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Mas Domnik 2001
Carnival '2000
Carnival '99
Carnival '98
Carnival '97
Calypso Other years Start your own 2008 Carnival Group? Go here
Get ready for Dominica Carnival 2009 - Jump-up days are 23rd & 24th February
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The story of Dominica's Canival is told my the island's historian Lennox Honychurch Mas Dominique The statement that Carnival emerged in Dominica after 1838 needs some qualification, for as we shall discover the whole festival branches out far back into hundreds of years of our Afro-European cultural background. In fact we have to go back over two thousand years to the primitive European tribes living before the rise of the Roman Empire to find the earliest roots of the festival. It was linked to the pagan feasts for the coming of spring, a time to celebrate the end of the harsh starving period of winter and the beginning of the fruitful spring and summer months. The Romans adopted and developed the whole thing as one of the imperial cults, which was part of an elaborate calendar of beliefs officially published in 304 BC. It became the Lupercalia festival administered by the Luperci and celebrated on 15th February each year. Four hundred years later, the followers of Jesus of Nazareth spread out through Asia Minor and along the Mediterranean coast preaching their Gospel and persuading a wide variety of persons with differing beliefs to join their faith. There then began a natural mixture of beliefs and customs. Soon their simple message of brotherhood became entangled with a whole range of confusing dogma and doctrine picked up and adapted from the traditional sects and cults found throughout Asia Minor, Greece and Rome. After years of Christian persecution by successive Roman emperors, Constantine agreed to tolerate all religions and finally Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire by Edict of Theodosius I in the year 380. It was obvious that as a state religion much of the traditional Roman beliefs entwined with the increasingly complex Christian teachings. And things got even more confusing as power struggles and arguments over the nature of Christ split the Church into factions with conflicting creeds, doctrines, dogmas and edicts which really had very little to do with the message of brotherhood at all. For these reasons we find that Christianity today, like all other surviving religions is interspersed with a lot of folk beliefs and, or, national traditions gathered over hundreds of years. As a result, the observance of most of the important dates of the Christian calendar (a Roman influence in itself) has far flung roots. In the case of Carnival we get the Roman Luperclia feast linked to the Christian observance of Lent. The word itself originates from the Latin phrase "carnem levare" meaning " to put away meat." It also stems from the Italian word "carnevale" which was the original name for Shrove Tuesday. The part of the word relates to "carnis" the Latin for "flesh" which implies not just the meat of animals but the sensual sexual ways of the flesh as well. This too was part of the Bacchanalia or Festival of Bacchus, the Greek god of wine. The strict observance of Lent comes to us from the Dark Ages, after the fall of Rome, when Christianity went through what was perhaps its most horrific phase. Fear, self-debasement, penance through torture and self-mortification were seen as being the demands of salvation. Processions in iron chains and pilgrimages for miles on shuffling bended knees were part of the forty days of sacrifice. It was no wonder therefore that those early Europeans went wild for two days before Ash Wednesday. |
This year, we want you to expose Carnival 2008 from your own prospective by just creating your Carnival 2008 Group and share the love.Go here click on a group icon and start your own group.