Carib
Encyclopedia
Carib, Island Carib, or Kalinago people, after whom the Caribbean was named, are a group of people who live in the Lesser Antilles
Lesser Antilles
The Lesser Antilles are a long, partly volcanic island arc in the Western Hemisphere. Most of its islands form the eastern boundary of the Caribbean Sea with the Atlantic Ocean, with the remainder located in the southern Caribbean just north of South America...

 islands. They are an Amerindian people whose origins lie in the southern West Indies and the northern coast of South America.

The people spoke either a Carib language
Cariban languages
The Cariban languages are an indigenous language family of South America. They are widespread across northernmost South America, from the mouth of the Amazon River to the Colombian Andes, but also appear in central Brazil. Cariban languages are relatively closely related, and number two to three...

 or a pidgin
Pidgin
A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common. It is most commonly employed in situations such as trade, or where both groups speak languages different from the language of the...

, but the Caribs' regular raids on other groups resulted in so many female Arawak captives that it was not uncommon for the women to speak Kalhíphona, a Maipurean language (Arawakan
Arawakan languages
Macro-Arawakan is a proposed language family of South America and the Caribbean based on the Arawakan languages. Sometimes the proposal is called Arawakan, in which case the central family is called Maipurean....

). In the southern Caribbean, they co-existed with a related
Cariban-speaking group, the Galibi. They lived in separate villages in Grenada
Grenada
Grenada is an island country and Commonwealth Realm consisting of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea...

, Tobago
Tobago
Tobago is the smaller of the two main islands that make up the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. It is located in the southern Caribbean, northeast of the island of Trinidad and southeast of Grenada. The island lies outside the hurricane belt...

, and Dominica
Dominica
Dominica , officially the Commonwealth of Dominica, is an island nation in the Lesser Antilles region of the Caribbean Sea, south-southeast of Guadeloupe and northwest of Martinique. Its size is and the highest point in the country is Morne Diablotins, which has an elevation of . The Commonwealth...

.

History

The Caribs are believed to have migrated from the Orinoco
Orinoco
The Orinoco is one of the longest rivers in South America at . Its drainage basin, sometimes called the Orinoquia, covers , with 76.3% of it in Venezuela and the remainder in Colombia...

 River area in South America to settle in the Caribbean islands about 1200 AD, according to carbon dating. Over the century leading up to Columbus' arrival in the Caribbean archipelago in 1492, the Caribs mostly displaced the Maipurean-speaking Taínos, who settled the island chains earlier in history, by warfare, extermination and assimilation.
Carib islanders traded with the Eastern Taíno
Taíno people
The Taínos were pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Bahamas, Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles. It is thought that the seafaring Taínos are relatives of the Arawak people of South America...

 of the Caribbean Islands. The Caribs produced the silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...

 which Ponce de Leon
Ponce de León
-People:* Juan Ponce de León, a Spanish explorer of the Americas and first Governor of Puerto Rico* Juan Ponce de León y Loayza, the son of Juan Ponce de León II, and early settler of Ponce, Puerto Rico...

 found in Taíno communities. None of the insular Amerindians mined for gold, but obtained it by trade from the mainland. The Caribs were skilled boatbuilders and sailors. They appeared to have owed their dominance in the Caribbean basin to their mastery of warfare.

The Caribs were displaced by the Europeans with a great loss of life; most fatalities resulting from Eurasia
Eurasia
Eurasia is a continent or supercontinent comprising the traditional continents of Europe and Asia ; covering about 52,990,000 km2 or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres...

n infectious diseases to which they had no immunity, as well as warfare. Others were assimilated during the colonial period
European colonization of the Americas
The start of the European colonization of the Americas is typically dated to 1492. The first Europeans to reach the Americas were the Vikings during the 11th century, who established several colonies in Greenland and one short-lived settlement in present day Newfoundland...

; a few retained areas such as in Dominica
Dominica
Dominica , officially the Commonwealth of Dominica, is an island nation in the Lesser Antilles region of the Caribbean Sea, south-southeast of Guadeloupe and northwest of Martinique. Its size is and the highest point in the country is Morne Diablotins, which has an elevation of . The Commonwealth...

. Small populations survive, specifically in the Carib Territory
Carib Territory
The Carib Territory or Carib Reserve is a district in the Caribbean island-nation of Dominica. It was established for the descendants of the indigenous Carib people, also known as the Kalinago, who inhabited Dominica prior to European colonization and settlement.The Carib Territory was officially...

 in northeast Dominica.

The 'Black Caribs' (later known as Garifuna) of St. Vincent
Saint Vincent (island)
Saint Vincent is a volcanic island in the Caribbean. It is the largest island of the chain called Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. It is located in the Caribbean Sea, between Saint Lucia and Grenada. It is composed of partially submerged volcanic mountains...

 were descended from group of enslaved
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

 Africans who were marooned
Maroon (people)
Maroons were runaway slaves in the West Indies, Central America, South America, and North America, who formed independent settlements together...

 from shipwrecks of slave ships, as well as slaves who escaped here. They intermarried with the Carib and formed the last native culture to resist the British. It was not until 1795 that British
British people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...

 colonists transported the Black Carib to Roatan
Roatán
Roatán, located between the islands of Útila and Guanaja, is the largest of Honduras' Bay Islands. The island was formerly known as Ruatan and Rattan...

 Island, off Honduras
Honduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...

. Their descendants continue to live there today and are known as the Garifuna
Garifuna
The Garinagu are descendants of Carib, Arawak and West African people. The British colonial administration used the term Black Carib and Garinagu to distinguish them from Yellow and Red Carib, the Amerindian population that did not intermarry with Africans...

 ethnic group. Carib resistance delayed the settlement of Dominica by Europeans, and the Carib communities that remained in St. Vincent and Dominica retained a degree of autonomy well into the 19th century.

As the last known speakers of Island Carib died in the 1920s, the language is considered extinct
Extinct language
An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers., or that is no longer in current use. Extinct languages are sometimes contrasted with dead languages, which are still known and used in special contexts in written form, but not as ordinary spoken languages for everyday communication...

.

People

Because of Dominica's rugged area, Caribs were able to hide from European forces. The island's east coast includes a 3700 acres (15 km²) territory known as the Carib Territory
Carib Territory
The Carib Territory or Carib Reserve is a district in the Caribbean island-nation of Dominica. It was established for the descendants of the indigenous Carib people, also known as the Kalinago, who inhabited Dominica prior to European colonization and settlement.The Carib Territory was officially...

 that was granted to the people by the British Crown
The Crown
The Crown is a corporation sole that in the Commonwealth realms and any provincial or state sub-divisions thereof represents the legal embodiment of governance, whether executive, legislative, or judicial...

 in 1903. There are only 3000 Caribs remaining. They elect their own chief. In July 2003, Caribs observed 100 Years of Territory. In July 2004, Charles Williams was elected as Carib Chief, who was succeeded by Chief Garnette Joseph. It is said that they are the only remaining full-blood native Carib people, although some have intermarried with the non-Carib Dominican population.

Several hundred ethnic Carib descendants live in Trinidad
Trinidad
Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands and numerous landforms which make up the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. It is the southernmost island in the Caribbean and lies just off the northeastern coast of Venezuela. With an area of it is also the fifth largest in...

, Grenada, St. Lucia, U. S. Virgin Islands, Antigua & Barbuda, Guadeloupe, Aruba, Barbados as well as in St. Vincent, the size of which is not known. Some ethnic Carib communities remain on the South American mainland, in countries such as Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

, Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

, French Guiana
French Guiana
French Guiana is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department located on the northern Atlantic coast of South America. It has borders with two nations, Brazil to the east and south, and Suriname to the west...

, Guyana
Guyana
Guyana , officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, previously the colony of British Guiana, is a sovereign state on the northern coast of South America that is culturally part of the Anglophone Caribbean. Guyana was a former colony of the Dutch and of the British...

, Suriname
Suriname
Suriname , officially the Republic of Suriname , is a country in northern South America. It borders French Guiana to the east, Guyana to the west, Brazil to the south, and on the north by the Atlantic Ocean. Suriname was a former colony of the British and of the Dutch, and was previously known as...

 and in the country of Belize
Belize
Belize is a constitutional monarchy and the northernmost country in Central America. Belize has a diverse society, comprising many cultures and languages. Even though Kriol and Spanish are spoken among the population, Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official...

. The size of these communities varies widely.

Music

Garifuna music from the Garifuna people, the descendants of Carib, Arawak and West African people and is quite different from the music created rest of Central America
Central America
Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...

. The most famous form is punta
Punta
Punta is a Garifuna music and dance style performed at celebrations and festive occasions. Contemporary punta, including Belizean punta rock, arose in the last thirty years of the twentieth century in Belize, Honduras and Guatemala. It also has a following in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Southern Mexico...

. Its associated musical style, which has the dancers move their hips in a circular motion. An evolved form of traditional music, still usually played using traditional instruments, punta has seen some modernization and electrification in the 1970s; this is called punta rock
Punta rock
Punta rock or Belizean punta is a form of the traditional punta rhythm of the Garifuna people of Honduras, Belize and Guatemala.Punta rock is distinctive from traditional punta in that the language and concepts are more adapted to the general Belizean identity...

. Traditional punta dancing is consciously competitive. Artists like Pen Cayetano
Pen Cayetano
Delvin "Pen" Cayetano is a Belizean artist and musician living in Germany 1990-2009. He and his German wife Ingrid returned to Dangriga in July 2009 and they openend the Pen Cayetano Studio Gallery 1...

 helped innovate modern punta rock by adding guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

s to the traditional music, and paved the way for later artists like Andy Palacio
Andy Palacio
Andy Vivian Palacio was a Belizean Punta musician and government official. He was also a leading activist for the Garínagu and their culture.-Biography:...

, Children of the Most High and Black Coral
Black coral
Black corals are a group of deep water, tree-like corals related to sea anemones. They are also found in rare dark shallow water areas such as New Zealand's Milford Sound where they can be viewed from an underwater observatory. They normally occur in the tropics...

. Punta was popular across the region, especially in Belize, by the mid-1980s, culminating in the release of Punta Rockers in 1987, a compilation featuring many of the genre's biggest stars.

Other forms of Garifuna music and dance include: hungu-hungu, combination, wanaragua, abaimahani, matamuerte, laremuna wadaguman, gunjai, sambai, charikanari, eremuna egi, paranda, berusu, punta rock, teremuna ligilisi, arumahani, and Mali-amalihani. Punta is the most popular dance in Garifuna culture. It is performed around holidays and at parties and other social events. Punta lyrics are usually composed by the women. Chumba and hunguhungu
Hunguhungu
Hunguhungu or fedu is a form of traditional swaying circular dance performed by the women of the Garifuna people of Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala. The music for the dance is composed of rhythmic themes performed by three drummers with alternating call-and-response chanting, and displays...

 are a circular dance in a three-beat rhythm, which is often combined with punta. There are other songs typical to each gender, women having eremwu eu
Eremwu eu
Eremwu eu is a work song sung by women as they make cassava bread, as part of the Garifuna music tradition of Honduras.- External links :* http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/afburns/afrotrop/Garifuna.htm...

 and abaimajani, rhythmic a cappella
A cappella
A cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato...

 songs, and laremuna wadaguman, men's work song
Work song
A work song is a piece of music closely connected to a specific form of work, either sung while conducting a task or a song linked to a task or trade which might be a connected narrative, description, or protest song....

s, chumba and hunguhungu
Hunguhungu
Hunguhungu or fedu is a form of traditional swaying circular dance performed by the women of the Garifuna people of Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala. The music for the dance is composed of rhythmic themes performed by three drummers with alternating call-and-response chanting, and displays...

, a circular dance in a three-beat rhythm, which is often combined with punta.

Drums play a very important role in Garifuna music. There are primarily two types of drums used: the primero (tenor drum) and the segunda (bass drum). These drums are typically made of hollowed-out hardwood such as mahogany or mayflower, with the skins coming from the peccary (wild bush pig), deer, or sheep.

Also used in combination with the drums are the sisera. These shakers are made from the dried fruit of the gourd tree, filled with seeds, then fitted with hardwood handles.

Paranda music developed soon after the Garifunas arrival in Central America. The music is instrumental and percussion
Percussion instrument
A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...

-based. The music was barely recorded until the 1990s, when Ivan Duran
Ivan Duran
Award-winning music producer and musician Ivan Duran is the founder and director of Stonetree Records, based in Benque Viejo del Carmen in Belize, Stonetree is one of the region’s leading independent record labels and music recording studios...

 of Stonetree Records began the Paranda Project.

In contemporary Belize there has been a resurgence of Garifuna music, popularized by musicians such as Andy Palacio, Mohobub Flores, & Adrian Martinez. These musicians have taken many aspects from traditional Garifuna music forms and fused them with more modern sounds. Described as a mixture of punta rock and paranda. One great example is Andy Palacio's album Watina, and Umalali: The Garifuna Women's Project, both released on the Belizean record label Stonetree Records.

In the Garifuna culture, there is another dance called Dugu. This dance is a ritual done for a death in the family to pay their respect to their loved ones. In 2001, Garifuna music was proclaimed one of the masterpieces of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity
Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity
The Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity was made by the Director-General of UNESCO starting in 2001 to raise awareness on intangible cultural heritage and encourage local communities to protect them and the local people who sustain these forms of cultural...

 by UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...

.

Religion

Caribs are believed to have been polytheists
Polytheism
Polytheism is the belief of multiple deities also usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own mythologies and rituals....

. As the Spanish began to colonise the Caribbean area, they wanted to convert the natives to Catholicism
Catholicism
Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....

.

The Kalingo religion practised by the Carib had elements similar to the ancestor worship of the Taíno. They believed in an evil spirit called Maybouya, who had to be placated for an individual to avoid harm. The chief function of their shamans, called buyeis, was to heal the sick with herbs and to cast spells (piai) which would keep Maybouya at bay. The buyeis were very important and underwent special training instead of becoming warriors. As they were held to be the only people who could avert evil, they were treated with great respect. Their ceremonies were accompanied with sacrifices. As with the Arawaks and other Native Americans, the Carib smoked tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...

 in the rituals of their religion.

Patriarchy

Early Carib culture was patriarchal
Patriarchy
Patriarchy is a social system in which the role of the male as the primary authority figure is central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and entails female subordination...

. Women carried out the important domestic duties of rearing young children, processing and producing food and clothing, and cultivating the land for farming, including sowing and harvesting. In the 17th century, Europeans reported that the women, with their children, lived in separate houses from men, a custom recorded among other South American tribes.

The women were highly revered and held substantial socio-political power. Island Carib society was reputedly more socially egalitarian than Taíno society. Although there were village chiefs and war leaders, there were no large states or multi-tiered aristocracy. The local self-government
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...

 unit may have been the longhouse dwellings populated by men or women, typically run by one or more chieftain
Chieftain
Chieftain may refer to:The leader or head of a group:* a tribal chief or a village head.* a member of the 'House of chiefs'.* a captain, to which 'chieftain' is etymologically related.* Clan chief, the head of a Scottish clan....

s reporting to an island council
Tribal Council
A Tribal Council is either: an association of Native American bands in the United States or First Nations governments in Canada, or the governing body for certain tribes within the United States or elsewhere...

.

Cannibalism

The Carib word karibna meant "person". It became the origin of the English "cannibal". Although among the Carib, it was apparently associated with rituals related to the eating of war enemies, some Europeans believed the Carib practised general cannibalism
Cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...

.

Instances of cannibalism were noted as a feature of war rituals: the limbs of victims may have been taken home as trophies. The Kalinago would chew and spit out one mouthful of flesh of a very brave warrior, so that he could take on his bravery; but there was no evidence that they ate humans to satisfy hunger.

The Kalinago had a tradition of keeping bones of their ancestors in their houses. Missionaries such as Père
Péré
Péré may refer to the following places in France:*Péré, Charente-Maritime, a commune in the Charente-Maritime department*Péré, Hautes-Pyrénées, a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department...

 Jean Baptiste Labat and Cesar de Rochefort described the practice as part of a belief that the ancestral spirits would always look after the bones and protect their descendants.

Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano was killed and said to have been eaten by Carib natives on what is now Guadeloupe in 1528, during his third voyage to North America, after exploring Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

, the Bahamas
The Bahamas
The Bahamas , officially the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, is a nation consisting of 29 islands, 661 cays, and 2,387 islets . It is located in the Atlantic Ocean north of Cuba and Hispaniola , northwest of the Turks and Caicos Islands, and southeast of the United States...

 and the Lesser Antilles
Lesser Antilles
The Lesser Antilles are a long, partly volcanic island arc in the Western Hemisphere. Most of its islands form the eastern boundary of the Caribbean Sea with the Atlantic Ocean, with the remainder located in the southern Caribbean just north of South America...

.

Historians have described the cannibalism as related to war rituals. Columbus and his people did not understand what they were seeing, and they were shocked at this cannibalism. In 1503, Queen Isabella
Isabella I of Castile
Isabella I was Queen of Castile and León. She and her husband Ferdinand II of Aragon brought stability to both kingdoms that became the basis for the unification of Spain. Later the two laid the foundations for the political unification of Spain under their grandson, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor...

 ruled that only people who were better off under slavery (a definition which explicitly included cannibals) could legally be taken as slaves. This provided Spaniards an incentive and legalistic pretext for identifying various Amerindian groups as cannibals to enslave them and take their lands away.

To this day, the Kalinago people fight against what they regard as a misconception about their ancestors. The film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest is a 2006 adventure fantasy film and the second film of the Pirates of the Caribbean series, following Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl . It was directed by Gore Verbinski, written by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, and produced by...

was criticised by the National Garifuna Council for portraying the Carib people as cannibals.

Resources

  • Allaire, Louis (1997). "The Caribs of the Lesser Antilles", in Samuel M. Wilson, The Indigenous People of the Caribbean, pp. 180–185. Gainesville, Florida: University of Florida. ISBN 0-8130-1531-6.
  • Steele, Beverley A. (2003). Grenada, A history of its people, New York: Macmillan Education, pp. 11–47
  • Honeychurch, Lennox, The Dominica Story, MacMillan Education, 1995.
  • Davis, D and Goodwin R.C. "Island Carib Origins: Evidence and non-evidence", American Antiquity, vol.55 no.1(1990).
  • Eaden, John, The Memoirs of Père Labat, 1693–1705, Frank Cass, 1970.
  • "Carib", Ethnologue
  • "Kalinago", Name change announcement of November 15, 2010, by the Office of the Kalinago Council posted at Dominica News Online
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