Indigenous Caribbean News Round-up: 21 April--03 May, 2011

Nicaragua: Traditional And Ancient Medicine Law Approved

25 April 2011

The Traditional and Ancient Medicine Law was approved this March 29 in its entirety by the plenary National Assembly. It aims to recognize, respect, protect and promote the practices and expressions of traditional medicine in all specialties, the purposes of this law are noted for promoting the use of traditional medicines based on derivatives of plants, animals and minerals or any combination thereof, in terms of quality, safety, accessibility and accountability...continue reading

Honduras: Where Are The Negotiations For A New Agreement Heading? - COPINH Statement

21 April 2011

Position in relation to negotiations sponsored by Chavez and Santos:

We call on the Honduran people to reject any manipulation that attempts the reintegration of the Honduran state into the Organization of American States while those who have continued the coup d'etat remain in power, while repression, militarization and impunity continue to reign. Our efforts and actions should be to strengthen the struggle for the Re-foundation of the country....continue reading

Barbadian of Guyanese Arawak descent now the most influential Indigenous rights activist in CARICOM

The Bajan Reporter, 03 May 2011

Well known Worldwide Indigenous Rights Activist Damon Gerard Corrie (himself of maternal Guyanese Lokono-Arawak descent), is now the Caribbean representative on the Planning Committee of the 4th Indigenous Leaders Summit of the Americas; it is a three-year mandate. With the majority of votes of support coming in from every Caribbean country that harbors an Indigenous population – Corrie joins 2 Representatives from Mesoamerica, and 3 from South America on this important body; North America will decide imminently on its representatives – bringing the Planning Committee to a final membership of eight. Damon has been a firm believer and staunch advocate of the Inter-American system embodied by the Organization of American States (OAS) since he first became involved with it in the year 2000, and of the United Nations since he became involved in it in 2008....continue reading

YES – THERE ARE AMERINDIAN CHILDREN IN BARBADIAN SCHOOLS! Opinion from Damon Corrie

The Bajan Reporter, 03 May 2011

I am tired of my own Arawak children and other Amerindian children in Barbadian schools (some 40 children in all) being told by mis educated or ill-informed teachers that the tribe to which they belong ‘no longer exists’ so therefore they cannot possibly be who they say they are. For the information of these ’educators’ there are almost 20,000 Arawaks STILL in Guyana, 2,000 in Suriname, about 1,000 in French Guiana, and around 200 in Venezuela to this day! Also for the record – we do NOT call ourselves ‘Arawaks‘, it is not even a word in our language, we call ourselves ‘Lokono’ which means in English ‘The People’ (Columbus nearly got it right when he wrote that the name of our tribe was ‘Lucayo’); but for the sake of familiarity I shall use the word ‘Arawak’ throughout this letter....continue reading

Art About Arawaks: New site from Penny Slinger

In previous years, dating almost to the inception of the Caribbean Amerindian Centrelink, we featured some of the paintings of Penny Slinger, a British artist who for many years resided in different parts of the Caribbean. The paintings we directed attention to focused on images of Arawaks, as they might have been preceding the arrival of Europeans. Penny Slinger has clearly dedicated a great deal more attention to these themes and has recently produced a large new website featuring a vast array of her images, including blockprints, drawings, pastels, paintings, and a video. Her site encompasses two themes: Arawak Art, and what she calls Island Art.

Penny Slinger's Arawak Art can be seen at: http://www.arawakart.com/

■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

Andy Palacio: Diffusing Garifuna Culture Internationally

Andy Palacio, a Garifuna singer and songwriter from Belize and a former teacher and current government minister, has been recording a string of hits and making news across Central and North America. Recent coverage in the US press has included feature articles in The San Francisco Chronicle (see: "Music that could save a culture," by Chuly Varela, Wednesday July 25 2007, which appeared on page E-1 of the print edition), and The Wall Street Journal (see: "Black, Amerindian and Proud of Building on a Tradition," by Ed Ward, June 26 2007, which appeared on page D5 of the print edition).

In The San Francisco Chronicle article, Palacio speaks at length on the issue of the Garifuna language. He says: "I think my generation in Belize is the last to be raised where Garifuna was our first language in the home, streets and playground. But in the classroom, English was the language of instruction." He adds that, "in its essence Garifuna is one of the Arawak family of languages, with borrowed words from Africans, who intermarried with Arawaks and Caribs. The French also had a significant impact on the Garifuna vocabulary when we were relocated to the Central American republics."

Palacio also praises the role of women in maintaining Garifuna culture: "[It is] the women who have nurtured these songs and kept them alive [and the] men who have been beating these drums all along. Our mothers who have retained in their minds recipes for tasty Garifuna dishes. It is at their feet that I sit in order to learn."

The article in the SFC also notes that, "in 2001, UNESCO proclaimed the Garifuna language, music and dance Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. Palacio played an important role in securing that recognition, and that led to his appointment as deputy administrator of the National Institute of Culture and History in Belize."

The Wall Street Journal article also reveals Palacio's concern for the loss of the Garifuna language, rooted in a visit to a Garifuna community in Nicaragua where the language had virtually disappeared: "This established a certain consciousness in me, that there was the frightening prospect that we could wind up in Belize like the Garifuna in Nicaragua."

The article ends on a note of ambiguity, indicating that while Palacio has generated a great deal of excitement at home and abroad, it is doubtful whether his success will help to preserve the language. On the other hand, as the writer of the article noted, similar efforts to revive Cajun music and Irish music in the 1960s and afterwards proved successful.

Post-Mortem: Caribs and Arawaks

I attended the UTT/Peter Harris presentation of Caribs and Arawaks: An Indigenous Story, at the National Library here in Port of Spain last night. Although last night, according to the Power Point slide-show the title changed to: Caribs and Arawaks: An Indigenous Story?... and I hope one can appreciate the difference.

First a bit of background: when the UTT advertised the Senior Research Fellow and Research Fellow positions in the field of First Peoples study a few months ago, I was interviewed but in the end the positions went to Peter Harris and Patricia Elie respectively. I wasn't terribly bothered as I was more interested in finding out what their approach would be than in leaving the exciting world of publishing. But I digress ...

The packed little room at the National Library heaved a collective sigh of dissatisfaction and there were more than a few dazed or quizzical looks as people slowly filed out of the room last night when Mr Harris completed his nearly two hour presentation.

Mr Harris served up a regurgitation of the work of Arie Boomert and Linda Newson - so much so that a member of the audience said at the end: I am glad you've said thanks to Boomert and Newson as I am wondering what, if anything new, are you bringing to the discourse? (Those may not have been his exact words.) Mr Harris replied without answering the question. In fact, I don't think Mr Harris answered any of the questions posed to him last night.

Mr Harris, an archaeologist, confessed last night that he felt more like an ethnographer than an archaeologist. Mr Harris confessed that he had skimmed a lot of the existing literature on the subject but he worked very closely with Arie Boomert. Mr Harris served up a lot of half-baked assertions.

Mr Harris questioned the assertion of: the Dominican elite of 1640? the chiefs? the Spanish? (I'm not quite sure.) that the Caribs were fierce and the Arawaks were peaceful.

If anything can be culled from his presentation it was that: Arawaks were fierce, Arawaks and Caribs fought over women incessantly, that there is no real record of the Carib in archaeology - we don't know where they came from he offered ernestly - "We have no evidence of how we have all these Kalina. It is a phenomenon that has not been explained."

He suggests: Arawaks settled in Trinidad's South East, Nepuyos settled in the North East, Shebaio settled in the South West and South, Yaio in the South West and West, Carinepagos in the North West and Chaguanes in the West and Central.
He references a lot of Raleigh.

Mr Harris says the Arawak assisted Hierreyma and the Dutch in razing St Joseph. That the plan is nearly thwarted by a turncoat rebel who happens to be Arawak.

The Shebaio disappear in 1700. The Yaio disappear in 1700. The Kalina disappear.

The conclusions of Mr Harris: Three people flee early 1600 - 1620, 1498 - 1640 was a time of ethnic fluidity and the new arrivals arrived say from 1740s.

Other gems include: the Missionaries rescued the Warao in setting up the Siparia mission; Salibia is the Kalinago word for Trinidad; Urupaina is what Tobago was called and translates to big snail in the Kalina language; it is difficult for a person of indigenous descent to know who they are descended from.

What we can look forward to in three years from Mr Harris, Ms Elie and the UTT is all this and more in book and dvd form. I can hardly wait.

Arawak Nation to Open North American Consulate

[Thanks to an email message from a "JP" for this notice]

Source: www.CaribbeanNetNews.com - Caribbean Net News

Link:
http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/cgi-script/
csArticles/articles/000053/005391.htm

WASHINGTON, USA: The first peoples to suffer the consequences of Columbus's arrival in the 'New World' are boldly stepping into the 21st century.

As of February 4, 2007, Taino-Arawak Elder Cyril Taylor will become the Honorary Consul of the Lokono-Arawak Nation of South America to the First Nations of North America.

The appointment was made by Damon Gerard Corrie, inheritor of the now ceremonial Hereditary Chieftaincy of the Eagle Clan Lokono-Arawaks, and well-known Barbados-based Amerindian rights activist, who has not been a stranger to controversy over the last 14 years.

When asked if all the other Lokono-Arawak leaders were in support of the move, Corrie had this to say: "In the same manner than you will never get 100% of the people in any country on the face of this Earth to support one politician at any given election, I have supporters and detractors; furthermore, the Lokono-Arawak Nation has never been a politicaly cohesive entity, we have strong leaders of certain clans and villages and weak leaders who are afraid to offend the powers that be; I do what I think is in the best interest of the people without fear of anyone... my armchair critics either do not have the will or capacity to push our inherrent and sovereign rights to the extent that I have and will continue to do."

Corrie went on to say: "The Governments of the American States need to stop deceiving themselves and accept reality's bitter truth - which is this: Apart from the current Bolivian administration of indigenous president Evo Morales, all the other governments of this hemisphere who still have indigenous peoples living within their borders are in fact illigitimate foreign political constructs of an occupational nature.

"And, contrary to the condescending and sadly mistakenly held view of the peoples whose ancestors arrived uninvited in our lands 514 years ago or less, we indigenous peoples do not belong to any state; we exist within the neo-colonial states imposed upon us in our traditional and historic pre-invasion territories. Force does not grant one a moral right to rule another.

"We will gladly share an amicable existence with all non-indigenous peoples in our beloved 'New World', and likewise we will willingly co-operate with the foreign entities currently exercising de facto governance over our lands -- as long as we are treated with the equity we deserve as the first inhabitants of this Western Hemisphere.

"The time has come for us as indigenous peoples to exercise our inherrent and undeniable rights on a higher level than most are still content to, more so in Latin America and the Caribbean than our brothers and sisters in North America, who have been spearheading this phase of the struggle for a very long time. Cultural links are no longer good enough in the twenty-first century, we need to network on every conceivable level -- especially at the level of international politics!"

Corrie, who is the great-great grandson of the nineteenth century Lokono-Arawak Hereditary Chief Amorotahe Haubariria of Guyana, promised that any person belonging to the Lokono-Arawak Tribal Nation resident in tribal communities in Guyana or Suriname, as well as Island Carib tribal members resident on Carib Tribal Lands in Trinidad, St Vincent and Dominica, are entitled to request assistance from the Consulate in locating export trade markets, securing direct investments and cultural exchanges, etc., from the First Nations of North America.

The first Indigenous leader and nation in North America to officially recognise Honorary Consul Cyril Taylor was Chief Gary Harrison of the Atna Dene People of Chickaloon, Alaska.

The address of the new Honorary Consulate will be 14256 Hunters Run Way, Gainesville, VA 20155-4408, USA.

Haitian Arawak Movement

I was very excited to receive the following message today:

"I am very happy that this side of the history of the Dominican Republic [in a special issue in the journal KACIKE] had been brought to light and I hope that the same thing could be done for Haiti. I am a mixed-blooded Arawak from Haiti and I'd like to take this opportunity to let the world know that we, the Indians of Haiti, were never extinct and we are very proud of our indigenous heritage. I hope that our brothers and sisters in DR understand that our language may be different but we are the same people. Anyone who wishes to learn more about the Haitian Arawak people or speak to us can visit us at: www.haitianarawak.com
Long live the Arawak/Taino people!
Taino'ti
Guanahata Ben Emmanuel"

Indeed, I had a chance to visit the website of the Haitian Arawak Movement, and I think a great many people will find it to be appealing, not just visually, but also in terms of some content that helps to fill in a very large gap in public consciousness. It never made sense to me that Taino cultural survival would somehow stop at the border with Haiti, as if that relatively novel and arbitrary post-conquest creation corresponded with indigenous realities. Incidentally, I am not suggesting that anyone has made this argument, but the focus on Taino survival in Hispaniola has, to date, tended to focus on the Dominican side, and not because of any sinister conspiracy. I would like to see more dicussion perhaps as to why there has been this Haitian absence from discussions of indigenous cultural survival, aside from some of the very engaging work produced by Maya Deren (Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti). I look forward to hearing more from Ben Emmanuel.