6 : Maria, 17, from Le Morne – once one of the major slave resistance sites – plays the maravanne: “At Abaim, there’s plenty of love going round.” Maria, 17 ans, originaire du Morne – hier haut lieu de résistance à l’esclavage – joue à la maravanne : « À Abaim, il y a beaucoup d’amour à donner et à recevoir. » 7 : Music theory book edited by Alain Muneean, researcher and collector of intangible cultural heritage. Manuel de solfège conçu sous la direction d’Alain Muneean, chercheur et collecteur dans le domaine du patrimoine culturel intangible. island into a hub for the sugar trade. “To understand each other and form a community, the slaves invented a language, Creole, a dance and a singing style, Sega. They made instruments using goat skin and fruit seeds, and used their sickles as a triangle. They sang of their exile, their daily lives and the sorrow of broken destinies,” says Stephan Karghoo, director of the Nelson Mandela Centre for African and Creole culture. During the French colonisation (1715-1810), meetings between slaves were strictly forbidden and punished by the Code Noir (Black Code), replaced in 1723 by letters patent. One of the rare mentions is by Bernardin de Saint-Pierre in his Voyage à l’isle de France (1773): “Sometimes, I hear from afar the sound of their drums, but most often that of the whips that crack the air like pistol shots, and the screams which pierce the heart.” In the early nineteenth century, the British took over the island and, in 1835, abolished slavery. Yet Sega was still stigmatised. The new colonialists deemed it vulgar and not worthy of being heard in public. For more than a century, this musical tradition developed in secret, in the backyards of the villages. MEND THE LIVING It was not until the 1960s that it became recognised on the national stage. The first official performance was during the “Night of Sega” on 24 October 1964, organised by the Ministry for Tourism and Trade, which crowned the self-taught Sega star Ti Frère. Daniella Bastien explains, “This event signals the birth of contemporary Sega. A little over a century after the abolition of slavery, the slaves’ music finally reached the public arena. Four years later, in 1968, the country’s independence was proclaimed.” Now free, the 6 7
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NjMzMjI=