“Mai-u bay matraman” is an invitation to “let’s go do self-help and then eat and drink afterwards” in Macushi, one of the indigenous languages of, mainly, the North Rupununi.
Matraman is Macushi for self-help or as the proverb says, ‘many hands make light work.’
“Come help me cut a farm. Come help me cut leaves to trash my house. Come help me drug [drag] logs to build my home. Come help me build my home. Mai-u bay matraman. That was how we did it long ago, by sheer self-help,” Toshao of Fairview Village Bradford Allicock told Stabroek Weekend.
Mashramani, which is translated colloquially as an Amerindian word meaning ‘celebration after hard work’ is the national festival that celebrates Guyana attaining republican status on 23rd February 1970.
Mashramani is today a celebration of Guyana’s cultural heritage and unity in diversity. It is also a celebration of Guyana’s survival against domination from outside influences. It is a significant national holiday having had its ups and downs. For instance, in 1993, after a change in government, only two bands paraded on the streets of Georgetown but the people in a show of protest came out in their numbers and joined the parade in a t-shirt band and so Mashramani survived.
Mashramani Parade at Mabaruma last Thursday
Mashramani was first celebrated in carnivalesque style, without a formal name in Linden.
Adopting that carnival mode of celebration in Georgetown and on a national scale to celebrate Guyana achieving Republican status, Jimmy Hamilton, a member of the Jaycees of Linden which had organised the Linden festivities, was asked to come up with a name, preferably indigenous in nature, for the republican celebrations.
Several people were contacted including Albert Fiedtkou. At the time, he worked with the then Demerara Bauxite Company, and was asked if he knew the names of any Amerindian festivals. Fiedtkou, who had travelled in the interior, suggested ‘matraman’ or ‘mashraman’, which he believed was Arawak in origin.
Fiedtkou, whose parentage was diverse and included indigenous blood from Malali, coincidentally was born on February 23, 1929.
However, there is no matraman or mashraman in the Arawakan language. The Arawaks of northern and north-western Guyana, like the Caribs, use the Warrau word, ‘kayap’ which has a similar meaning to matraman. The Wapichan people use the word ‘manore’ for self-help and feasting thereafter.
Because of the cattle trail also passing through the Upper Demerara region before the road from Georgetown to Annai and Lethem was opened, the people of Upper Demerara would have also been more familiar with Guyanese who live on the coast at the time and with the culture of the people of the North Rupununi through the vaqueros or cowboys who herded the cattle along the trail from the Rupununi to the coastland.
An invite
Allicock, who is of Macushi, Arawak and European ancestry, explained to Stabroek Weekend that though the Macushis were never given the credit for the name Mashramani, as someone of Macushi origin, he is proud that Guyana adopted the word ‘matraman’ and adapted it to become a national festival. To the unfamiliar, he noted, the word ‘matraman’ may sound like ‘mashraman’.
Allicock is the toshao of Fairview Village, a mixed indigenous community of predominantly Macushi and Patamonas in the Iwokrama protected area; he is originally from the Macushi village of Surama in North Rupununi.
“Matraman is basically people helping one another to do something meaningful,” he said.
“Not so many years ago, in Surama, if I had a farm to clear, I would have had to mark out the land and under-bush in preparation for the harder work. When it is time to cut down the big trees, I will go around the village and invite all the men to help me. No cash is involved. The men will come and assist me with a one-day work, and we will have accomplished what I had set out to do. When we return home, I will invite them to partake of ‘kari’ and food and everyone will eat and drink and talk about the day’s events and just have fun.”
Kari is an alcoholic beverage made from the processed cassava root.
Matraman is still practised, but not on a large scale as before. He recalled that in his youth all the men came out to do matraman. Now it is done on a smaller scale. Some who have money prefer to pay some men to do a few days of work rather than prepare for a matraman. To Allicock, the latter is much more fun.
Women also hold matramans for the ploughing and weeding of farms. In the past, many thatched houses were built in a day through matramans.
There is also much preparation for the matraman. The one inviting the others to take part in the matraman must ensure there is sufficient drinks and food and so the family hosting the matraman has to hunt or fish for the meals and prepare farine for the day’s event. That becomes the wife’s responsibility.
“The mistress of the home will invite a few women to help her prepare the food. Usually, the wife makes the kari which is a shortened form of the parakari. She makes the beverage weeks or days in advance of the event as the drink must go through the process of fermentation,” he related.
Kari is made from the cassava meal which is baked into a thick ‘kaynan’ (cassava bread) also known as ‘arasoka’ in the Arawak language.
“The kaynan is soaked and set in sugar water for three days until it gets ‘ripe’ and it grows the cotton over it and it becomes very soft and sweet. We break off the young leaves of the cassava tree, sun them out before parching them and then grinding them into powder before putting the powder in the drink to help it to make the cotton or ferment. The women scoop the cottony substance and put in containers made from the balata latex. They seal the containers for several days, weeks or months depending on how long and how strong we want the beverage to be,” he explained.
Community members still make drinks and food for national celebrations, like Mashramani, Christmas Day or New Year’s Day, at the village level.
“Each family makes a five gallon or ten gallons of kari for the occasion. We do the same with food. We still do many things collectively,” he said.
In more recent times, Allicock said, matramans are still held by families who do not have the cash but may have the means to provide drinks and food through farming and hunting. He said it is also done by the village toshaos who may call on community members to engage in some self-help to complete a project for the benefit of the village. It may be for the construction of a benab for the villagers’ recreation, the construction of a playground or the construction of a communal washroom or toilet facilities.
Many major projects in Guyana began in a small way through self-help projects, like the opening of the 24-mile road from Kumaka to Kwebanna under the late toshao John Ferreira. It was upkept by aided government self-help until the government took full control of its maintenance and upgrade. The bridge linking Kumaka with San Jose in Moruca started as a wooden bridge and earthen dam by kayap or matraman under the late toshao Albert La Rose and today the bridge and walkway are concrete structures built by the Government of Guyana.
Many public benabs and roadways were built and maintained by matraman or manore over the years and are still being maintained that way.
