Lovelace also highlights the importance of calypso in his novel. He notes that even though calypso and drumming were previously banned, they were both powerful forces within society as they were linked to Carnival, which was also seen at the time as "a relic of barbarism and the annual abomination and so on". Having calypso identified with bacchanal meant that calypso was linked and limited to the bacchanal season of Carnival: "Once upon a time the entire Carnival was an expression of rebellion. Once there were stickfighters who assembled each year to keep alive in battles between themselves the practice of warriorhood born in them; and there were devils, black men who blackened themselves further with black grease to make of their very blackness a menace, a threat."