There was a riot of colour in Mon Repos and La Clery on Thursday 17th October as La Magwit Groups and Schools celebrated the La Magwit Flower Festival in Saint Lucia.
The Gwan Fet Magwit, which started out with a church service held at the Church of St. Anne in Mon Repos, saw six La Magwit community groups and schools within the immediate evirons participating in this year’s celebrations.
The Schools’ Ecumenical Service held at the Church of Our Lady of Fatima in La Clery was well attended by youth from over 13 schools in the north of the island and support from the community was good.
Jimmy Clavier, an organiser for the festival, said: “It was an enormous success. This year’s celebration had a strong focus on embracing our local and indigenous cultures and we saw that happen, with people from far and wide turning up and enjoying the presentations. Despite some interruptions, we couldn’t have asked for better weather, which meant that lots of people turned up and the celebrations were a little more intimate.” He stated further for future Flower Festivals, organizers plan to have more promotions leading to the main event at an earlier date.
“We need to make the Flower Festivals a big event and if we can plan, work towards that and plan early enough, I think that we will see more persons beginning to relate and have a better appreciation for this indigenous cultural element,” Clavier noted.
Clavier also believes that the collaborations with the Monsignor Patrick Anthony Folk Research Centre and Events Company of Saint Lucia have helped to strengthen the Festival. “We can make a solid force to push the Flower Festivals forward and make them a major event,” he said.
According to him, collaboration will not only benefit the communities where the Flower Societies exist but Saint Lucia on a whole.
Background:
La Magwit Flower Festival is the celebration of one of two “floral societies which expresses an exhaustive system of mock administration from a royal family to an army, police force, judiciary, health service, and education system,” (from The Flower Festivals of Saint Lucia, Hon. Msgr. Patrick A. B. Anthony) among others. A total of nine groups are registered and based in various communities around Saint Lucia. Each group holds séances in the lead up to the grand feast day, which consists of all night singing and dancing sessions. The central figure at the séance is the chantwèl (female singer) or chantè (male singer), who sustains the spirit and tenor of the evening’s entertainment.
Here are some wonderful shots of this years’ events: