Dear Editor,
Happy Amerindian Heritage to you and other Guyanese.
My topic today is Cultural Heritage which I hope will be beneficial to all my human siblings.
What is Cultural Heritage?
According to UNESCO, “Cultural Heritage is the legacy of physical artifacts and tangible attributes of a group or society that are inherited from the past generations, maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations”.
The intangible attributes should be added to the definition also.
September month is designated as Amerindian Heritage month. Is the ‘celebrations’ only for the Amerindians? Looking at it from a Guyanese perspective, supported by the country’s national motto: “One People, One Nation and One Destiny”, a boiling pot of cultural heritage, it seems to define an ideal Guyanese spatial interactive cultural heritage.
What is an ideal Guyanese Spatial Interactive Cultural Heritage anyway?
It is a coined phrase to define Guyanese interchangeable dynamic cultural practices amongst the peoples. For example, the roti making technique derived from India through the indenture servants which is very much alive not only among the descendants of the original Indians, but amongst the Afro Guyanese, Guyanese Amerindians and other ethnic groups also. In other words, cultural heritage can be ‘borrowed or lent’.
Similarity of cultural beliefs also exist amongst Guyanese in general. For example, every ethnic group of Guyanese has a belief in the ‘spiritual’ realm (intangible heritage) which is passed on from their fore parents.
One other culture which is very similar to that of the Amerindians’ is the Africans’. Their architecture, its adobe walls with thatched roofs, their food (cassava); their weapons (bows and arrows) and one of their forms of transportation – dugout canoes – can be observed.
It is very clear here that, not only amongst Guyanese, but globally human beings are interconnected culturally in general.
We can, therefore, live our heritage and become a richer and respectful society through sharing our rich cultural heritage among ourselves by speaking them, making music in our mother tongues, dancing to music from one another, eating food from one another, by borrowing heritage from one another’s ethnic culture; and from foreigners also.
Having concluded the interconnection of human beings culturally, is it convenient to state that the month of September is not only for the Amerindians Heritage celebration but for all Guyanese to celebrate or participate in.
At home, in Guyana, amongst our Amerindian communities, there are some cultural practices that do have negative implications on the younger generations in some villages or in ‘towns’. One such example is the communal celebration of birthday parties where everyone attends. Be it a child’s birthday or an adult’s where parents consume alcohol beyond their limitation and leave their children unsupervised or unprotected especially their adolescent girls.
A magnification of such practice was observed at the last year’s Heritage Celebrations at St. Ignatius Village Benab where children were seen at the ‘celebration’ late at night long after the cultural presentations which involved children were concluded.
A statistic was voiced by a medical doctor at a workshop on child pregnancy recently, where it indicated the periods when such pregnancy occurs. Periods were the main ‘celebrations’ – Heritage, Rodeo, Christmas and August vacations, among others, in the case of Region Nine.
Before making recommendations on how the negative effects of culture can be eliminated, another limitation (lack of knowledge) needs to be mentioned here which is the laws that protect the children, due to which parents or village leaders are unable to curb the situations.
How, then, will the heritage be “maintained in the present” so that it can be “bestowed for the benefit of future generations”?
The recommendations suggested below are solely to protect the children whilst they “maintain” their culture “in the present” and to prevent continual adolescent pregnancy or other forms of child abuse which eliminate the child’s future potentialities.
1. A child can celebrate his/her birthday only with his /her friends (of course his/her parents will supervise the activity).
2. An adult can celebrate his/her birthday only with his /her friends (of course the adult’s children will be present).
3. Children should have separate cultural events at the Amerindian Heritage celebrations supervised by parents or responsible adults from the adults, especially in the late nights.
4. The laws of Guyana, especially those that protect children, should be made available to every parent or imparted to villagers in general by the village councils or someone familiar to the laws.
In conclusion, Amerindian Heritage celebrations have revived some cultural practices whilst losing some very important cultural aspects such as languages or dances such as traditional Paleshala which was spiritual in content which today’s generation knows only by its name. As cultural heritage is dynamic, meaning it can move or change, it can be observed in the latest fashion outfits made of varying materials other than traditional materials which are worn at the celebrations. Over the years, however, it is observed that not much has been done in the area of footwear which made it seem that ‘bare feet’ is a culture of the people. On the contrary, Amerindians in the past made footwear out of ite palm stalk which can be replaced by fashionable leather.
In general, this idea, to “maintain” a culture “in the present”, must be practised on a daily basis not only in September month. Constant practice will make it be alive to be “bestowed for the future generations” indeed.
If human beings can keep their ethnic cultural heritage alive and share amongst their human siblings, they can teach one another and become richer human beings by being respectful and accepting one another as human brothers and sisters; and in so doing will help to bring about the ideal World Peace.
Happy Heritage to all.
Yours faithfully,
Guy Marco
