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Frommer's Guide
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FEATURES AND EVENTS
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Carnival in the French West Indies
by Tom Clynes
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Held Annually: The five days before and including Ash Wednesday
Locale: Martinique and Guadeloupe, French West Indies
Nearest Airport:
Fort-de-France, Martinique (FDF) and Pointe-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe (PTP)
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The French carnival tradition of elite masked balls and parties survives in Martinique and Guadeloupe. While the French aristocracy brought carnival to Caribbean shores, the celebration is different here in that it carries on an extra day. So while people everywhere else are nursing hangovers, French island partiers are still going strong.
The action picks up over the weekend before Ash Wednesday. On Sunday there's a parade, and on Monday, burlesque marriages are performed in the streets. "Devils" dressed in red (many are children) take to the streets on Fat Tuesday, and on Ash Wednesday, the town is turned over to she-devils. Masked and costumed women--or men in drag--wear black and white and smear their faces with ash. Wednesday evening, an effigy of King Vaval (also called Bois-Bois) is burned and his coffin is lowered into the ground while crowds sing "Carnival don't leave us." •
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