Yvonne Webb

?In­dige­nous peo­ple from Ari­ma, Guyana and Suri­name, wear­ing their na­tive dress, cre­at­ed quite a stir on Tues­day when they blessed the grounds on St Vin­cent Street, San Fer­nan­do, be­lieved to be a for­mer Amerindi­an bur­ial ground.

The site is un­der con­struc­tion for a $7 mil­lion state-of-the-art com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre in the San Fer­nan­do West con­stituen­cy. Some stake­hold­ers have raised ob­jec­tions to the con­struc­tion on sa­cred grounds. Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and Gen­der Af­fairs, Ju­nia Re­grel­lo, said there was no ev­i­dence that it was an Amerindi­an bur­ial ground, but in the face of con­cerns raised, the project was tem­po­rary halt­ed to un­der­take an in­ves­ti­ga­tion to see how au­then­tic the claims were.

Af­ter con­sul­ta­tion with the Amerindi­an com­mu­ni­ty, they agreed to bless the site so work could pro­ceed. "We don't want to of­fend any com­mu­ni­ty," Re­grel­lo said.

Work is ex­pect­ed to re­sume to­day, he added. Led by Chief Ri­car­do Bharat-Her­nan­dez, the Amerindi­ans called on the great Spir­its to con­se­crate the grounds and for­give any dis­rup­tions which may have been caused by the con­struc­tion. Vis­it­ing High Priest from Suri­name Harold Taweroe, al­so led a song and dance around a con­tain­er filled with dirt, and a half of a cal­abash filled with wa­ter, as the Na­tive In­di­ans smoked their peace pipe and shook their chac-chacs to com­plete the rit­u­al. Bharat-Her­nan­dez, Deputy May­or of Ari­ma, said the site, on which a bas­ket­ball court was present­ly con­struct­ed, may have been an Amerindi­an ceme­tery. "I have asked for ev­i­dence, but no one could give that ev­i­dence. Bur­ial grounds are very sa­cred, and in the ab­sence of con­crete ev­i­dence, we per­formed a sim­ple rit­u­al, as if it were a bur­ial ground, to ap­pease the Spir­its and ask the cre­ator to bless what is hap­pen­ing here now," he said.

Bharat-Her­nan­dez said the First Peo­ple had no in­ten­tion of stop­ping any de­vel­op­ment of the com­mu­ni­ty. He said he was hap­py to hear Re­grel­lo say they were about putting peo­ple first and his in­ten­tion to cre­ate a shrine or spe­cial place to pre­serve what­ev­er re­mains or arte­facts they may find. Bharat-Her­nan­dez al­so used the op­por­tu­ni­ty to call on gov­ern­ment to recog­nise the First Peo­ple and put them in their right­ful place. He said all of the oth­er peo­ple who came to T&T has been recog­nised in many ways, but the First Peo­ple, in spite of their con­tri­bu­tion, had not. "Here we are con­cerned about the re­mains of our an­ces­tors, but we have liv­ing in­dige­nous peo­ple across the world and in our re­gion and we are in a strug­gle for mean­ing­ful recog­ni­tion." He said with­out that recog­ni­tion, a very im­por­tant cul­tur­al her­itage would be lost. "The Min­is­ter said we put peo­ple first, well I want to tell him to put the First Peo­ple in their right­ful po­si­tion," he said.