History of music in saint lucia

The La Rose and La marguerite are competing societies that honor the Aglo-French origin of the island; the groups represent the warring colonial authorities, between whose from Saint Lucia that evolved fourteen time. La Rose due held on August 30 while La marguerite is held on October 17. The societies have been traced back to be the 19^th century, when each of the community was home to contesting organizations of the Roman catholic Church. Both of the societies draw on English royal’s customs and have a series of ranks, which include the Queen, King, prince and Princess and different lower titles such as Chief of Police and nurse. La Rose and La Marguerite do meet once every week except during lent. In these meetings, is base on Saturday for La Rose and Sunday for La Marguerite, members of each society sing or play instruments and dance. La marguerite meetings involve the membership in a seat chorus with the leader, the chantwel, standing while La Rose meetings comprise instruments such as the tanbouwen (which is known as the tambourine), baha (which is a wooden trumpet), guitar, chakchak (rattles) and gwaj (which is a scraper).

source of picture: www.thevoiceslu.com

The festivity of both societies vary in that La Rose, the English group is described by noisiness, trend, involvement, rhythm and excitement  and while the La Marguerite which is the French group is described by song, respect and restraint. There is an exciting custom of women singing dramatized songs linked to this competing. The customs is well-known to both groups including the Omans, a type of waltz, Marches and the duple rhythm manpa (or maynan) dance. In Las Rose lakonmet and Kwadril are also performed.