Amerindian Heritage Month Chronicle Part 2 (Kayap and catastrophe)

Sep 18, 2016 Countryman, Features / Columnists

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By Dennis Nichols
Kayapis a word I learnt in 1976, after Mashramani, along with paiwari, beena, and bowkiya – all words

of indigenous origin. Together with place names like Kamwatta and Koriabo, Hotoquai and Hobodeia, they helped paint a tapestry of romance and intrigue in a small corner of North Western Guyana I called home for close to eight years.
But then, as now, romance was tainted with strange lust, including a raw hunger for drink, and as a consequence, for lawlessness and sexual license. Kayap, a communal self-help exercise followed by a fun-feast, tended to neutralize these tendencies or at least ‘tame’ them.
But the growing notoriety being associated with another place-name, Baramita, now seems to be down-playing the latter and underscoring one of the most tasteless aspects of hinterland life. Of course it isn’t that this kind of licentiousness doesn’t happen in other parts of the country. (Or the world for that matter)
It’s just that it appears so out-of-place with what I call the regular character of the people I grew to know, and like, and appreciate, like during the kayap sessions at St. Dominic’s School where I taught.
At a kayap, the people would gather – men, women, youths and a few small children, for cleaning and weeding the school compound, digging drains and clearing water paths, repairing or installing new kokers, etc. Cutlasses would be sharpened, forksticks fashioned, (for pulling and bundling the cut grass) and shovels, hoes and other tools made ready for the work at hand.
In the school and/or in a clearing, the women and girls prepared the food and the beverages to be consumed during the lunch break and after the day’s work was completed.
The drinks usually included Paiwari and Fly, only slightly intoxicating, in addition to some of the bottled and commercially-sold ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ variety for the children and work-weary men respectively. Jokes, bantering, and good old Guyanese tantalizing were a given. Altercations were frequent but never violent.
At the end of labour some young men might engage in a game of cricket, with improvised gear, on a newly-weeded stretch of dam. A post-kayap plunge in the Arukare invigorated and cleansed better than any urban shower or bathtub.
But there was always the darker, taboo side, to an otherwise near-idyllic life. Girls as young as 11 and 12 appeared, and indeed were said to be, sexually active as evidenced by evening trysts and love letters that were fairly explicit in their connotation; I saw two such notes written by Primary Four children. (Sixth graders)

Girls you taught in school would attend dances, and some weren’t too shy to drink or have a spin on the dance floor with Teacher. A 13-year-old I taught didn’t hide the fact that she was in a relationship with an adult friend of mine. Another of similar age had an open affair with a thirtyish guy who owned the land on which her parents lived and worked. He would be seen hammocked with the child in front of her parents. All of this was nearly 40 years ago. The good old days eh!
And even then there was the notion that some of these things were happening due in part to the steady influx of coastlanders who travelled to the region to work, ‘hustle’ and sometimes live there. I cannot divorce myself from that group. There was exploitation of the accepting, and apparently subservient, nature of some Amerindians, and not only by outsiders.
I remember one out-of-school teenager who claimed she was raped by a local, adding that she was later similarly violated by policemen when she went to the Mabaruma Police Station to report the incident. I didn’t doubt she was telling the truth.
What is reported as happening in Baramita isn’t as much an anomaly as it is a catastrophe in the making. On the Aruka, there was still an innocence and an element of naturistic fun about some of the affairs I heard about and saw evidence of. I don’t know if or to what extent things have changed there.
Baramita and yes, other places like it, is something else. There is absolutely nothing innocent or fun about physical and sexual abuse, child alcoholism and child pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, human trafficking, substance abuse, and suicide.
A friend at the Ministry of Education told me about some of these things a few years ago. It’s gotten grimmer since then.
Relatedly, there’s a question I would like a medical doctor, psychologist or sociologist to answer. Are Amerindians by and large more susceptible to the intoxicating effects of alcohol than other ethnic groups as I have heard and read? I certainly don’t mean to cast aspersions on any peoples’ character but I really do ponder this notion.
Time and again I’ve seen obviously mild-mannered men and women act in an abnormally animated, ridiculously asinine, or unnaturally savage manner under the influence of strong drink; even relatively small amounts. Because of this tendency, it seems, some persons are wont to ply them with liquor, with a not-always-hidden agenda.
But back to Baramita. In recent years a gold rush in the sprawling settlement brought with it the bourgeoning of greed and social degradation. According to recent reports, law, order, and governance officials appear highly ineffective against and even compliant to some degree with agents of lawlessness. Ask the complainants.
Additional reports from the settlement’s Village Council, the Ministries of Indigenous People’s Affairs, Social Protection, and the Ministry of the Presidency, along with the Guyana Women Miners Organization all suggest that the concerns ‘are being addressed’.
I hope that the vague ‘are being’ (present continuous) quickly becomes ‘have been’ (a present perfect form) indicating that something HAS BEEN DONE by someone at least up to the present time.
Baramita is reportedly the largest Amerindian settlement in Guyana and the largest Carib enclave in the Caribbean; one where its inhabitants still communicate in their native tongue. The people of the region should be able to look to it with justifiable pride. Guyana is also blessed in the region with its unique indigenous nine-nation family.
Using my imagination I can envisage this North West village becoming a shining example of how a group’s culture and traditions can be preserved and showcased even as it finds itself struggling to adjust to new dimensions of coexistence.
Next year has been designated the ‘International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development’ by the United Nations. What a great impetus for initiating the transformation of this vandalized village! Commissions of Inquiry now seem to be almost de rigueur in Guyana. What about one for Baramita? Amerindian Heritage Month is still with us so relevance and opportunity are at optimum level.
In an awesome wilderness, Baramita may have the potential to be a trophy village. If its myriad problems are not tackled with immediacy and ardour, this realizable trophy may swiftly turn catastrophe.

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