Review of the Indigenous Caribbean: KACIKE

KACIKE: The Journal of Caribbean Amerindian History and Anthropology, was originally tied to the CAC. It no longer publishes, and has been archived--both here, and here. This was KACIKE's editorial statement, as published in 1999:

The modern world-system emerged with the expansion of Europe into the Caribbean. Similarly, Europe, as an idea and as a project, was constructed and reworked in light of the momentous encounters and relationships that occurred between European metropoles and their social institutions, economies, and agents and their counterparts among Caribbean Amerindian societies. It can be argued that Caribbean Amerindians also played central roles in either making or breaking European efforts at colonization in the Caribbean territories, especially those deemed to be of commercial value for their fertile soils and/or strategically placed in the quest for "El Dorado." Caribbean Amerindians, and especially the Caribs, whose name was once interchangeable with Cannibal and synonymous with anthropophagy, occupied the centre of European imaginations of the radically different Other.

Caribbean Amerindians were present in the range of European attempts at grappling with or constructing difference, whether the conceptions were of irreducible and cruel savages, or heroic warriors and noble inheritors of the soil. Europeans conquered Amerindian societies, worked with Amerindian polities, adopted Amerindian practices, commoditized and globalized the trade in Amerindian products such as cocoa and tobacco, forged new cultural formations with Caribbean Amerindians, married Caribbean Amerindians, settled in their villages, brought them back to Europe, painted Caribbean Amerindians, idealized them, wrote stories about them, and eventually even established institutions and territories designed to protect and preserve the last remaining "pure" Amerindians at the turn of the twentieth century.

Since the end of the 1980s, and especially throughout the 1990s, the public has witnessed a prominent revitalization of both Caribbean Amerindian communities located on reservations in Guyana and Dominica, settlements in Belize and St. Vincent, rural communities in Cuba, or the founding of new cultural organizations identifying with a Caribbean Amerindian heritage such as the Caribs of Trinidad and the various Taïno organizations of Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and the United States of America. In some cases, new groups have emerged that explore the Amerindian input and contribution in the makeup of rural communities such as the Guajiros of eastern Cuba or the Cocoa Panyols of northeastern Trinidad. As a result of these revivals, the last decade, since the late 1980s, has witnessed three large regional gatherings of Indigenous groups in Arima, Trinidad, the formation of the Caribbean Organization of Indigenous People, the attraction of serious attention from historians and anthropologists, and even the proud promotional efforts of states in the region where in many cases Amerindians had been conceived by influential nationalist intellectuals as the forebears of the modern nations of the region.

All of these developments have called forth a new and special resource dedicated to the understanding, presentation and explanation of these issues and subjects, that being KACIKE: Journal of Caribbean Amerindian History and Anthropology.

The publication of KACIKE: Journal of Caribbean Amerindian History and Anthropology, is motivated by a desire to correct the long standing impression that Caribbean Amerindians were either irrelevant to the making of the modern societies and cultural formations found in the Caribbean basin, merely mute witnesses to history, or that they have been altogether absent in post-colonial Caribbean history. In addition, KACIKE endeavours to counter the impression that there were few or no historical documents that inform us of Caribbean Amerindian societies, groups, individuals, or lifeways, or that they were produced entirely by naive individuals guided solely by superficial and predetermined impressions or by agendas so sinister that absolutely nothing of importance is to be learned. Hence this journal features a historical dimension to the study of Caribbean Amerindian society and culture, extending before 1492 and after.

The publication of KACIKE: Journal of Caribbean Amerindian History and Anthropology, was also motivated by the perceived need to gather ongoing research and writing on Caribbean Amerindians, in one primary forum. Over the centuries, and with especial intensity in the last decades, volumes of work have appeared on various aspects of Caribbean Amerindian societies and cultures. The large number of researchers dedicated to this field -- anthropologists, archaeologists and historians -- seems to mandate the creation of a journal such as this one, specializing in bringing forth such research. In the meantime, many older and sometimes obscure sources are often poorly distributed and thus not available for use by researchers without some difficulty. It is the intent of this journal to also seek permission to publish reprints of important historical accounts or contemporary ethnographic work that has hitherto been inadequately disseminated. In addition, this journal will also endeavour to present invaluable research resources to current researchers, in the form of research bibliographies and other data collections. With time, as the Internet continues to grow in size and sophistication (from the academic standpoint), many of our publications will be able to utilize hypertext links to connect readers with other important sources that either are or will be available on the Internet, somewhat facilitating the research review process.

In addition, KACIKE's publication was motivated by a reaction against the prejudice that sees contemporary organizations and communities identifying with a Caribbean Amerindian heritage as either insignificant, not "authentic," or not worthy of study. Indeed, it is the aim of this journal to show that much can be learned about colonial and modern Caribbean society, the construction of indigeneity, the concept of tradition, political economy, globalization and the production of locality, and the transnational rearticulation of identities through the very challenging and complex lens of the Caribbean Amerindian presence, regardless of what one may think of such communities and groups. It is also true that to a large extent Caribbean Amerindian groups and communities have been part of the creolization process, hence the Editors also feature articles that discuss particular creole cultural formations or processes that involve and incorporate Amerindian peoples and practices to some extent, whether these be foods, linguistic variants, local architecture, music, medicine, myths and legends, agricultural practices, and so forth. The Editors of KACIKE believe that until thorough, comprehensive and probing studies of this realm of Caribbean society are well advanced, we cannot truly understand nor grasp the actual depth and complexity of Caribbean society, nor can we appreciate the range of expressions of indigeneity in the contemporary world.

The Editors of KACIKE welcome any contributions from authors that either add to, extend, modify or even reject the perspective and the arguments contained in this statement, and those that simply endeavour to present new information.

Maximilian C. Forte

Founding Editor

Arima,

Trinidad,

09-09-1999.

KACIKE: Journal of Caribbean Amerindian History and Anthropology

is an internationally registered journal:

International Standard Serial Number ISSN 1562-5028,

offering peer reviewed articles and managed by an international editorial board.

The original place of publication, defined as the place from where uploads are made to an electronic site, is

Arima, Trinidad and Tobago.

Subsequent places of publication include: