1900 Masquerade Calipso" re-
ferred to earlier, which is mostly in English with some Creole idi-
oms. The expression san humanite [sic] occurs at the end of the
third and fourth stanzas, as well as at the end of the first line of
the final stanza. It is very possible that its omission from other
stanzas was due to editorial ignorance since the editor admitted in a
prefatory note to the calypso that he could see "neither rhyme or
reason in it."
The second calypso to be published in full appeared in the Port-
of-Spain Gazette of February 27, 1900. This was sung by the famous
Julien White Rose (Henry Julien), was wholly in English, and dealt in

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364 HILL: ON THE ORIGIN OF THE TERM CALYPSO

somewhat flamboyant language with the unsettled worl

ation and the preeminence of Britain among the great nations. It
consists of nine four-line stanzas and each stanza ends with the re-
frain sans humanite whether or not it makes sense with the senti-
ment that precedes it.
There has been no satisfactory explanation of this usage which
began to decline in the 1920's. A competition for the best calypso on
a local product, announced in the Port-of-Spain Gazette of February
14, 1914, stipulated that "the meaningless sans humanite must not be
included"; but the same newspaper in 1926 published a selection of
eight popular calypso choruses for that year in two of which the
phrase is very much in evidence.
It is true that in several calypsoes dating from the 1920's the
sans humanite refrain would be omitted in the printed version but
would normally be sung by the calypsonian and/or his audience in
performance. An example of this is the popular chorus on "The
Landing of Columbus" which was among those published in 1926 and
which is still remembered and sung by calypso fans today:

Were you not told what Columbus saw

When he landed on Iere shore,
Were you not told what Columbus saw
When he landed on Iere shore.
He saw the Caribs so brave and bold,
The humming birds with their wings of gold,
He was so glad that he called the island Trinidad.

That is how it appears in print; but as sung in the minor key the
calypso is unfinished unless the singer or audience comes in at the
end with the sans humanite or some similar short refrain to com-
plete the musical phrase, however illogical the words may sound.
The conjecture I offer here is that this term sans humanite is a
Creole translation of the Hausa word kaico (pronounced in Trinidad
kaiso) which, as we have seen from the definition, means 'You will
get no sympathy; you deserve no pity; it serves you right." I would
like to suggest, further, that kaiso had a dual development. On the
one hand it could have been retained as an expression of approval by
the calypso audience and thence have given its name to the song it-
self. Passing through a folk etymology of, let us surmise, cariso
(French: carrousseaux), ruso or wuso (Creole), caliso (Venezuelan
Spanish), it eventually became established, under the growing domi-
nance of the English language in Trinidad, as calypso. On the other
hand it is possible that the term kaiso continued to be used as part
of the song lyric where it carried a noncomplimentary meaning. This
usage could have been translated into the Creole sans humanite and
thence become established as a conventional way of ending certain
types of calypso, especially in the late nineteenth century when the

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 HILL: ON THE ORIGIN OF THE TERM CALYPSO 365

calinda chants of the stick-playing masqueraders were of a notorious-

ly belligerent character. This would account for the retention of the
Creole phrase as a calypso refrain out of context in the early years
of the present century.
These theories are by no means fully established. I am still un-
able to account for the strikingly curious fact that none of the nine-
teenth-century writers, including the few who might be considered
partial to Negro entertainments, were familiar with the term kaiso in
any of its various forms. At least they seem never to have used it.
The names most frequently employed in alluding to Trinidad Negro
songs and dances in this period are bamboula, calinda, and belair (or
bele), while insurrectionary songs form a separate category. All of
these and other religious and work songs of the Negroes have left
their mark on the calypso of today. The bamboula was a sort of
drum dance accompanied by singing of which little is known. The
calinda chants with their litany-like call-and-response structure ex-
pressed threats or defiance or boasted of invincibility. They evolved
into the traditional road-march calypso. But the direct antecedent of
the modern calypso was the belair and there are several interesting
references to substantiate this.
In 1838 the Port-of-Spain Gazette of March 13 editorialized wit-
tily on False Prophets or Grumblers and referred to a certain gen-
tleman who, believing that the Negroes were about to murder all the
free people in the island, "used to commit to writing the Bel Airs,
as their half-licentious, half-unmeaning songs are called." In St.
Lucia in 1844 Henry Breen described the belair, which he explained
could be a song either of praise or satire, as "a sort of pastoral in
blank verse, adapted to a peculiar tune or air. Many of these airs
are of a plaintive and melancholy character, and some are exquisite-
ly melodious" (Breen 1844:193). In 1852-53 a much vaunted project
for immigration to Venezuela from Trinidad proved a failure and
"soon a bel-air became popular throughout the land" satirizing the
man responsible for the scheme (Bodu 1890:15). Finally, a columnist
in the Port-of-Spain Gazette of February 18, 1950, referred to the
calypso as "the disgustingly debased form of the old and very pretty
Bel Air," and the next day A. P. T. Ambard, a French Creole of ad-
vanced age who had recently retired as editor of this newspaper after
many years service, wrote a letter agreeing with the columnist's view
and listing a number of ancient "calypso-bel airs." From the fore-
going it is clear that among the literate sections of the Trinidad
community, the nineteenth-century calpyso (as distinct from the calinda
songs) was synonymous with and referred to as the belair.
My last submission on the origin of calypso takes the form of a
personal communication by Mr. Edwin Harper, aged 73, of Mount
Lambert, Trinidad. Mr. Harper is a retired search clerk at the Reg-
istrar General's Office, Port-of-Spain, a job he performed for some

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366 HILL: ON THE ORIGIN OF THE TERM CALYPSO

fifty years. He has a genuine interest in the folk history o

particularly during the slave era. He told me that several years ago,
in the course of his searches among the filed copies of nineteenth-
century wills in the Registry, he came across an entry where a cer-
tain proprietor left a sum of money for his "Kaiso-man." Mr. Har-
per is positive that this was the term entered in the will. The ref-
erence is now regrettably lost but, so far as Mr. Harper could re-
call, the will was dated around the 1820's or 1830's.
This crucial piece of evidence needs to be rediscovered at the
earliest possible time. My initial spot-checks in the Registry before
leaving Trinidad were not successful but I hope on my return home
in the near future to spare no effort in tracking down this will. Its
discovery would give us the conclusive proof we need of the origin of
calypso and silence all controversy and further speculation on the
topic.

University of Ibadan
Nigeria

REFERENCES CITED

Bargery, George P., comp.

1934 A Hausa-English dictionary and English-Hausa vocabulary. London:
Oxford University Press, H. Milford.
Bodu, Jose M.
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Breen, Henry H.
1844 St. Lucia: Historical, statistical, and descriptive. London: Long-
man, Brown, Green, and Longmans.
Capadose, Henry
1845 Sixteen years in the West Indies. London: T. C. Newby. 2 vols.
Crowley, Daniel J.
1959a "Toward a definition of 'calypso,' part I," ETHNOMUSICOLOGY
3(2):57-66.
1959b "Toward a definition of 'calypso,' part II," ETHNOMUSICOLOGY
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1966 "Folk etymology and earliest documented usage of 'calypso',"
ETHNOMUSICOLOGY 10(1):81-82.
Day, Charles W.
1852 Five years' residence in the West Indies. London: Colburn and
Co. 2 vols.

Quevedo, Raymond (Atilla the Hun)

1962 "History of calypso, this country of ours," Independence Bro-
chure, The Nation (Port-of-Spain).
1964 "Executor, and the golden era of calypso resurgence," Sunday
Guardian (Port-of-Spain), February 9.
Russell, Helen Cameron Gordon
1942 West Indian scenes. London: R. Hale.

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 HILL: ON THE ORIGIN OF THE TERM CALYPSO 367

Truman, George, John Jackson and Thomas B. Longstreth

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Wise, K. S., coll.
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1938 Trinidad Historical Society. 4 vols.

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