We must acknowledge the wisdom of indigenous people

Newsday, Wednesday, June 10, 1998, page 9

Elma Reyes

THE EDITOR: Each time a new holi­day is proclaimed, some national or visitor asks the representative body of the Santa Rosa Carib Community about the possibility of their having a public holiday proclaimed as well. The answer is always no.

What the organisation wants, and has been requesting of every gov­ernment in power during the 20-plus years I have been associated with them is: Official proclamation of Amerindian Heritage Week; weather-proof directional arrows and signboard in the relevant places to aid persons who want to find the headquarters; and properly co­ordinated assistance in having projects and programmes instituted which will not only allow young persons within the community to have pride in, and want to be in­volved in the retaining of the tradi­tions and systems handed down from their ancestors, but to be able to properly share such knowledge with the wider society of Trinidad and Tobago and the many foreign persons who manage to make their way to Arima.

Five hundred years ago, on July 31, 1498 to be precise, Columbus arrived at the island. With his cus­tomary arrogance he claimed it for Spain and his brand of Christianity and renamed it Trinidad.

It was only when Sir Walter Raleigh came, in 1595, three years after the settlement of (now) St Joseph was established, and 97 years after the arrival of Columbus, that an European person actually acquired a realistic knowledge of the island, and recorded the name its inhabitants used, “Cairi”.

Raleigh was given the tour of the towns and villages through the use of canoes and the then many navi­gable waterways, by a combined “army” of indigenous people.

These people are the ones who took him to have his vessels caulked at La Brea, and it is ironic that to the present time, the supposedly “inde­pendent” people of modern day Trinidad are informed that Raleigh “discovered” these assets.

There is tremendous need for the people of this nation to be properly informed about the people who were met by Columbus and other colonists.

All these people when met, had formulated systems which allowed their usage of the assets nature pro­vided without bringing about their destruction, and this is now ac­knowledged by every one of the major “ace-rights” organisations of what we are told is the “First World”— for example the World Wildlife Fund, the Smithsonian In­stitute, Cultural Survival, and Survival for Tribal People.

Within recent years there has been a growing number of bodies which all claim concern for the prob­lems caused by misuse and abuse of the land and waters of Trinidad and Tobago, but not, one of them has ever publicly acknowledged the wisdom of the people met by the colonists, or suggested use of the systems which are in fact responsi­ble for this nation still having areas of dense forests.

Part of the population of Trinidad and Tobago recently celebrated the arrival, and subsequent prosperity of some of their ancestors, in this South Caribbean island.

Another large group is preparing to mark the day when proclamation was made that British Parliament had approved emancipation of Afri­cans who were enslaved, in order to create wealth by cultivating such crops as sugar, cotton and tobacco for a relatively small group of Euro­peans who desperately wanted to be “aristocrats of the New World”.

It must be pointed out that be­cause “the wretched institution” only lasted 50 years, Trinidad, un­like such places as Barbados, Ja­maica and the Southern United States, never acquired “Great Houses” nor is there any family, “white” or otherwise, who can trace their wealth to what was acquired during the period 1783-1834.It is unfortunate that in celebrat­ing Emancipation Day there is no mention of the Africans, who by using their marketable skills and the West African saving system “Sou Sou”, managed to save formidable sums such as the £500 (or its equiva­lent) to purchase freedom for them­selves, their families, and, as in the case of the first Islamic people of this country (the Mandingo), other members of their tribe, before 1834.When the British took Trinidad in the bloodless coup of 1797, there were 2,151 “white” freeholders and 4,476 persons described as “free blacks and coloureds”. Many of these people were artisans, and the majority were given land the whites could not use for their cultivations.

The only “roots” of this nation are those planted by the first nations, for all other aspects of our culture and survival systems are trans­plants, branches which were suc­cessfully “budded” to the main tree which existed long before their ar­rival. The denial of indigenous sys­tems and the contribution of the “first nations” in present day Trini­dad and Tobago can only be described as base ingratitude.

It is unfortunate that when the Santa Rosa Carib Community sought to share retained and revived knowl­edge with the wider society in 1993, which the UN had proclaimed as “The Year of the World Indigenous People” their proposals were rudely shafted aside by the team of Public Servants assigned to work with them, and what was eventually presented was a seminar which was actually a non-event, and a week of Best Vil­lage type presentations in which the community had minimal input.

ELMA REYES

Co-Director, Research Unit

Santa Rosa Carib Community