Most older nations view their history in terms of one long continuous sweep, from the beginning of human occupation in their particular land space down to the present time. Not here. The past has a segmented quality with each racial group tracing history from its own arrival. Of course each group does indeed require specialist study; it is just that members of any given people settled here tend not to recognise the story of another one as part of their story too and a legitimate actor in what is a shared heritage.
From the point of view of the state as a political entity the assumption is that history begins with the arrival of the first Dutch settlers and the Africans they brought with them. In a technical sense that is true, but the past does not begin there. The area enclosed by what are our present boundaries has a truly ancient dimension in human terms. We have a remarkable pre-history, although stop the average citizen on the street and you will be told about the supposed six races of Guyana, but there will be no reference to anything prehistoric. If there is a mention of the subject it will be dismissed as something associated with the Amerindians alone.
Yet this is the past of all Guyanese, and the people who lived in the region we now inhabit and the cultural strategies they evolved for their survival over thousands of years belong to all of us. And it is not as if either they did not play an active role in the history of this country after the Dutch settled. The casual popular assumption is that they were a passive element in our colonial history except for their assistance to the Europeans in controlling the enslaved. But that custodial function came late in the colonial period and did not apply to most of the nations, some of whom could be enslaved if they were not from a protected group. It is not generally recognised that there was a local indigenous slave trade here, which came to an end when Amerindian slavery was abolished by the Dutch in 1793, forty years before the British finally passed a law ending African enslavement in their colonies.
But that aside, the Indigenous people had various parts to play in the Dutch colonial era particularly, saving the very first colonists of Berbice and presumably the first Africans along with them from starvation. They provided a wide variety of supplies to the Dutch for the seventeenth and first part of the eighteenth centuries, and most important, furnished the colonies with their most important export after sugar, ie annatto, which was used to colour cheeses in the Netherlands. In particular, Guyana owes its shape to them in an active sense because of the actions of the Caribs against the Spanish missions in the west, and in a passive sense partly because the Macusis, Wapichan and Tarumas entered what is now this country in the south to escape the Portuguese. (The Tarumas as a nation it is thought became extinct on account of contracting influenza in the post World War I pandemic.)
September is Amerindian Heritage Month, but in the official calendar of activities there is no occasion identified to spread information on Indigenous prehistory and the work which has been done on it, or ethnohistory either for that matter – no exhibitions in the Walter Roth Museum, no video presentations for the public and schoolchildren and the like. The theme is ‘Celebrating our traditional culture while building One Guyana,’ and Amerindian Affairs Minister Pauline Sukhai was quoted as saying, “We will be able to introduce to this country again, our unique dances, our music, our food, and of course the treasure of the way we work, the way we live as one.” There is, of course, in addition an arts, craft and cuisine expo, as well as a heritage pageant and games.
This is not to suggest that folk traditions and celebrating them are not important; they are. It is just that for a people who have been here as long as the Indigenous could we not just for once move beyond folk culture and address as well some of the intellectual and artistic work which has been done by and about them. And in particular could we not produce even brief pieces for public consumption about their prehistory – even if not their ethnohistory in the colonial era − which is also our prehistory and part of the story of Guyanese. It should be added that how the first peoples created a culture in this tropical region and made the environment habitable is also important for the larger story of mankind on this planet.
And on a related topic, while there have been exhibitions of Indigenous artists before, the Heritage Month provides a good opportunity to remind Guyanese of their unique contribution to the creative sphere. Ordinary citizens in addition to Indigenous ones should have the opportunity to see the works of people like George Simon (who was also an archaeologist, working with Dr Denis Williams, Guyana’s first local archaeologist, and Dr Neil Whitehead), Oswald Hussein and Stephanie Correia, to name but a few. They utilise the motifs and notions of spirituality of their people, but they speak to a Guyanese, and by extension, an international audience.
Perhaps the function which best reflected a different side of the Indigenous experience happened outside the formal framework of Heritage Month, and that was the launch by the University of Guyana Press of the book Archaeology of Guyana. Authored by Dr Mark Plew and UG’s Ms Louisa Daggers, this is the book’s second edition. Ms Daggers was reported as saying that the work sought to redefine over 100 years of research into less technical phenomena. That is important, because there are two stages in these kinds of areas; the first is the primary research, and in the case of archaeology that can be quite technical, and the second is putting the findings into a form which makes them accessible for general public consumption.
Ms Daggers was also reported to have alluded to the danger to the heritage through illicit trade, mining and climate change, since there were sites vulnerable to flooding, erosion and damage over time. This, she said, required a more proactive approach in its management and preservation. One hopes the authorities take notice.
Present at the launch was Minister Frank Anthony, who had once been Minister of Culture in an earlier administration. He was reported as saying that he had worked with Dr Plew, one of the authors, to involve local students in a museum field school. “We wanted local people to go out into field, I think that led to us building capacity. Today, Ms Daggers is a product of that programme …” he was quoted as saying. Post pandemic one hopes that this programme has been resuscitated.
Amerindian Heritage Month 2022 kicked off with a grand extravaganza at the Guyana National Stadium at Providence on Thursday evening. President Irfaan Ali addressed the gathering, telling the audience, “[E]very single Amerindian with a qualification that wants to be trained as a nurse, as a teacher, as a dental technician, as a medical worker, I am saying to you, know we are committing that we as a government will train every single one. We will provide opportunity; we will provide money, we will provide that environment, and we will give you that opportunity.” What a pity he didn’t add archaeologist to the list.
