Gabriel: NCBA trying to exclude tradition in mas

By

Peter Ray Blood

The rules governing the Parade of the Bands competition held by the National Carnival Bands Association (NCBA) have existed for a long time. Confirming this yesterday, NCBA chairman David Lopez remained resolute that the results of the competition were “above board, transparent and fair.” Lopez said: “Every competition has rules and they must be adhered to. The only thing that might be different is that this year they were executed to the letter. I fail to see why there are issues with the results.”


Bandleaders Ronnie Mc Intosh and Rosalind Gabriel have dispatched legal letters to the NCBA challenging this year’s results. Yesterday Gabriel said, “My lawyers wrote to the NCBA last Friday, but we have gotten no reply to date, March 11. If we get no response, then it’s up to the lawyers to take the next step. “As far as I am aware, the under-18 rule was always there, but was never enforced. The NCBA decided to enforce it this year. I think that particular rule was put in there to victimise Stephen Derek and my band.”

Ronnie Mc Intosh

Both Gabriel and Derek include under-18 masqueraders in their senior bands. “The NCBA is trying to exclude tradition in mas,” Gabriel argued. “This is a terrible thing for the culture of traditional mas, which is passed from grandparents and parents to grands and children. It has always been so. This needs to be looked at. How could you encourage continuity in mas if you try to exclude children from participating?” Lopez was adamant that children had no place in adult mas.

“Come on, let’s be serious, a junior parade is a junior parade, a senior parade is a senior parade. Some years ago, Roland St George of D’Krewe took the NCBA to court against Rosalind Gabriel and Stephen Derek for having junior members in a senior competition.” St George contradicted Lopez’s claim, saying, “I took NCBA to court for the number of masqueraders in these bands, not for anything about underage masqueraders. That year, Rosalind was registered in one category and competed in another. I challenged that.

“I don’t know about any rule that says you have to be over 18 to play senior mas. A lot of families have had their children playing traditional mas since Carnival began. That is how you have continuity in mas and tradition survives.” St George admitted that he did not read all of the rules of the competition. “It’s too many pages of rules for me to read. The rules are draconian and who doesn’t play by them cannot win.”

No ‘challenge’: Carnival King and Queen trophies still with 2005 winners

the 2005 Challenge Trophies.

“A Tribute to Trinidad Carnival” and “Tribute to the Mas Player”, the challenge trophies for the King and Queen of Carnival, have found “permanent” homes. But this was never the intention of the designer, Kenneth Matthews.

The trophies, valued at US$5,000 each, are still in the possession of the 2005 King and Queen of Carnival, and not with the reigning champions.

“When I handed over the trophies to Richard Affong and Michael Heath of the National Carnival Bands Association (NCBA) in February 2005,” Matthews tells Express Online, “it was conveyed that they were challenge trophies and can only be kept permanently if an individual won the King or Queen title for three consecutive years.

2005 King and Queen of Carnival

“However, in 2009 I was informed that the trophies were in the possession of Curtis Eustace and Pamela Gordon, after being presented to them on winning the respective King and Queen of Carnival titles in 2005.

“I subsequently wrote the National Carnival Commission (NCC) and the NCBA in an attempt to have the situation corrected, but I never got a response from either party.”

Matthews, a Carnival mas man in the 1960s and 70s, is very disappointed that winners subsequent to 2005 were denied the honour of being presented with the trophies.

“Something must be used for which it was made. Additionally, they were created with the hope that youths will be inspired and get involved in arts and culture, especially the art of metal craft.”

Matthews, a former secretary of the Arima branch of the NCBA, shut down his mas camp in the late 1970s after becoming a Christian, and eventually migrated to the United States.

However, he felt the need to continue to make good use of his skills, and built the beautiful four-by-four-foot copper trophies.

“You can’t stay with a skill and not make a contribution to your country. I donated the trophies to the country so in effect they belong to the government, so they (government) should be concerned with them.”

Matthews says he sent a letter to the Minister of Arts and Multiculturalism, Winston “Gypsy” Peters, via Tourism Minister Rupert Griffith, in the hope of bringing closure to the issue.

The retired mas man has also crafted a challenge trophy for Panorama, but is reluctant to hand it over because of his experience with the Carnival King and Queen trophies.

NCBA secretary, Wrenwrick Brown says he knows the trophies ought to be returned to the NCBA, and so does Gordon.

“She cannot lift the trophy because of its weight, so we will have to make arrangements to have the ‘Tribute to the Mas Player’ trophy collected and returned to our office.

“We need to have the trophies returned,” he continues, “so that they can be used for the purpose for which they were intended.”

Brown tells Express Online that because of the busy schedules of NCBA officials, no arrangements were made during the past six years to retrieve the trophies.

The NCBA secretary says the trophies will be returned, but could not guarantee it would happen in time to present them to the 2012 King and Queen of Carnival, at the Dimanche Gras show on Carnival Sunday night.

But even if the NCBA does make the return of the trophies a priority, retrieving “A Tribute to Trinidad Carnival” could prove a logistical nightmare since it is currently in Toronto, Canada.

Eustace, who received the King of Carnival trophy in 2005, says he was never informed by the NCBA that it was a challenge trophy.

“That information was never passed on to me. I have between four and five hundred trophies and they are all in Toronto.

“Had I known it was a challenge trophy,” the veteran mas man ended, “I would certainly have given it back.”

By Donstan Bonn

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