Sailor Mas

In the pantheon of Trinidad Mas Characters, the Sailor Mas is probably the most dominant. And the fancy sailor mas costume is the most popular. Those are the ones you see where the base is an American sailor uniform heavily embellished.

It could be white. But that is more for traditional sailor mas, the kind that All Stars does every Carnival Tuesday: a white sailor uniform and a fog of baby powder, because “yuh cyah play mas and fraid powda!”

But fancy sailor takes the base uniform, may or may not change the colour and uses the backpack and the cap as the place where their imagination goes wild.

And this week we lost one of the most ardent supporters of the genre. Jason Griffith died this week, a few days before his 98th birthday. He was a former classmate’s grandfather, who after I offered my condolences messaged to let me know that I had interviewed him years prior. I remembered the interview very well, I hadn’t recognised from her initial post that it was he she was referring to.

Griffith was founding member of George “Diamond Jim” Harding’s Old Fancy Sailors in 1969. During our interview he showed me how they used marino vests over a wire frame to make their costumes.

You can see both Grifffith and Harding in a piece I did as a baby journalist who was working at the Caribbean New Media Group (CNMG now TTT). It was part of a series I was doing on Carnival in 2009.

May he rest in peace.