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.