Story & photos by Lennox Honeychurch 
Throughout the year, Dominicans celebrate 
a number of festival and religious feast days 
all over the island. Some, like Carnival and 
Independence celebrations are on a national 
scale and are preceded by weeks of activities. 
Others are limited to individual villages and 
only last for a day, yet many of these attract 
visitors from all around Dominica. 
Our French influenced history has much 
to do with these ‘fetes’. It was the British 
map makers in the late 1760s who divided 
Dominica into its ten parishes, each one 
bearing the name of a saint. Except for legal 
documents such as land deeds these names 
and divisions are not generally used. The 
French Roman Catholic Patron Saints of 
each village receive far more recognition 
and it is on their feast days that most of the 
main village festivals occur. This mixture of 
English parishes and French saints can be 
confusing, but it is an interesting remnant of 
the European conflicts 200 years ago. For 
instance: the villages in the official parish of 
St. Paul celebrate the feast of St. Anne; the 
parish of St. Joseph celebrates the feast of 
St. Gerard and the largest village in St. 
Patrick’s celebrates the feast of St. Isidore! 
Just a few examples, and there are several 
more. 
One of the most widely celebrated reli¬ 
gious feasts is the Fete La St. Pierre, the feast 
of fishermen also called the feast of St. Peter 
and St. Paul. The official feast day is June 
29th and all the main fishing villages take a 
turn at hosting the fete. This is also done so 
that each village can get a share of the action, 
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as people move from one feast to the next 
throughout the months. Each day begins 
with a church service where, during the 
offertory procession, fish and produce of the 
land is brought before the altar. This is 
followed by a parade to the seashore where 
the decorated boats are blessed and in some 
cases the priest and others are taken for 
ceremonial ride around the bay, then villag¬ 
ers and visitors from other parts of the island 
go en fete for the rest of the day with house 
visits and dancing way into the night. Some 
fishing villages celebrate other saint days as 
well as St. Peter so that a complete list can 
be quite long. Apart from St. Peter’s, some 
of the main villages and their patron Saints 
are as follows: 
- Our Lady of Lourdes 
- La Salette 
- Fatima 
Soufriere 
Point Michel 
Newtown 
Mahaut/ 
Massacre 
St. Joseph 
Salisbury 
Toucari 
Vielle Case 
Saint Sauveur 
Laudat 
Trafalgar 
Giraudel 
Grand Bay 
St. Anne 
St. Gerard 
St. Theresa 
St. Antoine 
St. Andre 
St. Isidore 
St. Anne 
St. Mary Magdalene 
Our Lady of Perpetual 
Succour 
St. Isidore 
Dates of observance of patron saints days 
fluctuate. The official date may not coincide 
with the date on which the festivities are 
observed so that it is impossible, far in 
advance, to say which village will be doing 
what on a certain day. 
At Grand Bay, Fete St. Isidore (patron 
saint of farmers and laborers) is a harvest 
festival celebrated in a most colorful way. 
Lourdes, Fatima and La Salette are noted for 
the pilgrimages people make from other 
parts of the island to pray at these shrines 
dedicated to our Lady and her appearances 
at Lourdes and La Salette in France and at 
Fatima in Portugal. 
Fete Les Tou Saintes or All Saints is 
observed each November 1st when people 
Sisserou Carnival Costume 
visit the graves of their departed friends and 
relatives to light candles and bring flowers. In 
the evening, the town and village graveyards 
become a mass of twinkling yellow lights 
interspersed with the moving silhouettes of 
visitors in prayer. 
Apart from Christmas and Easter, the 
biggest festival of the year is Carnival. The 
actual two Carnival holidays of street jump- 
up are the Monday and Tuesday before Ash 
Wednesday, but there are calypso and queen 
contests, shows and parties for at least two 
weeks before that. All this stems from a 
mixture of French Roman Catholic tradi¬ 
tions and West African costume, song and 
dance forms. Although masqued balls and 
Creole fetes were a feature of the French 
plantocracy throughout the Antilles, street 
Carnival really blossomed after Emancipa¬ 
tion in 1834. 
The other annual island-wide festival is 
Independence Day. Celebrations start in 
September leading up to Independence Day 
itself on November 3rd. Village groups com¬ 
pete with each other in competitions of 
traditional dance, song, storytelling and 
Festival of St. Peter, Calibishie 
