The San­ta Rosa First Peo­ples Com­mu­ni­ty is de­mand­ing re­spect from cit­i­zens who con­tin­ue to la­bel their cer­e­mo­ni­al prac­tices as “de­mon­ic.”

San­ta Rosa First Peo­ples’ Chief Ri­car­do Bharath Her­nan­dez con­demned so­cial me­dia users for their neg­a­tive and dis­re­spect­ful com­ments to the com­mu­ni­ty dur­ing an event com­mem­o­rat­ing First Peo­ples Her­itage Week.

“For those who say they do not as­so­ciate with us be­cause we do ‘an­ces­tor wor­ship’ and deal with ‘demons and spir­its,’ I think they are quite out of place. All I will say is to try to ed­u­cate your­self be­fore you com­ment,” Bharath Her­nan­dez said.

Yes­ter­day’s smoke cer­e­mo­ny was held at the Red House in Port-of-Spain, where lo­cal and re­gion­al groups gath­ered to per­form in­dige­nous re­li­gious rit­u­als in re­mem­brance of their an­ces­tors.

In 2019, over 60 skele­tal re­mains were once again laid to rest af­ter be­ing found dur­ing the Red House’s restora­tion process.

Re­call­ing a com­ment from a so­cial me­dia user un­der pic­tures of the First Peo­ples per­form­ing their wa­ter rit­u­al on Tues­day, Bharath Her­nan­dez point­ed out, “Some­one said ‘Hmm, them are Caribs. They look like a mix of peo­ple—In­di­an, African etc.’ And ladies and gen­tle­men they were right be­cause you see that was the in­ten­tion of the colonis­ers. To as­sim­i­late our peo­ple with the oth­er eth­nic groups,” Bharath Her­nan­dez said.

He added, “Noth­ing is wrong with that. But the in­ten­tion, the pre­med­i­tat­ed in­ten­tion to mix our peo­ple to wa­ter them down, to di­lute the blood. You know why? Be­cause when that hap­pens, you can­not claim your in­dige­nous rights. That is what they want­ed to achieve and they have done a good job at it.”

Bharath Her­nan­dez al­so called for the State to re­vis­it the idea of a na­tion­al hol­i­day for the recog­ni­tion of the First Peo­ples so that par­lia­men­tar­i­ans and the pub­lic can par­tic­i­pate ful­ly in the rit­u­als, just like any oth­er re­li­gious hol­i­day.

“Peo­ple are busy with their work, school chil­dren are at school, banks are op­er­a­tional, the Par­lia­ment is go­ing on. We want, at our cel­e­bra­tions, the par­lia­men­tar­i­ans. We want to see them,” he said.

Ari­ma MP Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, who was in at­ten­dance, was praised for her years of con­tri­bu­tion and con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to the San­ta Rosa First Peo­ples Com­mu­ni­ty. Beck­les urged the pub­lic to be mind­ful of their words and be­come “knowl­edge­able” of the coun­try’s his­to­ry.

“We un­der­stand that recog­ni­tion, that sen­si­tiv­i­ty, that peo­ple are mak­ing an ex­tra ef­fort. Ed­u­cate your­self so you can un­der­stand that they (the first peo­ples) would have played a very im­por­tant role and they will con­tin­ue to play an im­por­tant role,” Beck­les said.