Chaloska

28 Chaloska

In 1912, Chief Charles Oscar Étienne was the military commandant in charge of the police in Jacmel. He was tall and strong with big feet, big teeth. Everyone was afraid of him. At that time there was political instability in Port au-Prince. President Sam had just been assassinated, and Charles Oscar took his chance to take five hundred prisoners from the local jail. He killed them all. There was so much blood it made a river of death. The people were so angry that they rose up and tore the police chief to pieces in the street and burnt him up. He was killed in the same violent way that he’d treated the people. This story has always been very striking to me, and in 1962 I decided to create the character of Chaloska for Carnival. I designed the military uniform and made the big false teeth with bull’s teeth bought from the market. When I created Chaloska I also wanted to create some other characters to go along with him, and I came up with Mèt Richa and Doktè Kalipso. Mèt Richa is a rich lawyer with a big bag full of money and a big fat stomach. He walks with the Chaloska troupe buying justice and bribing the judges. He represents the impunity and corruption that hides behind Chaloska, and he is the real chief of the city. Doktè Kalipso is an old hunchbacked doctor in a suit with a stick in his hand. He works for Chaloska and checks on the health of the prisoners, always reporting that they’re healthy when they’re dying.

These characters are still here in Haitian society, so it’s good to parade them in the streets. It’s a message to all future Oscars that they will end up this way. The troupe goes to different places in town, threatening the people. The boss Chaloska always dies in the end, and the others call for mercy because they’re cowards. But then another Chaloska straightaway replaces him. This is to show the infinite replication of Chaloskas, which continues to produce the same system. There will be Chaloskas until the end of the world. They began at the beginning, and will not end until the end. Eugène Lamour aka Boss Cota (2002)

It is a pleasure for me, a young man who’s taken over my father’s leadership after his death, to talk about Chaloska. Chaloska is from history. Many young people who didn’t know Charles Oscar Étienne’s story know it through this madigra. My father created it when he was a young man, in the Duvalier period, using Chaloska to represent the evil things the Tontons Macoutes were doing. We don’t use the same disguises every year. The first thing we do is, we buy cardboard, shoe glue, paint, starch, and look for paper cement to make hats. We stick the hats together with shoe glue. Then there are those little bits of shiny paper inside cigarette packets – we use them to make the hats more beautiful, and then we paint and varnish them. As for the teeth, we buy cows’ teeth from the abattoir. The beef butchers always keep the teeth, because they know they will sell them during Madigra. Carnival is a time of enjoyment – it’s a colourful moment. We do it to maintain our culture, and to earn money. Hear me, this is Chaloska, there is no other. We are unique. Chaloska is a tradition, and you cannot change it. You cannot modernise it. If you modernise it, you’re not doing Chaloska any more, you’re doing your own thing. If Chaloska wears another colour, it’s not Chaloska. It’s a madigra, but it’s not Chaloska. It will always stay the same. That’s how it has to be. Lauture Joseph Joissaint (2020)