How can Indigenous people keep a foot in their traditional world while enjoying the equal opportunities of the globalized world?

Globalisation has crept into Indigenous peoples’ traditional communities with a philosophy of wealth and class division that has ruptured the barter system and collective approach of our people. In their place have come individualism and competition, causing us to be valued according to ‘status’ over others. This has penetrated all spheres of our lives so we are becoming a materialistically obsessed population. This ideology has become part of our world view, and has caused us to crave things from ‘outside,’ whereby our rich and unique culture and our indigenous knowledge of ecology and sustainability that has contributed significantly to making Guyana rich in forest and natural resources has been devalued.

This new paradigm is making us ‘modern Amerindians’ and is forcing us to become consumers and to see each other as competitors, where the successful progress and the less fortunate ones, ie, the majority poor, lag behind.

The education system has contributed to this reality making us vulnerable to exploitation by the powerful for land and natural resources. Since colonial times we learnt to neglect our culture and adopt the Western one by becoming Christian and speaking the national language so we could integrate in order to succeed in life. Now we are faced again with people telling us that we need to have a sound knowledge of computing and do well in the main subjects of Maths and English. The message of this top down approach which is filling our heads is very one sided, because it dictates the lifestyle by which we should live. I wish to ask, therefore, if there isn’t a chance for us to dictate to those who have designed their model so that we can learn from each other?

While conventional wisdom says that what comes from outside is better, what shows its face in traditional communites is most times negative. For example, certain churches which should be spreading peace spread division in Indigenous communities with their approach of criticising others and with a theology of prosperity. They turn a blind eye to addressing social concerns affecting the people. Then there are the political parties which are reaping a harvest from sowing division and brainwashing our naive Indigenous peoples. The tools they use are ‘handouts’ which make our people dependent on their patronage, and hence they kill our local talent for creativity. The plan of the modern state in Guyana is also to homogenize the nine different Indigenous groups into one.

Then there is the school with an education system which is designed to fail most of our people. There are also the NGOs which are supposed to be neutral but which some of us suspect have hidden agendas.

Lastly there is the heavy alcohol consumption, and the ever available ‘junk food’ which is one of the contributing factors to new illnesses affecting indigenous peoples, who prefer it over the healthy, organic, locally produced food from the farms.

Editor, in this context of a globalized world, the Indigenous population is also faced with the recolonization of their territories by the powerful for mining and forestry purposes. The first dwellers are basically being told that the land is not theirs, because they don’t occupy it for great profit. The next issue is the environmental impacts that are caused by these new colonisers who destroy indigenous societies.

Given this new social reality, one question that I wrestle with is, how can we become fully integrated into the modern world, and at the same time not lose our traditional culture. In other words how can the churches, the schools, governments, politicians and all those that ‘corrupted’ us contribute meaningfully so we can have one foot in our traditional world and at the same time be a proud Indigenous people enjoying the equal opportunities that modern society offers in our globalized world?

Yours faithfully,

Medino Abraham

Remembering the Arawak teachers of the South Rupununi

Remembering the Arawak teachers of the South Rupununi

Dear Editor, in 2001, I received a wonderful token from Mr Basil Cuthbert Rodrigues MS, AA, from Moruka, North West District, Guyana. He had sent me his book entitled Uncle Basil – An Arawak Biography which was transcribed, annotated and introduced by one Justin Green-Roesel (1998).

It is about his teaching experiences in the South Rupununi and in his home town of Moruka, among other things, and indirectly about Father Bernard McKenna, an educationist priest of the Catholic Church who played a major role in the setting up schools for the Wapishana children.

According to Uncle Basil Father McKenna came to Guyana after the Second World War. The book  also contains some of Uncle Basil’s songs and poems which became very popular during Guyfesta in the 1970s when people from all districts of the Rupununi used to gather at Lethem to compete in various areas of the arts. It is great reading material, because even though it focuses on Uncle Basil’s experiences, it also captures a span of time (mid ’40s – early ’90s) in the South Rupununi.

Uncle Basil, according to his biography, arrived in the Rupununi in 1951. He first landed at Wichibai where the plane (a WWII Dakota piloted by Art Williams) let off some cargo and teachers before it headed to Lumidpau not too far from Karaudanau village. It was there that Uncle Basil met his counterparts – the Wapishanas – for the first time and his school’s headmaster, Alex Atkinson, his village man, whom he had known before. It was at Karaudanau that Uncle Basil as a teenager (18) began his long and dedicated teaching service (40 yrs) to the children of the Wapishana people. It was there also he realized that he should have taken education more seriously at Santa Rosa Primary School, Moruka. Fortunately for him Fr McKenna tutored him for the Pupil Teachers’ Examination, which gave access to the teacher training college.

Father Mc Kenna moved around the South Rupununi with his bullock-drawn cart doing his church services and at the same time tutoring ‘his’ teachers. Later on Uncle Basil met many of his own villagers who had gone there before him as well as those who would later come after him. They were teachers who took up the challenges of teaching in the South Rupununi which called for lots of sacrifices in term of adapting themselves to an environment and people very different from their home inMoruka/North West. Despite the obstacles they endured and dedicated their services to the children. As time went on many other teachers from Moruka went to teach in the South Rupununi.

There were also coastland teachers who joined the Arawaks and contributed later to the education of the Amerindian children in the South Rupununi. These two groups of teachers not only focused on the teaching alone but they formed a branch of the Guyana Teachers’ Association. Being united they did community service − building bridges, for example, and other projects by means of self-help.

On behalf of the Wapishana and Macushi people, I say thank you very much for all the sacrifices you (Morukans and Coastlanders) have made for our benefit.

Yours faithfully,
Guy Marco

https://www.stabroeknews.com/2008/09/22/opinion/letters/remembering-the-arawak-teachers-of-the-south-rupununi/

Finding God In a New Mission

Finding God In a New Mission

Kurukuraru Village North Packaraimas

What a large acre of land to cross and huge differences within the same country. From rivers and creeks in the North West to savannah and mountains in the Pakaraimas. From paddling in  Moruca and the Waini to Trekking in the Pakaraimas.

Kurukubaru or Kabukaburi! For most ordinary people they sound alike or they are the same. Life, for the people living in both places is about survival and not about too much of how to pronounce difficult words, so said our friend. Where have you been?  It sounds alike and as far as  I am concerned they are the same. For those who are not familiar with the interior of Guyana, Kabukabari is located in Region Two. Kurukubaru is found in Region Eight. This is the highest part of Guyana. Our mission house is located on top of this hill. What a view to behold and an envious place to be. The natural environment is in its pristine stage, still unspoiled.

Besides these endowed resources, the Interior of Guyana is home to a large percentage of our Catholic population. His Lordship Bishop Francis Alleyne OSB made his first apostolic visit to this area a few weeks ago. This visit reassured the people of the Pakaraimas that they are unique and have a special role to play in  the building of God´s kingdom.

As part of the training of Jesuits each member spends a period of time known as Regency. During this time each Jesuit is involved in an apostolic work that is associated with the Society of Jesus. For this year, Medino and Marlon have been assigned to work along with Father Paul, in the Pakaraimas. There are fourteen villages to be covered all with different needs yet one vision in hearts and minds.

Emphasis is given to the children in the form of teaching basic literacy, catechism, and prayers for those between the ages of 6-11 years. In general we lend support, and encourage the Church team to remain faithful to their commitment as leaders in the respective villages.

One of the many tasks assigned to us is to visit all the villages on our own. While we are in the villages the youths are encouraged to organize themselves into groups. These are some of the general objectives of the groups:  (a) To develop a stronger bond of friendship among the youths from different villages. (b) To expose the youths to the role they can play and to deepen the commitment of those already involved- in the leadership of their local communities with a view to their becoming  future Parish Lay Assistants and catechists ( c) To share in the common vision of the local church and to participate in the building up of the universal church  (d) To establish contact with other groups in Georgetown and the wider world for example Latin America and the Caribbean.

Letter from the Pakaraimas.. by Medino Abraham and Marlon Innis Friday 8^th of October, 2004 to the Catholic Standard.

Missionaries in Indigenous communities should adopt an inculturation approach

Christianity has been present in Indigenous communities in Guyana for long time, which resulted in the majority of us becoming ‘Christian’. Editor, I know that these churches are engaged in ‘wonderful works’ assisting the first people in Guyana which should be commended. However, out of great respect to the missionaries I also implore them to take some time to reflect and think about their evangelical approach to Indigenous people in Guyana. Or in other words the Christian institutions should try a bit harder to promote inculturation in their evangelization approach. Perhaps this can be done with the tool of Indigenous Peoples theology, which is the Indigenous Peoples’ perception of the supreme being from the context of their culture and world view ‒ ie, those that practise animism, (including those that don’t submit to Western church indoctrination or who maintain independent beliefs as agnostics).

In this context, theology is the understanding and experience of the divine that takes place within the history and culture of each nation. The Bible gives examples of inculturation, especially in the early Church.  In so doing various nations were converted to Christianity, taking with them their native languages and traditions to the Church.

Editor, it should be the same today for Christianity when it inculturates people who have different traditions and values, and who have belief enough for them to practise. Unfortunately, up to the present, the evangelization of the Indigenous Peoples of Latin America and other continents is an imposition of Western culture from the Graeco-Roman world, formulated by European and then American theologians over many centuries. These theologies suffocate the fundamental values and traditions of Indigenous peoples; they converted them and at the same time displaced from their historical and cultural context. They also made them be superficially labelled as adhering to superstition and paganism, which were destroyed during the colonial period and continues to be destroyed by the conventional wisdom of Western religion. In general, it denied that Indigenous religious cultures can contribute to the understanding of the Christian God, nature, and the relationship to man.

However, today, as some of the churches rediscover these religious and cultural traditions in Indigenous peoples with their approach to inculturation and Indigenous Peoples’ theology, they should not repeat the mistakes of the past when evangelization was often confused with Westernization.

In the Guyanese context, besides the two earliest churches, the Roman Catholic and Anglican that helped in ‘shaping’ most of the Indigenous people in their villages over the years, our villagers from then onwards have been witnessing another wave of different Christian churches in their communities all having the common objective to save souls through the Western lens of God. The entry of these modern day envangelizers in traditional communities has brought a new transformation into most of the villages by way of their successes and simultaneous failures.

I don’t have anything against other churches coming to tell our people about God. I admire the great ‘service’ that some do for our people. I know that there are a few which have revised their evangelical approach by incorporating our peoples’ languages and traditions in their worship, but there are still others which need to do the same for Indigenous people. With great regard I hail the presence of all the churches in indigenous communities as a blessing because they represent God’s mission to the world.

On this note, one little reminder to the missionaries that come generously to evangelize our passive and materially poor people, is that they should try to nurture the Indigenous world view of the creator, and not the other way around in the name of conversion, etc, because such an approach suffocates the traditional understanding of the supreme being, and results in us becoming passive believers of the Judeo-Christian conventional wisdom that downplays the perception of the deity from the perspective of our culture.

In concluding, on the principle of inculturation in this new age of evangelization, modern-day missionaries must not forget that perhaps an Indigenous theology would be good to promote for our people, but not imposed outside the context of Indigenous culture, but rather discovered and nurtured in the context of their cultures, promoting them in one voice to thank and praise the Indigenous ancestral fathers and their belief in the supreme being.

Happy Amerindian Heritage Month celebrations to all our Amerindian Christians, Agnostics, and Shamans!

Yours faithfully, 
M. A

It is paramount for us indigenous people to be grounded in our roots and to revisit our sources often

Dear Editor,

The genesis of the so called western civilization which spread in the new world with the indoctrination of colonialism through conventional education to indigenous people and others, indoctrinated the masses to conceptualise us through the lens of a particular hegemony hence it labelled indigenous and other minority cultures as backward and primitive, their languages as dialects and their people as tribes.

This sort of schooling and language began to be practised consciously or not by most people for example in the media profession, by politicians, pastors, educators and many others in Guyanese mainstream society. To combat this reality it is imperative to decolonize education, religion, politics inter alia, so that mainstream society can stop referring to us as tribes, and start calling us people, ethnic group or nation. Also cease the use of referring to indigenous languages as dialects and call them languages, because of their autochthonous nature.

In our contemporary world in the Guyanese context, indigenous people also are faced with the challenge of neo-colonialism an offshoot of globalization coming from governments, politicians, churches, non governmental organizations, researchers, and mining companies etc. The impacts from this hegemony are inevitable and are rapidly reconfiguring and transforming most elements of our original customs and a threat to the local languages particularly of the (young generation) generating a feeling of ‘sentimental pissimism’, to use the words of the anthropologist Marshall Sahlins to describe the socio-cultural reality.

Editor, however, living in the twenty first century things have evolved and continue to change unlocking many things for us indigenous people in Guyana. Some of these changes were made by ourselves being proactive in revising history to learn where we came from and where we are going. We draw our indigenist inspiration and insight from the lessons of indigenous peoples, such as (in the Americas) valuing of communality, solidarity, reciprocity, social justice, equality, complementarity and harmony with nature.

This being said, in the Guyanese context there exists a strong indigenous cosmology which is comprised of our ancestral wisdom, our myths, our languages although they are being threatened, our way of producing science, our modus operandi, our spirituality, our pre-Columbian knowledge of geography and conservation etc. Including our philosophy which is linked to land, especially being the first to occupy and tame Guyana which later evolved into a nation state. Besides, there exists our indigenous perspectivism, which is perceiving things differently through the lens of our culture and beliefs which usually contrast to top downwards or the conventional approach from Governments etc as is mentioned in the book Society against State written by the anthropologist Pierre Clastres. These aspects of indigenism have empowered many of us who are concerned and who keep the struggle of our people for land, autonomy including to decolonize conventional wisdom that labeled us with names.

Hence, armed with this wealth of knowledge that comprise our indigenous cosmovision, it is paramount for us indigenous people to be grounded in our roots and to revisit our sources often, especially our ancestral wisdom to get inspiration and learn to dialogue and constantly decolonize neo-colonism and its repercussion on us or else we will have no original indigenous cultural patrimony left to highlight our country in the future.

In conclusion, as we celebrate our indigenous heritage this month under the theme “Proud of our indigenous identity, celebrating in unity”, we should really be a proud people who celebrate a common identity comprising of a different worldview which is rich in ancestral wisdoms and a people of resilience towards a bright future living in harmony side by with others in our multi -ethnic beautiful Guyana.

Happy heritage month to all!

M.A

Reflection on conventional Education and Indigenous people in Guyana

Stabroek News –  September 2, 2019 – By Felician Medino Abraham

Felician Medino Abraham is from Moruca. He produced a study on the impact of school education on Indigenous people using ethnography in South Rupununi. He has an undergraduate degree in Pedagogy and a Masters in Society and Frontiers from the Federal University of Roraima, Brazil.

September is Indigenous Heritage Month. It is also Education Month. In this column I will reflect on the entry of conventional education through schools in indigenous communities, beginning with colonialism. Schooling was designed to “educate us” into being submissive to a foreign, central authority. The strategy was one of social transformation, but with the intention of introducing radical changes to our indigenous cosmology, since indigenous education in essence is based on social interactions and collective actions.   

      

These institutions reconfigured and destroyed many aspects of our original local customs and traditions.

This model of education continues today in the schools in our communities, where in the classroom the teacher dictates knowledge to us as if we are blank slates, and students are mostly passively receiving the information they received because of its rigidity and formality. This educational experience is based on the idea that it is important to school us on the “right way” to be “civilized” according to Western standards. A schooled indigenous person is assumed to be more prepared to accept and assimilate new ideas, hence mainstream education becomes pivotal for us for integration and nation building.

In this conventional education paradigm, what is intended is ultimately to educate us so that we are no longer indigenous people. In other words the aim of this learning approach with its pedagogical work is to make us abdicate our languages, beliefs, cultural patterns, values and behaviours and incorporate us into national society.

Photo: Medino Abraham

Being schooled by this conventional education system over the years raises the question, what does this model of education mean for us in Guyana? We were taught that it’s the best model. One based on competition, on the categorisation and selection of students and where “knowledge” is rated by academic performance. Meanwhile other elements of learning pertaining to our way of life were stifled. On the flipside, this system of education continues to produce some results in providing job opportunities for some of us who performed well academically.

Prior to formal education being introduced in indigenous communities in Guyana in the 18th – 19th century by the British, we had our own ways of learning. Indigenous education consisted of our worldviews: languages, legends, knowledge of the environment, myths, spirituality. We were taught by our elders in our homes, on the land and in the communities. This contrasted with formal education that indoctrinated us to be different and live like westerners in Guyana and in the “civilized world”.

For most of us who came from an indigenous culture and have our unique way of being educated, when we go to school we perceived the classroom as a different place from our original learning environments at home and in the community. When we go to school we meet up with the “school culture,” a classroom decorated with colourful papers and symbols representing a foreign world learning environment. A place comprised of rigid chalk and talk techniques in the classrooms, oriented by an outdated learning pedagogy. And a tunnel vision of how to teach children. In this socio educative reality our learning experience in the classroom becomes a “frontier” where the school culture meets our knowledge from home which sometimes make us feel that our environments – our homes especially – which are our first schools are less valuable.

Unfortunately this frontier in education overrides and dominates our culture as it “educates us” to be end products for market and “development”. This model of education is not making use of the rich diversity of indigenous methods of learning from our cosmology and pedagogy. Mainstream education in Guyana seems too preoccupied with school feeding programmes and uniforms to homogenize us with the rhetoric of “quality education” and simultaneously continues to educate us as if our culture and lifestyles need to be upgraded or left behind.

This education model caters to only a few of us who perform well academically to be educated on the coast principally in Georgetown. The sad reality is that when we hinterland students complete our education in the city there are few job opportunities for us when we return to our communities, and because of this most of us end up remaining in the city to live and work. In our communities, the two common areas to find a government job are to be a teacher or be employed in the health sector ,which not everyone wants to do. This reality reflects the limited scope of job opportunities for us in the interior of Guyana.

The other experience of education as a frontier for us in Guyana is the financial issue faced by many of our families. Most are under pressure to generate financial income to keep us in schools; but even for those of us who pass with high marks, there will be few opportunities for us to pursue studies or even get a job. So sometimes we would ask the question, what is the point of studying?

With the constant exchange of governments, we received a number of schools in our communities. More Nursery, Primary and Secondary learning institutions were built as a way to offer “quality education” to us. This initiative has its positives and negatives, but again this approach won´t make it anything better. Mainstream education continues to fail and make us vulnerable to politicians, churches and others coming into our communities to divide and rule us, especially at elections time.

Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) is a specific right that pertains to indigenous peoples and is recognised in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). It allows indigenous peoples to give or withhold consent to a project that may affect us or our territories. Once we have given our consent, we can withdraw it at any stage. Furthermore, FPIC enables us to negotiate the conditions under which the project will be designed, implemented, monitored and evaluated.  This is also embedded within the universal right to self-determination.

Shouldn´t this approach be applied to the government too when they enter our villages to introduce education in the community? However, we Indigenous people remain passive to governments – from colonial times to the present – providing education that continues to fail most of us.

There exist Indigenous Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) in Guyana that discuss the reality of education offered to us at meetings, but in practice most of these organizations are not focused on lobbying and advocating for quality education for indigenous people that centres indigenous worldviews, perhaps because they are more preoccupied with advocacy for land and other indigenous rights issues. It is my view that the general struggle for indigenous people in Guyana should also be for quality and relevant education, supported by NGOs.

In the 1970-80s the approach was to decolonize education, making it appropriate to the reality of Guyana and that of the Caribbean. However, again this model of education didn’t make use of the indigenous peoples´ customs, languages, and other ways of learning pertinent to our rich cultures.

In this socio educative reality there is need for a new approach to education when it comes to indigenous people in Guyana. One where we can have a part to play in this process by taking the initiative and working on an equal footing with the government. Perhaps with the current pilot programme for Quality Bilingual Wapichan Children (Nursery level) in South Rupununi which is in partnership with the Ministry of Education, this collaborative effort can make a paradigm shift in education with an innovative pedagogy using the local language and culture of the people.