Michelle Loubon

Clutch­ing tiny wo­ven cane bas­kets filled with red and pink flow­ers, Carib de­scen­dant Tra­cy Kim Ass­ing joined the San­ta Rosa pa­rade, through the Bor­ough of Ari­ma. She dropped del­i­cate hi­bis­cus and rose blos­soms for her late aunt, Carib queen Valenti­na Med­i­na to trod up­on. The San­ta Rosa Carib Com­mu­ni­ty is the last re­main­ing or­gan­ised group of peo­ple iden­ti­fy­ing with an Amerindi­an iden­ti­ty and way of life. At Ari­ma Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary School, she learned Caribs and Arawaks had been dec­i­mat­ed by los con­quis­ta­dores who came in search of El Do­ra­do. At eight, she had made a con­crete de­ci­sion to stop par­tic­i­pat­ing in the fes­ti­val. Dur­ing her stint as As­sis­tant Ed­i­tor Caribbean Beat, she doc­u­ment­ed it in an es­say The Long Walk Home (Ju­ly/Au­gust 2005).

Ass­ing said: "Even at that age I re­alised that the sto­ry of its ori­gin might have been on­ly as re­al as the tales that cap­tured my imag­i­na­tion in the books of Enid Bly­ton. Ques­tions about my her­itage would on­ly mul­ti­ply as I grew old­er, and I found there were many in­stances of writ­ten his­to­ry con­tra­dict­ing the things I'd come to be­lieve as life-prac­tices." True to form, Ass­ing kept pon­der­ing about her an­ces­tors and First Na­tion Peo­ples. She took it up­on her­self to cre­ate a film-The Amerindi­ans-which sought to ad­dress some of these burn­ing ques­tions. Ass­ing, a for­mer Guardian fea­ture writer, re­lied up­on her jour­nal­is­tic skills and nat­ur­al cu­rios­i­ty. Ass­ing, 36, shared her in­spi­ra­tion for The Amerindi­ans. She re­alised she had to tell the sto­ry of her peo­ple for pos­ter­i­ty. Ass­ing said: "The me­dia do not recog­nise us much. Ex­cept for the Day of Recog­ni­tion (Oc­to­ber) and the San­ta Rosa Fes­ti­val (Au­gust). In the 70s and 80s, there were fair­ly reg­u­lar sto­ries about what we were do­ing."

Ass­ing added: "The film start­ed with ques­tions. I grew up in the Carib Com­mu­ni­ty. I went to school at Ari­ma Sec­ondary. I was taught the Caribs and Arawaks had been dec­i­mat­ed. But I was still alive. I was of Carib an­ces­try. I won­dered whether we did eat peo­ple. Do we eat peo­ple? I would ask my par­ents...I thought I would ask my priest (Fr Chris­t­ian Per­reira)." She lament­ed the Carib com­mu­ni­ty was fac­ing a sense of ero­sion. Ass­ing added: "Where was the sense of iden­ti­ty...the sense some­body could ap­ply. Young peo­ple start­ed to dis­tance them­selves from 'what it is to be Carib'. The word Carib be­came com­mer­cialised. A beer is a Carib." Ques­tions as­sailed her. "They may not have been Carib or any tribe called Carib. There were a num­ber of tribes. Peo­ple were put in­to mis­sions." Mis­ce­gena­tion had tak­en place with­in the Carib com­mu­ni­ty, too. As she em­barked up­on the odyssey, Ass­ing had tete-a-tete with ar­chae­ol­o­gist Dr Basil Reid, em­i­nent his­to­ri­an Prof Brid­get Br­ere­ton and her late great aunt Carib queen Valenti­na Med­i­na.

Ku­dos to Ask­ia Amon-Ra

When The Amerindi­ans pre­miered at the 2010 Film Fes­ti­val, Ass­ing ded­i­cat­ed it to her for­mer His­to­ry teacher Ask­ia Amon-Ra at Ari­ma Sec­ondary School. He had built a for­mi­da­ble rep­u­ta­tion as a teacher who got full CXC His­to­ry pass­es and en­cour­aged his stu­dents to love his­to­ry. Ass­ing has read for His­to­ry at CXC lev­el, but she did not read for a de­gree. Yet the lack of ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion did not hin­der her from cre­at­ing The Amerindi­ans. "I ded­i­cat­ed the film to Ask­ia Amon-Ra. He was re­spon­si­ble for in­still­ing that search of iden­ti­ty. "It is one of the rea­sons I ded­i­cat­ed the film to him. He en­cour­aged us not to just ac­cept what was writ­ten but to seek the truth."

Chal­leng­ing ques­tions

As she con­tin­ued to un­earth the truths, Ass­ing said: "I did get a lot of an­swers. In the in­ter­views, peo­ple were hon­est aca­d­e­mics. They were ex­cit­ed about my ques­tions." While Ass­ing was re­luc­tant to let the cat out of the bag com­plete­ly, she not­ed the film ex­plored ques­tions re­lat­ed to the San­ta Rosa Fes­ti­val and Amerindi­an life in an era gone by. She asked: "Did they find a stat­ue in the for­est?" Fr Per­reira gave an in­ter­est­ing an­swer. She turned to her aunt Valenti­na Med­i­na, fond­ly known as Aun­ty Mavis. "What makes a queen?" she asked. She even re­mem­bered the sto­ries her grand­fa­ther, the late John Ass­ing had told her. Ass­ing said: "I talked to them about their child­hood. How did they know they were in­dige­nous? They said "they just knew they were in­dige­nous." They set their sto­ry in Cau­ra and Paria and work­ing on the co­coa plan­ta­tions. Great Cau­ra was peo­pled by a tribe from Venezuela." Ass­ing added: "In­dige­nous peo­ple sailed down the Coo­ra Riv­er in Venezuela and set­tled in Cau­ra. They fash­ioned their bows and ar­rows to catch fish. They used the spokes of bi­cy­cle wheels to make spears. They used a lot of bush med­i­cine." As the sto­ry­line un­fold­ed, Ass­ing said: "I be­came aware of my her­itage."

The Amerindi­ans doc­u­ment

Ass­ing paid ku­dos to Car­la Foder­ing­ham and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Film Com­pa­ny for their in­put in­to The Amerindi­ans. She said: "It has the dis­tinc­tion of be­ing one of the few films cho­sen by every film sta­tion." Ass­ing's ace ef­fort didn't go un­no­ticed. Guardian's ed­i­to­r­i­al (May 2) salut­ed Ass­ing's ef­forts. An ex­cerpt said: "The young film­mak­er cre­at­ed an im­por­tant doc­u­ment in the nar­ra­tive of the First Peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, whose his­to­ry lives on large­ly in the sto­ries passed on from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion, un­doc­u­ment­ed by the many con­querors who came to this is­land. It added: "The for­ma­tion of the Carib San­ta Rosa Com­mu­ni­ty in 1974 has been an ef­fort at not just stak­ing a claim on that kind of mem­o­ry, but an at­tempt at knit­ting the sto­ries of the re­gion in­to a larg­er his­to­ry and cul­tur­al archive as that or­gan­i­sa­tion has reached out to sur­viv­ing Amerindi­an tribes in the re­gion." While salut­ing her ef­forts, the ed­i­to­r­i­al warned time was against them. It said: "Gath­er­ing these sto­ries and re­build­ing the rich, nat­ur­al nar­ra­tive of the lifestyles and his­to­ry of the first in­hab­i­tants of Trinidad and To­ba­go is the on­ly way to pro­vide a re­al al­ter­na­tive to the read­i­ly con­sumed temp­ta­tions avail­able in the at­trac­tive­ly pack­aged fic­tions of for­eign en­ter­tain­ment. These are not sim­ple mat­ters, and time is against the el­ders of the Carib com­mu­ni­ty. En­cour­ag­ing and sup­port­ing ef­forts of lo­cal doc­u­men­tar­i­ans to pre­serve the his­to­ry and tra­di­tions of the old­est el­e­ments of our his­to­ry in mod­ern me­dia should be the first point of in­ter­ven­tion by the Min­istry of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism (led by Win­ston Pe­ters) in ad­vanc­ing the fu­ture of the lo­cal Carib com­mu­ni­ty."

Amerindi­ans in T&T

Amerindi­an peo­ples have ex­ist­ed in Trinidad for as long as 6,000 years be­fore the ar­rival of Colum­bus, and num­bered at least 40,000 at the time of Span­ish set­tle­ment in 1592. All of Trinidad was pop­u­lat­ed by sev­er­al tribes, Trinidad be­ing a tran­sit point in the Caribbean net­work of Amerindi­an trade and ex­change. Amerindi­an tribes were re­ferred to by var­i­ous names: Yaio, Nepuyo, Chaima, Warao, Kalipuna, Carine­pogo­to, Gari­ni, Aru­a­ca. Amerindi­an words and place names sur­vive in­to the present: the Ca­roni and Oropouche rivers; the Tamana and Aripo moun­tains; places such as Ari­ma, Paria, Arou­ca, Cau­ra, Tu­na­puna, Tacarigua, Cou­va, Mu­cu­rapo, Ch­agua­nas, Cara­pichaima, Guaico, Ma­yaro, Guayagua­yare. Trinidad's Amerindi­ans formed part of large re­gion­al is­land-to-is­land and is­land-to-main­land trad­ing net­works; the Warao of Venezuela, who still ex­ist, were fre­quent vis­i­tors un­til on­ly re­cent times.

The Amerindi­ans de­vel­oped the ca­noe, the bow and ar­row, and the ajoupa. Amerindi­an cui­sine is en­joyed by many Trinida­di­ans: Cas­sa­va bread and Farine; Warap; bar­be­cued wild game; corn pastelles; cof­fee; co­coa; chadon beni. The Amerindi­ans al­so gave Trinidad and To­ba­go its first ma­jor re­bel­lion in the name of free­dom: the Are­na up­ris­ing of 1699. In 1783 Trinidad's Amerindi­ans were dis­placed from their lands to make way for the in­flux of French planters and their African slaves. In 1759 the Mis­sion of Ari­ma was formed, con­sol­i­dat­ed and en­larged in 1785, and the Amerindi­ans were to have had con­trol of 2,000 acres of land. A num­ber of tribes were pressed in­to Ari­ma, most­ly Nepuyo, and gener­i­cal­ly re­ferred to as ei­ther "Caribe" or "In­dio"-Ari­ma was the last Mis­sion Town.

Parang, util­is­ing both Span­ish and Amerindi­an mu­si­cal in­stru­ments, emerged from the evan­ge­li­sa­tion of the Amerindi­ans. The Caribs in Ari­ma, con­vert­ed to Catholi­cism, were led by a Tit­u­lar Queen.

The his­to­ries of ma­jor towns such as Ari­ma and Siparia, two large for­mer Amerindi­an Mis­sion Towns, have giv­en us Trinidad's two old­est fes­ti­vals: The San­ta Rosa Fes­ti­val of Ari­ma, and La Div­ina Pas­to­ra in Siparia. At least 12,000 peo­ple in North­east Trinidad are of Amerindi­an de­scent. (Tak­en from the San­ta Rosa Carib Com­munty Web site)

About the film­mak­er

Ass­ing has been in­vit­ed to speak at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, Cana­da. Ass­ing, who was Ed­i­tor of Dis­cov­er T&T for three years, is cur­rent­ly con­sid­er­ing tak­ing it to the US and Caribbean. She is al­so con­sid­er­ing a se­quel The Herbal­ist. Ass­ing said: "If young peo­ple took to the medi­um of film, they would spend less time view­ing and film­ing vi­o­lence. Less time with porn. They would check out 'Where do um­brel­las come from? Why does granny drink vervine tea?' "The coun­try is full of rich sto­ries. Ex­plor­ing sto­ries on film is a means of doc­u­ment­ing cul­ture. Cul­ture is every­thing." Ass­ing is sign­ing a dis­tri­b­u­tion deal with a New York-based com­pa­ny, Third World News Reel-which spe­cialis­es in ed­u­ca­tion­al films.

It can be viewed on Face­book and some videos can be seen on Ass­ing's site, Trini­WildIn­di­an.