Congress of the People and Trinidad's Caribs

In "Dookeran pays tribute to the Caribs," an article that appeared in Trinidad's Newsday on June 9, 2007, Winston Dookeran, the leader of the opposition Congress of the People (COP),

has paid tribute to the indigenous people of Trinidad and Tobago, mainly the Caribs, and urged the country not to forget the contribution they made to its development. Dookeran made the call on Wednesday night during his address at the seminar — A Rich Heritage a Common Future in celebration of our First People — at Legacy Hall, Sanchez Street, Arima. He said the COP is committed to the construction of a “national character” and in so doing cannot forget the sacrifice of the country’s indigenous foreparents. Dookeran said he is aware of the many challenges faced by the descendants of indigenous people and expressed the firm conviction that the fragile community is already threatened by the trends of Western society and must be preserved. He said most people will agree that not enough had been done to support the Carib community of Arima in a country that possesses so much wealth. “It is high time that we learn to respect the memory and contribution of those who came before us,” said Dookeran. “It is important that we pay debt of gratitude to the Santa Rosa festival and tribute to the descendants in spite of the hurdles they had to overcome.”

It is interesting to see that, increasingly, national political parties visit Arima and court it's "indigenous heritage" in making their pitches for national unity, as part of their campaigns to attain national office. This was rarely the case before the current millennium. Why this is starting to happen with greater frequency now is an interesting question.

Where Dookeran does not depart from the past is in his resort to a standard menu for framing Trinidad's indigenous people, in terms of past "contributions"--indeed, contributions to "national development," which supposedly occurred prior to the nation, in fact, prior to "development" itself. Caribs are memory, and sacrifice, part of the long and painful quest to achieve national independence--it is a laudable, even heroic theme, but it is also nostalgic and abandons Trinidad's Amerindians to history, speaking of Caribs today as "descendants."

(For those of you who may be asking if Dookeran is East Indian, one can only say he is a "descendant.")

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News about Trinidad's Caribs and the State

In an article in Trinidad and Tobago's Newsday, "Carib leader snubs COP" (by Irene Medina, Wednesday, June 13, 2007), the following extract is worthy of note. It concerns the work of a government-appointed Amerindian Projects Committee, which was formally (re)instituted in September of 2006:

a Cabinet-appointed committee to look into issues affecting indigenous people, submitted its first draft report to the Minister of Community Development, Culture and Gender Affair Joan Yuille-Williams for Cabinet’s consideration. The Committee, which is being chaired by Museum Curator Val Lewis is also looking into the issues of a public holiday for the Carib community next year and the issuance of a parcel of land. Lewis told Newsday: “We have made a number of recommendations that would improve the Carib communities generally throughout the country. Some of these include documenting the story of the Amerindians, immediate steps to protect archaeological sites and protection of medicinal herbs.” Lewis said talks have already been held with the Central Statistical Office (CSO) to identify the Caribs by name in the next census and that concerns were raised about the use of the Carib name as a product brand. He said three members of the Carib Community were on this committee and some major developments may be coming for the group.

Several elements of this story are noteworthy, some of which I have underlined in the passage above. The first has to do with the fact that the government appointed a museum curator to head the committee, which reflects the usual positioning of indigenous issues in Trinidad within the framework of history, archaeology, and the display of relics of a folk culture. This is not-so-subtle way for the government to suggest that indigeneity in Trinidad is shrouded in pastness, is not part of contemporary experience, and is to be managed by non-indigenous experts of the distant Amerindian past. The good news is that this is an orthodox position: for readers who may not be familiar with the writings of French sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu, orthodox views are articulated in defense of a position, precisely because that position is under question and open to contestation. In the absence of questioning, where domination proceeds unchallenged, there is no need to convert everyday assumptions into hardened ideology. That the existence of this orthodoxy--Caribs are relics of the past--has come into being reveals an unsteady state, and what is typical of unsteady states is moments of confusion and contradiction in official positions.

Thus, as if to contradict relegating Caribs to the dusty covers of history books, the article above tells us that now the Central Statistical Office may be planning to include a "Carib" category on the next census, something that seems to follow on the heels of an article published in this blog before the news above was made public (see: "Does Trinidad Recognize its Indigenous People?"). This is good news, and the effect of this inclusion may help to revolutionize the ways that Trinidadians self-identify.

What might seem more problematic is the notion presented in the article above that the government would improve the position of "Carib communities...throught the country": Who will do the identifying? What are the criteria they will use for indentifying these communities as "Carib communities"? What do they mean by community? What if persons who self-identify as Carib are not members of any kind of formal, identifiable structure that could be called a community? Indeed, it is arguable that were it not for the Mission, and the Santa Rosa Festival, there might not have been a Carib community in Arima itself, which is quite far from saying that, therefore, no self-identifying Caribs would have existed in Arima.

Also surprising is the news that a "public holiday" may now be established for the Caribs, something they have not requested. They have requested land, for decades now, and much further in the past as well, and there really is little excuse for not having granted any. What makes the ongoing stalling of a land grant all the more remarkable is that the head of the Carib Community, Ricardo Bharath Hernandez, is a devoted member of the ruling People's National Movement, which has been in power for most of Trinidad's history since Independence (coincidentally, to be commemorated on today's date). The article from which the extract above was taken is in fact primarily about Bharath refusing to attend a "heritage dinner" for indigenous people hosted by the opposition Congress of the People. As stated in the article:

“I would have gone in the interest of indigenous people but I felt it was inappropriate to attend that particular function in this, an election year. I did not want anyone to be unsure about where my allegiance is,” he said. Bharath-Hernandez added he was all for the development and upliftment of the indigenous people, but being a member of the PNM, felt attending wouldhave been a conflict of interest. He said he had written the COP declining the invitation.

One doubts that anyone will question Bharath's allegiance to the PNM. The question is whether the ruling party has shown sufficient reciprocal allegiance to the Caribs.

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Carib Santa Rosa Festival 2007

Photo of the Carib section of the procession for the August 26, 2007, Santa Rosa Festival in Arima. Holding the banner is Cristo Adonis, and behind him is Ricardo Bharath Hernandez.

For last year's Santa Rosa Festival, I wrote one main essay on what transpired at the event, and I can say I will not be doing an encore. I wanted only to bring attention to some aspects that were salient to me, and once again I was fortunate to have listened to the complete proceedings over the Internet on I95.5 FM.

The proceedings for this year seemed to transpire at a rapid pace, and even the radio coverage was one hour shorter than last year's, with the radio announcer seemingly in a big hurry to get to the next program. The chief celebrant was the Papal Nuncio to the Antilles, which is an interesting choice given the degree of outrage expressed by indigenous persons across the Americas over the Pope's recent remarks that criticized indigenous religious revivals, while praising the purifying role of the Catholic Church. The main theme of this year's event appeared to be "social justice." The radio narrators themselves spoken solemnly, and quoted heavily from the mid-19th century text by L.A.A. De Verteuil, where he spoke of Santa Rosa festivals he had witnessed as a youth. The radio narrators were impressed with the degree of continuity, a comment unfortunately made right after a quote from De Verteuil that on this day the Amerindians would forget their servitude.

What was also striking is the amount of resources and organization invested by the Church in this event: a medical vehicle to follow the procession, police and marshals, water stations for those on the procession, and of course the media coverage itself, the giant flat screen used to convey the mass to those outside of the church, and so forth.

Also of interest to me is that the order of the procession has been changed in recent years. The Carib Community was once third in line, behind the acolytes, and behind the priests and members of the Arima Borough Council. Now only the acolytes lead, followed by the Carib Queen, followed by the Carib Community, then followed by the rest. Why this has changed is an interesting question, and one can speculate that past discussions, and critical comments, sometimes made in the presence of those connected to the church, could have had some impact.

For those interested in hearing the English language portion of Ricardo Bharath's very interesting prayer at the mass, please click here (opens a new window).

The website of the Santa Rosa Carib Community can be accessed by clicking here (also opens a new window).

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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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