KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

As she steps in­to her moth­er’s shoes, new­ly or­dained Caci­ca of the Warao First Peo­ple, Ani­cia Or­tan­cia Mal­oney, has made an emo­tion­al ap­peal to oth­er in­dige­nous tribes across T&T, call­ing for co­op­er­a­tion as the na­tive com­mu­ni­ties es­tab­lish them­selves through­out the na­tion.

Mal­oney, one of eight chil­dren of head Caci­ca Don­na Bermúdez-Bovell, stressed yes­ter­day that the Warao com­mu­ni­ty can­not achieve this alone.

“Many will come. Many will try to claim what we all have worked hard for, but to­day, I ask the com­mu­ni­ty of San­ta Rosa to stand with us and that we all work as one body. We can­not do this as groups; we have to do this as a com­mu­ni­ty,” Mal­oney said dur­ing her or­di­na­tion cer­e­mo­ny at the Ban­wari Ar­chae­o­log­i­cal Site in San Fran­cique, Pe­nal.

Shaman Raoul Kei­th Si­mon led a smoke cer­e­mo­ny, while rep­re­sen­ta­tives from oth­er tribes par­tic­i­pat­ed in the or­di­na­tion. Three of Bermúdez-Bovell’s oth­er chil­dren—Jeanette Bermúdez, Ian Mal­oney and Megan Davis—were al­so or­dained as pro­tec­tors of the queen and princess.

Payi Cristo Ado­nis, of San­ta Rosa, per­formed the rit­u­als, which were wit­nessed by Min­is­ter of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son, along with chiefs and re­li­gious lead­ers.

In her speech, Mal­oney ho­n­oured her moth­er’s strength and lead­er­ship, ex­press­ing hope that she could fol­low in her foot­steps with the sup­port of oth­er com­mu­ni­ties.

“Oth­er small is­lands reach out to Trinidad, es­pe­cial­ly in­dige­nous com­mu­ni­ties, for aid, and they turn to the Kali­na­go and the Warao. Those are the two names we al­ways hear first. I ask that you all join hands with us here to­day, as we stand and make a dif­fer­ence for the bet­ter­ment of our com­mu­ni­ty and oth­er na­tions,” Mal­oney said.

A cru­cial as­pect of pre­serv­ing the in­dige­nous her­itage, Mal­oney stressed, was the re­vival of their nat­ur­al lan­guage. She en­cour­aged mem­bers to raise their chil­dren to speak their na­tive tongue, re­gard­less of mixed an­ces­try, and to ap­pre­ci­ate and em­brace both cul­tures. She al­so called for the teach­ing of in­dige­nous cul­ture in schools, which she said would en­sure that his­to­ry is writ­ten and cor­rect­ed by the in­dige­nous peo­ple them­selves.

Chief Ri­car­do Bharath, of the San­ta Rosa First Peo­ples Com­mu­ni­ty, echoed the call for in­dige­nous peo­ple in T&T to recog­nise their unique her­itage and or­gan­ise them­selves as co­he­sive groups. He re­mind­ed those gath­ered that long be­fore the ar­rival of Christo­pher Colum­bus, var­i­ous in­dige­nous com­mu­ni­ties, led by chiefs, thrived on the is­land. While many in­dige­nous peo­ple were cap­tured or dri­ven in­to the forests dur­ing Span­ish coloni­sa­tion, Bharath not­ed that their de­scen­dants still car­ry the knowl­edge and tra­di­tions passed down through the gen­er­a­tions.

“We lost a lot, but we are build­ing on what we al­ready know,” Bharath said, cau­tion­ing that di­vi­sion with­in the com­mu­ni­ties would on­ly lead to fail­ure.

Beck­les-Robin­son, speak­ing dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ny, ac­knowl­edged the sig­nif­i­cance of the Ban­wari Ar­chae­o­log­i­cal Site, de­scrib­ing it as hal­lowed ground. She ex­pressed pride in the Na­tion­al Trust’s as­so­ci­a­tion with the project and un­der­scored the im­por­tance of recog­nis­ing the his­to­ry of T&T be­fore the ar­rival of en­slaved West Africans and in­den­tured East In­di­ans.

“Many may not un­der­stand the sig­nif­i­cance of this cer­e­mo­ny but I hope that the chil­dren will grow to be proud of their in­dige­nous roots,”,” Beck­les-Robin­son said.

She said the or­di­na­tion marked a sig­nif­i­cant step in the recog­ni­tion and strength­en­ing of T&T’s in­dige­nous com­mu­ni­ties, with hopes that uni­ty will lead to greater preser­va­tion of their her­itage for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.