Michelle Loubon

Craft, in­dige­nous cui­sine, bas­ketry and tra­di­tion­al vest­ments took cen­tre stage as the Carib com­mu­ni­ty cel­e­brat­ed Amerindi­an Her­itage Day in the precincts of the San­ta Rosa RC Church, Ari­ma, on Fri­day. The cul­tur­al ex­trav­a­gan­za fea­tured May­pole danc­ing, drum­ming, singing, chant­i­ng and the play­ing of wood­en mu­si­cal in­stru­ments. The cel­e­bra­tions be­gan at pre-dawn with a smoke sig­nal cer­e­mo­ny at the base of the Hyari­ma stat­ue. Among those at­tend­ing were con­tin­gents of Suri­namese, Do­mini­can and Guyanese Amerindi­ans. They added their lo­cal arts and craft to the cul­tur­al pot­pour­ri. Amerindi­an vis­i­tors field­ed ques­tions about the mores, cus­toms and folk tra­di­tions of the Amerindi­an.

On Thurs­day, San­ta Rosa Carib queen Jen­nifer Cas­sar said Amerindi­an Her­itage Day was cel­e­brat­ed to re­mind in­dige­nous peo­ple about the con­tri­bu­tion of an­ces­tors of First Na­tion peo­ples. She said: "We can­not get a hol­i­day so it is a day to re­mind us of our an­ces­tors who were there be­fore us and to sen­si­tise us to the con­tri­bu­tion of our an­ces­tors. That is the on­ly day we have at this point to com­mem­o­rate the mem­o­ry of most of our an­ces­tors and ex­hib­it the lo­cal craft." Spe­cial trib­ute was paid to trib­al queen Hum­ming­bird Ramirez from Mi­a­mi, USA. Mem­bers of the Or­isha move­ment were al­so in at­ten­dance.

Apart from the San­ta Rosa ac­tiv­i­ty, events were launched at the Ari­ma Town Hall. School chil­dren from the com­mu­ni­ty learned about the con­tri­bu­tion of First Na­tion peo­ples. Cana­di­an High Com­mis­sion­er Karen Mc Don­ald al­so host­ed the con­tin­gents at a Cana­da spon­sored Cul­ture of the Cloth ex­hi­bi­tion at the Na­tion­al Mu­se­um, Keate Street, Port-of-Spain on Wednes­day.

Pe­ters: They have con­tributed great­ly to so­ci­ety

In his con­grat­u­la­to­ry mes­sage, Pe­ters laud­ed First Na­tion peo­ples for their con­tri­bu­tion to T&T. He said: "The First Na­tion peo­ples have con­tributed great­ly to our mul­ti-cul­tur­al so­ci­ety. With their pres­ence, most ev­i­dent in our place names like Tu­na­puna, Ca­roni and Ch­agua­nas, we re­alise their con­tri­bu­tion to na­tion­al his­to­ry. I hope First Na­tion peo­ples would pass on their rich her­itage to the next gen­er­a­tion and the lega­cies would live on for­ev­er.

He not­ed the San­ta Rosa com­mu­ni­ty has been strug­gling as­sid­u­ous­ly to sta­bilise is­sues like land set­tle­ment, pro­tec­tion of sa­cred sites, rais­ing pub­lic aware­ness, pro­mot­ing ed­u­ca­tion, cur­ricu­lum re­vival and cul­tur­al ex­changes. Pe­ters urged them to con­tin­ue to ne­go­ti­ate out­comes for the ben­e­fit of the San­ta Rosa com­mu­ni­ty.