Au­gust 1—Start of San­ta Rosa Fes­ti­val to Au­gust 9—In­ter­na­tion­al Day of The World’s In­dige­nous Peo­ples.

Long be­fore Au­gust 1 was des­ig­nat­ed a Na­tion­al Hol­i­day in com­mem­o­ra­tion of the eman­ci­pa­tion from slav­ery, the San­ta Rosa Carib Com­mu­ni­ty (now known as the San­ta Rosa First Peo­ples Com­mu­ni­ty) ob­served the day as the start of prepa­ra­tions for the Fes­ti­val of San­ta Rosa.

Tra­di­tion­al­ly, a conch shell was sound­ed at 6 am on Au­gust 1, which was re­al­ly a sig­nal to the first peo­ples, that the month of Au­gust had be­gun, and they are re­mind­ed through the sound of the conch shell that they should gath­er to be­gin prepa­ra­tions for the fes­ti­val. Sub­se­quent to the use of the conch shell, a “mock blast” of the can­non do­nat­ed by Gov­er­nor Hol­lis to re­place the conch shell, was in­tro­duced.

The cer­e­mo­ni­al ob­ser­vance for Au­gust 1 is usu­al­ly at 6am, fol­lowed by the tra­di­tion­al in­dige­nous cer­e­mo­ny, which in­cludes rit­u­als us­ing the five el­e­ments of na­ture and oth­er in­dige­nous in­gre­di­ents to of­fer prayers to the Great Spir­it. These rit­u­als are done with chants, song and prayers.

Af­ter the rit­u­als, a com­mu­nal break­fast is shared among the par­tic­i­pants. A date is an­nounced when the com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers would meet to out­line the work sched­ule to­wards the ma­jor fes­ti­val at the end of Au­gust.

This year will be the sec­ond year that the “mock blast” oc­curred on the First Peo­ples Her­itage Vil­lage Site. Due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, the cer­e­monies will be lim­it­ed in keep­ing with the Min­istry of Health Pro­to­cols.

Fol­low­ing on the heels of the first ac­tiv­i­ty of our In­dige­nous/First Peo­ples Com­mu­ni­ty, is an­oth­er im­por­tant day for In­dige­nous Peo­ples—not on­ly lo­cal­ly, but world­wide.

In 1994, the Unit­ed Na­tions de­clared that Au­gust 9 would be ob­served an­nu­al­ly as the In­ter­na­tion­al Day of the World’s In­dige­nous Peo­ples. The day pro­vides an op­por­tu­ni­ty for in­dige­nous peo­ples to re­flect up­on their re­spec­tive sit­u­a­tions. This year’s theme is “Leav­ing no one be­hind: In­dige­nous Peo­ples and the call for a new so­cial con­tract.”

It is against this back­ground that I would like to take our read­ers on a lit­tle jour­ney start­ing with the mis­sion in Ari­ma, which was first es­tab­lished in 1749.

Note that I am start­ing my nar­ra­tive from a cer­tain pe­ri­od in his­to­ry, and will not at this time re­flect on the nu­mer­ous atroc­i­ties com­mit­ted against our in­dige­nous an­ces­tors.

This mis­sion last­ed for just 30 years be­cause the mis­sion­ar­ies had cer­tain dif­fi­cul­ties—as his­to­ry tells us—fi­nan­cial and some re­sis­tance from the Nepuyo na­tion who lived in spo­radic set­tle­ments in the area.

How­ev­er, a sec­ond at­tempt was made in 1785, which saw the Amerindi­ans, as they were al­so called, be­ing moved from the en­comien­das at Cau­ra, Tacarigua and St Au­gus­tine to Ari­ma—their new home in the Mis­sion of San­ta Rosa. There was an al­lo­ca­tion of 1,000 acres of land for the “In­di­an Mis­sion,” to which 320 acres were sub­se­quent­ly added. All these lands were tak­en way un­der the British oc­cu­pa­tion, leav­ing the In­dige­nous Peo­ples land­less in their own land—a grave in­jus­tice to the In­dige­nous Peo­ples that is yet to be cor­rect­ed.

In spite of these set­backs, the in­dige­nous peo­ples and their de­scen­dants con­tin­ued to cel­e­brate the Catholic Feast of San­ta Rosa, adding their dis­tinc­tive in­dige­nous flavour to the fes­tiv­i­ties. For more than 200 years, these cel­e­bra­tions served as the ve­hi­cle that kept the in­dige­nous peo­ples in Ari­ma and the en­vi­rons to­geth­er, and pro­vid­ed the space for the re­ten­tion of as­pects of the in­dige­nous cul­tur­al her­itage.

Many peo­ple have asked this ques­tion—“What hap­pened to the in­dige­nous peo­ple at the time of In­de­pen­dence in 1962?” The an­swer is that the in­dige­nous com­mu­ni­ty was so dom­i­nat­ed by the Church and new teach­ings, that their lead­ers at that time were seen as just in­signif­i­cant, sym­bols of a peo­ple, stripped of au­thor­i­ty, with no re­al com­mu­ni­ty. So con­trary to the words of the Na­tion­al An­them, the lead­ers of the In­de­pen­dence Move­ment did not place the in­dige­nous peo­ples with pre-em­i­nence as a spe­cial sec­tor of the pop­u­la­tion, to be treat­ed with rights as first cit­i­zens of the soon to be in­de­pen­dent twin-is­land state.

Even the Re­pub­li­can Con­sti­tu­tion did not cor­rect this wrong prin­ci­ple that con­tributed to the in­vis­i­bil­i­ty of the first peo­ples.

With a resur­gence among the in­dige­nous peo­ples that start­ed in the 1970’s, not on­ly in Trinidad and To­ba­go, but world­wide, the in­dige­nous peo­ples be­gan to as­sess their sit­u­a­tions and start­ed move­ments to bring about so­cial jus­tice. With an aware­ness of their iden­ti­ty, in­dige­nous peo­ples be­gan to ag­i­tate for im­proved con­di­tions for them­selves, and re­spect as in­dige­nous com­mu­ni­ties.

Imag­ine that when our com­mu­ni­ty want­ed our own head­quar­ters from which to op­er­ate, and ap­proached the church for a space to erect a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre we were told that we had to reg­is­ter as a “Body” in or­der to be al­lowed land for the pur­pose. This was Mis­sion lands be­long­ing to the in­dige­nous peo­ples, as in­di­cat­ed ear­li­er, when the Mis­sion was set up!

The mon­ey for the reg­is­tra­tion was $250, which the com­mu­ni­ty did not have. It was the First Prime Min­is­ter who con­sid­ered our plight, and au­tho­rised a grant of $250 for the stamp du­ty to reg­is­ter the com­pa­ny.

Since then, the com­mu­ni­ty has lob­bied suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments for some form of recog­ni­tion to take our peo­ple for­ward. It has been a long road, but we have made strides un­der suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments, and con­tin­ue our lob­by for the es­tab­lish­ment of the First Peo­ples Her­itage Vil­lage which is in the mak­ing for over 20 years.

One may ask—“What is this “Her­itage Vil­lage?”

It is a space to prac­tice and pro­mote as­pects of our in­dige­nous her­itage:

• a space that will serve as the head­quar­ters for in­dige­nous con­ti­nu­ity

• a space where peo­ple of in­dige­nous de­scent can iden­ti­fy and feel a sense of pride in know­ing that the coun­try recog­nis­es the con­tri­bu­tion of our first peo­ples, and seeks to en­sure its con­ti­nu­ity by de­vel­op­ing this space as a liv­ing ex­am­ple of our in­dige­nous peo­ples pres­ence.

It is im­por­tant to us be­cause we see that all oth­er eth­nic­i­ties, who came af­ter us have se­cured spaces and mon­u­ments, not on­ly to re­mind of their re­spec­tive cul­tures, but to en­sure their pres­ence and sig­nif­i­cance for years to come. In the light of this, the First Peo­ples must not be left be­hind.

We have been able to start some as­pects of the Vil­lage with a small Grant from UN­ESCO of US$26,000, equiv­a­lent to TT$173,000. Much more needs to be done to bring this First Phase of de­vel­op­ment to com­ple­tion. Here I must note with deep grat­i­tude and ap­pre­ci­a­tion that the Ari­ma Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion through its May­or and Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer have giv­en tech­ni­cal in-kind sup­port to our work. Our thanks al­so go out to the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fense Force, 1st En­gi­neer Bat­tal­ion, Cu­mu­to, who gave of their ex­per­tise at the start of the project. We are en­coun­ter­ing some dif­fi­cul­ty in achiev­ing our goal be­cause of lack of our own funds, de­pen­dence on the gov­ern­ment sys­tems, and the bu­reau­cra­cy en­coun­tered in try­ing to move for­ward. What is need­ed here is a se­ri­ous gov­ern­ment in­ter­ven­tion to take up this project to­geth­er with the in­dige­nous peo­ples, to give our sec­tor of the pop­u­la­tion the recog­ni­tion it de­serves.

When the first “Cab­i­net ap­point­ed Com­mit­tee” was es­tab­lished in 1990, it was with the in­ten­tion to look at the is­sues af­fect­ing the in­dige­nous peo­ples, with the aim of ad­dress­ing the is­sues, and see­ing how the needs are to be met. How­ev­er, as with every­thing, time pass­es and so do peo­ple; and if per­sons on the com­mit­tee change and oth­ers who come do not have the com­mit­tee’s goals at heart, no progress is made.

The pro­posed Her­itage Vil­lage is to be done over a phased ba­sis, but if the 1st Phase can be re­alised, it will serve as a cat­a­lyst for the de­vel­op­ment of the oth­er four phas­es. The Her­itage Vil­lage is not for the sole ben­e­fit of the in­dige­nous peo­ples, but for the Na­tion in that it will serve as an ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tion for the wider pop­u­la­tion. It will serve as a re­source for pri­ma­ry, sec­ondary and ter­tiary lev­el stu­dents who seek in­for­ma­tion on the in­dige­nous peo­ples of their coun­try. It will cre­ate job op­por­tu­ni­ties not on­ly for the in­dige­nous peo­ples, but for those who are in­ter­est­ed in learn­ing about our cul­ture, in the ar­eas of craft, food, agri­cul­ture and preser­va­tion of the en­vi­ron­ment.

With­out such an es­tab­lish­ment for the in­dige­nous peo­ples, soon­er than lat­er, all as­pects of our cul­ture will be lost, be­cause it is dif­fi­cult to pre­serve such a her­itage in the wider dom­i­nant cul­tures of oth­er eth­nic­i­ties.

Gov­ern­ments who have signed on to the Unit­ed Na­tions De­c­la­ra­tion on the Rights of In­dige­nous Peo­ples have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to work more close­ly with in­dige­nous peo­ples so that they can achieve the goals they have set for them­selves.

Cristo Adonis Pyai

Suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments have con­tributed to the gains we have made over the years:

1990-

• Recog­ni­tion of the Com­mu­ni­ty as the le­git­i­mate rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the in­dige­nous peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

1992-

• Host­ed the ‘first gath­er­ing’ of in­dige­nous peo­ples of the Caribbean (COIP) - St Vin­cent, Do­mini­ca, Guyana, Suri­name part­ly fund­ed by OAS.

1993-

• Host­ed the “sec­ond gath­er­ing of COIP”.

• Re­ceipt of the Na­tion­al Award “Cha­co­nia Medal” (sil­ver) for ‘con­tri­bu­tion to cul­ture and com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice’

1997-

• De­cem­ber - At­tend­ed an in­dige­nous con­fer­ence in Bara­coa, Cu­ba. Es­tab­lished links with the Cari­dad do los In­dios. Re-es­tab­lished links with the Tain­os di­as­po­ra there.

2000-

• Grant­i­ng by the State of a Day of Recog­ni­tion to the First Peo­ples of Trinidad and To­ba­go

2010-

• Restora­tion of five acres of land by the state to the San­ta Rosa First Peo­ples Com­mu­ni­ty

2011-

• Change, by the gov­ern­ment of the orig­i­nal five acres to a 25-acre par­cel with­in the For­est Re­serves at the foothills of the North­ern Range Ari­ma (Cal­vary)

• Al­lo­ca­tion of ini­tial fund­ing from the Pub­lic Sec­tor In­vest­ment Pro­gramme (PSIP 2011-2012) for the de­vel­op­ment of the land, which was nev­er re­leased.

2012-

• Cel­e­brat­ed The San­ta Rosa Fes­ti­val and 12th An­nu­al ‘Her­itage Week’ of ac­tiv­i­ties

• In­vesti­ture of a new cer­e­mo­ni­al San­ta Rosa Queen, Jen­nifer Cas­sar fol­low­ing the pass­ing of the for­mer Queen Valenti­na “Mavis” Med­i­na.

2013:

• Com­menced ne­go­ti­a­tions with the State to de­ter­mine an ap­pro­pri­ate method for han­dling the dis­cov­ery of skele­tal re­mains (dat­ing from 450AD) and arte­facts from on- go­ing ex­ca­va­tions un­der the Red House.

• Prepa­ra­tion of a Mas­ter Plan and Busi­ness Plan for the de­vel­op­ment of the Amerindi­an Vil­lage on the iden­ti­fied par­cel of lands when it is made avail­able and ac­ces­si­ble to the com­mu­ni­ty.

• Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of sa­cred places and spaces of In­dige­nous im­por­tance and their re­spec­tive ap­pro­pri­ate sig­nage.

2015

• School Chil­dren’s Ral­ly dur­ing First Peo­ples Her­itage Week

2017

• Cel­e­bra­tion of “One-Off” Pub­lic Hol­i­day un­der the Theme “On Be­com­ing Vis­i­ble To­wards Mean­ing­ful Recog­ni­tion”.

2018

• Hand over of Lease for the 25 acres of land on 9th Au­gust the In­ter­na­tion­al Year of the World’s In­dige­nous Peo­ple.

2019

• Com­ple­tion of the Mas­ter Plan and prepa­ra­tion of a strat­e­gy for re­source mo­bi­liza­tion for the First Peo­ples Her­itage Vil­lage.

We were com­fort­ed by the great trib­ute giv­en to us by the Prime Min­is­ter who vis­it­ed us, one year ago on the an­niver­sary of the In­ter­na­tion­al Day of the World’s In­dige­nous Peo­ples on 9th Au­gust – on the eve of the Gen­er­al Elec­tions. It shows a lev­el of com­mit­ment by the Leader of the coun­try. What is need­ed is for those who are be­hind the wheels of the sys­tem, to put a lit­tle more oil to en­able smooth op­er­a­tion of their ef­forts.

We con­tin­ue to send our prayers to the Great Spir­it seek­ing a spir­i­tu­al in­ter­ven­tion for those in au­thor­i­ty to be in­fused with the en­er­gy to make things hap­pen.

Peo­ple may say that “the in­dige­nous peo­ple are wiped out, or in mu­se­ums and sto­ry books. How­ev­er, the de­scen­dants of the orig­i­nal peo­ples in­hab­it ar­eas all over the coun­try. Every­where we find re­mains or arte­facts of our in­dige­nous peo­ples, they are speak­ing to us and re­mind­ing us of their oc­cu­pa­tion of this land and what is owed to their de­scen­dants. On 21st Ju­ly, 2021, a dai­ly news­pa­per car­ried an ar­ti­cle on in­dige­nous stone ax­es found at “the Quinam Beach where there was once an Amerindi­an set­tle­ment”.

In this con­nec­tion we would like to bring your at­ten­tion to the plight of the Na­tive Peo­ples in British Co­lum­bia, Cana­da when the bod­ies of more than 160 in­dige­nous chil­dren were dis­cov­ered in shal­low graves, dur­ing ex­ca­va­tions. These chil­dren were torn from their par­ents and home­lands to board­ing schools, where the many atroc­i­ties met­ed out to them, led to the death of many. Re­cent­ly, we saw the emo­tion of those di­rect­ly af­fect­ed by the at­tempt­ed Coup on 27th Ju­ly, 1990. It is sim­i­lar pain in­dige­nous peo­ples world­wide feel when atroc­i­ties against them are re­vealed, be­cause all have gone through sim­i­lar ex­pe­ri­ences. At the re­bur­ial of the in­dige­nous hu­man re­mains at the Red house in Oc­to­ber, 2019, we made a call for the erec­tion of a Mon­u­ment to the First Peo­ples on that site.

We con­tin­ue to hear calls for the re­moval of sym­bols and mon­u­ments of the colo­nial past, and while that can be jus­ti­fied, these ac­tions can­not be tak­en in iso­la­tion. As one colo­nial sym­bol is re­moved, it must be re­placed to rep­re­sent our cul­tures of to­day, but must start with the in­dige­nous peo­ples. Our po­si­tion re­mains that pulling down a stat­ue is worth­less to the First Peo­ples un­less tan­gi­ble ac­tions fol­low to our ben­e­fit.

At the re­gion­al lev­el the ef­forts of the in­dige­nous peo­ples in our quest for so­cial jus­tice have not gone un­no­ticed.

Dur­ing the 34th Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go on Ju­ly 15, 2013, CARI­COM Heads ex­pressed unan­i­mous sup­port for an ini­tia­tive to en­gage the Unit­ed King­dom, France and Hol­land on the is­sue of Repa­ra­tions for Na­tive Geno­cide and African En­slave­ment.

The 10-point Plan for Repara­to­ry Jus­tice pro­pos­es at Point 3, the es­tab­lish­ment of an “In­dige­nous Peo­ples De­vel­op­ment Pro­gram, since “Sur­vivors re­main trau­ma­tized, land­less, and are the most mar­gin­al­ized so­cial group with­in the re­gion”.

CARI­COM has placed it­self on the right side of his­to­ry in the pur­suit of jus­tice and heal­ing for vic­tims and sur­vivors of the atroc­i­ties of na­tive geno­cide and slav­ery in the Caribbean.

How do we go about achiev­ing this goal?

In ob­serv­ing the de­ter­mined ac­tions of the first peo­ples in de­fend­ing their home­land, one Writer, as far back as 1776 was con­vinced that “A coura­geous Chief on­ly is want­ed”, mean­ing that coura­geous chiefs are re­quired as change agents. We call on the coura­geous lead­ers in rel­e­vant sec­tions of this sys­tem, to as­sist us in our fight for so­cial jus­tice.

Our An­ces­tors paid the price. Let us now stand tall on their shoul­ders and move for­ward to the recog­ni­tion and de­vel­op­ment that is long over­due.

It was Pro­fes­sor Brins­ley Sama­roo who, as a Chief in his pro­fes­sion, gave us this most coura­geous state­ment in recog­ni­tion of the con­tri­bu­tion of the in­dige­nous/First Peo­ples: “The root of Caribbean civ­i­liza­tion lies in the phys­i­cal and spir­i­tu­al prepa­ra­tions laid down by those who were the first ex­plor­ers of the en­vi­ron­ment. This we must nev­er for­get.”

May the Great Spir­it Tamushi Aday­ali Wachi­nachi and those of our an­cient an­ces­tors con­tin­ue to bless us all and this land Kairi – Trinidad and To­ba­go –the heart stone of our world view. May the Great Spir­it lift the scourge of this COVID-19 Pan­dem­ic, from this land, and re­place it with heal­ing of dis­eases of the body, mind and soul, as well as Re­spect for Moth­er Earth and the el­e­ments which nour­ish us.

Ri­car­do Bharath Her­nan­dez

Chief

San­ta Rosa First Peo­ples Com­mu­ni­ty