Culture
Saint Lucia wears its history in Kwéyòl, in madras and music, in legends told after dark and a rivalry of flowers. Amerindian, African, French and British roots braid into one of the most distinct cultures in the Caribbean. Here is the island's story.
Helen of the West Indies
So prized that France and Britain fought over it again and again, Saint Lucia was nicknamed for Helen of Troy. That tug of war, layered over African and Amerindian roots, made the island what it is today.
Arawak settlers arrive, followed by the Kalinago. They name the island Iyonola and Hewanorra, "land of the iguanas". The name lives on at Hewanorra airport in Vieux Fort.
France and Britain fight over the island, which changes hands roughly fourteen times. French planters bring enslaved Africans to work sugar and cotton, and a French Creole culture takes root.
Britain abolishes slavery, with full freedom in 1838. The freed population builds the villages, the language and the traditions that define the island.
Saint Lucia becomes an independent nation within the Commonwealth, and celebrates Independence Day every February.
Emblems of the nation
Designed by Saint Lucian artist Dunstan St Omer: a gold triangle on a black and white arrowhead, set on a cerulean field. The blue is fidelity, the sea and sky; the gold is sunshine; the black and white stand for the two races living and working in unity, the triangles echoing the Pitons.
The Saint Lucia parrot, found nowhere else on Earth, is the national bird. Down to perhaps a hundred birds in the 1970s, a hunting ban and a protected reserve brought it back to around two thousand, one of the Caribbean's great conservation stories.
The national dress is an elegant Creole gown worn over a lace petticoat with a shoulder scarf and a folded madras head-tie. A simpler everyday version, the Jip, pairs a madras skirt with a white blouse.
Uniquely, the island honours two national flowers, the rose and the marguerite, for its two beloved flower festival societies.
The bright checked cloth takes its name from Madras in India and arrived through colonial trade. Across the French Antilles it became the signature of Creole dress, and in Saint Lucia above all the head-tie, whose folded peaks once carried a quiet language of their own.
The anthem is "Sons and Daughters of Saint Lucia". The coat of arms carries the rose and fleur de lis of its British and French past and an African stool, held up by two Jacquot parrots, under the motto "The Land, The People, The Light".
Folklore · the cast of the night
Every Saint Lucian grows up with these figures. Some warn, some protect, some simply outsmart everyone else. Filter by kind, then tap a card to read the tale.
Kont and conteur
A storyteller, the conteur, opens by calling "Kwik?" and the listeners answer "Kwak!" Then come the riddles, the "Tim Tim", that must be solved before the tale can begin. Stories were told to keep company at wakes and on moonlit nights, and they were not always for children.
The hero is almost always Compère Lapin, the rabbit, who outwits the slow tiger Compère Tig and anyone bigger than himself. Carried from West Africa, these tales once let the powerless laugh at the powerful. The Folk Research Centre has gathered them from elders across the island so the voices are not lost.
The mother tongue
English is the official language, but around nineteen in twenty Saint Lucians speak Kwéyòl, a Creole built on French words and West African grammar. It is celebrated every October on Jounen Kwéyòl, Creole Day, the heart of Creole Heritage Month. A few words to carry with you:
Drum, song and dance
A Creole take on the European quadrille, danced in five figures with Kwéyòl names and often called the island's national dance.
Drum led song and couple dances with deep West African roots, shared across the French Creole Caribbean and played at full moon gatherings and wakes.
The chak-chak rattle, the cedar bwa poye banjo, the violin, and the baha, a long bamboo tube blown for a booming bass, over a tanbou drum struck with tibwa sticks.
Living ritual
In the hills around Babonneau, the Djiné, descendants of the last Africans brought to Saint Lucia, keep an ancestral Yoruba derived rite. Around sacred thunderstones and the mother and child drums, with song, dance and the offering of a ram, they call on Ogun and Shango to carry their prayers to God.
Made by hand
From village clay to gallery canvas, the island has a deep making tradition.
The southwest village of Choiseul is the craft capital of Saint Lucia. At the arts and crafts centre at La Fargue, artisans sell basketry, straw work and wood carvings made from island materials.
Choiseul's potters still shape the coal pot, a portable clay brazier, and the round canaree cooking pot, by techniques handed from the island's Amerindian ancestors, mother to daughter.
A national hero, St Omer designed the flag and painted the island's famous Black Holy Family murals, declaring that "if Christ cannot be black, he is no use to us".
Saint Lucia's most internationally celebrated living artist, a pioneer of mail art and environmental art whose work hangs in major museum collections.
Sons and daughters
With two Nobel laureates among fewer than two hundred thousand people, Saint Lucia has more Nobel prizes per head than any nation on Earth.
Nobel Prize, Literature, 1992
Poet and playwright, author of the epic Omeros, who turned the island's light and sea into some of the finest poetry in English.
Nobel Prize, Economics, 1979
Castries born economist, a founder of development economics, who shared the Nobel for his work on the economies of poorer nations.
Cricket · two World T20 titles
The Gros Islet cricketer who captained the West Indies to two world titles. The national stadium near Rodney Bay now carries his name.
Both laureates were born on 23 January, marked each year by Nobel Laureate Week.
A peaceful war of flowers
For some two hundred years the island has been split between two singing societies, each a make believe royal court of kings, queens, judges and nurses. Their friendly rivalry plays out in months of night time rehearsals, the séances, and bursts into bloom on two feast days.
August 30
Fèt Lawòz · the rose society
Honours Saint Rose of Lima with song, courtly pageantry and a colourful procession led by a chantwèl and answered in call and response.
October 17
La Magwit · the marguerite society
The rival society, named not for a daisy but for the magenta globe flower, with its own king, queen and court and its own proud songs.
Both societies and their festivals are inscribed on the UNESCO register of intangible cultural heritage. See the dates on the events calendar.