The Trinidad Carnival is often called “the greatest show on earth” even though the Rio Carnival in Brazil might have claim to that title.  But game and worthy challenge might come from smaller, less known quarters, viz the junkanoo festival in the Bahamas.

We have already mentioned in these pages that there are Christmas-time traditions which have evolved in the Caribbean during the Christmas season and around the New Year arising out of African roots, European influence, and the history of the territories.  Carnival itself is one of these, causing Trinidad and Tobago, as well as most of the Eastern Caribbean to be carnival countries.  Other Caribbean territories, such as Guyana, Barbados, Jamaica, Belize and the Bahamas are not among them, but the entire region has strong carnivalesque traditions and their major festivals and most common forms of traditional theatre are carnivalesque types of street theatre.

The largest and most widely distributed of these forms is the masquerade tradition common to the …..