Carnival celebrations in Venezuela – Daniela’s goosebump moment

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Creativity and dance

From the colors of the costumes worn by many to the extravagance of the celebrations, Carnival in Venezuela continues to be an occasion to pay homage to music, art, dance, and creativity.

Celebrating Carnival in Venezuela is an idiosyncratic tradition that has its origins in colonial times when this country was a colony of Spain. At the time when it was a colony, this festivity included rough games where the people of the plantations used water as a weapon. In addition, men and women dressed in colorful clothes to perform in street dances.

After several years, parades, floats and traditional foods were included to make the festival more family friendly. In addition, the violent water games of yesteryear were toned down to be enjoyed by children from all over the country.

Since then, Venezuelans have used all their creativity to create an atmosphere of joy and diversity even as the country’s social and economic crisis overshadows their daily lives.

Most of this creative effort can be seen in folkloric dances, grandiose costumes, and African-inspired music. Carnival celebrations take place forty days before Easter Sunday.

African roots in Venezuela

The coastal towns and provinces celebrate Carnival with much more fervour than anywhere else in the country. Venezuela considers Carnival in the same way it considers Christmas and Easter.

It is a time to visit family and enjoy the festivities together. Many of these localities have a population whose ancestry came predominantly from African countries such as Cape Verde and Guinea.

For example, the town of El Callao was founded by the British and French in search of gold in 1853, originally called Caratal. They brought slaves to do most of the work in the gold mines.

The slaves maintained their traditions by partying fervently and wearing colorful attire. The music we still enjoy during Carnival these days has its roots in the African rhythms of the past.

Later, all the inhabitants of El Callao, miners, and Europeans alike, celebrated “El Carnaval”. They dressed up in fancy clothes and spent four consecutive days enjoying food, dances, and traditional rituals.

These four days ended with the dawn of Ash Wednesday, forty days before Easter. But El Callao was not the only town in Venezuela that gave shape to what we call Carnival today.

Barlovento is a coastal town that has a population with strong African traditions. African slaves were brought from what is now the Republic of Congo and Ghana to work in the cocoa, coffee and banana plantations that existed in the colonial period.

The use of drums and other wooden instruments mainly of African origin is characteristic of Carnival in this area. These instruments are still a very important part of the folk music, especially during Carnival.