One of my key collaborators has Cristo Atékosang Adonis, a self-identified Carib descendant who has followed the call of the shaman, or piai. Cristo Adonis' main interests lie in the cultivation of the environmental and shamanic sides of the Carib revivalism of the Santa Rosa Carib Community. As such, he specializes in the conduct of the Smoke Ceremony, the development of closer ties with the Taíno Nation of the Antilles, and the execution of ritual work duties of the Carib Community. Cristo Adonis is also an accomplished parrandero, whose music opens this website on the entry page. Cristo, as I usually refer to him, embodies an exciting new dimension in the global condition of resurgent indigeneity and he thus represents an important tendency within the Santa Rosa Carib Community (SRCC). I would say this dimension is described by people such as Cristo as that which involves a spiritual, ecological, globalized sense of indigeneity--one that is not tied down by vain and unnecessary preoccupations with "racial purity," one that is not constrained to doing only what the ancestors did, nor one that subordinates future possibilities to merely reenacting a distant past. Cristo, while he cherishes the traditions that have survived, is also wont to learn new things, do new things, experiment, innovate and gain new knowledge--that is to say, to try to pick up where the ancestors left off, and thus move forward. His definition of Indigenous Peoples is not those who are racially distinct (there are a number of such individuals in Trinidad who, indeed, have very little interest in the Carib Community or in maintaining Carib traditions--further evidence that "race" does not an aboriginal make), but rather those who are "Earth People": lovers of the earth, as Cristo explains it, committed to maintaining nature's patrimony, feeling a close spiritual and emotional bond with the earth itself. As such, Cristo has spearheaded the construction of Amerindian dwellings, works with an important new eco-tourist project, and is always keen to teach people about trees, plants and herbs and how one can make a sustainable and sane living from being integrated with the natural environment. Cristo has also been active in reinstituting what I call a "neo-Amerindian aesthetic": favouring designs of materials inspired by various Amerindian artistic styles and developing items of clothing more adapted to the environment that also celebrate an Amerindian vision. Critics, hostile toward either the role played by this man or toward my interpretation, might accuse him of "faking" or might accuse me of rendering him a "faker". That is a problem that rests solely in the mind of the critic, since both Cristo and myself shun outmoded anthropological stereotypes of the static, unchanging "Indian," or that anyone who does something with their culture is by definition "corrupting" the culture. Cristo is an intelligent innovator and creator.

What I learn from SRCC members such as Cristo is their deep sense that Trinidad is home, rather than harking back to some distant shore, whether it be India, Africa or Europe, as too many Trinidadians seem to preoccupy themselves with these entities. Individuals such as Cristo also resolutely refuse to be crippled by a "victim mentality": their sense of aboriginality is enthusiastic, not mournful.

Cristo Adonis plays a central role in the Carib Community, one that complements the role played by the President, Ricardo Bharath. While Ricardo is an effective manager and broker for the Community, while also holding responsibility for the direction and execution of the Santa Rosa Festival according to the Catholic traditions adopted and upheld by the Carib Community, Cristo Adonis is more responsible for the recovery of Amerindian traditions, and for an ongoing cultivation of traditions inspired by accounts of Amerindian ethnohistory. Cristo is thus in charge of preparing for and performing the Smoke Ceremony, in developing and highlighting herbal medicines, and in building the interpersonal cultural life of the Community. Whereas Ricardo is keen to preserve what has existed for some time now, that is, traditions for the Amerindians, Cristo is active in recovering and developing traditions of the Amerindians. These two specialists thus play a balancing role between old and new, between spiritual and economic, between local and global. It would be wrong, however, to imply that their roles do not often overlap. Ricardo too is eager to build cultural exchange relationships with Amerindians elsewhere and in maintaining those pre-Columbian Amerindian traditions that were in fact retained: the cassava culture, weaving, and building traditional homes.

However, in some respects, Cristo Adonis has felt the need to work beyond the confines of the Santa Rosa Carib Community. In March of 1999, he founded Katayana, a small organization devoted, as it described itself, to the cultivation of "Indigenous Peoples' Spiritual Consciousness". The main thrust of this organization is a shamanic one, and much of its earliest activity was devoted to the performance of rituals within forests near Arima and in south Trinidad. One of the primary aims of the group was to develop a body that would be independent of the Catholic Santa Rosa Festival and ties to the Catholic Church in Arima that the festival entails.

As of December of 2006, Cristo, father of five, grandfather of nine, resides with his wife, Catherine Calderon on Calvary Hill in Arima.