Carnaval!, and: Carnival: Culture in Action: The Trinidad Experience (review)

Since the 1990s, the topic of carnival has been a boon for interdisciplinary research, providing rich opportunities for considering multiple concepts such as social and personal identity, public and private space, the interplay between a masked subject and a viewing subject, and notions of performed, carnival time and so-called real time. These books add useful and sometimes exhilarating perspectives to the ongoing discussions. Both are edited collections representing two models of carnival research. ¡Carnaval!, edited by Barbara Mauldin, follows an ethnographic model and examines contemporary carnival case studies in Europe and the Americas. Carnival: Culture in Action, edited by Milla Cozart Riggio, centers on carnival in Trinidad and Tobago, and because of its single focus goes into much more depth and historical context. It also attempts to take on board some of the theoretical issues surrounding carnival performance.

Mauldin's eclectic collection centers on eleven communities, in both rural and metropolitan locales, dedicated to the pre-Lenten festival. Each of the essays, in addition to stunning color photographs, offers both a history of the tradition and a discussion of current practice. The rural celebrations examined occur in the Galician region of northwestern Spain, in the villages of the Strandzha Mountain regions of Bulgaria, in rural Louisiana (the gumbo-consuming festival of Cajun Mardi Gras), and—Mauldin's own contribution—in the Nahua Indian communities of Tlaxcala, Mexico. She introduces ways in which the indigenous population developed a unique carnival practice by combining European traditions (predominantly Spanish) with their own native masking to develop a male-dominated performance that involves dancing for members of other neighborhoods. Dressed in pink-skinned masks that portray their colonizers, the maskers (charros) sport exaggerated cowboy-like leather chaps, boots, and flamboyant feathers in their wide-brimmed hats. Mauldin explains how these figures "represent the dashing, upper class cowboys who oversaw ranches in this area during the mid- to late nineteenth century" (157). Their whip-cracking dancing comes dangerously close to physical harm for some.

The seven other carnivals considered are urban and include several postemancipation events with a predominantly black population taking part, such as in the Trinidadian capital of Port of Spain, Brazilian carnival in Recife and Olinda, and Haitian carnival. Substantial essays on each of these add to the growing dialogue about carnival/s in the Caribbean and South America and provide a fascinating counterpart to the essays on the urban European carnivals. In the mining town of Oruro (known as the Folklore Capital of Bolivia), carnival is considered the country's most important cultural event; in 2001 UNESCO declared the celebration a "Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity." Here, multiple groups of predominantly indigenous people dance and process down the streets in elaborate costumes as diabladas, or devil groups, as Incas, and as morendas, or black man groups. Much of their masking pays homage to the silver mines of the region and the ways the local populations negotiated their relationships to this underground space and its role in their economies.

In marked contrast to Oruro's rich and complex carnival history is the artificially revived Venice Carnival, which returned in 1981 with much help from the Italian Department of Culture. Venice is well known as a site for medieval and early modern carnivals, many of which are documented in such sources as paintings, diary accounts, and plays. This carnival always focused on aristocratic pageantry, and the late twentieth-century revival continues and celebrates an upper-class sensibility reinforced by costumes and masks replicating eighteenth-century court dress. The Venice Carnival stands out as very different from other examples in the book, even by looking at the photos alone; the participants unabashedly pose for the camera, standing still like runway models waiting for the photographer. In contrast to this staged nostalgia is Trinidad Carnival, with its mud- and oil...