When I was a young boy I was afraid ...

"When I was a Young boy I was a afraid.." Peter Minshall, Carnival Mas designer.

Minshall's quote probably best expresses what most children first feel when they see a Jab Molassie. As a child I hated Carnival, too many people too loud to many smells. Baby oil and Cocoa, paint, glue and feathers, horse dung and burning asphalt prompted me to cover my nose. I hated to go into Port-of-Spain, but my parents insisted though neither of them would prove to be true Carnival fanatics; I am thankful for their effort and my exposure.

The Jab Molassie group or "Band" would come "chipping" down the street for spectators to see, they were covered in either paint, mud or Cocoa mixed with oil. With horns on their head, a devils tail and a pitch fork to "jab" you; they would chant "Pay the devil, Pay the Devil" in unison to the rhythm as the beat tins, drums and bottles. They would use food colouring or "Kool-Aid" to make their tongues bleed enhancing the grotesque masquerade. 

The idea was simple, give them coins or notes and they would leave you alone. Leave you clean. They typically terrorised children, but parents culturally would create fear in their children's mind long before the arrive. 

This rite of passage is our baptism into the Carnival.

Years later having survived the mental trauma; hormones birthed an interest into the Carnival Masqerade or Mas. Opening oneself half naked in the hot sun in the middle of the capital city draws in a spiritual experience that all virgin masqueraders experience. The freedom is simply therapeutic. My "Monkey Gland raise" or the wild energy picked me out of all others around me and slowly the Jab Molassie surfaced. 

I lived for Carnival and lived the carnival as a Jab Molassie. Honest and unafraid the "Wildness" in me was always welcomed socially. A fire-starter an Ice breaker, me and others like me brought the energy like a drug to make the party people forget, shrug off inhibition and be themselves if only for a while.

Now I must hide my energy in places far too polite to understand the beauty in uninhibited energy. Where persons rather appear polite than be honest. I have grown accustomed to the facade, but the Jab Molassie still remains ... or is it leaving me. A gift for someone far more deserving of its powers...