Since I'd had no idea that there were Caribs in Trinidad

[the_future_modernes]

Here's a 2009 article: Forgetting the Caribs of Trinidad

A stream of newspaper articles, and public comments on their contents, have been published over the past six months in Trinidad's Guardian newspaper. It has been a while since I have had a chance to cover the latest news, as reported by the media. Though not unexpected, some of the news is very striking about the degree to which the indigenous Caribs of Trinidad are suppressed, even while supposedly being celebrated, and forgotten even as they are commemorated. It seems that the authorities and elites in Trinidad are not content with any display of Caribness that goes beyond superficial performances and outright simulation. To some extent, the organized body of Caribs, the Santa Rosa Carib Community, is also responsible for buying into that system of official diversity management, whereby select groups are trotted out solely for the purpose of public performance, as if they were barely living, quasi-archaeological artifacts dancing in the state's cultural showcase. Now it seems that they are growing increasingly upset with the superficiality of the attention paid to them, but have not yet devised a strategy that does anything other than produce more of the same: more commemorations in place of any real transformation.

Mockery and Superficiality at the 5th Summit of the Americas

Let us begin with this year's Fifth Summit of the Americas (see also on Twitter). The first in a series of articles that touched on the Carib "presence" at the 5th Summit was Foreign delegates to get taste of local culture, by Michelle Loubon (3 April 2009). There is no note of potential controversy -- on the contrary, it seems that some much needed post-colonial revision will be presented:

In history classes, children learn that before Columbus came, T&T was inhabited by the Caribs and Arawaks. This is followed by the description of the Caribs as ‘warlike’ and the Arawaks as ‘peaceful.’ The Arawaks were decimated, but there remains a strong Carib community in the town of Arima—which diligently celebrates the Feast of Santa Rosa every year. For the 2009 Summit of the Americas, visiting US president Barack Obama and the other dignitaries will get a cultural history lesson on these indigenous peoples from reigning bandleader Brian Mac Farlane.

MORE

I remember those history classes. I didn't realize that Caribs and Arawaks still existed still until Pirates of the Caribbeans fucked up a couple of years ago.

Comments

[willow]

I... how could you not know?! You know me! I've mentioned this stuff! I'm fairly certain I've mentioned it. The Black Caribs of Brazil (on a reservation) and how I feel uncomfortable talking about Carib culture since I don't think blood (genetics) is culture - not when I'd seen how hard those who're trying to maintain a community have to fight to be remembered and losing their elders and the same 'basketweaving and feathers of the past' shite with the occasional beauty pageant...

I'm not blaming you, I'm just kind of throwing my hands up in the air.

Also in primacy school the general thing is Arawaks were peaceful and Caribs were 'warlike'. Then I got older and at some point learned that Caribs were aggressive isolationists and Arawaks were peaceful expansionists and technically the women of both tribes were their own tribe and it all wasn't as simple as primary school.

But just... Really? Pirates of the Caribbean?

[the_future_modernes]

I... how could you not know?! You know me! I've mentioned this stuff! I'm fairly certain I've mentioned it.

I missed those posts. Because most of the stuff I've read from you talks about your family and your illnesses and stuff, I knew you were from Trinidad, I didn't know your ancestry.

The Black Caribs of Brazil (on a reservation) and how I feel uncomfortable talking about Carib culture since I don't think blood (genetics) is culture - not when I'd seen how hard those who're trying to maintain a community have to fight to be remembered and losing their elders and the same 'basketweaving and feathers of the past' shite with the occasional beauty pageant...

This? Is brand new information to me. I remember delux_vivens writing something about the Arawaks in Puerto Rico a couple of years ago...and thats how I found out that they hadn't all been killed by Columbus. Because thats what my history book told me. And their issues do not turn up on the news. I mean, you're talking to someone who didn't realise that there were black people in Cuba until I was 11 or 12 because thats when the Sunday Gleaner did a feature on them. Because all the news I'd ever seen featuring Cuban refugees and exiles showed whites. Period. I mean, there's a reason why I stopped studying Caribbean history after I took my GCE's and thats because the story goes like this: There were Amerindians. The Arawaks were peaceful the Caribs were warlike and possibly cannibals. (Or was that just a pirates of the Caribbean thing? Its been a while...) Then Columbus killed them off. Then slavery. Slave revolts. The Maroons. Then Emancipation. Oh and we got independence in the 60s or whatever. That was my history. GCE history was studying slavery indepth. Nothing about the political issues after independence. Nothing about anything else beyond slavery. If you know how much I envied the Europeans because goddammit their history had something else besides goddamn rape and murder and suffering. Maybe if I went to college down there I would have realized that there was much much more to the story. But I couldn't afford it. So.


Then I got older and at some point learned that Caribs were aggressive isolationists and Arawaks were peaceful expansionists and technically the women of both tribes were their own tribe and it all wasn't as simple as primary school.

*blink* WHAT now? Do you have any book recs, if you don't mind? Cause basically if I heard about the Arawaks at all it was in context of archaeology. They had gods called zemis, played some kind of ball game, made turtle soup. And got killed by the Caribs. And then completely slaughtered by the Spaniards. Though maybe they may have intermarried with the Maroons. And these were from books written for the Caribbean-based exam. Which was replacing the GCEs because they wanted to put more emphasis on Caribbean history as opposed to British ideas of Caribbean history, or whatever the excuse was. Maybe its better now?

[willow]

I may have to ask my father, cause I can't remember. What I know may be a product of being a child of two university students and spending time in their classrooms. Also my father's crushing moment in school, when 'The Savior Of The Amerindians' was revealed to have only 'saved' them by promoting slavery, because negroes were sturdier. It was just about the time black educators in the caribbean (or at least Trinidad) were switching over to texts written by them from a post colonial perspective. He's relayed that to me.

I haven't really thought much about what it meant to sit in in university as a small child and what I picked up in a 70's, early 80's college environment.

I always think I don't know enough about my culture, not having lived in the country for so many years, but apparently there are things you pick up that you aren't aware you've picked up.

As for the Caribs being cannibals, there's a special word for it that I forget now, but I think the Europeans got the cannibalism due a ritual partaking of the ashes of the respected/especially honored dead; there are a few South American Amazonian tribes who practiced the same thing. But I could be getting my tribal info mixed up - because there was cross cultural exchange between, like Seminoles, Arawaks, Caribs and a couple of Amazonian tribes.

From what you're saying, when my father was young, there was a switch to less British ideas of history, and then somehow it switched back and then it's switched back again?

PS:

[willow]

And yes, during cultural holidays etc, there's usually a booth or area set up for the Caribs; and they have traditional clothing, and they show basket and mat weaving and carving and stuff like that. With nothing about who and what they are in present day - which is part of the reason I understand the erasure mentioned by US NDNs, from a perspective at least, when the story is always 'They all died out' mixed with 'And this is how they lived'.

Because obviously to get to those festivals the Caribs in question had to ride in cars, and interact using phones etc...

Re: PS:

[the_future_modernes]

Oh yes. All those people with their primitive ways are great for tourism and a marker for How Far We Have Come TM. Of course they don't exist in the "modern world".

[the_future_modernes]

From what you're saying, when my father was young, there was a switch to less British ideas of history, and then somehow it switched back and then it's switched back again?

I think we are still struggling with ideas of who we are outside of the white gaze, exactly. Many of us still think in "white" ways, because we were educated by whites using white philosophies. We say "Out of many, one people" but I don't think a lot of people actually have thought about what it means to live that statement. I think there is a fuckload more decolonizing to do, especially with class being tracked so closely with race. And the politics. And American cable tv, which in my opinion is poisonous shite reinscribing awful ideas about race and class. People who are fighting stuff like this, like Carolyn Cooper, are making progress though. But its been against a buzzsaw of fighting from the middle and upper class. My parents were not happy with the idea of accessing more of their African heritage, and the idea of much redeeming being found therein. And a whole lot of people think like them. And stuff is percolating in the universities, but by the time I left high school, it still hadn't branched down too far down there, you see? And so people are so consumed with their own identities, that they don't have time for others. And then there is the commodifying of identities for tourism and other ways of making money. There is a lot of survival talk, a lot of political things turning on race and class and gender. I don't know, I haven't been there for years so I am sure stuff has changed. But when I think about what was going on that I was aware of when I was living there...

[willow]

Well damn, I am a child of the 70's then (Hippie University Child). It was all about Black Power when I was a child, except I didn't know it as such. It was all Black Professors, Black Speakers, African History, African Culture ans how it related to Caribbean culture... As a teenager, when I went back, I think I was busy remembering stuff and being confused by other stuff; like the Black vs Indian discrimination and slurs and jokes and stuff going on.

I do remember in Barbados, however, people were holding on to Britishisms and that method of class consciousness. And it's only today I have the words to explain that while I grew up bouncing between poor, working class and middle class, part of being Bajan (in my upbringing) was knowing how to class pass and codeswitch from poor to upperclass, specific emphasis on upperclass passing.

It was really hard to break out of that too, and I still end up getting dressed up to go pick up my mail from the box most days. Or check the weather at the gate. Because growing up it mattered and it's only as an adult I have the thoughts and comprehension as to why.

[the_future_modernes]

I visited Barbados once, and it was pointed out in the tourist materials that Barbados has tried to hold on to as much of its Britishness as possible. *shrugs* And that was a good thing to be proud of. My parents were about not being mistaken for lower class.