Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

?In­dige­nous peo­ple have called on the Gov­ern­ment to give them a one-time pub­lic hol­i­day as they cel­e­brat­ed Amerindi­an Day last Wednes­day. Af­ter dawn, the in­dige­nous com­mu­ni­ty held a rit­u­al cer­e­mo­ny at the mon­u­ment area of the Ari­ma Sa­van­nah, where they paid trib­ute to their an­ces­tors who were killed by the Span­ish con­quis­ta­dores in the 16th cen­tu­ry. Fol­low­ing the cer­e­mo­ny, chief/ pres­i­dent of the San­ta Rosa Carib Com­mu­ni­ty Ri­car­do Barat Fer­nan­dez led his peo­ple in a street pro­ces­sion through Ari­ma. Spec­ta­tors stopped to en­quire about the cel­e­bra­tion and many ex­pressed in­ter­est in know­ing about the his­to­ry of the in­dige­nous peo­ple.

Chief re­sponds

In an in­ter­view, Fer­nan­dez said a pub­lic hol­i­day should be giv­en by the Gov­ern­ment to ho­n­our the con­tri­bu­tion of the Amerindi­ans. "Peo­ple are not aware of our his­to­ry and that is why we need a pub­lic hol­i­day. We can even have a one-off pub­lic hol­i­day. Peo­ple are work­ing and busy and it's dif­fi­cult to reach them so that they could sup­port this. The in­dige­nous her­itage needs a pub­lic hol­i­day or a one off, so the coun­try can stop and recog­nise our in­dige­nous past," Fer­nan­dez said. He said if a pub­lic hol­i­day was giv­en, the Carib com­mu­ni­ty could or­gan­ise a her­itage day.

The Carib chief al­so said T&T could learn a lot from the lega­cy of the Amerindi­an peo­ple, as they prac­tised con­ser­va­tion and re­spect for life. "We know that they prac­tised con­ser­va­tion in the way they treat­ed the forests. They did not de­stroy the forests. They hunt­ed enough to feed them­selves. They al­so had knowl­edge on the med­i­c­i­nal val­ue of plants, as well as a strong, vi­brant agri­cul­tur­al tra­di­tion," Fer­nan­dez said. He ex­plained that peo­ple could al­so learn from the be­lief sys­tems of the Amerindi­ans, as they ho­n­oured their an­ces­tors and showed re­spect for fam­i­ly life.

Preser­va­tion of his­to­ry

Fer­nan­dez said some in­dige­nous in­stru­ments were still be­ing used with­in the Carib com­mu­ni­ty to­day. "Some peo­ple have lost in­ter­est in some of the tra­di­tion­al uten­sils but we still use the couleve, a long wo­ven bas­ket to strain the bit­ter cas­sa­va," Fer­nan­dez said. Fer­nan­dez said the in­dige­nous his­to­ry was rich and need­ed to be pre­served.