T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try & Com­merce

What T&T may lack in tourism in­fra­struc­ture it more than makes up for in its unique eth­nic and cul­tur­al flavour. A so­ci­ety his­tor­i­cal­ly di­vid­ed by eth­nic­i­ty, a re­sult of en­slave­ment, in­den­ture­ship and colo­nial rule, the pop­u­la­tion has, nev­er­the­less, forged a unique cul­tur­al her­itage that makes T&T the most di­verse and ab­sorb­ing so­ci­ety in the re­gion. The var­ied eth­nic groups brought to labour in the is­lands af­ter the slaves were freed in 1834 have giv­en rise to a pop­u­lace with roots in Africa, In­dia, Chi­na, Por­tu­gal, Syr­ia, Lebanon, Eng­land, France and Spain-and a rich in­her­i­tance in the realms of dance, mu­sic, arts and cui­sine. And while cul­tur­al prac­tices may dif­fer, since what is im­por­tant to one eth­nic group's cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty may not be so to oth­ers, there ex­ists deep recog­ni­tion of that in­tan­gi­ble her­itage that makes for a uni­fied con­nec­tion be­tween peo­ple and place. Po­et and No­bel Lau­re­ate Derek Wal­cott once point­ed to "the depth and con­tra­dic­tions that en­rich a place like Trinidad."

Cul­tur­al di­ver­si­ty

The di­ver­si­ty of T&T is well-nigh un­par­al­leled: the two day ex­plo­sion of colour, pageantry and aban­don that marks Car­ni­val; ca­lyp­so and so­ca mu­sic, our in­dige­nous mu­si­cal in­stru­ment the steel­pan; chut­ney mu­sic; East In­di­an clas­si­cal and lim­bo danc­ing. All of these are prod­ucts of a dy­nam­ic her­itage and a vi­brant peo­ple. Many of our fes­ti­vals are re­li­gious in na­ture, in­clud­ing Hosay, Di­vali, Christ­mas, Eid-ul-Fitr, Phag­wa, East­er and Cor­pus Christi, Ar­rival Day, Eman­ci­pa­tion Day, Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tist Lib­er­a­tion Day and sev­er­al oth­ers high­light the tra­di­tions and cus­toms of spe­cif­ic eth­nic and re­li­gious groups. Hosay, a mourn­ing dis­play mark­ing the mar­tyr­dom of Hus­sein and Has­san, grand­sons of the Prophet Muhammed was orig­i­nal­ly a hol­i­day for the Mus­lim pop­u­la­tion. To­day, all of the is­land take part in this ob­ser­va­tion. Hin­du tra­di­tions are al­so seen at many fes­ti­vals. Phag­wa marks the cel­e­bra­tion of har­vest time with singing of folk songs and drench­ing of all par­tic­i­pant with coloured wa­ter (abir), us­ing spray guns (pichaka­rees). Di­vali or the "Fes­ti­val of Lights" is sched­uled every Oc­to­ber. Our African an­ces­try is re­mem­bered dur­ing Eman­ci­pa­tion Day on Au­gust 1, the day that marked the end of slav­ery in 1839.

The is­lands are al­so home to a small com­mu­ni­ty of de­scen­dents of the orig­i­nal Amerindi­an set­tlers. The her­itage of this group is cel­e­brat­ed at the San­ta Rosa Fes­ti­val al­so in Au­gust. The Chi­nese brought their cus­toms, cul­ture, food, games, tra­di­tions an way of dress with them when they came to Trinidad. Even though they have been as­sim­i­lat­ed in to the so­ci­ety, some of the cus­toms are still ob­served, and the wider so­ci­ety has in turn adopt­ed some of the Chi­nese her­itage. This can be seen in the pop­u­lar­i­ty of Chi­nese cui­sine and the orig­i­nal Whe Whe game, the le­galised form of which is Play Whe. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the fifth day of the fifth month of Chi­na's lu­nar year is called Du­an Wu (or Drag­on Boat) Fes­ti­val and cel­e­brat­ed in all parts of Chi­na, and has now tak­en root in Trinidad. This in­cludes the Drag­on Boat races.

Cross-fer­til­i­sa­tion

The mu­sic of a Tri­ni Christ­mas is root­ed in the coun­try's His­pan­ic her­itage, and was tra­di­tion­al­ly sung in Span­ish. To­day, a new, dis­tinct form has emerged, so­ca parang, which is most­ly sung in Eng­lish with to a beat of com­bined Latin and Caribbean mu­sic. This cross-fer­til­i­sa­tion has al­so giv­en birth to chut­ney-so­ca, which fus­es ca­lyp­so and lo­cal chut­ney mu­sic, tra­di­tion­al East In­di­an in­stru­ments and West­ern in­stru­ments. T&T is re­al­ly, the Caribbean's odd cou­ple. Al­though both share a colo­nial and cul­tur­al her­itage, there are no­tice­able dif­fer­ences be­tween the two is­lands. To­ba­go, de­spite be­ing 16 times small­er than Trinidad, boasts its very own sep­a­rate and dis­tinc­tive forms of cul­ture quite dif­fer­ent from Trinidad. The an­nu­al To­ba­go Her­itage Fes­ti­val was cre­at­ed to pre­serve the unique cul­tur­al tra­di­tions of To­ba­go, and it has grown from year to year, at­tract­ing thou­sands as they cel­e­brate as com­mu­ni­ties. In­flu­ences on the cul­ture of T&T have come through our his­tor­i­cal ex­pe­ri­ences where var­i­ous na­tions that colonised us have left their foot­prints on our cul­ture, a var­ied cul­ture that to­day ex­press­es the soul of our peo­ple and fas­ci­nates all who are priv­i­leged to wit­ness it. And, we should choose to of­fer it to the rest of the world...it's an un­match­able tourism prod­uct.