Yvonne Ba­boolal

On the front wall of Bri­an Mac Far­lane's mas camp on Ros­ali­no Street, Wood­brook, there is a large cream and brown il­lus­tra­tion of Car­ni­val in Port-of-Spain in 1888. It is a copy of an ac­tu­al il­lus­tra­tion done by one Mil­ton Pri­or for a Lon­don news­pa­per of that time. Res­ur­rec­tion, Mac Far­lane's pre­sen­ta­tion this year, seeks to re­pro­duce as close­ly as pos­si­ble the bats, jab mo­lassies (mo­lasses dev­ils), cow heads, bur­ro­keets (don­keys), drag­ons and oth­er mas of the 1870s to 1930s. It was the mas that came from the "jamette so­ci­ety" of Port-of-Spain, Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Cre­ative Arts lec­tur­er, Lari Richard­son, brows­ing around the camp last Mon­day, of­fered.

Eva Ken­ton of Eng­land views cos­tumes on dis­play.

The cos­tumes were de­signed by Mac Far­lane but the ideas were de­rived from Pro­fes­sor Jeff Hen­ry's book, Be­hind the Mas. It is the kind of mas that seems to at­tract for­eign­ers, like 34-year-old Je­re­my Pow­ell of Mi­a­mi and his Trinida­di­an friend, Bri­an Wong Won, who came ear­ly to col­lect their stick­fight­er cos­tumes. "It's sim­i­lar to what we are do­ing for J'Ou­vert. Bri­an is bring­ing out a band called Mas Jumbies," Pow­ell said. Eva Ken­ton of Eng­land, who vis­its Car­ni­val all over the world, from Rio de Janeiro to Venice, seemed en­thralled by the dis­plays in the re­cep­tion area. "I am try­ing to get as much Car­ni­val in­for­ma­tion as pos­si­ble," she said. Aus­tri­an cou­ple, Bernd and Beat­rice Hirn­schrodt, who vis­it­ed the camp, said they were mak­ing a doc­u­men­tary on T&T Car­ni­val, while Ger­man, Mar­i­on Seel­bach, was help­ing out and play­ing with the band.

LEFT: Work­ers putting the fin­ish­ing touch­es on cos­tumes in Mac Far­lane's mas camp.

RIGHT: Delia Carmi­no at­tach­es bells to a jab mo­lassie cos­tume.

In­vok­ing fear

There are over 1,000 cos­tumes in the band and the sign, "Sold Out", was above many of the 16 sec­tions on dis­play at the camp. Cos­tumes range from $2,800 to $3,800, plus VAT. "Bats, Red In­di­ans and Black In­di­ans went first," Mau­rice Cheva­lier, pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer, said. A man­nequin in the full dress of a woman of the plan­ta­tion era hold­ing a child stood promi­nent­ly in the mid­dle of the re­cep­tion room. "It's from the sec­tion, Ba­by Doll," Cheva­lier said. "It rep­re­sents a bond­woman tak­en by the slave own­er for cop­u­la­tion, who bore a child for him."

Mau­rice Cheva­lier, pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer, shows the Suck Me Nose Sailor.

A sailor with a very long nose made like a phal­lus stood near­by.

"It's from the Suck Me Nose Sailor sec­tion," Cheva­lier said.

"It rep­re­sents mis­be­hav­ing sailors who land­ed at the port and went carous­ing about town." A cos­tume of a woman on a horse is from the sec­tion, Soumayree. It de­picts a Hin­du re­li­gious rite in which the horse was used in wor­ship to the god­dess, Dur­ga (Kali), Cheva­lier said. A de­mon­ic-look­ing cow's head com­pris­es most of the Mad Cow but it on­ly de­picts cat­tle brought to the is­land at the time which went "mad" af­ter their long sea's jour­ney, Cheva­lier ex­plained. The Bat sec­tion shows that bats were plen­ti­ful in T&T in the old days and mas mak­ers found it easy to mim­ic them. The king of Mac Far­lane's band The Drag­on Can Dance, a mas­sive drag­on with wide open mouth and promi­nent teeth, was al­ready placed first in the pre­lim­i­nar­ies of the King of Car­ni­val com­pe­ti­tion.

Ryan Per­sad, left, and Dami­an Moore re­in­force cows' heads..

Queen, Dame Gwo Bun­da, with over­sized bust and rear end, placed first. All in earthy browns and creams, with no glit­ter, it's not the "pret­ty mas" of Tri­ni Rev­ellers. "Cos­tume like Jab Mo­lassie is macabre mas, the kind that in­vokes fear," Cheva­lier said. Mac Far­lane's band is one of the large ones that do not im­port cos­tumes. "Every­thing is lo­cal­ly made," Cheva­lier said, with al­most rev­er­ence. Dis­tri­b­u­tion be­gan last Mon­day but work­ers were busy putting the fin­ish­ing touch­es on cos­tumes in a large shed. A sewing room with piles of cos­tume ma­te­r­i­al and dozens of fin­ished pieces on racks in a near­by room al­so tes­ti­fied to Cheva­lier's claim.

"Every­thing is made in­di­vid­u­al­ly, one piece at a time," he stressed. "So much is be­ing done out­side. We make an ef­fort to main­tain the lo­cal cre­ativ­i­ty." While there is some wire bend­ing, most of Mac Far­lane's mas seems to be made from cloth and pa­pi­er mache. In the mas camp, youths, Ryan Per­sad and Dami­an Moore, re­in­forced cows' heads while Delia Carmi­no at­tached tiny bells to jab mo­lassies. Car­ol le Pierre put ear­rings on fe­male sailors and Vanes­sa Bowyer and Judy de Fre­itas stuck flow­ers on dame lor­raines' head­pieces. Kirk Rich­mond mon­i­tored large bags of fin­ished cos­tumes in the dis­tri­b­u­tion sec­tion of the camp wait­ing to be col­lect­ed.