Characters
A few specific characters have evolved during the history of Trinidad and Tobago's Carnival. Among these characters are:
Pierrot Grenade – he gives speeches on issues of the day, all in rhyme
Minstrels – musicians acting as wandering minstrels, wearing white facepaint
Midnight Robber – his grandiose bragging is known as "robber talk," a style which evolved from African Griot storytellers
Jab Jab -
Jab is the French Patois for "Diable" (Devil), and Molassie is the French Patois for Mélasse (Molasses). The Jab Molassie is one of several varieties of devil mas played in Trinidad and Tobago carnival. The costume consists of short pants or pants cut off at the knee, and a mask and horns. The jab molassie would carry chains, and wear locks and keys around his waist, and carry a pitch fork. He may smear his body with grease, tar, mud or coloured dyes (red, green or blue). The jab molassie "wines" or gyrates to a rhythmic beat that is played on tins or pans by his imps. While some of his imps supply the music, others hold his chain, seemingly restraining him as he pulls against them in his wild dance.
The differences among the various forms of devil mas were once distinct, but have become blurred over time.
Dame Lorraine – an amply blessed woman – stuffed in the appropriate areas – dressed as an 18th-century French aristocrat
Read more about this topic: Trinidad And Tobago Carnival
Famous quotes containing the word characters:
“I have often noticed that after I had bestowed on the characters of my novels some treasured item of my past, it would pine away in the artificial world where I had so abruptly placed it.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“White Pond and Walden are great crystals on the surface of the earth, Lakes of Light.... They are too pure to have a market value; they contain no muck. How much more beautiful than our lives, how much more transparent than our characters are they! We never learned meanness of them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Animals are stylized characters in a kind of old saga—stylized because even the most acute of them have little leeway as they play out their parts.”
—Edward Hoagland (b. 1932)