While being cognisant of the loss of the Arawak culture, Basil Rodrigues believes that if interventions are made, the spiral can be stymied so that this culture can be passed on to youths.
Rodrigues known as ‘Uncle Basil’ is a resident of Santa Rosa; a community found within the Moruca Sub-Region, Region One and has lived a life devoted to teaching and guitar music. He was born on June 13, 1932 at Bullet Tree, Waini River before moving in 1940 to Santa Rosa to attend primary school.
“Banjo music had me interested and I wanted to know how to play,” he said. This early love for music grew from listening to Hurrup and Banchikili (Spanish Arawak music), which was played frequently in the community. He recalled how he and other boys would peep at “dances” from the trees since they were not allowed to go in. At other times, he and his friends would paddle two or three miles down the Moruca River singing western songs particularly those of Hank Williams, who hits included “Your Cheating Heart” and “Hey Good Looking”. A Roman Catholic nun, Sister Teresa, did not like that since she thought they were drinking, but he said that was not so; they just loved the music.
He was 19 years on in 1951, when his mother’s permission was sought for him to go teach at a school in Karaudarnaua, Deep South Rupununi. While he took with him his love for guitar playing, adjusting to a different environment where little English was used was difficult. He said he was often lonely and found that he could not fit in.
However, in 1954, he moved to Shea, another community in the Deep South, as head teacher with the aim of opening a primary school. He remembers climbing Shea Rock and using that time to reflect on life. “The geography of the land presented an ideal place to learn, reminisce and discover,” he said. It was while there that he realised that he could compose songs on life of the people in the Rupununi, their heritage, beliefs and the tough life they lived.
Therefore after work, he would try to fit his compositions to Samba, a music form which was often played there. “I found as a teacher, the children used to be more interested in this new form of music and it helped because I could not get them to understand how I operated as a teacher,” he said.
He wrote songs, skits and dances that the smallest child could join in and perform. Even though the Wapishana language was difficult for him, he was determined to learn it and managed to write many of his skits in this language.
“I spent almost a lifetime at Shea; almost 25 years, with breaks of course, because I had to attend the teachers training college during that time, and after I completed that I went back to teach in the Rupununi.” A few years later, he moved to Aishalton, another village in the Deep South, and spent the next eleven years teaching there. He said Aishalton was different from Shea in that the people were harder working, independent and wanted to do things.
He said that he was encouraged by former Toshao Henry Winter to settle there. However, when the plane service to the area was discontinued in the 1980s, articles in the stores got expensive. At that point, he was no longer a teacher and owned of a herd of cattle which he tried to increase in number so as to sustain his family. However, two things happened which changed the course of his life.
Firstly, his health began to deteriorate amidst the lack of proper medical facilities and secondly people started to get into the habit of cattle rustling. These two factors led to his decision to return to Moruca.
In 1992, he returned to Santa Rosa and rekindled his love for music especially the Banchikili which was the main form of musical entertainment there. But Amerindian culture there was different from how he had left it. “I found that the culture was rapidly dying out, the youths had left the culture by itself because they were ashamed to dance and play their music, and were more interested in modern music.”
He added that a famous violinist, who was well respected in the community, Aloysius La Rose called ‘Uncle Bull’ conceptualised the idea of forming a band along with Frank Hernandez who played the fiddle. He said he decided to part of the band because of his love for playing the guitar. They named the band, the Mariaba String Band. He said the name “Mariaba” was the original name of Santa Rosa.
The band played the banchikili music which was passed down from Spanish Arawaks who came from Venezuela in 1817 and settled in the Moruca area. Rodrigues said the band performed at several functions up until the late 1990s. Unfortunately, in 1996 he suffered a heart attack which resulted in him losing energy. As a result of his poor health, he could not move about much and as such lost interest in the band. During the course of that year, the band also lost two other members.
Rodrigues was also the recipient of two national awards namely the Medal of Service given to him in 1991 for his community work in the Rupununi. While the other, the Arrow of Achievement was bestowed on him in 1998 for his teaching and musical endeavours.
Currently, while the band is still in existence, “it is barely surviving”, he said, since its two members have limited knowledge of the banchikili music. He said he is very sad about that, but there is little he can do. When the band was at its optimum, it had recorded several tapes of its music; Rodrigues is hoping that he can acquire some of these tapes to keep as a memoir of the fading music.
He bemoaned the fact that the culture was not passed on after the elders died. “Why couldn’t I get our boys to pass it on?” He hopes that one day he can write about life at Moruca especially on “what happened to the original teachers who left Moruca for the South Rupununi for places like Achiwib, Awaruranawa, Mararuranawa and Sand Creek.” He added that the communities all had teachers from Moruca who later settled there. “Moruca is really the backbone of education there.”
Now, at age 78 Uncle Basil spends his time engrossed in reading and gardening. However, he identifies himself also as a poet of over 60 works on Moruca, Kanima and “jumbies”. He no longer performs but is ever-willing to assist school children with bits of advice and poetry.
While he may be removed from the physical aspects of culture, the worry of loss of culture and language is never far from his mind. “Sadly, culture is not popular here [Santa Rosa], we don’t know our language and the youths are not interested.
“We are forgetting our dances; it has become a laughing matter now because they make so many mistakes.”
Uncle Basil believes that not enough is being done to engage youths in their culture. He is of the opinion that schools can play a greater role in curbing this cultural loss with the addition of music teachers. Further, he said that a “meaningful” committee with determined people can be set up to revive the Arawak culture.
“We could make an impression; it doesn’t mean anything if we only want to do culture when September comes,” he remarked.
While there has been a loss in Arawak culture, he still hopes it can be halted by capitalising on the existing knowledge possessed by the community’s elders. While he no longer performs, he stands out as a man of knowledge about music and the Amerindian way of life in Santa Rosa.
