An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh

This past week, a gi­ant cei­ba of great age top­pled on the slopes of Pic­ton in Laven­tille, caus­ing dam­age to a home and in­jury to a per­son. It had been revered for gen­er­a­tions as the fo­cal point of mag­ic and obeah.The mighty cei­ba or silk cot­ton tree (Cei­ba pen­tan­dra) has been part of folk­lore and tra­di­tion since pre-Colom­bian times in T&T. Like the Meso-Amer­i­can so­ci­eties of Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, the first peo­ples of Kairi (Trinidad) be­lieved that spir­its resided in this colos­sus of the for­est (al­so called the Kapok).Near Erin Bay on the south coast of the is­land, there ex­ist­ed from 500 AD, a large Amerindi­an set­tle­ment. Crown­ing the ridge above the vil­lage was a huge cei­ba. This tree fell over dur­ing a se­vere rain­storm near­ly two decades ago. In the earth thrown up by its ex­posed roots was a trea­sure trove of pot­sherds, shell­fish re­mains and rude stone tools which in­di­cat­ed that pos­si­bly the tree was the fo­cal point of de­vo­tions.

Near what is now Port-of-Spain, there ex­ist­ed an Amerindi­an vil­lage called Cu-Mu­cu­rapo or "Place of the Silk Cot­ton Trees." It was at this spot in 1533 that the first peo­ples band­ed to­geth­er and ex­pelled the con­quis­ta­dor, An­to­nio Sede­no who had tried to es­tab­lish a stock­ade and thus a toe­hold in the is­land. The African slaves who suc­ceed­ed the Amerindi­ans as the op­pressed peo­ple of the is­land treat­ed the cei­ba with a healthy re­spect amount­ing to fear as Charles Kings­ley wrote of their de­scen­dants in 1870:"The Ne­gros spare, when­ev­er they can, the gi­gan­tic ceibas, or silk cot­ton trees. These lat­ter are use­less as tim­ber; and their roots are, of course, hurt­ful to the canes. But the Ne­gro is shy of felling the cei­ba. It is a mag­ic tree, haunt­ed by spir­its. There are 'too much jumbies in him,' the Ne­gro says; and of those who dare to cut him down some one will die, or come to harm with­in the year.

"In Ja­maica, says my friend Mr Gosse, 'they be­lieve that if a per­son throws a stone at the trunk, he will be vis­it­ed with sick­ness or oth­er mis­for­tune. When they in­tend to cut one down, they first pour rum at the root as a pro­pi­tia­to­ry of­fer­ing.' The Ja­maica Ne­gro, how­ev­er, fells them for ca­noes, the wood be­ing soft and eas­i­ly hol­lowed. But here, as in De­mer­ara, the trees are left stand­ing about in cane-pieces and pas­tures to de­cay in­to aw­ful and fan­tas­tic shapes."Strange­ly enough, it has been dis­cov­ered in An­go­la–the on­ly species of the Cac­tus tribe in the Old World."The healthy fear with which the Afro-Trinida­di­an held the cei­ba was trans­ferred to his In­do coun­ter­parts. Near Debe, there were sev­er­al huge spec­i­mens stand­ing like wild sen­tries amid the wav­ing sug­ar­cane fields. One in par­tic­u­lar has long been steeped in lore as a place where buried trea­sure was hid­den–a hoard which is pro­tect­ed by the ghost of a Span­ish man in a broad hat which is seen from time to time.

In Moru­ga, there is an­oth­er which rears its stark branch­es high on a small moun­tain. The huge but­tress roots with the dark spaces in be­tween (some as large as a room) are be­lieved to be an en­trance to the un­der­world and the home of many nether-world­ly crea­tures in­clud­ing a jumbie. Douens are ap­par­ent­ly seen amongst the roots as well. In­deed, some spec­u­lat­ed that silk cot­ton trees were seen as an un­der­world en­trance by the First Peo­ples as well.At the junc­tion of Bel­mont Cir­cu­lar Road and Queen's Park East, a ma­jes­tic cei­ba stood for eons, pre-dat­ing the Eu­ro­pean set­tle­ment of the is­land. Its spread­ing crown bore wit­ness to the felling of its fel­lows to make way for cul­ti­va­tion of sug­ar cane on the Peschi­er fam­i­ly's Par­adise Es­tate, and then the sale of this land in 1817 to Gov­er­nor Sir Ralph Wood­ford who laid out the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah and the Botan­i­cal Gar­dens.

The great tree saw the lay­ing of tram­lines as Bel­mont grew from a mys­ti­cal place where proud Ra­da com­munes sound­ed the drums of Africa in­to a mid­dle-class sub­urb with quaint gin­ger­bread hous­es.This tree that had be­come a land­mark for so many fi­nal­ly died and fell in 2012 since over the years, a va­grant had cho­sen the space among its roots as an abode and con­stant­ly lit fires which took its toll on the gi­ant.This icon be­came the sym­bol and name­sake of the long­stand­ing Cot­ton Tree Foun­da­tion which was found­ed as a char­i­ta­ble or­gan­i­sa­tion to help dis­ad­van­taged peo­ple in the dis­trict.