|
Lynne
Guitar (2001; revised 2004)
In Ancient Greece
and Italy, long before the emergence
of Christianity, people whom we call
pagans today had wild celebrations
centered around the winter and spring
solstices, and spring and fall equinoxes,
celebrations that the people did not
want to give up, even after they became
Christians. The Catholic Church, therefore,
adopted many of the celebrations,
overlaying them with Christian meanings.
For instance, the wildly licentious
feast called Saturnalia, dedicated
to Saturn, the god of agriculture,
and to the god of wine, Bacchus, a
festival that used to be celebrated
around the longest night of the year
(December 17 under the old calendar),
became the Roman Empire’s celebration
of Christmas on December 25. The licentiousness
of the pagan celebration was postponed
until the week before Lent began,
around the time of the spring equinox.
The new springtime celebration came
to be called carnival or carnaval
from the Latin words carnis (“flesh”
or “meat”) and levare
(“to leave off”), because
immediately after the carnival festival
came the time of Lent, 40 solemn days
of penance and sacrifice, which included
not eating meat as well as the renunciation
of other pleasures of the flesh. Most
of the medieval carnival festivals
climaxed on Shrove Tuesday, the day
before Lent officially began on Ash
Wednesday. (In Latin, Shrove Tuesday
is mardis gras.) Lent ends on Easter
Sunday, the most sacred of Christian
holy days because it is the day that
the crucified Christ was resurrected.
Although the word “carnival”
originated with this pre-Lenten celebration,
the celebratory style of masking,
inversion and grotesquerie came to
characterize other festivals as well;
as a result, some scholars specify
the pre-Lenten carnival with the term
carnestolendas.
As Christianity spread, so too did
the celebration of carnival—it
spread across Europe and eventually
to the Americas, carried there by
European conquistadors and colonists.
The Europeans who went to the Americas
met up with what Christopher Columbus
mistakenly dubbed “Indians,”
believing he’d reached islands
off India’s shore. The Indians,
too, had their community celebrations.
For instance, the Taínos, the
natives of Hispaniola and the other
islands of the Greater Antilles, held
areitos, community-wide song and dance
celebrations that were enjoyed by
young and old, male and female alike.
Areitos were held to celebrate the
planting of their principal crop,
yucca, from which they made cassabe
bread, at harvest time, at marriages
and coming of age ceremonies, to celebrate
successful hunts, the arrival of visitors,
or sometimes just for fun. The dancers
wore jewelry on their foreheads, in
their ears, and around their necks,
and colorful tattoos and painted designs
on their bodies depicting their spiritual
guides, their zemies. They also wore
shell anklets that tinkled like bells
as they moved in rhythmic unison across
their bateyes (“plazas”).
Their caciques (“chiefs”)
wore elaborately carved masks decorated
with multi-colored natural woods and
gold foil, ostentatious cotton belts
decorated with beads, shells, and
gold, and cotton capes and “crowns”
embroidered with brilliantly colored
feathers and gold thread. All the
dancers and singers shared ritual
food and drink to keep up their strength
so they could dance long into the
night, while the drummers, flute,
maraca and fotuto players kept the
beat (the fotuto is a conch-shell
horn). The Taínos’ celebratory
customs, like those of the pagans
of Europe, added color and rhythm
as they merged into the new Christian
carnival celebrations.
It was the Africans who contributed
the most brilliant colors and lively
sounds to carnival festivals in the
Americas. Africans were brought to
the island of Hispaniola from the
early 1500s onward, first as freedmen
and then as slaves. It was customary
in many places in Africa for the people
to parade around the village, circling
it wearing masks and brilliantly colored
costumes, singing and dancing all
the while, in order to bring good
luck to the village. Often, bringing
good luck meant first scaring away
the spirits of angry dead relatives,
hence all the symbols of death associated
with today’s carnival parades.
Feathers and other natural objects
were traditionally used to create
and/or decorate costumes and masks
in Africa, because the natural objects
were believed to lend certain spiritual
strengths to the wearer. Natural materials
are commonly used to fabricate costumes
in the Americas, too, for the same
reasons. From various parts of the
African continent, the slaves brought
with them such varied traditions as
stilt-walking, carrying puppets as
part of their elaborate costumes,
and fighting mock battles with sticks.
Most importantly, perhaps, Africans
brought with them a lively variety
of musical instruments, dance rhythms,
and singing styles—and a stinging
sense of humor that they use not just
against their leaders, but often to
make fun of themselves.
Having fun and making
fun of life’s problems are both
integral parts of the Dominican Carnaval
festivities, just as they are in New
Orleans’ Mardi Gras, the Brazilian
Carnival, and the other colorful Caribbean
carnivals of Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad,
Grenada, Dominica, Haiti, Cuba, St.
Thomas, St. Marten, Belize, Panama,
and even in areas of the U.S. and
Canada where Caribbean people have
migrated.
There are not many
surviving historical documents that
mention carnival. A few scholars,
however, suggest that it was celebrated
in Santo Domingo in the first two
decades of the 16th century, probably
in the main plaza fronting the Cathedral
and along today’s Calle Las
Damas, and later along what has been
called El Conde since 1655, the main
east-west street of today’s
Colonial Zone. A Spanish traveler’s
account describes in vivid detail
one of the first celebrations of carnival
in the New World, a carnival that
took place in February of 1520 in
honor of the arrival of Fray Bartolomé
de las Casas in the city of Concepción
de la Vega, in the mountainous interior
of the island. Today the city of La
Vega is in a slightly different location,
but the people cherish its tradition
of lively carnivals—they celebrate
El Carnaval Vegano every Sunday throughout
the month of February, as detailed
in the regional section, below. (The
original city site, known as La Vega
Vieja, “Old La Vega,”
is in ruins, which are preserved and
protected by Dominican law under the
National Park Service.)
The Church encouraged
religious celebrations in the Americas,
just as it did in the Old World. Research
indicates that not only the European
monarchs, but local governors and
slaveholders, too, tended to encourage
free-for-all celebrations like carnival—as
long as the celebrations had a religious
facade—in order to release the
slaves’ and poor people’s
pent up pressures in a non-threatening
way. Simply put, allowing the people
to have their carnivals kept down
both slave rebellions and socio-political
rebellions.
Slaveholders encouraged
their slaves to “turn the world
upside down” during carnival
celebrations—that’s the
phrase that the Taíno caciques
used to describe their ritual “visits”
to talk with their spirit guides while
in the trance state. During the frequently
elaborate carnival parades throughout
the colonial Americas, the masters
and their white families were on the
sidelines watching, while the slaves
were in the spotlight. Black beauty
and sensuality were openly admired.
At carnival time, the music was loud,
strong drink flowed like water, poor
women dressed in extravagant gowns—or
in barely anything—while men
dressed up as women and the “dead”
came to life. Brazen, loud, drunken,
lascivious behavior that would be
totally inappropriate at any other
time was the norm at carnival for
men and women alike--it still is!--partially
“hidden” by the elaborate
masks that have come, in many ways,
to symbolize carnival around the world.
Masking has been popular since the
dawn of time in all manner of magical,
religious and diversionary performances
and celebrations. All three ethnic
groups who blended together to become
today’s Dominicans used masks:
the Taíno Indians, Africans,
and Spaniards. Together they created
a carnival tradition that is one of
the most colorful and dynamic in the
world, a tradition that has its roots
in more than 500 years of history,
a living tradition that is still evolving.
--Dominican Carnaval
Traditions--
Throughout most regions of the Dominican
Republic during the long Colonial
Era, triumphant events as well as
Christian holy days were celebrated
with the Baile de las Cintas (the
colorful “Ribbon Dance”
known in Northern Europe as the May
Day or Maypole Dance), bullfights,
costumed balls and carnivals. The
elite held elaborate masked balls
in “salons,” while the
poor held separate street festivals
in their individual neighborhoods.
It is the street-festival tradition
that has survived (or been resurrected)
with the most vigor across the Dominican
Republic today. Various regions of
the country have evolved their own
very particular carnaval traditions.
The first documented
pre-Lenten carnaval celebration in
the Dominican Republic was held in
1578, but that documentation mentions
one held in 1553, according to historian
Carlos Esteban Deive. Beginning in
1844, the pre-Lenten carnaval celebrations
were combined with Dominican Independence
Day celebrations, making El Carnaval
Dominicano twice as important as carnival
is in other countries where it is
celebrated. Since the late 1990s,
however, the Dominican government
and the Catholic Church have tried
to separate the two celebrations.
On February 27th, the anniversary
of Dominican Independence Day, there
is now a big military parade in the
Capital. For several years the national
carnaval parade took place the following
Sunday, along the Malecón of
the capital, the wide boulevard that
fronts the Caribbean Sea, although
in 2004 it was decreed that the national
parade would take place in mid-March,
to further distinguish between the
celebrations of Independence Day and
Carnaval.
On Carnaval Sunday,
for the national parade, the Malecón
is filled to bursting with onlookers,
many of whom join in the fun by dressing
up in costume and parading up and
down the Malecón themselves.
Comparsas--which are parade groups
comprised of floats and multiple marchers
with matching or complementary costumes
and masks—as well as bands from
dozens of representative cities, towns,
and neighborhoods compete for prizes.
The frenzy begins around 1:00 p.m.
and lasts late into the evening. The
most common Carnival characters you’ll
see are the colorfully masked and
costumed Diablos (“Devils”)
from various regions of the country,
each wearing a different style of
costume and mask, but all brilliantly
colored and adorned with various festive
decorations: ribbons and streamers,
sequins, buttons, bells and whistles,
and mirrors (which the renowned Dominican
scholar Dagoberto Tejeda Ortíz
suggests are reminders of the past).
Nearly all the Diablos carry vejigas,
dried-out cow bladders, or modern
versions made of rubber. In the old
days, the Diablos were the “crowd
control” officers of the parade,
clearing the way through the surge
of onlookers with whips or vejigas
to make way for the floats. Today
they are the main attraction, but
they still swing their vejigas, mostly
aiming for the buttocks of pretty
girls. They say getting hit brings
good luck—but it mostly just
brings bruises. You’ll want
to stay out of their striking distance
and must also watch out for the many
Carnaval participants who crack whips
or have “duels” with whips.
The whips are reminders of the long
centuries when the country’s
economy was dominated by cattle ranching.
You can find carnaval
celebrations in various locations
of the country throughout the month
of February and carnavalesque celebrations
all over the Dominican Republic at
different times of the year, not just
near the spring equinox. There are
carnavals for the August 12th anniversary
of the country’s second independence
day, which is called the Day of the
Restoration (when the Republic was
restored in 1865 after a brief, disastrous
return to being a colony of Spain);
for the feast of Corpus Christi, generally
celebrated in May or June on the Thursday
after the Feast Day of the Holy Spirit;
during Semana Santa, the Holy Week
that concludes on Easter Sunday; and
for the fiestas patronales, feast-day
celebrations held by each city and
town to honor their patron saints.
Dominican Ga-Gá, an incredibly
dynamic, carnavalesque dance with
heavy magico-religious as well as
heavy sexual overtones, is celebrated
after each successful sugarcane harvest
and throughout Semana Santa, which
ends the Lenten period. (There are
two types of Ga-Gá, both of
which celebrate the earth’s
and the people’s fertility,
and both of which feature beloved
troops of brilliantly costumed characters,
most representing various African
gods, goddesses, and tribal chieftains).
In all of the wide variety of carnaval
and carnavalesque celebrations across
the Dominican Republic, however, merengue’s
hypnotic rhythms and simple steps
provide the throbbing heartbeat for
the convulsive mass of celebrants,
like Samba does in Brazil.
--Regional Carnaval Traditions in
the Dominican Republic--
La Vega
The first fully documented
carnival in the Americas took place
in La Vega in February of 1520, when
the Spaniards dressed up in a re-enactment
of the triumph of the Christians over
the Moors. Today, the city of La Vega
(relocated a few miles away from the
original site after an earthquake
in 1562) has the reputation of having
the most colorful and lively carnaval
in the entire Dominican Republic—often
this is attributed to the arrival
of Cuban artists beginning in 1897,
refugees from the Civil and Spanish-American
wars. Veganos celebrate carnaval every
Sunday afternoon throughout the entire
month of February; a well organized
affair that is coordinated by the
Unión del Carnaval Vegano.
Carnaval Vegano attracts many tourists,
both regional and international. At
the turn of the 20th century, the
most popular carnaval character in
La Vega was a snake, but for the past
100 years it’s been the fierce
Diablo Cojuelo, literally the “Limping
Devil”—some say the characters
got their name because they used to
pretend they were too lame to catch
anyone, while others say it is in
imitation of the pain and torture
that the devil causes people. The
Diablos Cojuelos are costumed in brilliantly
colored, fantastically decorated satin
and taffeta, and their masks are true
works of art: huge papier maché
creations of snarling medieval devil
faces, complete with huge ears, goat-like
beards and open mouths with long sharp
teeth which, in the past, were real
cows’ teeth, but more recently
are made of resin. In the past couple
of years there has been a visible
influence from science-fiction movies
reflected in the masks. While you
are watching the Diablos Cojuelos
dance their way up and around the
city square, beware the snap and crack
of their vejigas!
Pedro Antonio Valdez
tells a very credible story of the
origins of the popular carnaval character
Roba la Gallina in his book Historia
del Carnaval Vegano, saying that it
originated in La Vega, whereas most
folklorists say the character originated
in San Cristobal. He says that in
1822, during the early Haitian Occupation
of the country, a woman in La Vega
complained to Governor Plácido
Le Brun that a soldier had stolen
one of her hens. The governor ordered
the thief caught, covered with honey
and chicken feathers, and beaten with
a stick as he was paraded through
the streets of La Vega to the rhythm
of beating drums. Today’s carnaval
character Roba la Gallina is a man
dressed as a woman, with exaggeratedly
large breasts and buttocks, and usually
carrying a large purse and tattered
umbrella. (See San Cristobal section.)
Santiago
Santiago is the second
largest city in the Dominican Republic,
located in the heart of the Cibao,
the vast interior of the country dominated
by mountains and fertile valleys.
Carnaval has been a bi-annual event
here since 1867, for residents of
Santiago not only celebrate carnaval
for February’s pre-Lenten and
Independence celebrations, but also
for the Day of the Restoration, August
12 (the Republic’s second independence
day), because most of the battles
of the Restoration were fought in
and around Santiago. Two neighborhoods
in particular, La Joya and Los Pepines,
compete to see which can present the
most colorful, noisiest spectacles.
The Diablos of Santiago’s carnavals
are also called Lechones because it
was traditional in Santiago’s
past to eat a lot of roast pork, lechón,
at carnaval time.
The two traditional
kinds of carnaval characters in Santiago
are the Lechones from La Joya, known
as Joyeros, and those from Los Pepines,
the Pepineros. Both wear brilliant
costumes combining two or three colors
of silk, taffeta, and satin, decorated
with mirrored disks, sequins, beads
and jingle bells, and they wear long
satin-covered belts called morcillas
coiled around their waists. Both also
wear fantastic papier maché
masks with “duck billed”
mouths and fierce horns (called chifles).
The horns of the masks, however, are
distinctive--the horns of the Pepineros
are smooth, whereas the horns of the
Joyeros are covered with hundreds
of little spines. A new style of mask
has recently evolved in the neighborhood
called Pueblo Nuevo with horns covered
with cone-like flowers instead of
spikes. Some other modern Santiago
masks feature hands, bird heads and
other fantastic forms at the tips
of the horns. All the Lechones of
Santiago, however, carry snap-and-crack
vejigas, so watch out!
Another popular carnaval
character, who now can be found in
many parts of the country, was originated
in Santiago: Nicolás Den Den—a
fat dancing bear, often symbolized
as fur-tattered and dusty, chained
to his human master. The character
developed out of one of the favorite
shows from the travelling circuses
that used to pass through the area
entertaining the folk of the Cibao.
(Anthropologist Juan Rodríguez
has found documentation of the same
carnival character in Germany at least
two centuries earlier.) The late Tomás
Morel ascertained that the tradition
of dressing up as Los Indios (“The
Indians”) began in Santiago
during 1917-24 as a protest against
the “enslavement” of Dominicans
by the U.S. military. The slogan they
chanted was, “Death before enslavement.“
Today Los Indios (without the chant)
are popular carnaval characters around
the country.
Santiago’s
carnaval traditions were dying out
as the city modernized in the 1960s.
However, Tomás Morel is credited
with reviving them by starting up
mask and costume competitions which
continue to this day. His son, Tomás
Morel, Jr., has continued the tradition
and maintains a fascinatingly eclectic
Museo Folklórico (“Folklore
Museum”) dedicated to carnaval
in Santiago and to other traditions
of the folk of the Cibao. In 2004,
a brand new tradition may be starting.
A Carnaval del Cibao was scheduled
to show off the best comparsas from
the central region of the country.
Most of the carnaval activities in
Santiago, which are celebrated every
Sunday throughout the month of February
but gain momentum as the end of the
month approaches, take place around
the city’s distinctive Heroes
of the Restoration Monument, which
was constructed during the Trujillo
Era. Before that, they were celebrated
in Plaza Fernando Valerio on the day
before Ash Wednesday (during the Trujillo
Era, Plaza Valerio was known as Plaza
Ramfis, for Trujillo’s elder
son). .
Cotui
Carnaval celebrants
from Cotui, a city in the Cibao, have
two very distinctive characters. One
is called a Platanus. The Platanuses
cover themselves with leaves from
plantain trees, wear masks made out
of large painted gourds, and carry
the snap-and-crack vejigas. The other
kind of unique carnaval character
is called a Papelus (papel means “paper”).
Papeluses traditionally wear costumes
made of old shredded paper with gourd
masks and, like Platanuses, carry
vejigas. In the past, Papeluses made
their costumes out of the used tracing
paper in which merchants wrapped sugar
and other goods purchased at the local
stores. As newspapers became more
widespread, they began to use it instead.
As the participants became more affluent,
many switched to colored crepe paper
or the colored paper used to make
kites. Today, because of the cheapness
and ready availability of colored
plastic bags, many use them instead,
but are still called Papeluses. The
gourd masks of both characters used
to be worn plain, but most of them
today are painted. The costumes of
both Platanuses and Papeluses are
throwbacks to the ancient “world
upside down” concept of carnival—in
this case, garbage becomes high fashion.
Today, residents of all ages from
Cotui arrive for carnaval wearing
a wide variety of homemade or made-in-a-school-project
papelus costumes, but some of the
comparsas that compete in the parade
have taken the tradition to the level
of high art.
Dagoberto Tejeda
Ortiz has written about Cotui’s
other distinctive carnaval characters.
They include El Mediodía (“Noon”),
who is a man dressed as a woman with
“her” face painted in
the patriotic Dominican colors of
red, white and blue. El Mediodía
goes about poetically satirizing the
food and sweets vendors of the city.
In Cotui, notes Tejeda, you can also
find General Cocotico, who wears “armor”
made out of the large leaf stem of
the royal palm, a product called yagua
from which the very poor often build
houses or semi-waterproof roofs; La
Litera (“The Litter”)
and Muerte con su Perplegía
(“Death in all its Perplexity”);
and Culebra y las Siete Pecados (“The
Snake and the Seven Sins”).
Cotui’s carnaval,
which has been held on February 27
since the 1950s, is a real people’s
carnaval—hardly any of the thousands
of onlookers who press into the street
fronting the viewing stand at the
central park are in normal attire.
Almost all are in some kind of costume
or have at least painted their faces
or hair to add to the color of the
celebration.
Bonao
Bonao is another
city in the fertile Cibao. Its residents
are extremely artistic—the famous
Dominican painter Bidó is from
Bonao. They were famous in the past
for dressing up as crocodiles, snakes,
and bees at carnaval time. These characters
have merged together to become the
fantastical Macarao of Bonao (the
term “Macarao” means “big
mask”), a devil character similar
to, yet distinctive from, the Diablo
Cojuelo of its nearby neighbor, La
Vega. The comparsa members change
their costumes and masks every year,
but instead of burning them, which
is traditional in many regions of
the Dominican Republic, they give
them to poor children of the town
and surrounding region to use the
following year. The Trapuses are another
type of carnaval character that is
distinctively from Bonao. Trapuses’
costumes are made of long multi-colored
strips of rags (the Spanish word for
“rag” is trapo); they
are made in a manner similar to the
cloth “rugs” (often used
as seat covers) that are sold along
the Autopista Duarte. Some Trapuses
wear Macarao masks with their costume,
while others simply paint their faces
or wear individually crafted cloth
masks. Each costume is handmade and
unique. Some Bonao carnaval participants
have also adopted the technique used
by Cotui residents of wearing costumes
made of long strips cut from colored
plastic bags; they are called Papeluses.
One of the strangest groups in Bonao
can only be called The Mudmen. It’s
a group of 15 or so young men in swim
trunks and river shoes who have covered
themselves from head to foot in golden-colored
mud, perhaps inspired by the nearby
Falconbridge gold mine. Today there
is a year-round organization called
the Comité Organizador del
Carnaval de Bonao that is dedicated
to improving and expanding the celebrations
in the hopes that the city can reap
some of the tourism success that La
Vega has had at carnaval time. Let’s
hope it works, for the people of Bonao
are among the friendliest on the island
and certainly know how to show guests
a good time.
Salcedo
Salcedo, also in
the Cibao, has what Manuela Féliz
calls “one of the greatest carnavals
[of the Dominican Republic] in terms
of color and tradition.” The
principal character is a Diablo known
as a Macarao (as in Bonao), whose
masks represent various types of animals,
the most typical being an elephant—the
masks are notable for their multiple
teeth. The Macaraos’ costumes
are made of contrasting colors of
crepe paper streamers. On the last
day of Carnaval, after the celebration
has ended, notes Féliz, the
participants tear up the multicolored
paper in a ritual that is symbolic
of change from the old to the new
as well as of death, birth and life.
The following year they must all make
new costumes. Note that Salcedo was
the hometown of the Hermanas Mirabal,
the sisters who were assassinated
by order of Trujillo because they
were among those who wanted to overthrow
his dictatorship.
Puerto Plata
Residents of Puerto
Plata say their carnaval is a synthesis
of all aspects of Dominican culture
because it blends Medieval European
pageantry with Taíno and African
elements. The central figures are
a kind of Diablo called Taimácaros,
whose costumes are “body masks”
representing the various Taíno
“gods.” Others dress as
Medieval Spaniards, but their multicolored
belts covered with shells are representative
of both Africa and the sea. Juan Rodríguez
has noted another unique carnaval
character in Puerto Plata that may
become traditional there, the Pituses
(the word “pito” is “whistle”),
whose costumes feature hundreds of
colorful sewn-on whistles.
Samaná
Samaná has
a unique cultural history, for it
was first settled by English-speaking
freed slaves from the United States.
Although residents are heavily Protestant
(the African Methodist Evangelical
Church is the most representative
denomination), they have celebrated
carnaval with zest since Titito Balbueno
and his sons Diógenes and Danilo
encouraged it in the early 1920s.
The people of Samaná call their
parade Olí-Olí, which
is a dramatic comedy re-enacting the
slaves of Africa. In addition to “negroes”
painted glossy black (including a
“chief” elevated above
all the others on a “throne”
carried by pole bearers) and other
dancers dressed as Taíno Indians,
the most typical carnaval character
of Samaná is a Diablo whose
mask sports horns with three spikes
and who wears a costume with bat wings.
The bat wings are said to represent
the Taíno heritage of the island—to
the Taínos, bats were the most
potent symbols of the spirit world.
Today, due to the popularity of the
area as a tourist mecca from mid-January
to mid-March, when the humpback whales
can be seen in the Bay of Samaná,
the newest symbol of carnaval in Samaná
is the whale.
--Sincere thanks to Carlos M. Ramírez
Acosta, who, together with Cristina
Maria Pineda Peña and Ana Rosa
Jackson, researched and wrote a paper
for their professor, Dagoberto Tejeda
Ortiz (see Bibliography) that provided
much of the information in this section.
Rio San Juan
Residents of this
coastal town, famous for its Gri-Gri
Lagoon dominated by tall, stilt-rooted
mangroves and a wide variety of birds,
only began to celebrate what they
call Carnavarengue (a cross between
“carnaval” and “merengue”)
in 1996, encouraged by graduates from
the School of Design at Altos de Chavón,
notes Angel Caba Fuentes. The colorful
costumes and masks reflect the town’s
dependence upon and appreciation for
the sea. Carnavarengue adds another
dimension to Río San Juan’s
attraction as a tourist mecca. Unfortunately,
the concept of carnaval as a participatory
celebration of the pueblo’s
unity has been lost in the commercialization
of the effort; Carnavarengue is a
show staged upon a platform set up
in the lagoon’s boat launching
area.
Azua
Residents of Azua
really get into carnaval. They celebrate
it in February as a pre-Lenten and
Independence Day celebration, on August
12th for Restoration Day, in September
for their fiesta patronal in honor
of the Virgin Mary de los Remedios,
and also on March 19th of every year
to celebrate the victorious Battle
of Azua, one of the crowning battles
of the War for Independence against
the Republic of Haiti. The principle
character of their carnaval is the
colorful and fierce Diablo Cojuelo,
but they are also famous for their
colorful Los Indios (“Indians”).
San José de Ocoa
Carnaval was resurrected
in 2000 in San José de Ocoa,
and Juan Rodríguez was there
to document it. From the beginning,
he says, it was very dynamic and creative,
with many participants showing up
in multicolored Papelus-style costumes
with higuero masks and others with
the flowing ribbon “hair”
masks characteristic of their not-so-distant
neighbors in Barahona and Cabral.
Elías Piña
This frontier region
on the border between the Dominican
Republic and the Republic of Haiti
is famous for its colorful, sensual-but-humorous
Ga-Gá dancing, with a huge
cast of costumed characters. The Ga-Gá
of this region is very different from
its counterpart of the same name that
evolved around San Pedro de Macoris.
Ga-Gá is celebrated throughout
Easter Week. In the past, residents
of Elias Piña ritually went
to the mountains and burned their
Ga-Gá masks as a fertility
rite on the Saturday of Holy Week,
so they had to make them anew for
the following year. Residents of Elías
Piña celebrate the traditional
February carnaval with Ga-Gá,
too, but at that time the Ga-Gá
characters are joined by the Diablos
de los Llanos (“Devils of the
Plains”), today more frequently
called Máscaras del Diablo
(“Devil Masks”), who dress
in colorful costumes, carry whips,
and wear masks made of cardboard decorated
with natural materials, most typically
feathers, but they also use hair,
burrs, etc. Manuela Féliz,
a Dominican traditional dance specialist,
notes that other regional masks include
those called Tifuas and Cocorícamo,
which are made out of natural materials
such as charcoal, asphalt, gourds,
and cow skulls.
Montecristi
Montecristi has one
of the most original carnivals in
the entire country, according to Manuela
Féliz. Here the Diablo is known
by the name of El Toro (“The
Bull”), who traditionally wears
a flattened animal mask--not necessarily
that of a cow or bull—that has
been painted with a distinctive polka-dot
design. El Toro’s costume has
thick padding to protect him during
his confrontations with Los Civiles
(“The Civilians”), who
dress in normal street clothing. Los
Civiles carry whips of the same kind
used to drive cattle in the countryside—during
carnaval, they use the whips to drive
off Los Toros, who try to wrestle
them to the ground. The winner is
El Toro who can take the most severe
lashings without giving up or the
combatant from either side who can
tumble his opponent. The “combat”
gives unique macho dimension to Montecristi’s
carnaval celebrations.
Cabral and Barahona
Throughout this southwestern
region of the Dominican Republic,
carnaval is mostly celebrated on the
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of Easter
Week and the following Monday. The
custom is attributed to a Spanish
priest named Juan de Luna more than
100 years ago. The principle character
is a Diablo called a Cachúa
because his fierce papier maché
mask has little spikes all over it
and is covered with long, flowing,
multi-colored strands of crepe paper
“hair” that often cover
the face, hanging down past the chin.
The most popular Cachúa masks
are patterned after animals typical
of the region, such as crocodiles
and water birds, as well as bulls,
oxen, and pigs—Pedro Muamba
Tujibikile notes that the animal costumes
are reflections of the enslaved past
of the participants’ ancestors,
African slaves who were made to work
like beasts. Half of the Cachúas’
costumes are made with distinctive
printed fabric and they sport wide
“bat wing” sleeves and
capes; many participants wear a cloth
hood under their masks. The late Fradique
Lizardo noted that it was also customary
for participants to wear women’s
dresses with their masks, or long
flowing pants, and to carry a mallet
covered with chicken-feathers. The
carnaval celebrations in this region
are very active and loud as ancient
mangulina music plays while the Cachúas
leapfrog over one another in the street
and hold “duels” with
their whips--onlookers compare the
sound of the cracking whips to fireworks.
On the Monday after Easter, at the
end of the carnaval celebrations,
the Cachúas all join together
in the cemetery to “beat up”
a straw figure of Judas in a ritual
re-enactment that blames him for all
the licentiousness that took place
during carnaval. Then they burn Judas
and scatter his ashes in the fields—which
Dagoberto Tejeda Ortiz notes is part
of an ancient fertility ritual. Tejeda
also points out that residual fears
from the Trujillo Era have crept into
the celebrations, for participants
often chant, “Jua, Jua, Jua,
lo mataron por calié”
as they burn the Judas figure. This
is a reference to the dreaded Calié,
Trujillo’s black-clad squad
of assassins.
San Pedro de Macoris
The cocolos of this
region (descendants of freed Protestant
slaves who came to the island seeking
work in the sugar-cane industries
that sprouted up in the late 1800s
and early 1900s) are known for their
carnaval comparsas known as Alí
Babá, whose participants wear
colorful Arabic costumes and perform
well synchronized dance movements.
The region is also famous for a variety
of colorful carnavalesque dances—most
notably Momise and Guloya—with
multiple characters symbolic of the
region’s past history. Both
Momise and Guloya are full-blown musical
“performances” done to
the beat of kettle drums, bass drums,
steel drums and flutes. Finally, San
Pedro is home to a uniquely Dominican
variety of Ga-Gá, another kind
of carnavalesque dance performance
with multiple characters. Ga-gá
is a sensuous celebration of fertility,
performed to the mesmerizing rhythm
of palos (tall African drums) and
the strident sound of fotutos (conch-shell
and bamboo horns). Ga-Gá is
performed primarily during Easter
Holy Week and at the end of the sugar-cane
harvest.
San Cristobal
Situated very near
the Capital, the celebrations of San
Cristobal are similar to those of
Santo Domingo, with one distinction,
their well deserved reputation for
biting political satire. Traditionally
held on February 27, the parade begins
with loud, colorful groups marching
up multiple streets from the various
neighborhoods to converge around the
city’s Living Stones Monument
Park, where the people and a jury,
together, judge which of the local
comparsas and costumed individuals
will win the year’s prizes.
The beloved carnaval figures of El
Hombre en Zancos (“The Man on
Stilts”), El Doctor (“The
Doctor”), and Roba la Gallina
were all created in San Cristobal.
All have become popular carnaval characters
in the Capital and other locations
around the country, too. El Doctor
traditionally wears glasses made of
wire and dried orange rinds, carries
a medical case, and scurries about
trying to “cure” women
among the onlookers; Roba la Gallina
is a man dressed in woman’s
clothes—“she” carries
a huge purse, a tattered umbrella,
wears very brightly colored clothes,
and has exaggerated breasts and buttocks.
Roba la Gallina goes from colmado
to colmado (small mom-and-pop neighborhood
stores) begging for food and drink,
which she shares with her followers
so the merriment of carnaval can continue.
The most famous Roba de Gallina of
all time was “Pipi,” Sergio
de Jesús Rosario. (See section
on La Vega for Pedro Antonio Valdez’s
version of the origins of Roba la
Gallina.)
The words to the
chant that Roba la Gallina’s
followers taunt her with are:
Roba la Gallina,
palo con ella. Tin tin malandrín
(o ti ti manatí),
ton ton molondrón. A mamá
que le mande una cebollita, dile que
coja la mas chiquita. A mamá
que le mande un grano de ajo, dile
que coja el que tiene abajo. El mejor
colmado, el de fulano. Muchachos que
quieren cuarto.
Roba la Gallina,
hit her with a stick. Tin tin rascal
(or ti ti manatee), ton ton okra.
Send mama a little onion; tell her
to choose the smallest. Send mama
a piece of garlic; tell her to choose
the one that he has below.* The best
colmado [is] anybody’s. The
boys want money.
*These lines are
references to the fact that “she”
is a he with a penis and testicles.
Another feature of
San Cristobal’s carnaval parade
is the distinctive comparsa called
the “Living Culture and the
XXI Divisions.” Begun in 1985,
according to Jorge Güigni, each
woman in the group represents one
of the Dominican pantheon of “voodoo”
gods that have been re-symbolized
as Christian saints. The women carry
crucifixes, Dominican flags, paintings
and other tokens of their saints,
and march while playing balsies and
tamboras (drums), guayos (scrapers),
tamborines, and maracas.
Smaller Regional
Carnivals
There are other very
interesting local carnivals, such
as those in the towns of Sánchez,
San Francisco de Macorís, Jarabacoa,
Mao, Yerba Buena in Hato Major, and
La Joya in Guerra. San Juan de la
Maguana, too, has some notable carnaval
traditions, most importantly their
popular masks called tifúas,
which are made of cloth covered with
old oil and then adorned with horsehair.
Judy Kerman heard and confirmed from
several knowledgeable sources that,
high up in the mountains of Constanza,
the custom of dressing up as bees
for carnaval remains as a protest
and celebration from the 1917-1924
period of the American “intervention”
(which Dominicans call the period
of American occupation), when local
farmers tipped over their beehives,
releasing angry bees in the path of
the American soldiers
Santo Domingo
In the past, carnavals
in Santo Domingo were held not only
to celebrate holy days and before
Lent, but for all special events.
The night before, luminaries would
be set alite to flicker along all
the streets and balconies of today’s
Colonial Zone (designated a World
Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1987).
On the day of the celebration, all
the boats that ferried people across
the Ozama River were decorated with
brightly colored flowers, and the
dominant classes paraded along El
Conde, which today is a pedestrian-only
street running east-west from Independence
Park to the stairs leading down to
the Ozama River. Costumed participants,
most of them in groups representing
their particular cofradias—“brotherhoods”
connected to particular churches,
which included the African cofradías—had
orange-throwing fights and also threw
ojos de cera (literally “Wax
Eyes,” which were eggshells
filled with perfumed water and stoppered
with wax) at each other and among
the onlookers. The costumed groups
fought, sang, and danced their way
down El Conde. Later that night there
would be a formal ball in Las Casas
Reales, the mansion near the port,
on the southeast corner of the Plaza
de Armas that was the home of the
Captain General of the island.
Eventually, the parade
down El Conde came to be associated
with the elite, while the poorer residents
of the city, as well as delegations
from nearby villages, celebrated their
carnaval in Enriquillo Park. Carnaval
was a time when the costumed participants
could poke fun at the city’s
politicians, the military, even priests
with impunity, notes Dagoberto Tejeda
Ortiz—until the Trujillo Era,
that is, when carnaval was strictly
regulated for just that reason.
Today, Dominicans
from all parts of the country have
moved to Santo Domingo, the political
and economic capital, bringing their
regional carnaval customs with them,
although certain traditions are specifically
connected to the Capital. At carnaval
time, the streets are alive with Diablos
Cojuelos of all kinds and ages, vigorously
whistling their arrival—and
watch out for those vejigas and cracking
whips!
The masks of Santo
Domingo’s Diablo Cojuelos have
traditionally taken the form of “diabolic
animals” with multiple horns
and large sharp teeth—frequently
real teeth from cows and pigs. Today,
because mask makers incorporate latex,
acrylics, and other synthetic materials,
the masks are becoming more and more
elaborate, although many Santo Domingo
Diablos wear no masks at all or wear
them tilted up on top of their heads,
leaving their faces unencumbered.
Their costumes are brilliantly colored
with multiple rows of tighly packed
ruffles that run straight up the hoods
that cover their heads. They sport
distinctive ankle-length loinclothes
that are heavy with bells and other
decoration. Dolls or small stuffed
animals, or just dolls’ heads
sewn all over the front and back of
the costumes, are very typical of
the Diablo Cojuelos’carnaval
costumes in the Capital. Like most
carnaval symbols, the dolls and stuffed
animals have inverted and multiple
meanings, for they represent the people’s
sadness over the deaths of all the
little Dominican children over the
centuries and, at the same time, they
celebrate the fertility of the Dominican
people—in particular its men.
In addition to the
Diablos Cojuelos, in the Capital you
will also see many versions of the
humorous Roba de Gallina and “her”
entourage (see description in the
sections on San Cristobal and La Vega),
and a whole host of other colorful
carnaval figures too numerous to detail.
They include:
? La Muerte en Yipe
(“Death in a Jeep”), doesn’t
drive a jeep. The Death character
at carnaval takes a wide variety of
forms, but is always recognizable
by his skeletal appearance or by the
“blood” dripping from
his multiple wounds. The name comes
from the days when the Death characters
used to climb up on the backs of the
jeeps that towed the floats during
the carnaval parades.
? The elegant Califé
(“Caliph”) is a tall Master
of Ceremonies who makes jokes in the
form of poetic verses that criticize
the local political and socio-economic
situation. He is dressed formally
in top hat, tie and black tails. The
original Califé is said to
have been a worker from the Villa
Juana district of the Capital during
the 1940s. The late Fradique Lizardo
believed the character to have been
modeled after the Baron of the Cemetery
(a powerful god in the Dominican voodoo
pantheon), but Dagoberto Tejeda Ortiz
believes it to be a caricature of
an elite aristocrat.
? Los Africanos are
representatives of all the slaves
who were brought over to work the
gold mines and sugarcane plantattions
of the island. Canaval Africanos darken
their skin with charcoal or makeup
and traditionally wore plantain-leaf
skirts, but recently many have replaced
the skirts with loinclothes. Africanos
often carry lances and go barefoot.
Some now paint their faces in red,
white, and blue designs that suggest
the Dominican flag, others wear gourd
masks, while still others sport wild
“Afro” wigs. The costuming
is unique and varied.
? Los Tiznaos (literally
“The Stained Ones”) are
dark and glossy because they paint
their faces and bodies with burned
motor oil. Many will offer--or threaten--to
embrace onlookers, and must be discouraged
by a small gift of money.
? Although the original
Taíno Indians were often naked,
Los Indios in Carnaval usually wear
loincloths or thick body paint and
feathered headpieces. The most famous
Carnival Indians are those from the
neighborhood of San Carlos, who act
out a drama of the Spaniards and Taínos
of the Conquest Era.
? Los Travestis (“The
Transvestites”) are also typical
of carnaval in Santo Domingo as well
as in Santiago and other cities of
the Dominican Republic. In this paradoxical
display, men show off their macho
maleness during carnaval by dressing
up as women. Although this is often
confusing to people of other cultures,
it is another example of carnival’s
world turned upside down. (One stunningly
beautiful transvestite took the upside-down
turn up yet another notch: When this
researcher uttered a spontaneous,
“Wow!” upon seeing her,
she lifted up her skirt to show that
“she” had a very naked,
very real, very male penis, eliciting
a doubly loud, appreciative “Wow,
wow!”) Like Mardi Gras in New
Orleans, however, Carnaval in Santo
Domingo is also a time when real Dominican
transvestites and homosexuals get
to strut their stuff. Therefore understanding
gender reversals at carnaval time
as demonstrations of masculinity doesn’t
tell the entire story. The whole issue
is quite confusing.
? Los Monos de Simonico
are a troop of “monkeys”
that originated in the neighborhood
of Villa Duarte.
? Se Me Muere Rebeca,
which literally translates to “Rebecca
is Dying (on Me),” is a strange
but fascinating character who provides
a tantalizing glimpse into the topsy
turvy, symbol-filled world of Dominican
Carnaval. If you can understand the
symbolism embedded in the Carnaval
character Se Me Muere Rebeca, you
will understand carnaval more completely.
The character, who first appeared
in the carnaval celebrations of the
1940s, is a man dressed as a woman,
who wears a life-sized female doll
around “her” waist as
part of his costume. This is done
in commemoration of a woman who once
ran through the streets seeking medical
help, crying that her little girl
Rebecca was dying. The character is
meant to honor and mourn all the children
who have died of poverty and illness
on the island. But the character has
a double twist in the world-upside-down
way of Carnaval, for the doll “Rebeca,”
in this case, refers to the carnival
character’s penis, and while
she/he jokes that it doesn’t
work anymore (“is dying on me”),
it really illustrates how virile he
is.
In 2004, Santo Domingo
began to celebrate carnaval with a
series of city-focused parades on
Avenida México in mid to late
February. The Capital did not have
its own parade from 1983-2003, celebrating
instead the National Carnaval Parade
with comparsas from all over the island.
--The National Carnaval Parade--
The first National
Carnaval Parade in Santo Domingo was
held in 1983 under the direction of
Milagros Ortiz Bosch. It has customarily
been held at the end of February or
in early March, but in 2004 was moved
to late March. The National Parade
takes place along the Malecón,
the broad avenue in the Capital that
fronts the Caribbean Sea. It often
lasts nine hours or more! The comparsas—colorful
groups of similarly-costumed individuals,
frequently with floats, some of which
are extremely lavish, and usually
accompanied by musicians--come from
all over the country and compete for
prizes. The judges and VIPs are in
viewing stands near the Hotel Jaragua.
Throughout the parade, onlookers and
participants—frequently it’s
hard to distinguish one from the other
as costumed onlookers become participants—dance
and drink and party, weaving onto
the street from the sidelines, with
the police and other military types
trying to keep everybody back behind
designated lines, usually unsuccessfully.
Keep a lookout for the unique plaited
hairstyles that onlookers wear at
carnaval time, among which the most
outstanding are the artistic “porcupine”
designs made with toothpicks, and
for the fabulous face and head painting
among the crowds of people. Vendors
line the avenue selling food and cold
drinks, and toys, and masks. The music
is loud and dynamic, and few onlookers
can just “stand around”—you
have to move to the pulsing beat!
Or at least you must step lively to
avoid the snap-crackle-ouch! of a
Diablo Cojuelo’s vejiga, the
crack of a whip, or the reckless groups
of young revelers running full tilt
through the crowded street.
Dominican Carnaval
is an absolutely incredible full sensory
experience, an immersion into history,
national patriotism, communal sharing,
tropical rhythms, heat, and sensuality,
interwoven with a peculiar brand of
humor that is both contagious and
lots and lots of fun.
Bibliography
Güigni, Jorge.
Carnaval Popular de San Cristobal:
Una historia para contar.
Santo Domingo: Mediabyte, 2003.
Muamba Tujibikile,
Pedro. “Las Cachúas:
Revelación de una historia
encubierta.” Santo Domingo:
Ediciones CEPAE, 1993.
Ramírez Acosta,
Carlos M., Cristina Maria Pineda Peña
and Ana Rosa Jackson.
“El Origen del Carnaval en Santa
Barbara de Samaná, República
Dominicana.” Santo Domingo,
2001.
Tejeda Ortiz, Dagoberto.
Cultura Popular e Identidad Nacional,
Tomo I. Santo
Domingo: Instituto Dominicano de Folklore,
1998.
-------, ed. Carnaval
y Sociedad. Santo Domingo: Mediabyte
,2003.
-------. Los Carnavales
de Carnaval. Santo Domingo: Mediabyte,
2003.
Valdez, Pedro Antonio.
Historia del Carnaval Vegano. La Vega:
Ediciones
Hojarasca, 1995.
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