Garifuna Voices of the Village

Elizabeth Pridgeon

Voices of the Village is a weekly column that travels around the country, reporting on issues of concern or celebration in various villages throughout the six districts of the country.  This week, rather than focus on one village as usual, this column will focus on Garifuna villages in general, including Hopkins, Georgetown and Seine Bight (in the Stann Creek district) and Barranco (in the Toledo district).

Perhaps the first notable observation is that historically many Garifuna villages had particularly impermeable boundaries to other communities: aside from Punta Negra and Mullins River which are considered mixed Garifuna/Creole settlements, Hopkins and Seine Bight only ‘opened up’ with the development of the tourist industry in the past decade or so, and it is only in the past couple of years that a few stray Hispanic immigrants have settled in the entirely Garifuna village of Barranco.  For this insular impression, the Garifuna community for a long time struggled to gain acceptance from fellow members of Belizean society.  An acclaimed Garifuna historian and former executive of the National Garifuna Council, Godsman Ellis, blames ‘continuous persecution and oppression’ for this seemingly inapproachable behaviour, for they have been forced to develop strong intra-ethnic group ties in a bid for survival.  Thus other Belizean groups grew to view their national Garifuna counterparts as somewhat suspicious, and for centuries, the Garifuna were accused of devil-worship, polygamy, voodoo and speaking a secret language.  For fear of this ‘unknown’, few other Belizeans chose to visit Garifuna villages, meaning that the cultural beauty of these areas was largely hidden from public view for generations.

Even more problematic were the colonial authorities of the late nineteenth century which prohibited Garifuna individuals from owning land and considered them ‘squatters’  despite families farming the same parcels of land for decades previously.  For this reason, along with the centuries of persecution from their assumed Creole ‘superiors’, the Garifuna perceive themselves as more of an oppressed indigenous group than as an African ethnic group, and so they align more with Consejo de Indigenas rather than the United Black Association for Development (particularly because many Garifuna villages are located amid indigenous villages than Creole settlements).  Even so, sadly over the years several individuals saw the benefit of assimilating into Creole society as being greater than the inherent value of the Garifuna culture, which caused several families to discard their ethnic heritage and align themselves along black African roots rather than their own unique heritage.

It was only during the global movement towards cultural regeneration and preservation that the National Garifuna Council was established in 1981 to preserve various aspects of the Garifuna culture including language, music, food, dances, crafts, art and rituals.  The majority of Garifuna people were at this time proficient in Garinagu (the Garifuna language), and while many village residents chose to converse in their mother tongue at home, it was rarely used ‘in public’ (i.e. outside of Garifuna boundaries).  Thus Garifuna populations in urban areas (particularly in Dangriga and Punta Gorda, but also in Belize City and Belmopan) principally chose to conceal their mother tongue from neighbours and colleagues due to a fear of persecution.  Similarly, food was a well appreciated emblem of ethnicity, but the natural fish, banana and root vegetable based ingredients of dishes such as bundiga, tapou, darasa, hudutu and sahau was harder to acquire in the urban centres anyway, and so this remained a more rural symbol of ethnic heritage.  Dance, music and crafts, however, were increasingly forgotten throughout Garifuna settlements, and discarded as relics of an ancient past that were no longer applicable in modern society, as pop music and alternative past times proved more popular with younger generations.  As even remote villages became increasingly ‘globalised’, international television shows depicted an apparently glitzy life far removed from Garifuna traditions, and prompted further loss of indigenous heritage.

Barranco has not suffered as markedly as many other locations because it is well and truly ‘off the beaten track’ and so it remains far removed from decent infrastructure and social service networks, but when it was first inhabited the area must have been even less hospitable than today.  It is thought Barranco was founded in the early 1860s, around the same time as a small group of American confederates attempted to establish a community on the outskirts of PG but found the conditions too harsh.  It is a testimony to the resilience of those Garifuna residents inhabiting Barranco that they not only endured the harsh conditions, but seemingly thrived in them.

Hopkins is another fine example of endurance, in a manner similar to the residents of Hattieville who were mentioned in last week’s article.  Hopkins is the youngest of all Garifuna settlements in Belize, settled in 1942 by people from nearby Newtown, which was destroyed in a hurricane.  Rather than give up and further their suffering, Newtown residents who were brutally punished by the hurricane decided to relocate and recreate a new village to call ‘home’, away from the destruction, destitution and painful memories of the hurricane.  Somehow, when Hopkins was ‘discovered’ on the tourist scene, it managed to retain its dignity even despite increasing out-bidding of land and properties by North American ex-patriots (which is an even greater problem for the remaining Garifuna roots of Seine Bight too).

However, Hopkins residents are facing increasing problems and a group of socially-responsible residents recognised this and in 2006 established the GOOD charity, an acronym for the Garifuna Organisation for Ongoing Development.  This grassroots NGO attempts to provide opportunities of growth and community success by focusing mainly on youths, women and children of Hopkins.  GOOD identifies the most severe problems in the village being the loss of cultural Garifuna identity, drug addiction, alcoholism, poor HIV and AIDS awareness, neglect of children, and unsustainable environmental practices.  Despite the Garifuna community being a major contributor to the education sector on a national level (take Hopkins-born Gwen Nunez Gonzales’ contribution, for example), such local problems in Hopkins are put down to failing community education initiatives and an increasing segregation of formerly united community members.  Current project proposals include the establishment of a village library, a study hall equipped with computers, and vocational training courses in subjects such as tourism, carpentry and technology.

Seine Bight has a similar age to Barranco, having been settled around 1869, but the difference is that Seine Bight was occupied for centuries before the Garifuna arrival, and was already well recognised as a prime coastal location along the Placencia Peninsula before the Garifuna made the area even more productive.  The arrival in Seine Bight followed years of migrating around the area, under the leadership of Emmanuel ‘Walpy’ Moreira, who was determined to find the perfect location for a settlement; Seine Bight fit the bill perfectly.  Fishing was the mainstay of nearly all residents until the development of the Peninsula’s tourism industry, after which several families opened up guest houses or bars and restaurants to entertain visitors.  Seine Bight gives the impression of being one of the last approachable villages for ‘outsiders’ even in today’s merging world, and the naming of a local establishment as ‘Kulcha Shak’ shows the journey Garifuna villagers have been forced to traverse (willingly or not, as the case may be) as the area increasingly opens up to tourists and ex-patriots.  It seems that acceptance of the changing future of the village is increasing, and several villages are now eagerly anticipating the development of the largest fish farm in the Western Hemisphere, which is due to open close to the village next year.

The Garifuna culture has had no option but to embrace the ever-changing reality of increasing modernisation in Belize, and the success with which they have achieved this is remarkable.  The size constraint of this column is far too limited to bestow sufficient credit on the Garifuna people of contemporary Belize, and indeed there is barely enough room to even mention the various aspects of Garifuna life within each of the unique villages.  Suffice is to say that, while throughout Belizean society there are problems afflicting populations including increased drug abuse, unemployment and corruption, the Garifuna population are striving harder than ever to preserve their cultural heritage and therefore avoid the plagues of contemporary Belizean society.  Perhaps some of the most stable, reliable progress in Belize’s future could stem from Garifuna traditions, and from taking a leaf from the book of villages such as Hopkins, Seine Bight and Barranco.

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