Cassava plant for Arima's Carib village.

Cassava plant for Arima's Carib village.
By Louis B Homer
Trinidad Express Newspapers | Feb 24, 2013 at 10:52 PM ECT

A cassava-processing plant to produce and market indigenous cassava products is expected to be installed on the proposed site of the Amerindian village at Arima.

It will be part of the total development of the village, said Minister Clifton De Coteau, Minister of National Diversity and Social Integration

The Carib Community met with Minister De Coteau last week to confirm plans for the survey of the lands as well as other matters affecting the community last Thursday, at the Ministry in Port of Spain.

The group was led by Ricardo Bharath, president of the Carib Community, and Carib queen Jennifer Cassar.

De Coteau said, "The plant will be an integral part of the development of the 25-acre site aimed at the development of heritage tourism in Trinidad, as well as creating sustainable communities in the country."

The Santa Rosa Carib Community is soon to establish the village on lands granted to them on the Blanchisseuse Road.

The group was incorporated as a company in 1973 to preserve the culture of the Caribs of Arima and to maintain their role in the annual Santa Rosa Festival.

The village will provide an authentic Amerindian experience for visitors and will serve as a formal meeting place for both local and Amerindian peoples.

De Coteau advised the delegation to submit their plans for the Santa Rosa Festival as well as the annual heritage fair within two weeks so that favourable financial assistance would be given to the organisation.

After discussions with the group it was decided that a formal visit will be made to the site on March 6, when the community will be expected to conduct a hands-on discussion on the way forward.

Gli Gli News from Aragorn Dick-Read

With reference to the 10th anniversary sailing of the Gli Gli Carib Canoe, Aragorn Dick-Read informs the CAC that his team is putting together a booklet about the Gli Gli, outlining the goals of the trip along with general information on the Carib cultural legacy in the region.

The goals of the project, aside from sailing the Gli Gli through the Leeward islands to the British Virigin Islands, are to bring, as he says, "a bit of 'Caribness' to these islands, both as a reminder to the people of the past as well as a recognition of Carib cultural survival or resurgence."

The Gli Gli crew will bring with them basket makers, canoe builders, calabash carvers, drummers, singers, flute and banjo players, and a dancer. They also plan to perform some cassava bread making in each island. The group as a whole consists of 14 people, ranging from elders to those in their early 20's, including three father-son pairs and one father-daughter pair. All of this takes placed under the intellectual leadership of Paulinus Frederick, the head drummer and spokesperson.

The team anticipates forming something of a flotilla of support as they move up the islands. They are filming the whole event as well.

Untold Origins -- Caribbean Indigenous Museum Exhibition

"Untold Origins," an exhibition dedicated to indigenous Caribbean heritage and identity, took place under the auspices of the Cuming Museum in Southwark, London, from October 19, 2004 to February 26, 2005.

The Cuming Museum sought to challenge several myths of Caribbean history, such as those of the cannibalistic Caribs eating their way through docile Arawak communities, or those pertaining to the often repeated notion that indigenous peoples in the Caribbean are extinct. In this vein, the organizers of the exhibition explain, "the Cuming Museum wanted to explore their survival in more depth and to discover whether there are any echoes of indigenous culture surviving in Southwark's Caribbean culture today." The Untold Origins exhibition was originally presented for Black History Month in 2004. It sought to explore "the untold history of the indigenous people of the Caribbean and their contribution to the Caribbean culture of today." An attempt was made to join reflection of Caribbean indigenous survival with contemporary ways of making sense of one's identity, and how movement and cross-cultural contact could affect the process of making one's identity.

The Cuming Museum has since decided to provide online the various photographs and information boards that were used for the exhibition, for the sake of those who could not have been present.

These materials include the following:

• The tradition of cassava production (1mb)
• Untold Origins introduction (742kb)
• The Schomburgk collection (624kb)
• History of migration from South America (165kb)
• The shared culture (152kb)
• Women’s' role in indigenous culture (1mb)
• The impact of European contact and conquest (280kb)
• Resistance and survival (280kb)
• The indigenous craft tradition (96kb)
• Indigenous contributions to Caribbean culture today (96kb)
• The continuity of Caribbean indigenous people (196kb)
• The gli-gli carib canoe project (136kb)
• Useful websites and references (1mb)

Please click here to go to the original site for the exhibition.