Michelle Loubon

Re­splen­dent in red, white and black vestal gar­ments, Carib queen Jen­nifer Cas­sar led the Ari­ma San­ta Rosa First Peo­ples Carib com­mu­ni­ty to the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (Na­pa), Keate Street, Port-of-Spain, on Thurs­day. Lo­cal Caribs were joined by their First Na­tion coun­ter­parts from Mi­a­mi, Do­mini­ca, Guyana and Suri­name. Oc­ca­sion was The In­dige­nous Con­cert which co­in­cid­ed with Amerindi­an Her­itage Day cel­e­bra­tions 2012.

Among those present were San­ta Rosa Carib chief Ri­car­do Bharath, shaman Cristo Ado­nis and Vel Lewis, chair of the Amerindi­an Project Com­mit­tee. It was held in con­junc­tion with the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Di­ver­si­ty and So­cial In­te­gra­tion and the San­ta Rosa com­mu­ni­ty. The high­light was the play I?Hyari­ma writ­ten by po­et Pearl Ein­tou Springer. Play­ing great Nepuyo war chief, Hyari­ma, thes­pi­an Bren­don La Caille brought the tale of Amerindi­an re­sis­tance to life. The cast in­clud­ed war­rior sto­ry tellers Make­si Al­ger­non and Gior­gion Gon­za­les, and Trin­i­ty Artiste Man­age­ment dance troupe.

Hun­dreds of chil­dren from about 20 pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools at­tend­ed the event. Among them were stu­dents from Ari­ma Boys' RC, East­ern Boys, Mor­vant An­gli­can and Tu­na­puna Sec­ondary. As the event un­furled, the chil­dren were ex­posed to a buf­fet of Amerindi­an cul­ture. The Guyanese con­tin­gent held a craft dis­play in the foy­er. Suri­name and Do­mini­ca sang songs com­ple­ment­ed by dru­mol­o­gy.

They were ex­posed to na­tive dress in the form of feath­ered head­pieces, ex­quis­ite hand­craft­ed neck­laces, red ros­es and em­broi­dered shawls. Af­ter the for­mal­i­ties, school­child­ren posed with lo­cal and Caribbean vis­i­tors. They were even more pleased to get a trin­ket from co-or­di­na­tor, Kam­lan Ale­ong. Lewis stressed the con­cert was di­dac­tic. "We want­ed to teach the chil­dren about Amerindi­an cul­ture. It was more than just en­ter­tain­ment. We had some chal­lenges. But we were pleased at the turnout. We had quite a num­ber of schools. We want to use this as a tem­plate to ed­u­cate chil­dren about the cul­ture and his­to­ry of First Na­tion Peo­ples." Cas­sar added,?"Hyari­ma was well-re­ceived. First time we were able to show­case our tal­ents at Na­pa."

First Na­tion peo­ples want more re­spect, recog­ni­tion

Among those who par­tic­i­pat­ed were Do­mini­ca's con­tin­gent leader Ger­ard Lan­ge­lais, Mi­a­mi Carib queen Cather­ine Hum­ming­bird Ramirez and Guyana's Hy­acinth Ruffi­no. Con­sen­sus was they felt land is­sues should be re­solved. They is­sued clar­i­on calls for gov­ern­ments to make a con­cert­ed ef­fort to pre­serve na­tive cul­ture and tra­di­tions.

Boast­ing he had been in­te­grat­ed in­to Ari­ma Carib com­mu­ni­ty since 1992, Lan­ge­lais, a mem­ber of the Kali­na­go tribe, said their reser­va­tion con­sist­ed of 3,900 acres of land. They had a chief and a min­is­ter of Carib Af­fairs (Ash­ton Gra­noau) who spear­head­ed a week of Kali­na­go cel­e­bra­tions.

Lan­ge­lais said,?"We are seek­ing more re­spect and more recog­ni­tion. We find lead­ers are ad­dress­ing the prob­lems of oth­er groups. Most of it re­lates to land. We want our lan­guage to be on the school cur­ricu­lum."

He prid­ed him­self First Na­tion Peo­ples have sur­vived 500 years of op­pres­sion. Ramirez added, "We must unite. The Eng­lish said we had been dec­i­mat­ed. But we are very much alive. We are ask­ing for land to plant our food so we can be self-suf­fi­cient. We want to pass on our cul­ture to our chil­dren. We want to take care of the en­vi­ron­ment. Some roots and sites are sa­cred."

She heaped prais­es on T&T "as a beau­ti­ful coun­try which was keep­ing the tra­di­tions like smoke cer­e­monies alive."

Guyana's Ruffi­no said she was pleased to share her knowl­edge of in­dige­nous foods (cas­sa­va) and crafts (hand-wo­ven fans). "But land is­sues have to be re­solved," she said. Ze­ro­ing on lo­cal land is­sues, Bharath said they were promised land at Blan­chisseuse Old Road, Ari­ma.

He said,?"Progress is be­ing made to­ward fi­nal­is­ing the arrange­ments. I?am op­ti­mistic we would have it fi­nalised. Work has been on­go­ing to make it a re­al­i­ty. We are hop­ing for mean­ing­ful recog­ni­tion."