NOV20

Classroom lesson · Music · 🇬🇩 Grenada

Carriacou Maroon Festival

A vibrant celebration of African heritage on Grenada's sister island

Photo · Wikimedia Commons

What is it?

Carriacou is a small, beautiful island that is part of Grenada, lying about 37 kilometres to the northeast of the main island. Every year it hosts the Carriacou Maroon and Folk Festival — a celebration of African cultural heritage through music, drumming, dance and storytelling that has been kept alive on the island for centuries.

Tell me more

Carriacou has a population of only a few thousand people, but its cultural traditions are remarkably rich. The Maroon Festival celebrates the African roots of Carriacou's people through Big Drum music — a style of drumming and singing passed down through generations. The rhythms and songs of Big Drum music have been traced back to specific regions of West Africa, preserving connections that are hundreds of years old.

During the festival, different 'nations' — family groups connected to different African ancestral regions — perform their traditional dances and songs. Each nation has its own distinct rhythm and style of dress. Watching the festival is like seeing several different African traditions brought together on one small island stage, all of them somehow surviving and thriving across hundreds of years and thousands of kilometres of ocean.

Carriacou is also known for its tradition of wooden boat-building, which is still practised using techniques passed down through generations. The island's boat builders are celebrated across the Caribbean. The festival brings together the island's love of music, heritage and the sea in one vibrant, joyful event that reminds visitors of how rich a small community's culture can be.

In the classroom

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Talk together

Discussion prompts

  1. 01The Carriacou Maroon Festival has kept African musical traditions alive for hundreds of years. How do communities manage to pass down traditions across so many generations?
  2. 02The festival brings together different 'nations' with different rhythms and dances, all on one small island. What does this tell us about how communities can hold onto their differences while living together?
  3. 03Carriacou has a very small population but a very rich cultural tradition. Does the size of a community affect how important or interesting its culture is?
Try this

Classroom activity

Research one African country that you think might have connections to the Caribbean (e.g. Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal) and find one example of music, dance or craft from that country. Draw or describe it, then write two sentences explaining how you think it might have influenced Caribbean culture. Share your findings with the class and see if you can create a simple class map of connections between Africa and the Caribbean.

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