Árdís - 01.01.1956, Page 17

Ársrit Bandalags lúterskra kvenna
15
When the clock chimes 6:00 a.m., the crowds, as if unleashed, run
and dance into the streets. For two days and nights the marchers
and musicians strut the streets, each band beating out its favorite
road march in Calypso tempo. This year there were 139 steel bands
performing. Trinidad has no concert halls and no symphony or-
chestras but Trinidadians want music so badly that they have gone
on making it over the years despite organized restrictions. Skin
drums were long ago banned by the British in order to suppress
African tribal traditions, but Trinidad musicians discoved that they
could make a kind of music with the tubes of bamboo. But by the
early ’30s, bamboo was on its way out—the police had discovered
that the sticks were too likely to be used as weapons. Then Port of
Spain musicians turned to garbage-can tops and biscuit tins.
The establishment of U.S. bases brought the latest refinement:
oil drums, and so the steel band was born.
The drums are cut down to different sizes. By denting and
tempering sections on the tops of these oil drums, as many as 32
notes can be produced when beaten with rubber-tipped sticks. These
bands travel around the Caribean Islands, and have been in Eng-
land, the U.S. and were in Manitoba last year.
Our first long trip, over 35 miles, took us through the heart of
the agricultural and industrial areas of Trinidad. Huge rice fields
were being worked by East Indians, men and women, wading knee
deep in water. Bullocks are most frequently used in cultivation of
the rice fields. We also passed through thousands of acres of sugar
cane fields. The colony’s greatest agricultural wealth comes from
sugar cane.
Although there are many East Indian and negro cane farmers,
most of the cultivation is carried on by large companies. There are
many sugar refineries on the Island. The workers tend their rice
farms in the off season during the period of heavy rains. Natives
are terrified of snakes, though rarely bitten, and for this reason
fields are burned off just before cutting to reduce snakes, trash and
vermin. The flames can be seen for miles. And strange as it may
seem the cane is not impaired by this method.
Oil plays a very important part in the economy of the island.
One-third of the Island’s revenue comes from oil. Trinidad was the
largest oil-producing country in the British Commonwealth at the
outbreak of World War II, but since then Canada has forged ahead.