Calinda
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Calinda (Kalinda) is martial art, as well as kind of folk music and dance in the Caribbean which arose in the 1720s. Calinda is the French spelling, and the Spanish equivalent is calenda; it is a kind of stick-fighting dance tradition commonly seen practiced during Carnival in Trinidad and Tobago.[1]
Though it is more commonly practiced as a dance because of the violent outcome of stick fighting, its roots are still that of a martial art originating from Africa, and stick fights still occur in the remoter parts of Trinidad.[2]
Kalenda is one name assigned to an Afro-Caribbean form of stick fighting as practiced in Haiti and entering the United States through the port city of New Orleans.[3]. It is also practiced in other parts of the Caribbean, such as Martinique.[4]
The well-known Cajun song "Allons dancer Colinda" is about a Cajun boy asking a girl named Colinda to do a risqué dance with him; probably derived from the Calinda dance which was reported to have been performed in New Orleans by Afro-Caribbean slaves brought to Louisiana.
[edit] Sources
- ^ Shane K. Bernard and Julia Girouard, "'Colinda': Mysterious Origins of a Cajun Folksong," Journal of Folklore Research 29 (January-April 1992: 37-52.
- ^ Trinidad Sweet - The People, Their Culture, Their Island - Bird, Adrian Curtis (1992) Inprint Publications LTD, Port of Spain, Trinidad, W.I.
- ^ Kalenda by Dennis Newsome at http://malandros-touro.com/kalenda.html
- ^ "Tangled Roots: Kalenda and Other Neo-African Dances in the Circum-Caribbean" by Julian Gerstin, New West Indies Guide 78 (1&2): 5-41 (2004)
