Each January 2, known as Tweede Nuwejaar (Second New Year), a unique carnival explodes onto the streets of Cape Town. The carnival is the one annual opportunity the Cape Coloreds (the mixed race people of Cape Town) have to stage their own special festival, their most visible cultural expression.
The "Coon Carnival," as it is known, is an entirely Colored event, done by and for the people who have chosen as their inspiration the minstrel show, that now historic phenomenon of nineteenth-century America. The use of the derogatory term coon (which was commonly used in American minstrel shows) derives from the participants wearing "blackface" makeup. While the United States is often accused of consciously exporting its culture to the detriment of local music, dance, and film, this is one aspect of American culture that was exported inadvertently.
Preparations begin months before the event. Carefully saved money is used to purchase the expensive satin fabrics and frills from which costumes are cut and sewn. Outfits are designed and their pastel colors impeccably coordinated. New songs are written about contemporary concerns, adding to the traditional minstrel music. New dances are created and practiced over and over. Dazzling footwork is the trademark of minstrels, complicated, vigorous, and very, very fast.
When the groups finally emerge onto the streets, they sing, dance, and strut their way to the stadiums where the festival is officially permitted to be held. Official or not, for several days the Coloreds provide the color and rhythm of Cape Town. The performances are attended by whites and Coloreds alike.
At the stadiums they compete for loving cups and plaques, and for cash awards. The prizes give the top groups a stamp of approval and they are often hired to entertain at parties throughout the year.
The high spirits are much too vigorous to be contained in the narrow confines of a stadium, especially after the prizes are awarded. When the stadium competitions are over, the dancing and cavorting continues as the people spill out onto the streets of Cape Town at sundown. The strains of "Dixie" and "Mamie" can be heard along with other traditional minstrel tunes. Also heard are new songs sung in the Colored dialect, an adaptation of Afrikaans. Their language, like Carnival itself, is borrowed.
The peculiar plight of the Coloreds
In South Africa the term colored rather than black is used advisedly. South Africa divides everyone who lives within its borders into one of four basic groups and then further subdivides two of those four. Westerners generally are well aware of the black and white categories. However, the existence and circumstances of the Asian (Indians) and Colored populations are not as well known outside the country.
In South Africa "black" applies to someone from an African tribe. "Colored" specifically describes people of mixed race. The mixtures are complex, involving at least forty identifiable strains. South Africa divides most of the Coloreds into subgroups, such as Cape Colored, Cape Malay, Griqua (descended from the Khoikhoi), and "Other Colored." But these widely differing peoples must exist, live and work
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