On the lands of the old Peru estate (later known as St James), and in what was later to become Boissiere Village, Maraval, a number of Tamils from Kerala, in India, settled after indentureship in the 1880s. A large number of Tamils from Madras came to work on the sugar estates of the island. In typical Madrassi fashion, they integrated speedily into the French society, adopting the language, customs and dress. One of the earliest accounts of the Madrassis was given by CW Day in 1847:
“The most curious members of this mixed population, are, perhaps, the hill coolies from Madras and Calcutta. They walk about the streets accompanied by their women and wretched little progeny, who look more like attenuated monkeys than children. The dress, what there is of it, is extremely picturesque; but, in truth, some of them are costumed in as fine and easy a style as the Camanche Indian, who, in the streets of Washington, finding the heat too great for him, coolly took off the unmentionables which civilization had compelled him to adopts and paraded the streets pretty nearly in nudilms, much to the affected horror of that most decorous but indelicate community. These coolies are quite as picturesque as any North American Indians. To these Easterns living is so easy here that many of them will not work but saunter about catching game and feeding on plantains.”
They brought with them the tradition of the fire pass or fire walk in which participants worked themselves into a trance and seemingly walked across burning coals without any damage. J H Collens commented on this activity at St James (which oddly took place in front of the Anglican Church), in 1887:
“Amongst other rites, there is an annual one affected by the Madras people, viz, 'passing through the fire.' The oldest priests, with their most fervent disciples, all nearly naked, pass repeatedly to and fro over smouldering ashes, shouting and gesticulating vehemently meanwhile. This they do quite publicly, even preferring spectators to privacy. All the same, they bitterly resent anything approaching to ridicule or interference; and, being worked up at such times to an almost incredible pitch of frenzied excitement, a collision would be fraught with the most unpleasant consequences. The feasts, which are very common, are generally in honour of some, and all who attend them and partake of the things sacrificed are supposed to do honour to some deity in whose name the feast is held.
One of the South Indian gods, named Madrivele, had the marvellous faculty of entering houses through the smallest crevice; he used to display an inordinate fondness for fowls and rum, and he would help himself freely to these at all times. Hence, in the sacrificing to Madrivele, the eating of chickens and the drinking of copious libations of rum play an important part. In Trinidad this passing through the fire is held in an open space right in front of the Anglican chapel dedicated to St Agnes, and the obscenity displayed, the vile language and uproar, remind one of pandemonium. In India, if what we hear be true, the horrid 'fire-passing' ceremony has been prohibited by the Government. It is not at all observed by the Hindus of Northern India, but, on the contrary, is repudiated by them. The rite is doubtless similar to that mentioned and condemned in the Old Testament.”
Even as late as the 1890s, the Madrassis were seen as a breed apart from the regular Indians in the colony. Moreover, the Madrassis who settled in the Maraval area, formed what is now Boissiere Village, since they were on the lands of the Champs Elysees Estate and thus tenants of Madame Poleska De Boissiere. These people also kept cattle which grazed in the Queen’s Park Savannah and supplied cut grass as fodder for the horses and mules of Port-of-Spain.
One Catholic priest of the 1890s thought that the fire walking was demonic and fraudulent and took out a famous notice in 1902 which offered five dollars cash to any Tamil who would stand in a burning fire for five minutes. It is not recorded if he was taken up on the offer. The fire pass was still going strong in the 1920s, and was even advertised in the newspapers since it had become a spectacle for all and sundry. One of my sources tells me that as late as the 1940s, she would go to witness the fire pass in St James.