PRETTY DEVILS
OLDEST TYPE OF
COSTUME ON THE ROAD
By Caldeo Sookram
Sunday Express
Section 2
March 5, 2000
Page 24
While people in town are more familiar with the "dutty"
mud and grease-covered jab-jabs with long tails and whips, in the country
districts they were a more familiar sight dressed as "pretty devils".
Theirs
is one of the oldest types of costumes to be seen at Carnival, the satin
knickers, satin shirt with points of cloth around the waist from which are
suspended bells, the heart-shaped cloth panel on the chest, stockings and
alpagatas. On their heads they wear a
hood with stuffed cloth horns, while their costumes are decorated with glass
and rhinestones. These were all part of
the jester's costume in medieval Europe.
And it is still the way jokers are depicted in the packs of playing
cards.
Today,
their numbers have dwindled to a mere handful with the most prominent band,
'The Original Jab-Jab', based at Cemetery Street, Perseverance Village, Couva.
And
the man credited with preserving the mas is 52-year-old Winston Alfred, who, as
a little boy, observed his late father Alfred Bachu making the jab-jab costumes
and playing on the streets of Port of Spain.
At that time Bachu and his family lived at Diego Martin.
Winston
Alfred no longer plays jab-jab. He had
to stop because of a stroke he suffered in 1998. But his sons Rodney 25, and Ronald 23, continue the tradition and
are in charge of the band.
The
preparation for Carnival has been hectic.
Costumes
are cleaned and mended, decorations affixed to maintain the glossy appearance
and whips are pulled out from cupboards for cracking practice.
The
jab-jabs have already competed at several of the pre-Carnival competitions.
Rodney
explained: "Players don't pay for costumes here, since we use the same
costumes every year. You see, the prize
money we get, helps to keep the band going.
"We
play at a lot of venues even before the actual Carnival celebrations. We play at the Sugar and Energy Festival,
Viey La Cou and at several band launchings and so on. But on Carnival days we make appearances at Arouca, Tunapuna,
Port of Spain, Chaguanas, Carapichaima, Couva and other towns. We enjoy playing mas in Arouca. That's a small beautiful town with a nice
crowd."
The
cost of a costume is about $500 for the ordinary jab-jab, according to
Rodney. But the king, in all his regal
splendour, which Rodney plays, costs about $1,500.
Then
there is the whip with which all jab-jabs are armed. That "lethal' piece of weaponry once commanded respect and
instilled fear among members of the jab-jab fraternity. The jab-jab's whip is akin to the
"bullpistle" that tamed many "bad-johns' of long ago.
Cracking
the whip like a gunshot and scaring spectators in the process, jab-jabs keep up
a lavway to accompany their march on the streets on both Carnival days.
With
the chorus "Jab-Jab", Rodney adds a few more lines to one of their
lavways.
We went to town
Jab-Jab
We meet Mr. Brown
Jab-Jab
We knock him down
Jab-Jab
We turn around
Jab-Jab…
"We
sometimes make up some words, like extempore, to keep the lavway going,"
says Rodney. "In one instance, one
of our players sang out some lines in Hindi.
That went down well because everybody kept on singing the chorus."
Although
the Alfred family carries Christian names, they are very much Hindus,
performing pujas and other rituals in accordance with the traditions of
Hinduism. More than 90 percent of the
players are of Indian descent. In fact,
Indians have dominated the mas more than any other ethnic group in this
country.
Rodney's
mother Dulin is an active worker in the band.
She is not a masquerader but she helps in sewing and decorating costumes
and putting things in place for the big days.
She recalls that her husband took to playing jab-jab in 1967, the year
after they were married. Now that he
can't play because of his ailment, she helps her sons with the mas
preparations.
During
the weeks preceding Carnival, band members gather at the home of Winston Alfred
to practise whip cracking. This is an
art that players get some difficulty in mastering, says Rodney.
"It
takes weeks before a player can really master cracking of the whip. We have one or two players who have never
really mastered this art. But we still
hope practice will help," he adds.
Two types of whips are used in this mas - the eight-foot cracking whip
and the five-foot fighting whip.
"We
only use the cracking whip for friendly fights to ensure there are no
injuries. The fighting whip was used
long ago with devastating results. But those
days are over," says Rodney.
And
on stage, Rodney has choreographed a special jab-jab dance, one that the
members continue to perform.
The
"Original Jab-Jab" band is the larger of the two bands in Trinidad and
Tobago. "There are 30 members in
our band,' according to Rodney. The other
band, he says, is a five-member band from Talparo.
"My
father has brought the jab-jab mas to where it is today," says
Rodney. "When the older jab-jabs
were retiring and subsequently dying off, Winston kept up the tradition. He persevered. He never gave up."