Caribbean Amerindian Centrelink
(CAC)

The Garifuna of Belize, Central America
 

  • “The ‘Carib’ Story”, by Helan Sheran: a brief essay on the ‘Black’ and ‘Red’ Caribs of St. Vincent, as well as the Garifuna/ Garinagu of Central America, with links to various Web resources on the latter, including: Red (or Yellow) Caribs in Yurumei (St. Vincent); Red (or Yellow) Caribs in Watikubuli (Dominica); Black Caribs in Belize; Black Caribs in Guatemala; Black Caribs in Honduras; and, Black Caribs in Nicaragua.

  • Celebrating Garifuna Day: "Iunraha Wamei Irisini Higiru Wayunagu Waba is the theme that the National Garifuna Council (NGC) of Belize has selected for this year's Garifuna Settlement Day Celebrations. The theme means - Lets Uphold the Values left to us by our Ancestors. November 19th, 1998, Garifuna Settlement Day, will be observed as a public and bank holiday honoring the Garifuna culture throughout the entire country of Belize…." Posted by the San Pedro Sun.

  • Colonial Challenges: Britons, Native Americans, and Caribs, 1759-1775, by Robin F. A. Fabel: "In this examination of British colonial practices, Robin Fabel investigates the reactions of native populations to British imperialism in the two decades before the American Revolution. Specifically, he looks at the Cherokees, the small tribes of the Mississippi, and the Black Caribs of the Windward Islands--all groups whose territories bordered on British settlements, all groups who first cooperated with and later resisted British diplomatic and military intrusions…"

  • “Dangriga BZ or USA?: Out-migration experiences of a Garifuna community in post-independent Belize,” by Myrtle Palacio, from the UWI Belize Country Conference: excerpt—“Studies on ethnicity and migration on the Garifuna have been conducted by two scholars, J. Palacio (1992) and N. Gonzalez (1986). While Palacio has primarily investigated the attempts of self-improvement of the Garifuna people in Los Angeles, Gonzalez has studied the rebirth of the Garifuna in New York. In both cases, the point of departure was the ‘idealized’ viewpoint of the Garifuna as rural people. This study shows that within seven generations, the Garifuna are now urban people, having emigrated permanently from their rural coastal communities to inner city America. To embrace ‘American’ cultural traits, they have discarded traditional Garifuna cultural traits.”

  • “El Espíritu de mi Mamá/ Spirit of My Mother”, a Garifuna Woman’s Journey to Honduras—a movie by Alí Allié: “Sonia is a Garifuna woman, raising a young daughter alone in Los Angeles. Disturbed by dreams of her deceased mother, Sonia journeys back to Honduras with her daughter and returns to her native village to seek guidance from relatives and elders. Through semi-documentary footage, we see Sonia reintroduced to the ceremony and rituals of her culture, and through this discovery of self- and cultural- identity, a healing process begins. An altogether original take on the mother/daughter story, The Spirit of My Mother (El Espíritu de Mi Mamá) is a unique film essay. Blending narrative and documentary techniques, director Allié tells the story of one woman's quest to reach out to her mother, and to the ancestral traditions and endangered culture of the [Garifuna]…”—this site includes reviews of the movie, photos from the film, video clips, music clips, and contact information.

  • From a Garifuna, a posting on Belize in soc.culture.caribbean: “…The Garifuna are known as the Caribs who intermingled with the African slaves when a slaver was wrecked on the coast of St.Vincent. The Caribs, lead by our chief Chatoyer (sa-tu-yeh) joined with the African slaves and fought against the Spaniards on the island of St.Vincent. The Caribs lost the war and were exiled.  Most went to Dominica, Roatan, the Bay of Honduras, Guatemala and Belize.  In southern Belize there are several Garifuna communities, and Dangriga Town is known as the home of all the Garifunas. On the 19th of November in Belize all Garifunas celebrate the arrival of the Garinagu (Black Caribs) in Belize…”

  • “The Garifuna: Weaving a Future from a Tangled Past”, by Susie Post Rust, in National Geographic magazine: “This year, for the first time, the United Nations gave to a group of endangered cultures the title Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity (referred to in the article as World Heritage cultures). Included are the Garífuna of Central America, whose uniquely fused African and South American ancestry and culture gave rise to new traditions. Inhabiting coastal regions along the Caribbean, the Garífuna can be found in Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. The Garífuna were selected because of the vibrancy of their language, music, and dance…”

  • Garifuna, by Jean-Philippe Soule—“All the black communities living on the Caribbean coast of Central America are commonly called Garifuna or Black Carib, or as they refer to themselves, Garinagu. Over the last three centuries, in spite of many migrations, re-settlements and interactions with Indians, British, French and Spanish, they have preserved much of the culture from their two main branches of ancestry. The Garinagu are the descendants of Caribs Indians and Black African slaves.”

  • The Garifuna/Black Caribs of Belize--a concise ethnohistoric account: "November 1997 the Black Carib culture known, as the Garifuna were reminded of their ancestors’ resilient struggle to overcome the brutal racism put forth by the European settlers in the New World. This day marked the 200th anniversary of the arrival of the Garifuna on the shores of Central America..."

  • Garifuna, Dügü: The dügü ritual, also called “feasting the dead.” This site describes the reasons and preparations for this fervent ceremony and explains each aspect—“The culture of the Garifuna is a system of traditional and typical West African cultural expression fused with Amerindian customs and subsistence bases. This infrastructure of dance, drum and ancestor worship through ritual is no clearer defined than through the elaborate funeral rites associated with Garifuna culture. Our presentation was a visual synopsis of the Dugu. Here we will outline in detail the rites of death, the most important and sacred cultural expression of the Garifuna…”

  • Garifuna of Honduras—“The Garifuna peoples of Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and to a lesser extent the Caribbean Coastline of Nicaragua, Columbia and Venezuela, are descended from West African, Arawakan & Carib Indians. They speak a language comprised of Arawakan, Yoruban (West African), and Northern Maipuran elements. They also borrow words from the French and English languages. According to recent population surveys, the largest populations of Garifuna are found in Honduras. The most populated Honduran villages being: Triunfo de La Cruz, Santa Fe, Limon, Punta de Piedra and Sangrelaya. The largest Garifuna village is Limon, in the Depto de Colon.”

  • The Garifuna of Honduras, by Derek Parent: this is part of the website by Parent on Honduras’ Rio Platano BioSphere Reserve, on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites-“The RPBR is Central America's first biosphere reserve occupying an area of 520,000sq hectares (recently expanded to over 850,000 sq. hectares; see below) and is inhabited by Garifuna , Miskito and Pech peoples and a growing number of mixed Latin/indigenous peoples known as Ladinos. The Honduran Mosquitia (including the RPBR) is the most sparsely populated territory in Central America (approximately 3 people per sq kilometer) and at more than three quarters the size of El Salvador it retains the largest virgin broadleaf rain forests in the country…”

  • The Garifuna Journey, special project by Cultural Survival: “Beginning in 1994, Garifuna tradition bearers, artists, and technicians collaborated with filmmakers Andrea E. Leland and Kathy Berger in producing The Garifuna Journey, a documentary project focusing on a remarkable story of resistance and continuity of culture in the face of overwhelming odds. Cultural traditions specific to the Garifuna were collected on audio and videotape….”

  • "In Garifuna Land", by Sharon Van Bramer: "Dangriga, the most important coastal city in southern Belize, is home to the Garifuna people, a mix between Caribbean Indians and Africans that arrived in the region four centuries ago…"

  • Garifuna Mali: “Caribs, Garifuna and Garinagu of Seine Bight, Hopkins, George Town, Dangriga, Barranco, Belize, Honduras and Garinagu everywhere. A Los Angeles Internet Site with the intention to promote and cultivate the Garifuna culture, educating those seeking to learn about Garifuna people”

  • Garifuna Music: Traditional Garifuna songs from the film Spirit of my Mother sung by Marcelina Ferndandez and Grupo de Danza Duvali Rescate Cultural

  • The Garifuna page, from by Barbara Bates-Wurst, at emuseum.mnsu.edu: A concise page on the history and culture of the Garifuna people and a survey of their current numbers, population locations, social situation, language and religion, with references to published sources. Excerpt: “In Belize, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Caribbean Islands there is the Garifuna culture, numbering approximately 500,000 people. The Garifuna are descendents of Kalinagu who were Guianas of South America. In the 11th century, the natives were killed and their women were taken for wives. Nigerian slaves escaped from a slave ship that had run aground near St. Vincent in 1675. These black people were assimilated into the native culture of the Caribs and their offspring were known as Black Caribs….”

  • The Garifuna Peoples of Honduras: a detailed site featuring the geography, history, visual arts, dance, music, customs, women, and current events of the Garifuna—“Did you know that 90-100,000 Garinagu live in the United States? Were you aware that this number nearly equals the Garífuna population in Honduras - the largest concentration in Central America?”

  • Garifuna Settlement Day Celebrated: "November 19th, 1998 marked the 57th anniversary of Garifuna Settlement Day. Founded by Thomas Vincent Ramos in 1941, it was established a Public and Bank Holiday in 1943…." Posted by the San Pedro Sun.

  • Garifuna Protest—“On July 7, representatives of the Garifuna ethnic group protested in Tegucigalpa against a proposed constitutional change that would allow foreigners to buy land on the Atlantic Coast. “The land is our mother, and mother is not for sale,” the protesters chanted. Congress suspended debate and agreed to meet with Garifuna representatives to discuss an alternative plan that would protect their rights to the land they have occupied for 200 years.”

  • “Honduras - Garifuna Music, The tradition of the black Caribs”: “The Garifuna live in Honduras, Belize and Nicaragua. They are the descendants of Black slaves who were shipwrecked off the coast of St. Vincent island, Caribbean Sea, in 1635. They mixed with the red Caribs Indians and became their sole inheritors, by the language, the customs and the music. This CD presents for the first time black Carib secular and ritual music recorded in its traditional context.The Garifuna culture and music have been declared in 2001 by Unesco: ‘Masterpiece of the human oral and immaterial heritage’.”

  • Indigenous Protest—“Some 1,500 Garifuna, Lenca, Maya-Chorit, Misquito, Pech, Tolupán and other ethnic minorities marched on Tegucigalpa on January 25, trying to see and be seen by the National Congress. They demanded repeal of recent legislation that “denationalizes our patrimony and surrenders large tracts of ancestral land to foreign speculators.” Riot police and other security forces kept the protesters in Parque Central and away from the Assembly’s installation.”

  • Interview with Joseph Palacio—Extract: “Garifuna identity is significant for several reasons. But the one that I will focus on is its uniqueness. For this reason UNESCO declared it oral and intangible heritage of all humanity – a most special award indeed. The perspective that I maintain and elaborate in the paper you mentioned is the indigenous peoplehood of the Garifuna. Here I refer to the blending of African and Native American as well as the fact the this took place in a small island with social and environmental factors that greatly facilitated the birth and nourishment of this new socio-culture. I find it lamentable that the Garifuna in the United States have not paid much attention to their Native American heritage, given that the re-awakening of aboriginal peoples in North America is one of the most influential social movements to have overtaken that continent within the past three decades; and it keeps getting stronger. I think that our young people have been overcome by the exclusivity of black consciousness, which is an American phenomenon but has always been alien to us as a people. I am hoping that your electronic magazine should take this as a major challenge for your readership.”

  • Interview with Joseph Palacio, The CAC Review—Extract: “…I prefer to use the term ‘aboriginal’ as against ‘indigenous’. By aboriginal I mean people who have cultural and biological roots within the region pre-dating Columbus. It specifically separates people who use the term indigenous rather loosely to refer to the fact that they and their ancestors for some generations have been in this region. Obviously aboriginal people have been here longer and continue to be here with nowhere else to go. The advantage of using aboriginal to Amerindian is that the latter does not put emphasis on the priority of existence in the region nor on the fact of continuity. Finally, it shows no regard to the issue of peoplehood. The question then is to retrieve what we can from the past through the help of our elders, thereby building a stronger grounding to the culture. Here again, I prefer to use the word ‘retrieve’ as against the others that you mentioned. In Belize we have mounted several of these retrieval workshops, to some of which we have invited brothers and sisters from the region ….” .

  • Nation to celebrate Garifuna Settlement Day: "The National Garifuna Council (NGC) is a grassroots organization formed in 1981 and represents the Indigenous Garifuna Nation of Belize in Central America…." Posted in 2000 by the San Pedro Sun.

  • Travel Belize.Org—“Rituals and traditions are still being retained as the Garifuna strive to maintain a place in Belizean society.”

This page was last updated: Saturday, 29 July, 2006

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