page_title: Netherlands Antilles
section_title: Culture
hierarchical_section_title: Netherlands Antilles / Culture
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph by Harry van der Made and uploaded by his son Dirk van der Made (user:DirkvdM). I assume that I can claim copyright to photographs by my (deceased) father. Correct me if I'm wrong. A Bulawaya dance in Curacao, somewhere in the 1950's probably.
context_page_description: The Netherlands Antilles was a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The country consisted of several island territories located in the Caribbean Sea. The islands were also informally known as the Dutch Antilles. The country came into being in 1954 as the autonomous successor of the Dutch colony of Curaçao and Dependencies and was dissolved in 2010. The Dutch colony of Surinam, although it was relatively close by on the continent of South America, did not become part of the Netherlands Antilles but became a separate autonomous country in 1954. All the island territories that belonged to the Netherlands Antilles remain part of the kingdom today, although the legal status of each differs. As a group they are still commonly called the Dutch Caribbean, regardless of their legal status.
context_section_description: The origins of the population and location of the islands gave the Netherlands Antilles a mixed culture.
  Tourism and overwhelming media presence from the United States increased the regional United States influence. On all the islands, the holiday of Carnival had become an important event after its importation from other Caribbean and Latin American countries in the 1960s. Festivities included "jump-up" parades with beautifully colored costumes, floats, and live bands as well as beauty contests and other competitions. Carnival on the islands also included a middle-of-the-night j'ouvert (juvé) parade that ended at sunrise with the burning of a straw King Momo, cleansing the island of sins and bad luck.
caption: A Bulawaya dance in Curaçao
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