Introducing
Your new presentation assistant.
Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.
Trending searches
Literature Across Cultures
The sea and the air have brought many waves of people to Martinique. First the Arawaks, then the Caribs, then the Western Europeans, who brought Africans and later Indians and Indonesians, and, most recently, there came Arabs and Chinese. All these very different cultures are united by one thing: the island of Martinique. Every person who set foot on Martinique has had to adapt to its natural circumstances: the sea, the climate, the landscape, the flora and fauna. Nature provides limitations but also offers possibilities. It forms the basis and backdrop for a region’s culture. This map shows how nature and culture are deeply and inherently entangled on Martinique.
The official flag of Martinique is, as a department of France, the Tricolore.
However, the island is and has been represented by several specific flags.
All flags are closely linked to Martinican Nature.
The national hymn "Lorizon" is in French and Creole. Start at 2.22.
Ipséité (Selfhood)
Depicts:
Designated as flag for Martinique and St Lucia in 1766 for ships. No legal status, but worn by the gendarmerie until 2018.
Depicts a white cross on a blue background with four fer-de-lances (pit vipers): snakes endemic to Martinique, poisonous and aggressive
Very controversial: seen as symbol for triangular trade (ie slave trade) and slavery.
For the local government.
Depicts:
The Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean are the borders of Martinique, but are also part of the culture and history. They are how slaves were brought to the island, but also how they could escape. Many Marrons de Mer tried to escape to Dominica and Saint Lucia after the British had abolished slavery in 1833 and until France abolished it in 1848. For this, they either stole a canoe or built their own raft, under the cover of the woods or the mangrove, and then rowed to their freedom – or death.
In the night of April 7, 1830, a ship with captured men from Papua New Guinee to be sold illegally as slaves shipwrecked in the rocky area round Diamond Rock, killing everyone on board. In memory of this, and all of slavery, a memorial has been built on the Anse Cafard. It was designed by Laurent Valère, and called Cap 110 Mémoire et Fraternité.
Writer Édouard Glissant visited this memorial in the documentary La créolisation du monde: http://edouardglissant.fr/fiche3b.html.
Soil, climate, weather, and space determine the kind of agriculture that can exist. The agriculture determines the kitchen. Martinique, as a small, rocky island, has intensive agriculture. The biggest export crops are sugarcane and bananas, yet there is no monoculture. Many farmers have several crops, and in addition to that cattle, like some goats and poultry, for own consumption. However, the dependence on agriculture and fishing is significant, so climate change pose a considerable risk (rising sea levels, droughts, increased temperatures).
Introduced in colonial times.
Paul Gauguin stayed in Saint Pierre in June-November 1887, suffering greatly under the heat, dysentery and marsh fever. He met a group of Indian immigrants (who were brought to the island after abolition, to work on the plantation) and they greatly influenced his work. Gauguin painted several paintings, among which La Cueillette des Fruits: the picking of the mangoes.
That must have been painted in August, because then, according to Aimé Césaire, that’s when “les manguiers pavoisent de toutes leurs lunules” (78).
The milk of coconuts is used in Colombo (a kind of curry made of a Tamil, African and Amerindian spice blend, with coconut milk, ginger, tamarind, and goat, lamb, pork, or chicken) and Blanc Manger au Coco (a panna cotta-like pudding with vanilla)
Introduced in colonial times, for plantations. The strong fibers are used to make ropes to fasten canoes and hold cattle. Also very common in the kitchen: with cod in ti-nain lanmori, with mutton in ti-nain tripe.
Important ingredient for traditional dishes such as tòtòt (confit of breadfruit flowers) and migan (stew with breadfruit and pigtails)
Most of the plantations on Martinique produced sugarcane by the use of slave labour.
Rum (made from sugarcane) and sugarcane syrup are mixed for the national drink Ti Punch
Molasses or black treacle is a byproduct of sugar production. Every Carnival, a group of Martinicans coat themselves in molasses and charcoal to recall the practice of slavery and educate new generations. This is called neg gwo siwo, “big syrup guy”.
A very important part of the Martinican kitchen, used for many local dishes such as kassav’ (cassave cakes with coconut) and féroce d’avocat (avocado balls with cod in cassave flour). The most internationally renown band of Martinique is called Kassav’ after the cassave cakes.
Goat, sheep, chicken and pigs are features of Martinican cuisine as well. Ti-nain tripe (green bananas with goat meat), boudin créole en noir (sausage with chillies, pork and pig blood), migan (stew with breadfruit and pigtails), and the most famous Martinican dish, colombo: a curry made of a Tamil, African and Amerindian spice blend, with coconut milk, ginger, tamarind, and goat, lamb, pork, or chicken.
The cocks are sometimes trained to fight in the cockfight pits, an old tradition on the island.
The middle of Martinique consists of medium-sized hills (called “mornes”) covered with trees. As they were not easily accessible and settlements were not quickly discovered, this was where escaped slaves, or maroons, fled to.
Another inhabitant of the forests is the fer-de-lance viper, also known as the Martinican pit viper. It is endemic to Martinique and very aggressive and poisonous. This 1,5-2 m long snake is depicted on the drapeau aux serpents. Just before the Mont Pelée fully erupted, many snakes fled to Saint Pierre to escape the burning ashes that already came out of the caldera. Their poisonous bite killed about 50 people and 200 animals.
The fer-de-lance vipers are also sometimes added to the traditional cock fight pits.
The nature of Martinique plays a role in all cultural expressions. From historical events to modern music, from the kitchen to deadly threats of volcanoes, hurricanes and snakes, from literature to sports: it is impossible to disentangle Nature and Culture. Every new wave of inhabitants brought their own culture, and the combination of these cultures and the Martinican natural circumstances created the creolised department of today.
Anse Cafard Memorial & Glissant: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2j4gjr and http://edouardglissant.fr/fiche3b.html
Cod https://azmartinique.com/fr/tout-savoir/le-saviez-vous/pourquoi-mangeons-nous-autant-de-morue
Drapeau aux serpents https://la1ere.francetvinfo.fr/martinique/pavillon-aux-quatre-serpents-vit-ses-derniers-jours-638958.html
Fishing in Martinique http://www.fao.org/3/t8365e/t8365e04.htmf
Flag and hymn https://pressroom.oecs.org/martinique-now-has-a-territorial-hymn-and-flag-for-sports-cultural-and-international-events and https://la1ere.francetvinfo.fr/martinique/drapeaux-hymnes-soumis-au-vote-martiniquais-ont-ete-devoiles-698508.html
Iguanas https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/10800/122936983
Mont Pelée threat level https://www.ipgp.fr/fr/lovsm-ipgp-preconise-passage-vigilance-volcanique-jaune-de-montagne-pelee
Neg gwo siwo https://www.rci.fm/martinique/infos/Societe/Carnaval-lassociation-Neg-Gwo-Siwo-toujours-presente-dans-le-vide
Pottery http://pnr-martinique.com/visiter/poterie/
Césaire, Aimé. Notebook of a Return to My Native Land/Cahier d’un retour au pays natal. Trans. Mireille Rosello with Annie Pritchard. Glasgow: Bloodaxe Books, 2020.
Chamoiseau, Patrick. Texaco. Gallimard, 1992. Trans. Rose-Myriam Réjouis and Val Vinokurov, Vintage International, 1998.
François, Martine, et al., (ed..) “Introduction – Why consider organic farming?” Agriculture Biologique en Martinique. Marseille: IRD Éditions, 2005.
Joseph-Gabriel, Maurice. Martinique, terre d'éden, Éditions Roudil, 1979.
Mauvois, Georges B. Les Marrons de la mer, évasions d’esclaves de la Martinique vers les îles de la Caraïbe (1833-1848), Paris, Karthala/Ciresc, 2018.
Rushforth, Brett. "The Gauolet Uprising of 1710: Maroons, Rebels, and the Informal Exchange Economy of a Caribbean Sugar Island." The William and Mary Quarterly 76, no. 1 (2019): 75-110.