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Mauritius is a melting pot of cultures. The Asian community draws its origins from several corners across India and China. While Indians came primarily as indentured labourers, Chinese and Muslims were mainly traders. Slaves were imported from Africa to work in the sugar cane fields whose owners were of European descent. Today, the Mauritian population has a rich cultural heritage which is reflected by numerous sites across the island. Mauritius is surely the only country in the world where Hindus, Christians, Muslims, Chinese and Creoles co-exist in peace and celebrate several religious festivals together.
As part of a programme to identify, restore and promote sites, buildings and places of remembrance to its rich cultural heritage, Mauritius has submitted an official request that two key historical sites, namely, the Morne Brabant and the Aapravasi Ghat, be inscribed on the list of UNESCO World Heritage.
In July 2006, it was announced that the request submitted to the UNESCO for the Aapravasi Ghat, which is the location at the Port Louis harbour where Indian immigrants first landed in Mauritius, has been successful. Please visit www.aapravasighat.com for details.
The Morne Brabant mountain, on the other hand, is a historical site known to be a hiding place for runaway slaves and a remembrance site for their descendants. Yearning for freedom, the slaves would rather throw themselves from the top of this rock than be captured again by their masters.
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MAURITIAN ARCHITECTURE |
The island's French and British colonial history, combined with its hot and humid climate, manifests itself in interesting and distinctly Mauritian architecture which can be seen in homes ranging from modest bungalows to elegant mansions. Influenced by a blending of French and English colonial architecture, roofs of the elegant homes that were built on the sugar estates tend to be steeply pitched with turrets and dormer windows.
Most of the houses are encircled by cool verandahs bordered by fanciful balustrades. Indeed, verandahs play an important social role in Mauritius; they are cool and capture the ambience of outdoor living, providing a place where the family can meet to relax and entertain their guests.
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LITERATURE |
Culture is omnipresent in the capital. In the old Port-Louis theatre, plays are regularly staged in one the languages spoken in Mauritius. Very often, the dome of the theatre echoes with the sounds of gospel music, jazz and blues. Besides, Mauritius has produced several talented jazzmen and bluesmen of international repute: Ernest Wiehé, Philippe Thomas, Dean Nookadu,José Thérèse and Eric Triton.
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THE SEGA AND THE SEGGAE |
The nostalgic ballads of our national traditional sega singers are heard less often, either because some of them have either passed away (like Ti-Frère, whose real name is Alphonse Ravaton) or the others are getting old (Fanfan, Michel Legris). But for the fans of the sega-ravanne (traditional local music), the memories are still there: songs by those artists are available in specialized record shops (Neptune in Port-Louis, Agora at Riche-Terre). One can also find albums by Kaya and his group, Racinetatane. Inventor of the seggae (sega with a reggae beat), he has become a very popular artist and is literally venerated since his death in 1999.
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PAINTING |
The art lovers will be gratified. Exhibitions of the works of local artists are often held at the Mauritius Institute, at the School of Fine Arts of the Mahatma Gandhi Institute in Moka or at the Alliance Française at Bell Village and the Centre Culturel d'Expression Française (CCEF) at Curepipe. Our most famous painters are the late Malcolm de Chazal and Hervé Masson. But there is also a younger generation of painters who are as gifted as their elders and show great promise namely Khalid Nazroo, Krishna Lutchoomun, Nirmal Hurry, Mario Ng, Henry Koombes, Nirmala Luckeenarain, Nalini Treeboohun.
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LITERATURE |
Mauritian authors are well gifted for writing. Their works are regularly published by prestigious international publishers. In literature as well, Malcolm de Chazal is well-known and is widely read. While de Chazal's writings focus on surrealism, Marcel Cabon was mainly inspired by the wretched life of the common people. The younger generation of Mauritian writers is also promising: authors like Ananda Devi, Alain Gordon-Gentil, Barlen Pyamootoo, Carl de Souza, Shenaz Patel regularly publishes novels of outstanding quality.
Though most local authors have shown a propensity for the language of Molière, quite a few have chosen to express themselves in Hindi, the most prolific amongst them being Abhimanyu Unnuth. His works have been translated into several languages, including French.
Creole, the vernacular that had for a long time been ignored, if not despised, is becoming more and more popular with the local writers. Dev Virahsawmy remains a popular advocate of the creole language.
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