You're both very welcome and thanks for your patience. I really did expect to answer sooner. (Boat work, I didn't volunteer; I was drafted.)

Belasco was born in Trinidad and Patterson in Martinique but neither commented on the song as far as I know. Without context it's sort of what you make of it:

In Trinidad the Kalenda stick fighting bands were mostly a young man's sport linked with Lenten Carnival. The story would be a mourner's song but also part murder ballad.

In Martinique old, settled, Catholic couples danced and chanted the Kalenda at Christmas midnight mass. Here the same lyric reads like a pure tear-jerker.