Adieu foulard, adieu madras is a very popular tune from the French Caribbean. It is just as popular today in continental France, where it has been adapted to different musical genres. Yet, for those familiar with the simple melody and its evocative lyrics, which encourages carefree humming, not many may be aware that it is so deeply rooted in the history of French colonialism, island tropes, and ethnic relations. This essay uses Adieu foulard, adieu madras and its multiple sonic meanings as the lens to better understand the dynamics of the (post)colonial relationship of the people of the French Antilles, particularly from the island overseas departments of Martinique and Guadeloupe, many of whom have now migrated permanently to metropolitan France. For these, Adieu has now also become their song of exile.
Gomes, Patrick I. (author) and University of Guelph, Canada and Wageningen Agricultural University, The Netherlands
Format:
Proceedings
Publication Date:
1983-08-21
Published:
International: Agricultural University Wageningen, the Netherlands
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 130 Document Number: C19445
Notes:
Burton Swanson Collection, pp 50-55; Proceedings universities and integrated rural development in developing countries August 21-25, 1983, An International Conference
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 153 Document Number: C24781
Notes:
Manuscript in ring binder., Reminiscences of a long-time agricultural communications faculty member at the University of Illinois. Career section includes his work in communications services, instructional resources and teaching for the College of Agriculture. Also includes his experiences in helping establish communications facilities and programs for agriculture colleges in India, West Indies, Indonesia and Pakistan.
There are many parallels between the music and worship of the African American Pentecostalism of the author’s upbringing and that of Afro-Caribbean religious groups, including Trinidadian Spiritual Baptists, the Haitian Heavenly Army, and Jamaican Revival Zionists. This can partly be attributed to their shared West African roots. Many features of West African worship have survived among these two geographically separate groups, including a heavy use of rhythm and percussion instruments, a call and response vocal form, and a climax of spirit possession, when congregants reach a state of rhythmically induced ecstasy in which they feel fully possessed by the divine. Both groups have also independently adopted white Christian hymnody, in which they stay true to the text but often change the music in an improvisatory style.
The article discusses engineer and service corps in the British Army which operated during the 18th and 19th centuries and were made up of African, African-American, and West Indian soldiers and laborers. According to the author, the existence of these corps is not readily apparent in the historical record because they depended on commissioned officers from other units for senior command and because for political reasons their funding was taken discreetly from the budgets of other units and government departments. Details on the roles of enslaved soldiers in engineer and service corps are presented. Other topics include the corps' service in Jamaica, Grenada, St. Vincent, the abolition of slavery in Great Britain, and compensation received by the soldiers.
