The CAC Review, the electronic newsletter of the Caribbean Amerindian Centrelink, began publication in early 2000 (see list of all contents). In that time, reviews of websites, book reviews, news alerts, local updates, pointers to new publications available online, short commentaries, essays and unique interviews have been included in the newsletter. We do not intend to change any of that, however, given recent challenges in effectively producing full-length newsletters (averaging 30 printed pages) on a timely and predictable basis, we have opted for the production of an "on-time" newsletter. What that means is that just as we receive any news alerts, or produce any website reviews, commentaries, essays or interviews, they will be made immediately available on the CAC Web Log. The added advantage of this format is that readers are allowed and encouraged to post their own comments with respect to particular items that appear below. This Web Log therefore combines elements of a journal with the interactivity of a message board. Select contents from this Log will be retroactively gathered into complete newsletter issues, appearing at The CAC Review website after the fact. You can access the Web Log at: http://www.kacike.org/blog/.
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Editorial Introduction:

Over the last two to three decades, several external organizations have become involved in various development and assistance programs in Dominica's Carib Reserve, as it is called officially, or the Carib Territory as it is called by Carib leaders. Amongst these organizations and interests have been the Robinson Trust,  PLENTY, the British Development Division, and the Caribbean Development Bank amongst others. For this issue of the newsletter we will be focusing on an organization based in Germany, Kalinago e.V., "Association for the Promotion of the Last Indigenous People of the Caribbean". While I was suspicious of the designation "last indigenous people", as if there were no indigenous communities and descendants elsewhere in the Caribbean, I was very interested in the activities undertaken by this seemingly far removed body of individuals. Kalinago e.V. (http://www.kalinago.org/english/index.html) has sponsored various Carib students and organized cultural competitions, but is often impeded by the communication barriers that persist despite the presence of telephone, fax, Internet and postal connections.

The assertion of the "last-ness" of the Dominica Caribs is maintained, even when modified with reference to mean existence as an organized body, which unfortunately also overlooks organized bodies in nearby St Vincent and Trinidad, for example--not that formal organization is in or by itself any sort of valid criterion for establishing the presence of aboriginal descendants and those who identify as such. In fact, to the extent that formal bureaucratic organization may be built on models imposed on indigenous communities, such organization may ironically reflect a greater degree of assimilation into a dominant culture. This is just one of the ways in which the interview is thought provoking, in that important issues of tradition versus modernity are also raised at different points during the interview, as well as the question of affective bases of Carib identity as opposed to merely instrumental used of Carib identity. Given the range of issues that surface from this interview, I will open up a section of the new Web Log (announced above) for further discussion.

The aim of the interview that follows below is a very simple one: to simply try to learn more about Kalinago e.V. and its projects in Dominica. The interview was conducted via e-mail with Elmar Darimont of Kalinago e.V. in August of 2003. Questions that I ask below are preceded by MF (Max Forte) while replies are preceded by ED (Elmar Darimont). While reading this interview, please keep in mind that I did little to overcome the language barrier: questions and correspondence sent to Elmar Darimont were in English and replies received were also in English rather than German. Although Elmar performs admirably (like most of his European colleagues who are fluent in more than one language), I believe that the language difference and especially the impersonal nature of the interview medium will have taken away from the kind of fluid discussion one might hope for under better circumstances.

MF: What is Kalinago e.V? Incidentally, what does e.V mean?

ED: Kalinago e.V. is an organisation with 20 people who are committed to the preservation of the culture and traditional knowledge of the last remaining indigenous people of the Caribbean, the Caribs, or , as they call themselves, the Kalinago. 'e.V.' shows that the organisation is officially registered in Germany and thus subject to a set of regulations concerning elections, decision-making, the flow of information, the spending of finances.

MF: When was the organisation formed and by whom?

ED: It was formed on May 27, 1997. The seven founding-members all come from the area around Storkow, a small town south-east of  Berlin in Germany.

MF: What are your current projects and goals?

ED: We sponsor students form Secondary Schools whose families cannot cover the costs of transport. We pay for the yearly tickets, either in part or completely, depending on the number of applications and, of course, on the funds we are able to raise.

MF: Why the interest in Dominica? Why are the Caribs important to you?

ED: The Caribs are the last descendants of a group of once powerful Indian tribes that used to populate the Caribbean islands. Some live in Trinidad and a very few also in St. Vincent but the Caribs of Dominica are their last organised community. A lot of their rich culture, the oral history and their languages has been lost. So we consider it necessary to save as much of it as possible, or maybe even revive it, e.g. the old Carib language(s). In numerous contacts with people in the Carib Territory we have discovered that the educational level corresponds with the attention that is paid to the old traditions. The lower the education of a person, the higher the likelihood that this person just wants to make a few fast dollars and - on top of that - the more prepared he or she is to give up any Carib identity if it serves to climb up the ladder. Most people with a higher education recognise that in the long run this will not work out.

MF: Do you see yourselves becoming interested in other Carib communities elsewhere?

ED: We prefer to concentrate on the Caribs of Dominica.

MF: What have been some of the successes and shortcomings of your work in Dominica?

ED: On the one hand there are the students whose attendance at school was perfect and who, as a consequence of that, could graduate with respectable results. Although we cannot create jobs in Dominica we can help prepare young Caribs for the future. On the other hand we have drawn a lot of attention to the Caribs of Dominica. We can see that by the number of e-mails we get from people in Germany, where hardly anything is known about the Caribs, but also from all over the world. Like many other non-profit organisations we have benefited immensely from the Internet, the basic medium being our website www.kalinago.org.

MF: Apart from Dominica, do you have the support of any other agencies or partners, for example, in Germany itself?

ED: So far we have been working on our own. We get a lot of support from a German free-lance journalist who is responsible for our website.

MF: Has the Government of Dominica posed any obstacles, or raised any questions about your work in Dominica?

ED: No, it hasn't. We have never co-operated but neither has the government of Dominica presented any problems for our work.

MF: What do you think are some of the biggest problems afflicting the Dominica Carib Territory? Do you see any solutions?

ED: At first glance economic development is needed to increase the standard of living in the Carib Territory. But I think the real challenge is to combine economic development, which is basically improving education, with the preservation of the cultural heritage. The Caribs have to be prepared for a future in the modern world, they have to be doctors, lawyers, scientists, alongside the jobs that have been common for centuries. But at the same time they have to keep their old traditions alive, tell their children the old stories of anansi the spider and of course the history of the Caribs themselves. As one Carib put it they have to know how to use both - the drums and the computer. If they do not meet that challenge they will get lost. Just copying the Western way of life will take away their cultural foundation, they will be left up in the air. And neglecting modern developments will just leave them behind, which will lead to further mixing with other races, further emigrations of young people and eventually the Caribs of Dominica might only be a loose number of individuals but not an organised community.

I can see many good moves in that direction. Access to Secondary Schools has recently been improved, a new school has been opened close to the Carib Territory in Castle Bruce. A lot of people seem to be aware of the need to combine both modern and traditional life. Two dance groups do important work in that field.

MF: Why do you think that the Caribs of Dominica are virtually absent from the Internet? What I mean is the apparent lack of any websites made by Dominica Caribs themselves.

ED: That again shows that there is still much to do. I think the Caribs still focus very much on personal contact. I have the impression that quite a few know how to handle a computer but most of them do not really accept it as a means of world-wide  communication. We from Kalinago e.V. think that is a shame, because it would make our work a lot easier if all the computers in the Territory were as frequently used for e-mails as is the case in Germany or elsewhere.

MF: What is your outlook on the future of the Dominica Carib Territory?

ED: That is difficult to say. I would like to see more teachers in the Carib Territory teaching history and traditions of the Caribs. That means the Ministry of Education will play an important role. I can see a lot of development in tourism. But I hope the Caribs will always be aware of the danger. Tourism is like fire: You can cook a meal on it but it can also burn your house. No matter how it happens, life has to become more attractive within the Carib Territory to stop the emigration of young powerful Caribs.

“The Caribs of Dominica: Land Rights and Ethnic Consciousness”, by Crispin Gregoire and Natalia Kanem, Cultural Survival Quarterly, Vol. 13, Issue 3, 1989—Extract: “The Caribs' existence today, five centuries after the voyages of Christopher Columbus, is living testimony to their bold resolve to survive and to resist European colonial onslaught. The rugged terrain of both Dominica and St. Vincent provided the ideal conditions for protracted warfare against British and French incursions into what used to be their peaceful domain.”

“Indians in Cuba”, by Jose Barreiro, Cultural Survival Quarterly, Vol. 13, Issue 3, 1989—Extract: “It may surprise many social scientists that nestled in the mountains of the Oriente region (eastern Cuba), from Baracoa on the southern coast all the way to the Pico Turquino, the highest mountain in Cuba, there are numerous caserios, several barrios, and at least one community of more than a thousand Indian people. They were called Cubeños by Father Bartolome de Las Casas, who helped some of their communities to survive, and are ancestors of the original Tainos who met Columbus.”

“Introduction (Special Issue on Central America and the Caribbean)”, by Mac Chapin, Cultural Survival Quarterly, Vol. 13, Issue 3, 1989—Extract: “Indians make up the unknown, silent minority in these countries. They are the invisible population that lives at the bottom of the social, political, and economic ladder. Once rulers of the entire region, they have been oppressed, discriminated against, driven from their most productive lands, and relegated to the most marginal occupations.”

Cultural Survival Quarterly, Special Issue on Central America and the Caribbean, 1989, Vol. 13—complete list of contents along with links to full text articles, available for free on the CSQ website.

“Reviving Caribs: Recognition, Patronage and Ceremonial Indigeneity in Trinidad and Tobago”, by Maximilian C. Forte, Cultural Survival Quarterly, Vol. 23, Issue 4, 1999—Extract: “THE RESURGENCE and reorganization of the Santa Rosa Carib Community (SRCC) in the city of Arima, Trinidad, raises certain contentious issues where reconciliation and self-determination are concerned, not least of which is the problem of how to define "Indigenous" in Trinidad. In various academic disciplines one finds writers who have long spoken in terms of a total dearth of indigeneity in the Caribbean and Trinidad. This presumption even extends to asserting the extinction of Amerindians. Virtually no analyst, therefore, ever entertained the extent to which Amerindian societies may have contributed to the making of post-Conquest Trinidad, or Caribbean society and culture”.

“The Indigenous People of the Caribbean”, a book review by Ian S. McIntosh, Cultural Survival Quarterly, Vol. 23, Issue 4, 1999—Extract: “It includes the work of an extraordinary range of specialists and provides a well-rounded introduction to the history of indigenous peoples in the Caribbean. But the reader should be warned -- this text does not provide any substantial information, as the title might otherwise suggest, about indigenous peoples in the Caribbean today”.
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“Taino Journal: In the Cuban heartland, Elian and remembrances of Ingrid”, by Jose Barreiro in Indian Country Today, 07 June, 2000—Extract: “There is a growing understanding in Cuba about the survival of Taino-descendant people in various parts of the country. The assertion of ‘non-extinction’ in Cuba is important to a widespread interest in Taino-guajiro-jivaro cultures among Indigenous descendants of the Greater Caribbean islands….Panchito's community of some 2,000 people is one of several documented Cuban Indigenous-descendant population enclaves along the eastern mountains. Chroniclers, from Father Bartolome de las Casas, an early human rights advocate, to José Martí wrote about the Cuban Indian population in the Sierras….’Tell the world that we are still here, very Indian, very Cuban, very ready to do for our country,’ he said. ‘And this is not out of sheer good luck. Our elders knew to protect our songs and our culture of the earth up here in the mountains’.”

“Taino Nation alive and strong”, by Jose Barreiro in Indian Country Today, 24 January, 2001—Extract: “CARIDAD DE LOS INDIOS, Cuba - No one ever told Panchito Ramirez that his people were extinct. Though the history books tell us otherwise, here in the remote mountains of Cuba, the knowledgeable herbalist and healer lives with some 350 Taino descendants who make up his village and nearby rancheria….”

“Termination by denial and hello Columbus”, Editorial in Indian Country Today, 15 October, 2001—Extract: “For example, in the Caribbean, for the Taino, the people who first greeted Columbus, malice and ignorance have conspired to keep the myth of extinction alive. Despite a substantial continuity of evidence to the contrary, from the 1600s to the present, any assertion of Taino survival can expect to be formally greeted with hostility, derision, even hatred, by many officials. While many scholars have accepted the reality of considerable Indigenous-derived culture among the Greater Caribbean populations and while recent DNA testing (in Puerto Rico) provides evidence of significant Amerindian mitochondrial DNA among the island’s contemporary population, and while in Cuba, Dominica and elsewhere communities exist that have well-documented continuity in place, the efforts by peoples of Indigenous heritage to reconstitute their societies are more often attacked than seriously considered….”

“Indigenous Latino and the consciousness of the Native Americas”, Editorial in Indian Country Today, 04 February, 2003—Extract: “Borders between Indian peoples - as psychological as language and as legalistic as those of national frontiers - are coming down. A sense of relations, all our relations, is increasingly apparent in the communications between Indians throughout North America, Central America, the Caribbean and South America. It is a refreshing trend that we encourage. We note the recent repatriation of Taino human remains from the United States’ Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian to a small Indian enclave in Cuba’s eastern mountains, the community of Caridad de los Indios. Navajo, Mohawk, Algonquin, Kaw, Paiute, Chicano and other peoples, including scholars and participants from several countries, witnessed the unique ceremony, which coalesced the forces of many people to guarantee its success.”

“Indigenous Puerto Rico: DNA evidence upsets established history”, by Rick Kearns, in Indian Country Today, 06 October, 2003—Extract: “Dr. Juan Martinez Cruzado, a geneticist from the University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez who designed an island-wide DNA survey, has just released the final numbers and analysis of the project, and these results tell a different story. According to the study funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, 61 percent of all Puerto Ricans have Amerindian mitochondrial DNA, 27 percent have African and 12 percent Caucasian. (Nuclear DNA, or the genetic material present in a gene’s nucleus, is inherited in equal parts from one’s father and mother. Mitochondrial DNA is inherited only from one’s mother and does not change or blend with other materials over time.) In other words a majority of Puerto Ricans have Native blood….”

“Surviving Columbus in Puerto Rico: the myth of extinction”, Editorial in Indian Country Today, 06 October, 2003—Extract: “The story this week of a new major DNA study showing considerable American Indian ancestry in the population of Puerto Rico is intriguing and revealing. Of course, there has been for over two decades considerable agitation by Taino people of Puerto Rican nationality, on the island and in the diaspora. But now Dr. Juan Martinez Cruzado has shown that as high as 61 percent of Puerto Ricans carry American Indian mitochondrial DNA from their maternal lines. The level of Native genetic ancestry is impressive and once more evidence that the legacy of American indigenous peoples, across the Western Hemisphere, has been all too easily diminished or denied. The claim that all Native Caribbeans succumbed to war, slavery and disease, that they in fact became "extinct" as peoples and cultures by the 1600s, has been asserted as truth by governments and academics for over a hundred years. However, in Puerto Rico, as elsewhere in the Caribbean, actual, surviving Native communities and numerous families and people of Native ancestry have increasingly revealed themselves….”
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“The Taino of Jamaica: A Brief History of the Indigenous Population of Jamaica”, by Glenn Woodley—extract: “….However they were not fully exterminated , as history has led us to believe. In 1655 when the English expelled the Spaniards , Tainos were still recorded as living in Jamaica. It was noted at this time that rural farmers spoke a dialect that was mixture of Spanish, Taino and African languages. Later archaeologists were to discover English lead shot amongst Taino artifacts , and almost 60 years earlier in 1596 English privateer Sir Anthony Shirley sacked St Jago de la Vega ( later Spanish Town), after being guided there by Taino tribesmen. Further archaeological finds were later to confirm that Taino extinction was a myth, although being enslaved and cruelly treated by Europeans some Taino did survive. Many escaped into the mountains to coexist with the Maroons , where still today many non African plants are used medicinally , plants that were once part of the Taino pharmacology. Hammocks also are still made in Accompong in the Taino fashion, proving that the Taino still survived , for many years after the Spanish had left ,with the Maroons in the mountains of inland Jamaica….”

“The 'Carib' Work Stones of Chateaubelair: curio or calendar system?”, by Claudius Fergus, paper presented at the University of the West Indies’ St. Vincent Country Conference, 22-24 May, 2003—extract: “This paper takes a new look at the aboriginal culture site atop the Chateaubelair/Petit Bordel promontory, which was first brought to the attention of scientists and culture historians by resident archaeologist, Dr. Earle Kirby in 1969. His report remains the standard work on Amerindian rock-art in St Vincent. No petroglyphs were identified: the only reference was to "work holes", an adjunct of pre-historic rock-art. Interestingly, while many of the petroglyphs in the report have become well known to local residents, international scholars, and the tourism industry, the site at Petit Bordel has relapsed into obscurity in the archaeology and culture history of the pre-Columbian peoples of St Vincent. The site was not included in the report by archaeologists, Bullen & Bullen (1969), nor by C.N. Dubelaar (1995). Indeed, the Petit Bordel "holes" have remained virtually unknown to the majority of Vincentians and even to most residents of Chateaubelair and Petit Bordel, which lie astride this very intriguing archaeological site….”

“Chatoyer's Artist: Agostino Brunias and the depiction of St Vincent”, by Lennox Honychurch, paper presented at the University of the West Indies’ St. Vincent Country Conference, 22-24 May, 2003—extract: “In 2002, the paramount chief of the Black Caribs of St Vincent, Chatoyer, (Chatawe), was declared the National Hero of St. Vincent. The visual representation of Chatoyer as a nationalist icon of an independent Caribbean state in the 21st century was set in place by the paintings and engravings of him, which were done by an Italian artist, Agostino Brunias, in the 18th century. Today his paintings and engravings sell for thousands — and in the case of the larger paintings for hundreds of thousands of dollars — in the auction houses of London and New York. His art was escapist as it was romantic, it distorted the harsh realities of slavery in St Vincent and the Lesser Antilles so as to satisfy his absentee planter clientele and yet in its detail it reveals aspects of Caribbean heritage that are impossible to glean from the texts of documentary archives. Historic illustrations in the tourism literature of St Vincent today still use Brunias' engravings to depict an idyllic plantation society in tune with the demands of the tourism product which, in matters of history prefers a selective memory in the same way that the plantocracy favoured a selective depiction of reality….”

“The Brigands's War in St Vincent: The view from the French records, 1794-1796”, by Curtis Jacobs, paper presented at the University of the West Indies’ St. Vincent Country Conference, 22-24 May, 2003—extract: “The Brigands' War - also called 'The Second Carib War' - took place in the Eastern Caribbean, particularly in the Windward Islands, between 1794 and 1798. Today, it is an almost forgotten episode in the history of the then mortal struggle between Britain and France throughout the eighteenth century, for control of this sub-region of the Caribbean. The origins of this conflict, however, go back even further then the eighteenth century and into the very beginning of the European presence. Whereas the Spaniards quickly subdued the indigenous peoples of the Greater Antilles of the west Caribbean, those of the eastern Caribbean had held up the advance of European colonisation for two centuries. After the original Spanish colonisers had effectively passed from the scene, the indigenous peoples found themselves in a three-cornered contest between the rival colonialisms of Britain and France. This lasted from around 1625 to 1796. St Vincent was caught in the middle of this conflict. By the end of the seventeenth century, however, a new people had emerged on the island. According to Shephard, around 1675, a slave ship was wrecked on the coast of what is known today as Bequia. The survivors of this shipwreck were then accepted by the indigenous peoples who then inhabited the island. Through inter-marriage between the two peoples, a new people appeared. They were called the 'Black Caribs' as distinct from the 'Yellow Caribs,' the original inhabitants….”

Thanks to the work of "Sacred Texts Online", we now have access to two more books online, completely digitized and available as HTML files as well as fast-loading plain text files (without images). As copyrights continue to expire we can expect to see more of these relatively antique texts. Unfortunately, given recent draconian extensions to copyright life imposed by the US Congress, basically nothing published in our lifetimes will ever become available for circulation and reproduction in the public domain while we live. Hence the reason why there is a growing push for academics to publish in open access formats, an example of which is the CAC's very own Kacike: The Journal of Caribbean Amerindian History and Anthropology at http://www.kacike.org.

The two newly available books on the Amerindians of Guyana are:

An Inquiry into the Animism and Folk-Lore of the Guiana Indians, by Walter E. Roth from the Thirtieth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1908-1909, pp. 103-386. Washington D.C., 1915 (courtesy of Scared Texts online at www.sacred-texts.com). A complete plain text version, in a single file, is also available here.

Legends and Myths of the Aboriginal Indians of British Guiana, collected and edited by the Rev. William Henry Brett, B.D. (courtesy of Scared Texts online at www.sacred-texts.com). A complete plain text version, in a single file, is also available here.
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Since the last issue of this newsletter when we announced new articles, two more articles have been published in Kacike: The Journal of Caribbean Amerindian History and Anthropology. These are:

(1) "Celebrating the Continuance of Indigenous Caribbean Cultures: Review of an Exhibition at the National Museum of the American Indian", by Jorge Estevez--in the first review of a museum exhibition to appear in Kacike, Jorge Estevez reports on the events surrounding the launch of the "New Old World" exhibition as well as the participants from different parts of the Caribbean, including Puerto Rico, Cuba, Dominica and Trinidad. The report is also accompanied by photographs of the events surrounding the launch.

(2) "The Puerto Ricans at Carlisle Indian School", by Sonia M. Rosa--in this article Sonia Rosa provides a long awaited historical account of the Puerto Rican children at the Carlisle Indian School, based on archival research and personal testimonies, accompanied by photographs. Readers interested in more about this topic should also consult Issues in Caribbean Amerindian Studies, Vol. 2.

1932: Scars of Memory/ Cicatriz de la memoria, is a film by Jeffrey Gould and Carlos Henriquez Consalvi, recently released by First Run/ Icarus Films (see: http://frif.com/new2003/scar.html). The film's subject matter is the repression of the 22 January 1932 uprising in El Salvador by Ladino and indigenous peasants, a widespread massacre of tens of thousands of individuals, and all males over the age of 12. The filmmakers provide an account based on archival research and the personal testimonies of survivors, aided by the participation of local indigenous activists. The film was a collaborative effort by Jeffrey L. Gould (director of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Indiana University) and Carlos Henríquez Consalvi (founder of the Museo de la Palabra y la Imágen in El Salvador).

Kacike: The Journal of Caribbean Amerindian History and Anthropology has received a copy of the film and it is currently under review. We will announce the publication of the review as soon as it is available.

Taínos y Caribes, las culturas aborígenes antillanas

(Editorial Punto y Coma, 2003 – ISBN 0-9746236-3-6)

• Taínos y Caribes es un libro que ofrece al lector una síntesis de las  culturas precolombinas antillanas, fundamentado en las más recientes investigaciones arqueológicas e históricas así como de los antiguos documentos de los cronistas españoles y franceses de las Antillas.

• El principal propósito del libro es brindar al lector promedio una clara visión del proceso que  experimentaron las culturas aborígenes antillanas antes, durante y después del descubrimiento europeo. Es decir, exponer de una manera clara y precisa el origen, apogeo, ocaso y legado de los taínos y caribes.

• Taínos y Caribes  cuenta con Prólogo del Dr. Ricardo E. Alegría, 18 capítulos y una bibliografía de unos 400 títulos,  junto a una minuciosa  y valiosa selección de ilustraciones que hacen más comprensible el texto. El libro constituye una obra única en la bibliografía de las Antillas.