Michelle Loubon

The late Carib queen, Valenti­na Ass­ing Med­i­na, had three wish­es. They were grant­ed. Pay­ing trib­ute to Med­i­na, her daugh­ter Loret­ta Med­i­na-Grant said, "She want­ed a pink rose in her hair. She al­so asked to see sev­er­al peo­ple in­clud­ing Sen­a­tor (Pen­ny) Beck­les (who read her eu­lo­gy), and Coun­cil­lor Mete­vi­er. She es­pe­cial­ly asked for Ms­gr Chris­t­ian Per­reira to do her ser­vice." The cel­e­bra­tion and thanks­giv­ing for the life of Med­i­na, fond­ly known as Mavis, took place at the San­ta Rosa RC Church, Ari­ma, on April 29. Among those present were act­ing Prime Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an, Min­is­ter of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Win­ston Pe­ters, and pres­i­dent of the San­ta Rosa Carib Com­mu­ni­ty Ri­car­do Bharath.

Lopinot/Bon Air West MP Dr Lin­coln Dou­glas and chair of the Amerindi­an Project Com­mit­tee Vel Lewis were al­so present. As a lagniappe, she was sent to the Great Spir­it via a tra­di­tion­al Amerindi­an cer­e­mo­ny at the near­by San­ta Rosa ceme­tery. Lead­ing the cortege, was flags­man Pe­ter Di­az. The strains of Pe­dro Leza­ma's sax­o­phone were re­placed by the in­fec­tious sounds of tra­di­tion­al parang which per­me­at­ed the land­mark kirk. From van­tage points at the San­ta Rosa park, mourn­ers, in­clud­ing film­mak­er and jour­nal­ist Tra­cy Ass­ing, watched the cel­e­bra­tion un­fold. Del­i­cate poui blos­soms formed a pur­ple car­pet clos­er to the boys' school. The cortege was en route to God's acre to bid their fi­nal rites to Med­i­na. An­oth­er fa­mous Arim­i­an, ca­lyp­son­ian Ald­wyn Roberts, fond­ly known as Lord Kitch­en­er, was buried there.

Clutch­ing palm fronds, mem­bers of the Carib clan decked in tra­di­tion­al vest­ments fol­lowed rev­er­ent­ly. Their pret­ty faces were wreathed in smiles. Re­tired Span­ish teacher at Ari­ma Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary School, Beryl Al­mar­ales, was spot­ted. She was joined by Jen­nifer Cas­sar, An­to­nia and Cather­ine Calderon, Maria Her­nan­dez and Mary Nor­eiga. El­ders, in­clud­ing Ra­mona Lopez and Met­ri­na Med­i­na, paid their fi­nal re­spects.

Even the men­folk such as Part­ners for the First Peo­ples, Roger Be­lix, donned waist­coats etched with bird fig­urines. As they wend­ed their way, tra­di­tion­al Ari­ma fam­i­lies like the Mar­tinez clan watched the pro­ces­sion from their home-which was a blend of moder­ni­ty and colo­nial ar­chi­tec­ture.

Amerindi­an cer­e­mo­ny send off

In the cool of the evening, Bharath and med­i­cine man or shaman, Cristo Ado­nis, of­fi­ci­at­ed at the smoke cer­e­mo­ny. They were as­sist­ed by her grand­son Zachary Med­i­na. Among those present were Ari­ma May­or Ghas­san Youseph, and Ari­ma MP Rodger Samuel. The aro­ma of for­est in­cense waft­ed. Mourn­ers coughed, and some re­treat­ed as the fire blazed. Un­der the boughs of a man­go tree, neigh­bours es­pied the re­li­gious spec­ta­cle. Quizzed on the cer­e­mo­ny, Bharath said, "It is a smoke rit­u­al. But it has dif­fer­ent com­po­nents to it. It is done in beg­ging for a re­quest from the Great Spir­it. It is done in thanks­giv­ing and at the death of some­one. De­pend­ing on the cer­e­mo­ny, you will use dif­fer­ent in­gre­di­ents. In the case of death, we used to­bac­co, in­cense and some med­i­c­i­nal herbs."

Dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ny, Bharath said, "We prayed to the Great Spir­it (Tamushi) to al­low the guardians of the four di­rec­tions to guide the soul of the de­part­ed to find rest and peace. It was sim­pler in the send off." As cus­to­di­ans of the en­vi­ron­ment, Bharath said he pre­pared the in­cense from trees grow­ing in the for­est. "We use what is in­dige­nous to the area. We get if from the gum trees in the for­est." Ear­li­er on, in his trib­ute, Bharath had lament­ed that sev­er­al tra­di­tions had died. "In the ear­li­er days, they would have placed tools or what the per­son used in life. "If it was a med­i­c­i­nal man, they would have put herbs. If it was a hunter, they would have put his bow and ar­row. They might have even put some food. But some of those tra­di­tions we don't prac­tice. The heavy tra­di­tions have died," he said. Af­ter the re­li­gious for­mal­i­ties, tra­di­tion­al paran­deros shook their chac chacs and strummed their gui­tars as they cel­e­brat­ed the life of a proud Arim­i­an, who was "hum­ble, ded­i­cat­ed, car­ing and lov­ing."

San­ta Rosa Fes­ti­val

Through­out her reign, she re­mained de­vot­ed to San­ta Rosa. Ac­com­pa­nied by Fa­ther Per­reira, Med­i­na led the pro­ces­sion through Ari­ma. The stat­ue of San­ta Rosa, was decked with rows of beau­ti­ful ros­es and a bou­quet of red ros­es, per­fect­ed by whites, pinks and yel­lows. The cel­e­brants sang hymns and chant­ed the Our Fa­ther. The Carib com­mu­ni­ty and oth­er par­tic­i­pants clutched trop­i­cal blooms like an­thuri­ums, gin­ger lilies and ros­es.

Carib strides

Dur­ing her tenure, the gov­ern­ment de­clared Oc­to­ber 14 as the of­fi­cial day of recog­ni­tion. In 2006, T&T was giv­en the chair­man­ship of the Re­gion­al Coun­cil of In­dige­nous Peo­ples. She ex­pressed grat­i­tude to Works Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er, George Hadeed and May­or Youseph for their as­sis­tance. Bharath said he re­gret­ted her pass­ing with­out wit­ness­ing the land han­dover. In a pre­vi­ous in­ter­view, (Au­gust 11, 2002) Med­i­na said: "If we get the land we will plant cas­sa­va, corn, too. "We want a place for agouti and deer to run. It will boost our her­itage and cul­ture. "We do not eat peo­ple-on­ly wild meat like agouti, deer and tat­too," she had joked.

About Valenti­na Med­i­na

Valenti­na Med­i­na lived at Wat­t­ley Street, Mt Pleas­ant, Ari­ma. In 2002, she was one of many in­dige­nous peo­ples cel­e­brat­ed by the Unit­ed Na­tions on In­ter­na­tion­al Day of the World's In­dige­nous Peo­ple. She was born to Clemen­cia Hale Ass­ing and Thomp­son Hale Ass­ing at Rapsey Street in Cau­ra. She was the wife of the late John Med­i­na. She was the moth­er of Loret­ta, Camilus, Oc­tave, Her­bert and Bernadette. Med­i­na grew up in Paria, a very pris­tine neck of the woods, in Ari­ma. She lived and worked there. She was Carib queen for 11 years. She felt it was a "spe­cial ex­pe­ri­ence to be queen of the Carib com­mu­ni­ty." She was elect­ed based on her knowl­edge and his­to­ry and tra­di­tions of the Carib com­mu­ni­ty. She was the fifth Carib queen in the his­to­ry of the San­ta Rosa Carib Com­mu­ni­ty.