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The mixed descendants of the last Island Caribs who inhabited the Lesser Antilles live on the north-east coast of Dominica. This simple fact has been so exaggerated and distorted over the last thirty years of tourism publicity, that there tends to be much misunderstanding, bewilderment and eventual disappointment among visitors who come to view the Carib Territory as one of the 'attractions' of Dominica.
Some years ago, before the motorable road went completely through this area, I was travelling with a group of visitors who had rocked and jolted across the island to see the 'Indian Reservation' as they called it. Having passed through all the scattered hamlets which made up the isolated community, the vehicle reached the end of the road and turned around to go back to Roseau. Immediately there was the plaintive wail of North American accents from the rear of the land rover 'but where's the Carib Village?'
It struck me at once what the problem was. Somewhere, in all the glossy promotional hype, they had been led to believe that there they would see a primitive tribe in its last halcyon days; with thatched huts, grass skirts, a chief in feather and perhaps a few hulahula dancers. It is nothing like that at all.
Visually there is little to differentiate it from any other part of rural Dominica. The same small farms of mixed crops dominated by bananas and coconuts are clustered around the roadside and surrounding hills. The same houses, some of concrete, some of wood surrounded by tidy flower gardens face onto the road. One slight distinction may be that some of the wooden houses are raised on stilts to shelter drying timber, cocoa, coffee or reeds for basket making. Increasingly you'll see the family pick-up truck packed nearby and television aerials sprouting from bamboo poles. Perhaps a thatched outhouse or kitchen utilising traditional materials and building methods may be seen.
Only three things hint that here live the remnants of a disappearing tribe: the small craft shops selling the basketwork which follows style and patterns handed down for centuries, now and then the sight of a half finished canoe being hollowed out of the single trunk of a giant Gommier tree and the sight of people whose skin tone and facial structure vaguely recall the Mongolian origin of their forefathers, who once had free rein over all these islands.
The weakening of their hold on Dominica began from the time that the first Spanish caravelles dropped anchors in Prince Rupert's Bay, shortly after the second voyage of Columbus. From then on, ships of all nations came regularly to collect wood and water and to trade with the Caribs for fruit and cassava flour. For almost two centuries, contact was limited to trading and occasional skirmishes, by the mid seventeenth century Dominica had become a refuge for Caribs retreating from the other islands where the surge of French, English and Dutch colonisation was sweeping from off their ancestral lands. The rugged mountains, thick forest and iron coastline provided a natural citadel for the final retreat. From this base they made attacks on the fledgling European colonies and suffered at least two massacres in retaliation; one at Anse De Mai in 1635 and another in 1674 at the village which is still called Massacre today.
Christianity was first introduced in 1642 and missionaries of the Dominican, Capucine and Jesuit Orders installed themselves at various points on the island. They had little spiritual success but collected masses of anthropological data on the Carib language and way of life. At the same time propaganda was being used to justify extermination. Pamphleteers in Europe were having a field day on the subject of Carib cannibalism, outdoing each other to create ever gory accounts about the consumption of human flesh. One of them, Rochefort, has Carib gourmets comparing the taste and texture of various European nationalities. Being a Frenchman, his story concludes, of course, that the French were the most tasty! It appears, however, from the more balance accounts of respected missionaries that such tales of cannibalism were greatly exaggerated and may have been based on the occasional ceremonial use of ancestor and enemy remains.
By 1700 French lumbermen had established their ateliers along the leeward coast and soon the Caribs were withdrawing to the windward side, exchanging land rights for rum, brass bowls, iron axes, cutlasses and hoes.
When the British formally took over in 1763 European conquest was complete. British surveyors divided the island up into lots for sale and plantations were established around the island. Only 232 acres of mountainous land and rocky shoreline at Salybia were left for the Caribs. This was done, legend has it, at the request of Queen Charlotte, wife of George III. This subsequently developed into the myth that Charlotte had left them half of Dominica - a myth which today many older Caribs consider, erroneously, to be an historical fact.
For another 130 years the Caribs were left to themselves, shadowy figures hardly seen by the growing Creole society of African slaves, free men and European officials and landowners. Now and then they appeared in the estate yards and at Sundays markets to sell baskets and fish, but quickly dissolved into the mountains once more along forest tracks towards Salybia.
When Robert Hamilton was sent by the British Colonial Office as Commissioner in 1893 to find out why Dominica was more backward and less developed than almost any other of the islands, and why its people were less prosperous and contented than her Majesty's other West Indian subjects, he received a tragic letter from the Caribs:
"In the name of God, my Lord, We humble beg of your kindness to accept our petition of your poor people, Indians or Caraibe, of Salibia, to implore the mercy of our Beloved Mother and Queen Victoria, for her poor and unfortunate children. We don't have nothing to support us, no church, no school, no shop, no store. We are very far in the forest; no money, no dress. They call us wild savages. No my beloved Queen, it is not savages but poverty. We humble kneel down in your feet to beg of your assistance. Accept your humble children of Salibia."
Nine years afterwards an enlightened Administrator, Heskeith Bell, sent a lengthy report to the Colonial Office making certain proposals for the future of the Caribs. He advised that 3,700 acres should be set aside for them and that a chief should be officially recognised by the colony and given a token allowance of six pounds annually. This was approved, and a year later the chief was invested with a silver headed staff and ceremonial sash.
Economically and socially, however there was no improvement and emotions flared up in September 1930 in a conflict with police over smuggling. It was only in 1970 that a motorable road was cut through the area and telephones and electricity followed in the 1980's. Bananas and coconuts have improved earnings, but because all the land is owned in common, it is intensively used and therefore has the most serious soil erosion problem in Dominica and has lost many to its smaller streams through deforestation.
The position of the Chief is less romantic than most visitors like to believe. In 1952 a Carib Council was created as part of a local government system for the whole island. Legislation was upgraded at Independence in 1978 with the Carib Reserve Act. There are elections every five years and the Chairman of the Council is designated the 'Chief. Except for this title, he plays the same role as all the other village Council Chairmen in Dominica. To further confuse the matter, the Carib Territory, as it is now popular called, also has a Parliamentary Representative who sits in the House of Assembly in Roseau and is elected every five years. The Chief and the Parliamentary Representative usually make an effort to relate to each other, but in fact the Representative sitting in the nation's House of Assembly has more power than the Chief. However, the Chief is more in demand as the spokesman for the Territory, particularly by visiting journalists and international conferences on Amerindian and Aboriginal affairs.
It is a sad irony that this tribe of seafarers, after whom the waters of the Caribbean have been named, should end up in a corner of the island where access to the sea is almost impossible. There are only two difficult landing places on this wild and dramatic shoreline. One is at Salibia Bay where you can see the rocky Salibisie Islets and the Church of St. Marie with its altar carved in the shape of a canoe.
Walking straight down the hill opposite the Salybia Police Station you come to the mouth of the Crayfish or Isulukati River where waterfalls cascade from rock pools over a stony ledge into the sea. A fifteen minute walk from the hamlet of Sineku takes you to L'escalier Tete Chien or the Snake's Staircase - Tete Chien being the local name for the boa constrictor because its head look like that of a dog. Geologically, this rock formation is called a dyke. It resembles a gigantic petrified serpent crawling up the hillside from the ocean with its back crystalised into wedges of rock which forms a natural staircase. This 'escalier' features prominently in Carib myth and folklore.
Natural landmarks such as the rock at Sineku are highlights of ancient Carib mythology. A huge rock overlooking Pagua River near Atkinson, the islets off Londonderry beach, a cave near Kraibo Bay at Wesley were once featured in Carib tales, most of which have long been forgotten.
The strongest link with the past however are the Carib baskets which are sold in little craft shops all along the road through the Carib Territory. The brown, white and black designs of the larouma reed have been handed down from generation to generation. The square paniers and side bags are made in two layers with heliconia leaves in between. This waterproof design is a remnant from the days when food and goods had to be kept dry from sea spray in the open canoes and from rainfall along the forest trails across the mountainous interior. Such a basket is the most authentic souvenir you can get from the Caribbean and from the people who gave the region its name. |
