by Shivanee Ramlochan, Paper Based Blogger

Certain books exist as unfading snapshots of Trinidad and Tobago’s yesteryear, presenting historical and social structures as they were, without the gloss of nostalgia. We’re thrilled to have recently restocked some original copies of one such book: Andrew Carr’s A Rada Community in Trinidad. Issued by Paria Publishing in 1989, the work documents Carr’s research and findings, during time spent with the Antoine family, at their Belmont Valley compound. Carr’s documentation principally takes the form of well-structured, factual narrative, and the text is favourably augmented with some pictoral data. (Most stunning among these is the author’s full-colour sketch of the Rada Compound, indicating the positions of buildings, shrines and a private cemetery.)

Belmont’s Rada community is still in existence — online forays are useful in learning more about the close-knit familial civilization’s customs. Carr’s work, originally published in 1955, is a blueprint denoting some of the earliest, formally-recorded insights into Rada compound life. The book is subdivided into categories on the settlement’s geographical layout; Rada religion; ceremonies; musical instruments; dancers and other elements that are certain to captivate the interest of historians and anthropologists.

Steering clear of a sentimental treatment, A Rada Community in Trinidad showcases Carr’s sensitive interpretation of his findings, highlighting the late cultural icon’s concerns for the compound’s sustainability. “No longer does the Elegba shrine exist as earth mound and effigy,” Carr writes. “The impact of western ideas, and misunderstandings by a growing population alien to African customs have been responsible for its disappearance.”

The book contains two forewords, one by the author’s daughter, Joslynne Carr Sealey, the other by Paria Publishing chairman, Gerard Besson, who opines that the Rada “as they have existed in Trinidad have contributed significantly to our overall character and heritage.” Every estimation of Carr’s bears this exact conclusion out, in readable and cogent prose, making A Rada Community in Trinidad indispensable to the library of any local historian or cultural researcher.