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CARIBBEAN QUILT 
2023 VOL. 7 NO. 1 
 

 35 

 

                                                                                  

 
 

                                                       

The Cultural and Spiritual Origination of The Western, 

Southern and Central African Influences of Trinidad and 

Tobago’s Carnival and the artform of Kalinda. 
 
Shayna Thompson 

Centre for Caribbean Studies 

Faculty of Arts & Science, University of Toronto 

 
Shayna Rivelle Thompson is a visual and mural artist for over ten years, as well as a certified biotechnician from Trinidad and Tobago. A fourth-year 

student at the University of Toronto, majoring in African Studies and minoring English and Life Sciences, Shayna’s academic studies focus on Pan-

Africanism and the importance of the Caribbean to be acknowledged from a historical, spiritual, creative and holistic health perspective. 

                                                                                  
 
KEYWORDS: 

Trinidad & Tobago 

Carnival 

African Diaspora 

Kalinda 

Africa 

Culture 

 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
ABSTRACT 

                                                                                        
In this thesis, I will discuss the origins of Carnival and the artform of Kalinda within the Caribbean twin island of Trinidad 

and Tobago. I will discuss these practices' cultural and spiritual roots in West, Central and South Africa. The first section 

of this paper will discuss Trinidad and Tobago's Carnival. The explanation regarding the festival will provide an under-

standing of how, what, where, when, and why it came into existence and will always be significant to the island's cultural 

and spiritual structural foundation. The second section will explain Kalinda's complete physical and spiritual art form 

and why it is to understand. The last section of this paper will discuss the significant cultural and spiritual connection 

between Carnival and Kalinda. It will discuss how this festival and art form are significant to Trinidad and Tobago's spir-

itual and cultural foundation, hence providing the relevance of it being remembered and carried on. 

 

 

African influences are predominant throughout the Carib-
bean—one island, which can be seen in Trinidad and To-
bago. While Trinidad and Tobago has a diversity of races 
and ethnicities that produce its cosmopolitan society, im-
pacting the country's culture, the African influence is the 
most predominant. Trinidad and Tobago's African 

influences are rooted within the regions of West, Central 
and South Africa. Carnival and Kalinda are entwined with 
each other as Kalinda is done during the period of Carnival 
within the period of Trinidad in Tobago (predominantly be-
tween the January to February period). This had been tra-
ditional within Trinidad in the early nineteenth and 

Caribbean Quilt 
Journal Homepage: https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/cquilt/index 
 
 



CARIBBEAN QUILT 
2023 VOL. 7 NO. 1 
 

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twentieth centuries.   
 
Trinidad and Tobago’s Carnival is regarded as ‘one of the 
best examples of strong cultural hybridity between Afri-
cans and Europeans’ (Miyoshi, Mika “Representation of 
African Heritage in Trinidad Carnival." Representation of 
African Heritage in Trinidad Carnival, January 7th, 2016, 
pp. 83-93). Carnival is a traditional, annual street festival 
(known as the 'the greatest festival in the world') in the cap-
ital of Trinidad and Tobago, Port of Spain. It is held for two 
days, always on a Monday or Tuesday as 'Carnival Monday 
and Carnival Tuesday.'It pays ancestral homage and sym-
bolization African emancipation from slavery in the nine-
teenth century. Before the forty-day Christian and Catholic 
Lenten period, these two days fall between January and 
February. The purpose of this was and is to continue the 
celebration of the history of emancipation, of African slav-
ery from the European colonization. They were no longer 
under oppression due to their persistent rebellion. Two sig-
nificant historical, events that have to be understood that 
contributed to the product of Carnival were the emancipa-
tion of slavery in 1838 and the 'Canboulay Riot of 1881' 
(Guzda, John. The Canboulay Riot 1881: Influence of Free 
Blacks on Trinidad's Carnival. January 11th, 2012, pp. 1-
10).  
 
An estimated 44,002 Africans of the six million from Af-
rica, were brought to Trinidad and Tobago through the 
'Middle Passage' (the journey to the Caribbean and other 
parts of the New World at this time) via slavery from the 
Transatlantic Slave Trade to work on the plantations owned 
by Europeans, from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries 
(Government of Trinidad and Tobago, “Emancipation - 
SOLD INTO SLAVERY.” Emancipation - SOLD INTO 
SLAVERY). The most severe method used on Africans was 
the abolition of their physical and spiritual connection to 
Africa, in addition to the strict control and punishment 
methods such as castration, branding with hot irons, dis-
membering and locking in prisons and dungeons ("Eman-
cipation - SOLD INTO SLAVERY." Emancipation - SOLD 
INTO SLAVERY, p1). The agenda behind this principle was 
dispersing the same ethnic groups to various plantations to 
prevent the groups from creating an uprising. Communica-
tion that was now to be eradicated was one of the most 

important things to be destroyed here. A significance of 
this was the banning of African drums and rituals due to 
enslavers’ fears that they would be able to communicate 
physically and spiritually amongst themselves. This led 
them to practice their religion underground simultaneously 
and the religious faith of the enslaver, who imposed Chris-
tianity as the only acceptable form of worship upon them. 
This was a form of manipulation by the Africans, and they 
'consciously erected a parallel interpretation of the Chris-
tian structure of saints such that when they publicly prayed 
to them, their inner minds/heads (ori-inu), which the Afri-
can regards to be by far more powerful than the actual head, 
in spiritual matters, was praying to the equivalent Orisa’ 
(AIYEJINA, FUNSO, and RAWLE GIBBONS. “Orisa 
(Orisha) Tradition in Trinidad. “Caribbean Quarterly, vol. 
45, no. 4, 1999, pp. 42). This, however, was not going to 
last forever due to emancipation.  
 
In 1783 European (British and French) Catholic enslavers 
would have their masquerade balls in the pre-Lenten sea-
son, with enslaved people only having servant roles. They 
would do so using clothing, accessories and makeup. Afri-
cans, who had their own culture inclusive of dress wear, 
music, drumming, dancing and singing, combined this 
with the mocking of their European superiors, producing a 
variety of characters paraded even up until today. The en-
slaved Africans were from the West, Central and South re-
gions and were brought to Trinidad. They were the Yoruba 
(the predominant West), Koongo-Angola (modernly spelt 
Congo - Central, Angola - South,) and Hausa (Northern Ni-
geria). The Yoruba, the predominant African group, was 
and still is a major influence within the Carnival in addition 
to the English, French and Spanish influences. These peo-
ple's combination of religion and spirituality were and are 
very critical to Carnival as it is a major component in Car-
nival's spiritual purpose - ancestral veneration of those who 
paved the way for emancipation. The ancestral veneration 
consists of two essential aspects:  the combined religious-
spiritual belief of Orisha and their regional costume por-
trayal.   
 
The Yoruba tradition of Orisha is one of the 'most promi-
nent,' 'contemporary African religious traditions' had and 
is still noted as one of the most prominent brought to 



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2023 VOL. 7 NO. 1 
 

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Trinidad. (AIYEJINA, FUNSO, and RAWLE GIBBONS. 
“Orisa (Orisha) Tradition in Trinidad. “Caribbean Quar-
terly, vol. 45, no. 4, 1999, pp. 35) The Orisa tradition was 
named Sango, after Sango, the God of thunder and light-
ning and the 'titular/patron deity of Oyo' (where post-
Emancipation Yoruba captives came from). This was be-
cause he had the most meaningful and prominent influence 
on this African religion. He was known to possess 'protec-
tor' and 'avenger' qualities, leading to the belief that he was 
impressionable to the oppressed and enslaved. Trinidadian 
novelist, playwright, journalist and writer Earl Lovelace 
shows the reference to this in The Dragon Can’t Dance: 
'sweeping yards in a ritual, heralding the masquerader's 
coming, that goes back centuries for its beginnings, back 
across the Middle Passage, back to Mali and to Guinea and 
Dahomey and Congo, back to Africa when Maskers were 
sacred and revered'(Lovelace, 1979: 120). AIYEJINA, 
FUNSO, and RAWLE GIBBONS. “Orisa (Orisha) Tradi-
tion in Trinidad. “Caribbean Quarterly, vol. 45, no. 4, 1999, 
p 41). 
 
The Orisa faith survived due to the Oyo-Yoruba Africans 
(captives from wars between Yoruba subgroups sold into 
slavery) who had been brought to their new home, the New 
World in the Caribbean and South America. The principal 
places were Cuba, Brazil and Trinidad via the Atlantic 
Slave Trade (eighteenth and nineteenth century). This is 
the reason why the faith has survived up to the present. 
Even though it has not been consistently recorded via doc-
umentation from then to now, Trinidadians of African de-
scent have been able to continue practicing this Yoruba-
originated legacy. This is done through generations re-
membering what they have learnt through ancestry passing 
this tradition down to second and third generations.  
 
The costumes are significant to the homage and, therefore, 
the pioneer designers of the culture. Many prominent and 
influential pioneers have laid the foundation for Trinidad 
and Tobago Carnival. They are Harold Saldenah, Peter 
Minshell, Brian Mac Farlane, Carlisle Chang, George Bai-
ley, Stephen Lee Chung, and Norris Eustace. Norris Eu-
stace and Harold Saldenah were two legendaries who made 
their mark within the roots of this Carnival tradition. Norris 
Eustace was the designer for the great Harold Saldenah. 

This period would have been around the late 1950s to the 
early '60s, the emergence of Carnival in Trinidad and To-
bago. His nephew Curtis Eustace, the national record 
holder for the most 'King of Carnival' titles in Trinidad and 
Tobago, continues today's tradition.  
 
Through the diversity of designs created for all those par-
ticipating in the festival to enjoy, these pioneered carnival 
designers shared the common factor from past to present - 
carrying on the importance of ‘mas’ – the concept of cos-
tume worn to celebrate African diversity as well as other 
ethnicities who also became emancipated. After years of 
revolts and rebellions from Africans, On June 18th, 1837, 
at St Joseph, Donald Stewart, known as 'Dagaa,' former Af-
rican chief in Guinea and the leader of the first British West 
India Regiment, led a revolt. This led to him and his re-
maining crew being sentenced to death on August 16th, 
1837 and the following year on August 1st, 1834; the Brit-
ish Parliament passed 'The Act of the Abolition of Slavery' 
on August 28th, 1833 ("Emancipation - SOLD INTO 
SLAVERY." Emancipation - SOLD INTO SLAVERY, pp 5-
7).  
 
'Canboulay' (spelled initially as 'cannes bru lees') was the 
act of sugarcane fields being burnt. Burning the crops was 
a rebellious revolt done to the elite European enslavers for 
liberty and to sabotage their enslaver's economy. This was 
because it was produced by free slave labour. The enslaved 
people showcased how they were anticolonial and anti-
catholic, taking a pro-African stance in emancipating and 
celebrating this. This led to an important historical event 
of canboulay that marked the start of the festivity, 'Can-
boulay Act in 1881'. This was when the British administra-
tion decided to out rule and permanently suppress annual 
African celebrations in the capital city's streets by using 
police restraint and force. Revolting and protesting were in 
the streets for African freedom. After years of struggle, 
even after slavery had been abolished to receive freedom, 
in 1962, Trinidad and Tobago had become colonial rule 
abolished and no longer under the British regime. Through 
this freedom, they immediately did not hesitate to celebrate 
on the streets. It is from this point on to now that Carnival 
is celebrated in the history of emancipation and struggle 
(Elder, J.D. “Cannes Brûlées.” TDR (1988-), vol. 42, no. 3, 



CARIBBEAN QUILT 
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1998, pp. 38-43). 

Kalinda is the traditional art form of stick fighting prac-
ticed within Trinidad and Tobago’s carnival period, pre-
dominantly by males. This prospectus will explain the sim-
ultaneous cultural and spiritual roots of these practices of 
African slaves of the Yoruba, traditionally continued in 
Trinidad and Tobago under European colonization in the 
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The word is com-
prised of two words with two meanings combined. 'Ka' is 
a southern Koongo and Mbundu 'nominal diminutive pre-
fix,' similarly in French Creole languages. It meant drum 
(Hearn 1890, 143) hence why it can be linked to being used 
as a call out by the fighters to encourage drummers to play 
louder, to hype them up for the match; they would say, 
"give me keg/ka” (Pearse 1955, Envelope 4, 8.22). This 
practice arrived in Trinidad in the nineteenth century with 
these enslaved Africans. Eventually, it became part of the 
plantation creole culture. It was highly noticeable within 
Central Africa. This was predominantly, originally and cul-
turally practiced as a pastime by Central and South Afri-
cans, continued by second and third-generation descend-
ants. These descendants were of Koongo-Angolan ancestry. 
It was also used as a form of self-defence, particularly by 
those who would have been considered professionally 
trained soldiers 'specially trained for war' (Thornton 1988b, 
362) with the stick. In addition to this, being able to display 
skills that "included a facility in hand-to-hand combat with 
sword, club, battle axe, and stabbing spear, and in some 
cases use as a shield . . .Thus the important skill was, above 
all, the ability to twist, leap, and dodge to avoid arrows or 
the blows of opponents'' (pp. 363-64). Evidence is seen as 
the Koongo and Ngdongo is connected to the war drills of 
the Haitian Musundi battle dance.   

There were many ways to open a fight. One way it com-
menced was for a player "to run in a mystic circle ."This 
was done to 'close off emanations of jealousy and envy' 
(Thompson 1991,7). A second was called the 'pa-
rade .'There was a time limit of three to four hours in the 
afternoon consisting of various contestants in the ring 
called a gayal. There were holes prepared near it so that a 
fighter had a headrest to rest his head so that blood would 
have been able to be drained out over the hole. This Congo 
poses signified 'the presence of the spirit' and 'ecstasy' 

sharing similarity to what is known by the Koongo as 
'yaangalala .'This is when the hands are thrust above the 
head with fingers spread wide. It was done with his "left 
arm akimbo and the right hand up and forwards ."This was 
an 'opening pose' in that players could strike their oppo-
nents by throwing power against them to increase their 
chances of strength to win. Women sometimes pose simi-
larly to their male counterparts with the left hand on the 
hip, and the right held 'poised in the air' (Courlander 1960, 
131).  
 
The stick is called 'bois,' a French for wood made from the 
following fruit trees - yellow poui, sour guava, gasparee 
and anaree. It was believed that the saplings of these trees 
should be cut 'when the moon is weak and the nights are 
dark .'It is the most significant asset to the fighter himself, 
hence why much preparation went into it for a bloody win. 
It ranged from five to six feet in length with a diameter of 
about seven-eighths of an inch. The stick fighters were 
called 'Meyers' (Warner-Lewis, Maureen. Central African 
in the Caribbean - Transcending Time, Transforming Cul-
tures - Chapter 8 ‘Accessing Power: Ritual War and Mas-
querade 209’). 
 
They were generally believed to have had their mothers put 
snake poison on their sticks, wiping it with a red cloth. 
They ensured the sticks were spiritually guarded as they 
were believed to have 'power .'It is said to be the 'guarded 
stick' that as soon as you hit your opponent 'a lash, bam 
their stick burst in half’ as deemed in the Trinidadian creole 
colloquial language (meaning in English layman’s terms, 
the stick would break). This was also regarded by the 
French term 'bon rai' or bonne raise' - 'a good strike .'It 
rested on the thumb and the little finger, clasping it with 
three middle fingers. The spiritual and physical were en-
twined as serious preparation (Pearse 1955, Envelope 4). 
 
Music played a huge role. It consisted of connoisseurs and 
percussion. The person was accompanied by the music of 
short lengths of bamboo or 'spoons against bottles' or 
drums. These tones and rhythms were said to forewarn 
competitors of two things: to instruct them by hinting to 
him something wrong with his strategy or how to take ad-
vantage of the enemy's weakness (Hill 1972, 26). Being 



CARIBBEAN QUILT 
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stuck to the head was considered the worst type of blow for 
a player to receive.  
 
In southwestern Nigeria and Trinidad, drums are accompa-
nied by 'gourd rattles and hand clapping .'Two instruments 
used by Trinidadian Shangoists who would have been in-
volved in the musical aspect of Kalinda are the shagby and 
a long slender calabash. The shagby is an instrument of 
equivalence to the shekere rattle in Nigeria, made from a 
large round calabash whose top has been replaced with a 
piece of goatskin' (Simpson, George Eaton. "The Shango 
Cult in Nigeria and in Trinidad." American Anthropologist, 
vol. 64, no. 6, 1962, pp. 1208. JSTOR, Accessed March 
2nd, 2020). The long slender calabash contained a string of 
buttons that produced a high sound volume when shaken. 
The 'chantwells' (in French chauntuelles or chantrelles in 
chantuer), known as the male singers, would sing lyrics to 
motivate the opponents, with the male drumming simulta-
neously playing a role in the big drum tradition. (Warner-
Lewis, Maureen. Central African in the Caribbean - Trans-
cending Time, Transforming Cultures - Chapter 8 ‘Access-
ing Power: Ritual War and Masquerade pp. 199-206’).  
 
The songs used in the act of Kalinda were Yoruba sacred 
melodies which developed into a genre of music called 
''Trinidad Yoruba.'' These songs had African religious 
chants that were sacred. These songs stemmed from the 
worship of Shango among the Yoruba. Shango was the de-
ity of thunder and lightning. These songs were sung as per-
sonal boasting in ritual battles and revolting against the op-
pressors during 'canboulay or burning of the sugarcane 
fields.'It was a known prelude routine to burning crops by 
free labourers or enslaved people to sabotage the enslaver's 
economy. These boasts were 'Ó rú ogùnná gbòńgbò’ (‘He 
carried aloft a huge flambeau’ - a flame is lit) and ‘Ó fi 
íréké pán' ('He set the canes alight'). A common chant was 
'Zingaytalala .'It was an old-folk chant traditionally sung in 
the gayelle, rarely used now. It is described as "A cry from 
deep from within, an old stickman chant, a reckoning. It is 
a cry from the spirit, a shout from the soul, a cry for healing, 
a call to the world to do more and be more, for the good of 
the whole '' (Espinet, Rachel. “3canal To 'Boom up History' 
with Zingaytalala.” Trinidad and Tobago Newsday, Febru-
ary 15th, 2019).  

In conclusion, these two practices remind Trinidadians of 
the freedom they enslaved africans yearned. The execution 
in both has remained at present except for Kalinda, being 
practiced as a culturally African-based sport and remem-
bering the artform's tradition. While it is not used for war-
based reasons, the elders who have passed on his art form 
up to current will use it as a form of self-defence if neces-
sary. The Carnival of Trinidad and Tobago's influence has 
spread globally to a diversity of countries worldwide as 
there are many Trinbagonian communities in places such 
as North America (Toronto being one of the biggest with 
the Toronto Caribbean Carnival), Europe and Japan. The 
tradition is continued today by many carnival bands and 
the 'King and Queen Showcase' competition. As Toronto is 
one of the biggest influencers out of Trinidad, Louis 
Saldenah, owner of the masquerader band Louis Saldenah 
Mas K Club, and Curtis Eustace (nephew of Norris Eustace) 
continue to win competitions of the King and Queen show-
case, followed by first-time designer Nicholas Guy ("News 
Release." Ontario Science Centre Awards the 2019 Inno-
vation in Mas' Award to Nicholas Guy's Heartbeat of the 
Last Conflict at the Toronto Caribbean Carnival). These 
two practices commemorate the emergence of slavery and 
the celebration of the new life free of enslavement. Carni-
val is celebrated, and Kalinda is practiced during the Car-
nival season as a reminder of the historical struggle that 
Africans mainly encountered to reside in a liberated soci-
ety and remember the African heritage that moulded Trin-
idadians of African descent into members of society today 
holistically.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 



CARIBBEAN QUILT 
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