Garifuna people

The Garifuna people are of mixed African and Caribbean descent, specifically people from Saint Vincent exiled to Honduras in the eighteenth century. They are also known as Black Caribs. The Garifuna people live in various places throughout Central America, with most in Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) included the culture on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2008. According to the United Nations (UN), the language of the Garifuna people is dying out. The people sometimes face discrimination and in some places are losing their land to government officials and others. Activist organizations have accused the Honduran government of using police and military units to evict communities from their lands to make way for economic development.

Background

In the seventeenth century two Spanish ships carrying kidnapped West Africans of the Ashanti, Ibo, and Yoruba tribes wrecked off the island of Saint Vincent. The survivors of the shipwrecks swam to shore. They and formerly enslaved people who escaped other Caribbean islands lived on Saint Vincent, where they intermarried with the Amerindian Kalinago population. The Garifuna and Indigenous people resisted efforts by European powers to colonize the island for more than a century. The French arrived in the eighteenth century and lived on Saint Vincent before losing it to the British, but they were unable to control the entire island. Some Garifuna were captured and enslaved by the British, which angered a local leader. Chief Joseph Chatoyer, also known as Satuye, led the Garifuna in war against the British in the late eighteenth century.

The first Caribbean War began in 1769. After a particularly fierce battle in 1772, the British were persuaded to sign a peace treaty. However, over the next two decades, they violated their agreement. Chief Chatoyer led his people against them again. The Second Carib War began on March 14, 1795. Chatoyer died on the first day of the war, but his people continued to fight and regained control of most of the island. The French stood by the Garifunas against the British. The war ended in 1797 when General Ralph Abercromby’s troops defeated the Garifuna forces, who were held for a year in a prisoner of war camp on another island. More than half died. They were loaded onto a ship and left on Roatán, then a deserted island, in the bay of Honduras.

Some of the Garifuna left Roatán and moved to mainland Honduras, where they allied with Spain and fought against the British and pirates. When Central American people revolted against Spain and sought independence in the 1820s, the Garifuna of Honduras sided with the colonial power. After Honduras and other states in Central America won their independence, many Hondurans shunned the Garifuna. The Garifuna fought with others seeking to overthrow the Central American government in 1832, a revolt that failed. Changing politics and ongoing Central American upheaval led to charges of treason leveled against the Garifuna, and under pressure many settled along the coasts of Belize, Guatemala, and Nicaragua.

In 1937, the administration of Honduran dictator Tiburcio Carias accused twenty-two Garifuna men of San Juan of treason, forced them to dig their own graves, and executed them. The remaining community fled, establishing the village of Hopkins in Belize.

The coastal regions were isolated from much of the population. This allowed the Garifuna more freedom. They maintained their cultural practices and language. Women farmed while men fished, produced goods, and traded produce. Some Central American industries provided further opportunities. Garifuna men in Belize found work as loggers, while many in Guatemala and Honduras worked in American banana groves. Some went to sea as merchant mariners for fruit companies, while others migrated to the United States.

Overview

In modern times most of the Garifuna live in Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, where they experience various degrees of acceptance, marginalization, and persecution. The majority live in Honduras and Belize. A small population lives in eastern Guatemala, while Corn Island in Nicaragua is also home to Garifuna communities. Cassava is an important crop that the Garifuna people have carried and cultivated wherever they settled.

Children of migrants said they often associated with other Spanish-speaking children, but classmates often told them they were Black. According to Johnson and Callahan (2013), the global population was about 600,000, with about 100,000 living in the United States, primarily in New York, New York; Los Angeles, California; and New Orleans, Louisiana. About 300,000 live in Central America.

The Garifuna language belongs to the Ta-Maipurean or Caribbean branch of the Arawakan language family. The language includes many words borrowed from the indigenous Saint Vincent tongue and some French. It has also been influenced by Spanish and English. As is true of other minority groups, younger Garifuna increasingly speak other languages and use their native tongue less frequently, often only with family at home. Researchers say in communities in some parts of Belize and Nicaragua, the language has nearly disappeared. Online dictionaries, a website, and a mobile app have been developed to help preserve the language.

Honduras is home to the largest population, which, according to various sources, ranges from 43,000 to 250,000 people. Many live in cities, while others continue to live in traditional villages including Limon, Tornabe, and Triunfo de la Cruz. Los Cayos Cochinos, an island off the coast, is home to others. Many Garifuna in Honduras report being marginalized. For example, before 2000, only Spanish was permitted in schools, but children reported that even at recess they were punished for speaking Garifuna. In modern times some communities have organized to demand official recognition of their ethnic group. Proving their origins can bring legal status akin to that of indigenous Central American peoples, including land claims. Communities participate in festivals related to planting, harvesting, and fishing, among other activities. The culture includes activities such as drumming, singing, and dancing.

The Honduran population of the ethnic group traditionally divides labor by gender. Men fish in the ocean and rivers and hunt deer and iguana. They prepare the soil and slash and burn to clear land for farming. Men and women work together to sow and harvest crops. Women cultivate yucca and preserve it by grating and drying it. They also bake the cassava bread in which it is used for family consumption and to sell in local markets. Women also sell surplus crops and fish.

The Garifuna belief system includes elements of African, Amerindian, and Christian beliefs and traditions. The latter arrived on Saint Vincent via missionaries from North America and Europe. According to the beliefs of many Garifuna, all living people have an iuani, or spirit of the heart, and an áfurugu, or spirit double. The former is a life essence that is linked to the body, while the latter can travel—for example, it may appear in other people’s dreams. After death the iuani goes to seiri, the world of the ancestors. The worlds of the living and the dead are not separate but are intersecting planes, which allows the spirits of ancestors to visit the living in dreams and visions.

The Garifuna people believe in powerful ancestral spirits that must be honored through rituals lest they cause negative events. A central belief is that beings from the spirit world may cause good or bad health or fortunes for living individuals. There is no hell in this belief system, so the spirit of a person who has committed serious wrongdoing in life wanders the earth, often causing trouble or death. Garifuna also believe that spirits of nature can be angered and may inflict harm or death. A buyei, or shaman, offers insight about rituals and presides over ceremonies. Only a buyei can communicate with helper spirits called hiúruha. An important ritual is the dügü, a curing ceremony. If a buyei determines that a person’s illness has been caused by an angry ancestor spirit, he or she may call for this multi-day ritual to be performed. Most of the ritual activities will take place in a temple called a dabuyaba, which includes an earthen floor and an earthen mound from which the ancestral spirits emerge. Dance, song, animal sacrifice, and offerings of food and drink are elements of the dügü.

The largest population in Belize is at Dangriga, which the Garifuna founded in the nineteenth century. The anniversary of the arrival of the Garifuna people in Belize is celebrated annually on November 19, known as Garifuna Settlement Day. Observation includes song and drumming competitions in Dangriga, Belize City, Punta Gorda, Hopkins, and Seine Bight. A Catholic Mass the evening before initiates all-night drumming, and at dawn men in dug-out canoes re-enact their ancestors’ landing on the shore. The re-enactment, called Yurumein, means “homeland.”

Bibliography

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