IN THE SPIRIT OF
THE GLI GLI
Stories by Simon Lee
Sunday Guardian
February 27, 2000
Page 23
Night had already swallowed the palm thick slopes of the Carib
Territory on Dominica's east coast when I reached Salybia, the main
hamlet. I plunged into the darkness,
feeling my way down a track that leads to the Atlantic shore. The muted glow of a kerosene lamp in the
open window of a board house spurred me on down through the trees. Further down I fumbled on the dim outline of
another board house. Silhouetted in the
window were two old heads. One motioned
me to the back of the house. I called
at the open doorway and from the interior gloom emerged Jacob Frederick.
Although
he lives in a simple board house which he shares with his parents and the six
children he has raised alone since the death of his wife 10 years ago,
Frederick is both visionary and artist.
More significantly, he is one of the very few 3,500 descendants of the
region's indigenous people who live on the only Carib reserve left in the Caribbean,
to have risen beyond the daily struggle for survival and to instill a sense of
pride in Carib identity among the young people of the Territory and an
awareness of the Carib presence and culture throughout the region.
It
is in this context that the work of Jacob Frederick and other cultural
activist, like the recently elected chief Garnett Joseph, must be viewed. Now in his 40s, Frederick is a self-taught
artist, attempting to document events in Carib history like the 1930 uprising
(which his mother, then a small child, vividly remembers), Carib myths, legends
and lifestyle).
It
was he who conceived the historic 1997 Carib canoe project. This voyage of "rediscovery"
involved constructing a 35-foot dug-out from a single giant gommier tree and
sailing down the islands back to the ancestral homelands in Guyana, the
original voyage of migration in reverse.
Besides
being a practical demonstration of boat building and navigational skills
("I wanted to see if the boats were worthy of a long sea voyage") the
voyage was about re-establishing Carib identity among Dominican Caribs and
contacts with the culture which was slipping from them: "It was an
opportunity to search out the Caribs in South America, to see if they had
retained parts of the culture we had lost, so we could learn and bring it
back."
Frederick
painted the hull of the Gli Gli canoe using a traditional Taino motif and the
canoe proved just as worthy as the 80-footers of 500 years before. There were emotional reunions with Carib
descendants down the islands and a state reception from the Ministry of
Amerindian Affairs in Guyana.
But
three years later, much of the euphoria of the voyage has dissipated. Frederick has been back to Guyana to learn
hammock making from the Macussi and Wapishana tribes of the Rupununi but other
planned cultural exchanges have not materialized. He had hoped to set up an art school on the Territory but when I
left him he bartered a picture so I could send him some paints.
For
now he's focusing on "the first visual arts exhibition in the Carib
Council Office." Besides his own
work, two other family members will be exhibiting - his brother and former
Chief Faustulus (who pioneered calabash carving on the Territory) and eldest
daughter Debbie who paints, makes copper jewelry and does calabash carving.
Among
his paintings which are naively representational is the historical 1930
Uprising, in which the head of Jolly John presides over a depiction of the
fatal shooting incident. For Frederick,
this is also family history as his Uncle Royer was one of the men killed. Another picture commemorates the old trail
through the forest and over the mountains Carib farmers took to carry produce
down to Roseau market on the west coast, a three to four day trek.
His
most impressive piece to date is a complex woodcarving called Legends,
celebrating local tribal myths and legends.
At the base of the carving is the great snake, which is said to have
emerged form the sea at L'Escalier Tete Chien (staircase of the dog-headed
boa). This is the guardian spirit of
the Caribs, which can be invoked by burning an offering of tobacco in the
forest at Sineku above the petrified rock stairway.
At
the head of the staircase in the carving is the wrinkled figure of the
sorceress Bihi, who chased her daughter and the daughter's lover, Ebitimu, up
into the sky where the three became transfixed as the constellation Orion.
Another
legendary figure commemorated is Hiali, father of the Carib nation who was
turned into the moon after his mother discovered his incestuous relationship
with his sister.
Besides
the Gli Gli, a small hawk, which is a Carib symbol of bravery, Frederick has
decorated the reverse of the carving, with some of the petroglyphs found at
Londonderry Bay, further north. In
future work he plans to incorporate many more of these traditional motifs.
While
his plans for a Territory art school remain on hold, he has not abandoned his
mission of keeping Carib culture alive for future generations and educating the
young people of the Territory. Inspired
by artifacts he has recently dug up around Salybia, the oldest settlement, he
has founded an archaeological club "to develop interest among the young
people in traditional arts."
CARIB HISTORY FROM
A CREOLE PERSPECTIVE
The
history of Caribbean is slowly being rewritten by the descendants of slaves and
indentured labourers from a Creole rather than a colonialist perspective. Little has, however, been done to correct
the European stereotyping of the original inhabitants of these islands, a
further insult added to the horrendous genocide they had already suffered.
Many
Caribbean school textbooks still perpetuate the myth of Carib cannibalism, for
which the experts agree there is little historical evidence. Human flesh was not eaten as food but as a
ritual practice to gain possession of dead enemies' or ancestors'
qualities. This might occur before a
raiding expedition or during initiation when it was hoped young men would inherit
the bravery of a distinguished warrior.
The
Caribs or Kalinago - Island Caribs - (as the Amerindians who migrated up
through the Antilles called themselves to distinguish from their parent tribe
in north west Guyana) resisted the Spanish rather than succumbing like the more
peaceful Arawak-speaking Tainos who preceded them. For this they were demonized in much the same way as the
"voodoo savages" of Haiti would later be demonized for daring to
overthrow their French slave masters and threaten the whole system of Caribbean
plantocracy.
The
Spanish managed to account for most of the Tainos in the Greater Antilles. The Caribs put up fierce resistance against
the Spanish and subsequently the French and English throughout the Lesser
Antilles, which had been their undisputed territory from about 1400.
In
1651 the last 30 Caribs in Grenada leapt to their death at Sauteurs cliff,
rather than surrender to the French. It
wasn't until 1797 that the Black Caribs of St Vincent (descendants of Caribs
and runaway slaves) were finally defeated by the British and dumped on the
islands off Honduras and Belize.
Wai'tukubuli
(Dominica) with its inaccessible mountains and forests "a natural
citadel", became the last Carib stronghold and retreat; a base for
attacking neighbouring colonies and the site of reprisal massacres.
Although
declared neutral territory by the French and English in 1686 and again in 1748,
French settlers had established themselves on the west coast by 1700 and the
Caribs began withdrawing to the wild east coast. By the time a British Commission of 1893 arrived to investigate
conditions, the Caribs had been reduced to living on 232 acres at Salybia.
Their
petition to the Commissioner makes pitiful reading: "We don't have nothing
to support us, no church, no school, no shop, no store. We are very far in the forest; no money, no
dress. They call us wild savages. It is not savages but poverty."
The
British formally granted some 3,700 acres of common land to the Caribs in 1903
and officially recognised the office of chief (effectively no more than village
elder), yet conditions barely improved.
By 1930 there was an uprising on the Territory, sparked by conflict with
police over smuggling. Two Caribs were
shot dead and the Chief Jolly John imprisoned.
The first road was only cut through the Territory in 1970 with some
electricity and telephone lines following in the 1980s.
Independence
in 1978 and successive governments dominated by Afro-Dominican politicians have
hardly alleviated conditions for modern Caribs, most of whom live by farming or
fishing, supplementing their subsistence lifestyle by the traditional crafts of
basket work or dugout canoe building. Intermarriage;
the virtual disappearance of the Carib language; the harsh economics of
small-island life and the incursions of the global village (from drugs and
crime to dance hall and brand name clothes) have all taken their toll on Carib
identity.