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Crop Over, the name for Barbados's particular carnival,
celebrates the end of the sugar cane harvest. Currently, the celebration lasts a
month, from early June to the Grand Kadooment Day on the first Monday in August. But
in the 1800's--when the celebration began--it lasted just a day.
Initially, the celebration was simple: the slaves decorated
the last cart of canes and the donkeys pulling it with colorful kerchiefs and brilliant
flowers: frangipanni and flamboyant, for example. According to one source, a
plantation worker would beat a gong as the cart rolled in, announcing that the crop was
over. After parading around the farmyard, the workers would sojourn to a feast and a
dance. They even selected a King and Queen who had cut the most cane.
The festival has gone through various stages. After
Emancipation in 1834, it not only signified the end of the hard work in cane fields, but
also the beginning of a period with fewer jobs and less income. The celebration also
died out in the 1940's as the decline of sugar and the availability of other kinds of work
stopped much traditional plantation life.
In 1974, though, the Board of Tourism revived Crop Over and rebuilt
it into its modern form, with colorful costumes and the popular music contests (Calypso
Monarch competitions and Ring Bang, for example). Today, the National Cultural
Foundation administers the event.
   
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