Martinique Chanté Nwèl, a fantastic French-styled Christmas tradition 

Rashaed Esson 

Staff Writer

#Martinique, December 21, 2023 – It’s that time of the year, Christmas, and Martinique, like many other Caribbean nations, has its own unique way of celebrating the season.

Martinique has a Christmas tradition called Chanté Nwèl. November 2nd, the day after the Day of the Dead, marks the official start of the Christmas season where the first fliers of Chanté Nwèl are dropped and Christmas Carols aired on the radio.

It’s a kind of preparation for Christmas festivities where people gather, family and friends, to eat and drink traditional foods and beverages, and most importantly sing classical Christmas carols.

Going back to the time of slavery, these songs would be sung in church in French, but over time they became “Creolized” with the introduction of refrains in Creole, which is a broken French or Ritournelles, accompanied by local instruments like the ti-bwa and cha-cha. An empty rum bottle and a fork will also be used.

For the carols, it’s common for Martician families to have a Christmas carol book at home which is kept carefully until November.

It contains songs such as Joseph mon cher fidèle,” “Dans le calme de la nuit,” “Michaud veillait,” “Il est né le divin enfant.”

There are many groups for Chanté Nwél such as Ravine Plate, Bakoua Nwel, Rassin’ Nwel, Kantik Vauclin, An Rita, Mazincoin, and more recently Yanm Sasa, Sos Kantik, Mandarin, Les Troubadours 972, Kantik Band, and many others.

In the modern world, the practices have become more professional in that people are more likely to go to reception halls than their neighbors’ houses.