Honduras Garifuna returns ‘home’ to St Vincent

by Kenton Chance
Caribbean Net News Correspondent

Monday, March 7, 2005

KINGSTOWN, St Vincent: A group of Honduran Garifuna will visit their “spiritual homeland” on Thursday March 10.

The International Garifuna Folkloric Ballet Company of Honduras, led by the acclaimed Honduran choreographer, Armando Chrisanto Mendes, comes St. Vincent and the Grenadines for a six-day visit.

The group will be in SVG as the country celebrates the anniversary of the death their fore father, SVG’s first national hero – paramount Carib Chief Joseph Chatoyer 

Andrea Leland, artist and co-producer of the documentary, “The Garifuna Journey” will also visit SVG from March 7 – 15. 

She will conduct training workshops with local teachers as well as present viewings of the documentary in various communities across the country.

The film maker has in the passed focused on themes related to the documentation and interpretation of cultural expressions in the Caribbean,

“The Garifuna Journey”, with its companion Teacher Study Guide, is one of the best information and teaching packages on the Garifuna culture to date. The documentary was produced in Belize in 1997 in collaboration with the National Garifuna Council of Belize.

It is estimated that 400,000 Garifuna live in the Diaspora. From Rotan, the Garifuna people settled in other parts of Central America where they now reside. 

The visit to SVG of the Honduran dance company is greatly significant for two main reasons:

It is the widely accepted view that this is possibly the first return to St. Vincent of a delegation of Garifuna people from Honduras since the Garifuna people were deported by the British from St. Vincent to Rotan Island -- off the coast of Honduras -- in 1797.

The mass deportation came after the British had conquered the island following the death of Paramount Carib Chief Joseph Chatoyer on 14 March 1796. 

In addition, the Vincentian public will be able to experience, for the first time, Garifuna culture by a troupe of professional Garifuna artistes.

“So this would be a very important home coming for the Honduran Garifuna,” said Zoila Ellis Browne, head of the local Garifuna Heritage Foundation during aprčs briefing last week. 

“Although we have had exchanges of Belizean Garifuana here before and those have been significant in themselves, this to my mind is even more significant,” Browne added. 

The International Folklorist Ballet company, which is officially recognized by the government of Honduras, has been in existence for over ten years. 

The group, which consists of full time artistes, has performed in Europe, the United States, Mexico, and other parts of Central America. Its repertoire includes the interpretation of authentic traditional Garifuna culture.

The dance company is expected to perform at the first ever Garifuna Rally for school children on March 11.

Speaking at the pres briefing last week, Browne said that every child must understand and own the legacy bequeathed to them by history. 

She made it a point that the Garifuna Heritage Foundation seeks to contribute to the process of building character of young Vincentians. Ellis-Browne said that during this month of activities, the organization will continue to focus on the youth.

National Heritage and National Hero’s Month celebrations in SVG involves a “spiritual journey of remembrance” to Balliceaux, the Grenadine Island to which the Garifuna people were exile after the death of their leader Joseph Chatoyer in 1796. It also includes a wreath laying ceremony at the obelisk erected in Dorsetshire Hill where Chatoyer was believed to have died.

The Garifuna people in St. Vincent live on the northern-most windward parts of the islands. Local historians believe that this is so because European colonisers sought to drive them as far away from the calm beaches, good agricultural lands and “civilization” in general. 

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