The Santa Rosa Carib Community of Arima, Trinidad and Tobago: A Video Introduction

Carib Community of Arima, Trinidad and Tobago from Maximilian Forte on Vimeo.

This video introduction is the start of a long overdue series of video documentaries to come, this one focusing on photography and providing a condensed overview of the key themes in the history, politics, and culture of the Caribs of Arima, Trinidad. It also presents much of the material of what used to be available on the website of the Santa Rosa Carib Community, which has since expired and which has not yet been replaced by Indigenous members of the community (I am the former webmaster)--although it remains archived here. (In addition, see this tremendous effort to put material about the Carib Community online, by primary school students in Trinidad, hosted by the Ministry of Education.) With time, I will be posting the best of the materials from the former Carib Community website, so that they are still "active" online.

The video above is based on both ethnographic and historical research. The contents of the video are organized according to the following sections:

1. The Mission

The loss of lands under colonial rule; racism; displacement.

2. The So-called "Extinction"

How the Caribs were abolished by the stroke of a pen; historiography; stereotypes; censuses; "the only real Carib is a pure a Carib, and the only pure Carib is a dead Carib".

3. The Traditions

Loss of land, but perseverance of the essence of indigenous affectivity: belonging, Home. The mutation and multiplication of traditions: glimpsing what the Caribs mean by retained, maintained, and reclaimed traditions.

3-A. The Santa Rosa Festival

Processions. Gathering together.

3-B. Work duties for the Santa Rosa Festival

Carib labour; maintenance of a Carib hold on Trinidad's oldest public festival.

3-C. The Smoke Ceremony

Indigenous resurgence, reclamation, shamanism. Indigenous language reacquisition. Prayers.

4. The Resurgence

A focus on key actors in the Carib Community, and the role played by Indigenous Peoples outside of Trinidad who visit the Arima Caribs.

4-A. Chief Ricardo Bharath Hernandez

How he started the resurgence. Formation of the Santa Rosa Carib Community as a new organization. Being landless.

4-B. Shaman Cristo Adonis

The shaman is the one who sings--a short overview of Cristo Adonis' work in the community.

4-C. Carib Queen Justa Werges

Extensive quotations on the role and power of the Queen, the vision of Just Werges.

--Brief notes on other Carib Queens (in this video, a total of four appear: Maria Werges, Edith Martinez, Justa Werges, and Valentina Medina)

4-D. International Indigenous Connections

Selective, based on the photographs available: Assembly of First Nations of Canada, Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, Tainos, Australian Aboriginals, Dominica's Gli-Gli Carib Canoe, Guyanese weavers, Surinamese singers.

5. The Question of Recognition

The paradox of recognition as another act of dismissal. How the Caribs have been monumentalized, enshrined, museumized, and continue to be stereotyped and appropriated. The national mainstream media. State support and government recognition.

Yet, the state will only recognize one single organization, and only then after having pushed it to formally incorporate itself as a limited liability company, which is the legal status of the Santa Rosa Carib Community.

Funds provided to the Community are for the purposes of mounting shows and displays, not for the Community's own sustenance, to achieve self-reliance, for its own long-term benefit.

Recognizing only one organization, in one single place, as Carib means that all of the descendants of Trinidad's Indigenous Peoples, spread throughout the country, go unrecognized.

The Caribs have been boxed up. The state mounts an implausible explanation to the United Nations: that all Caribs died off, except for in Arima, only one of over a dozen mission towns to have existed.

If before the only real Carib was a pure Carib, and the only pure Carib was a dead Carib...today that has become:

"The only recognized Carib is an Arima Carib."

Otherwise, the state dares not to even speak the name Carib, Warao, Indigenous, Amerindian, or First Peoples on the national Census.

And so the struggle continues...

Closing with a collage of members of the Carib Community throughout history.

SANTA ROSA, by Melan Garcia

SANTA ROSA, by Melan Garcia from Maximilian Forte on Vimeo.

Lyrics (by Melan Garcia):

The Caribs are a peaceful people

This is what we know.

And Arima is the home of Caribs

From many years ago

Long ago.

So look back and I am sure that you will agree with me

That somewhere in your family you have Carib ancestry

Sing me with, now...

Santa Rosa

The feast that holds us all together.

Santa Rosa

Come sing you people from Arima.

Had it not been for the older folks

Then none of us would know

We wouldn't know...

Santa Rosa was found by three men

In that village called Pinto

In Pinto.

The three men were Raimundo, Punyan, and Puyon.

So now you see, my people, this is history put in song.

Sing along, with:

Santa Rosa

The feast that holds us all together.

Santa Rosa

Come sing you people from Arima.

Yes, we learned too that the hunter went back

To where the Saint was found

And on that very spot they found her necklace and her crown

And her crown...

The crown was made with roses of colours real distinct

That is why we use the colours of red, yellow, white, and pink.

What you think was...

Santa Rosa

The feast that holds us all together.

Santa Rosa

Come sing you people of Arima.

***** ***** ***** *****

Filmed by Maximilian Forte in September, 2006, at the cannon on Calvary Hill in Arima. The filming was done in late afternoon just as the sun was setting, and the camera faces south, overlooking the centre of Arima.

Melan Garcia, a well known parrandero from Calvary Hill in Arima, Trinidad and Tobago, in the past played with Los Tocadores and Rebuscar.

For many years he served as an Arima Borough Councillor, representing Calvary Hill, for the People's National Movement. He is also tied to the Carib Community and has Indigenous ancestry.

ARIMA WAS, by Melan Garcia

ARIMA WAS, by Melan Garcia from Maximilian Forte on Vimeo.

Lyrics (by Melan Garcia, originally transcribed by Guanaguanare)

In years gone by, this ent no lie

And I am sure you'll remember

Arima was a place with plenty water

We fertile soil, that and all spoil

We hardly getting good cassava

Quarries and farms polluting our rivers.

Chorus:

So let us try and see

If we could make Arima just like it used to be

Don't mind, don't mind, we population more

But is we, the Arimians, to make it like before

We have our duty to perform now because I'm sure

We'd like to see Arima just like Arima was. Woh oh ho

Yes, we have our duty to perform now because I'm sure

We'd like to see Arima just like Arima was.

The Spanish came and settled here

Along with peons from Venezuela

Together they did big plantations for we

Then came the French and Africans

Who accepted parcels of land

You see, Arima was always cosmopolitan. Yes, man!

1797 British came, planted their flag and left their name

In 1806 we got some Chinese too

East Indians joined up in the fun

Followed closely by the Syrians

That's true, Arima was one big pot of callaloo.

Chorus:

So let us try and see

If we could make Arima just like it used to be

Don't mind, don't mind, we population more

But is we, the Arimians, to make it like before

We have our duty to perform now because I'm sure

We'd like to see Arima just like Arima was. Woh oh oh

Yes, we have our duty to perform now because I'm sure

We'd like to see Arima just like Arima was.

Yes, Arima, this Easter star

Wallen bought a Dial and give her.

A gift you'll hardly find any other place

Them years ago was love for so,

But where the love gone, boy, I don't know

I think is since they open the Yankee base.

Oh, Arima, oh, Arima!

Like we heading for a disaster

I think is time we call upon The Master

Is endless crime, a waste of time!

Rape and robbery, even mass murder

Well, if it ent Sodom, well is Gomorrah.

Chorus:

So let us try and see

If we could make Arima just like it used to be

Don't mind, don't mind, we population more

But is we, the Arimians, to make it like before

We have our duty to perform now because I'm sure

We'd like to see Arima just like Arima was, Woh oh oh

Yes, we have our duty to perform now because I'm sure

We'd like to see Arima just like Arima was.

***** ***** ***** *****

Filmed by Maximilian Forte in September, 2006, at the cannon on Calvary Hill in Arima. The filming was done in late afternoon just as the sun was setting, and the camera faces south, overlooking the centre of Arima.

***** ***** ***** *****

Melan Garcia, a well known parrandero from Calvary Hill in Arima, Trinidad and Tobago, in the past played with Los Tocadores and Rebuscar. For many years he served as an Arima Borough Councillor, representing Calvary Hill, for the People's National Movement. He is also tied to the Carib Community and has Indigenous ancestry.

David Maybury-Lewis: Notes on the Abolition of the Indigenous

The following paragraphs come from the late David Maybury-Lewis, Harvard anthropologist, co-founder and director of Cultural Survival [(1993) A New World Dilemma: The Indian Question in the Americas. Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 46(7), pp. 44-59].

Regarding the vision of Latin American liberals:

"The liberals demanded freedom for all, including the Indians, but what they meant by this for the Indians was the freedom to cease being Indian altogether. They considered Indio a derogatory word and Indianness a stigma--a kind of royalist, conservative, ecclesiastical device for maintaining indigenous peoples in a state of savagery. In the liberal vision of the future there would be no more Indians; the very word would be prohibited. The new constitutions therefore promised freedom and equality for all, with no mention of the Indians and no special provisions for them. It was assumed that they would disappear into the mainstream" (p. 48).

The Americas as a vast laboratory for the eradication of the indigenous:

"...the Americas since the conquest have been a vast laboratory for the eradication of indigenous cultures. As one studies the record, one cannot help being struck by the effort and ingenuity devoted by the conquerors to this task. They attacked indigenous religions. They imposed forced labor of various kinds. They invented a whole series of ways to lure or trick those not already forced to work into peonage through debt (the debt could only be worked off-and only with difficulty). Here and there they simply abolished Indians by a stroke of the pen and followed that up by trying to break up indigenous communities. They took Indian children away from their parents, sometimes by force, to be educated in alien schools that taught them to despise the ways of their peoples and discouraged them from speaking their own languages. The assault on indigenous landholding makes for the most remarkable reading of all: it is clear that the invaders not only coveted and seized Indian lands whenever they could; they were also affronted by those peoples and communities that held their lands in common. The Europeans considered that concept the very essence of savagery, for it departed from the ideas of private property and individual title to land that were considered central to Western civilization. It was thus with a convenient conviction of moral superiority that the invaders constantly tried to break up the communal landholdings of the Indians" (pp. 50-51).

"Emancipated Indians" in Brazil:

"until recently the Brazilian government had an official policy of 'emancipating' the Indians. They were not held in servitude but were considered wards of the state. The only way the Indians could be emancipated, therefore, was if they legally gave up being considered Indian and were thus deprived of their indigenous identity" (p. 55).

Abolishing Indians, Since 1492:

"It is one of the many ironies of the American experience that the invaders created the category of Indians, imposed it on the inhabitants of the New World, and have been trying to abolish it ever since" (p. 55).

From Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, decrees of abolition, plans of eradication:

"In many countries it was decreed that Indians would no longer be referred to as Indios but would instead be called campesinos (peasants); Indianness was thus abolished by a stroke of the pen. In Chile, General Pinochet's government tried to destroy the identity of the large Mapuche (Araucanian) minority by forcing them to divide their lands into privately owned lots. Even the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, which is widely thought to be one of the more generous settlements made with indigenous peoples, was drafted to turn Indian communities into corporations and their members into stockholders. Future members of the community will not acquire stocks unless stocks are bequeathed to them by those who originally received them. Meanwhile, stocks can soon be given, willed, or sold to people who are not members of the communities. The effect of the act, if not its intention, is to provide a mechanism for phasing out the native communities altogether" (pp. 55-56).