|
Home Tips > Tips By Category > Tips you can implement daily J'ouvert is a contraction of the French jour ouvert, or day open (morning).
J'ouvert is celebrated on many islands, including Dominica, Saint Lucia, Guyana, Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, Aruba, Barbados, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, , St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Kitts and Nevis, Sint Maarten, Trinidad and Tobago, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands. It is also a feature of New York City's West Indian Day Parade held on Labor Day, in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn and Notting Hill Carnival in London, both areas that have a large Caribbean ex-pat communities.
The celebration involves calypso/soca bands and their followers dancing thru the streets. The festival starts well before dawn and peaks a few hours after sunrise. Another part of the tradition involves throwing coloured powders, water, smearing paint, mud, or oil on the participants known as "Jab Jabs".
J'ouvert started among the French West Indies Islands such as Dominica, St.Lucia, Haiti, Guadalupe and St.Martin.. It was the beginning of the celebration of emancipation from slavery. The ex slaves took to the streets the day the law enforced that slavery was to be banished. They celebrated by gathering out in the streets of their Islands and began to sing dance and celebrate their freedom. It was a new day in the early morning and they were starting a new life the term J'ouvert comes to play day open (morning). Some of the Islands still celebrate the original way by beating on Goat skinned drums and blowing flutes and conch shells in the streets while some beat on irons and bamboo sticks while singing folk songs in creole, the creole name of this type of music and band is called Lapo-Kabuite which roughly translates to goat skinned drums.. Still celebrated in that original manner on the islands of Dominica, St.Lucia, Guadalupe, St.Martin and Haiti. J'ouvert became widely accepted in the other island in the Caribbean, many have claimed to have started it even if they never had not much french or creole influence in their heritage.
Some theorize that this is done in remembrance of a civil disturbance in Port of Spain, Trinidad, when the people smeared themselves with oil or paint to avoid being recognized. Others point to the English-speaking Caribbean's significant Indian Community and the festival of Holi[1] as the origin of this custom.
REPLY to this article
Also read these articles
Return from Jouvert Also Spelled As Jouve to Tips you can implement daily
|
Twitter
Facebook
More