Carib Community gets access to Red House

Carib Community gets access to Red House.
By Camille Bethel | Trinidad Express Newspapers | Jul 13, 2013 at 9:48 PM ECT

"Members of the Santa Rosa Carib Community were granted access to the Red House in Port of Spain to perform one of their requested rituals yesterday afternoon.

"Speaking with the media following what was described as a simple ritual in the name of the departed, Carib Chief Ricardo Bharath Hernandez said they were happy they were granted the request.

“What we did today was what we had requested—that we do one of two rituals today. It was a simple ritual and it was a ritual really in the name of the departed, it was not to the departed. When someone dies you have certain prayers and rituals that you do and because of the find and we do not know at the time of death, if the rituals were done.

“More than that, because they have unearthed the bones and remains of the ancestors we who are alive felt it necessary to do that ritual. So we have performed that simple ritual and there is just one part of another one that we hope to do in the month of October under the guidance of the shamans and the (priests) who still practise these rituals in other places,” he said.

"Hernandez said the shamans who are expected to carry out the other ritual will have to be found on the mainland of Venezuela and Suriname in time for the Heritage Celebrations in October.

“They will conduct the all-night rituals in the name of the ancestors,” he added.

"Last week the Carib Community called a media briefing outlining several requests to the 25-member Cabinet-appointed committee for the site at the Red House where bones and artefacts of their ancestors were found back in April.

"He said he believes that the find at the Red House is a cry for recognition of the descendents of the indigenous people locally as recognised by the United Nations.

"Hernandez admitted that 20 or 30 years ago they may have had “great resistance” against a ceremony like that.

“So we can perform these ceremonies and it gives us a sense of pride, a sense of knowing that that aspect of your culture, your heritage that you grew up with, you can now practise and can be on par with any other culture in this country rather than being stifled,” he said"

The "Plastic" versus the "Real" Shaman?

I am not sure how it happened that I ended up on the mailing list of the "Shaman Portal," a website that features "all things shamanic" and offers a variety of resources to shamans, some for sale. I am glad to receive their e-mails, especially as it gives me a sense of the diffusion of indigenous cultures and beliefs, meaning that from early on I sensed that the shamans behind this portal were not necessarily of indigenous ancestry. This particular impression seems to have formed the grounds for a sharp exchange between owners of the Shaman Portal and some readers, as evidenced in this interesting bit of dialogue:

"Dear shamans of all nations,

A few days ago in response to an announcement we posted about http://www.shamanportal.org/ in one of the main shamanic groups on the internet, one of the readers sent us a response accusing us for being "Plastic Shamans" adding:

"....I don't think that anyone who is not part of a native culture where there are actually shamans can call themselves that. The term 'shaman' is used by commercial operators to denote any sort of nonsense that they wish to promote, and it has become a practically meaningless term, having nothing to do with the things that the word originally denoted. This 'shaman community' is really just a name for a lot of unscrupulous operators who take money in order to blow smoke up people's hidden orifices. I checked a lot of them out and they are, to put it simply, phonies....This 'white shaman' phenomena, where all of the shamans are either white folks or else they are white folks who claim Indian ancestry (are they different than other white folks?), is a parody of actual shamanism. Actual shamanism is a practice of third world, native peoples from a specific part of the globe, which one could not aspire to be a part of no matter how much wanted to. What people call shamanism in the context in which your business enterprises operate is actually 'neo-shamanism'.

Recently, an elder indigenous Pagé (shaman) deep in the Brazilian Amazon said to a group of visiting white folks: "We are all shaman. Don't you think that just because I wear those funny clothes and those colorful feathers on my head, I am more powerful then you are. We are all indigenous to Mother Earth, no matter where we come from."

Two very different and opposing view points."

If you have any opinions on this, please feel free to post your comments here.

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