The Caribbean is the region of the Latin American continent where the greatest processes of crossbreeding, appropriation and assimilation of multiple cultures converged. The insular condition was conducive to this assimilation process. It was in the Caribbean where the major European powers undertook violent economic experiments that led to profound transformations in the region’s demography and, far from erasing the imprint of the existing culture, enriched it, leading to strong processes of miscegenation.

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It is well known that the Europeans, although perhaps they assumed what might happen, were not aware of the evolution of these processes, but once the new identities emerged, they had to deal with stigmas, prejudices and a supposed cultural inferiority due to the violent racism of the conquerors. 

An eloquent example, fruit of this forced miscegenation, is the Garífuna people. A population that continues resisting to conserve their identity traits that make them different within the region they inhabit both in the continent and in some Caribbean islands, although they all converge in the central Caribbean region.

Origin

When the Spaniards arrived in the Lesser Antilles in 1492, the inhabitants were called Calliponan, Calinago or Carinaco, which became Canilla, Karina, Karibe, Galibi until Garífuna or Garinagu. The early presence of Europeans and Africans forged a dynamic of miscegenation in the different islands, but the most significant case that gave rise to the Garífuna people is related to the shipwreck in 1635 of two Spanish ships that were full of Africans near the coast of the island of San Vicente. This led to the escape of many Africans who went deep into the island and managed to escape, giving rise to the first Garifuna people. It should be noted that the name Garífuna, as explained above, is a denomination that arose because the initial inhabitants of the island were Arawak and Carib aborigines who had come to the island from the Amazon region in the south of the continent. 

The history of the Garífuna people has been reconstructed from the chronicles, documents, books, pamphlets that the colonial authorities, religious missionaries, explorers and adventurers left behind, which although they denote in texts loaded with derogatory and racist signs, helped to reconstruct an identity that together with the oral tradition served for the legacy of the Garífuna people to last until today. 

By the beginning of the 18th century, the predominant phenotype in St. Vincent was black, which is why this population was called black Caribs. In 1750, St. Vincent had a defined plantation system and the so-called Black Caribs were a community that the colonial authorities tolerated, allowing them to develop their own commercial dynamics with other Caribbean islands. But later, around 1795, the so-called Black Caribs ended up being a problem for the slave system imposed by the Europeans, since many slaves who escaped from the plantations found an ideal refuge there and were integrated into the community. Thus began a war between the Carib tribes and the English that ended in 1796 with the death in combat of a mythical Garifuna resistance chief named Chatoye. Historical stories were built on this one that are still part of the political memorial discourse of the Garifuna movement, a political faction that defends the interests of the people. With the defeat, the Black Caribs, or Garifuna, were expelled from San Vicente and forced to settle in the jungle areas of Central America in the current states of Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Belize. 

Language, dance and music 

The Garifuna language belongs to the Arawak language family and has survived centuries of persecution and linguistic domination. It is rich in Uragas, stories told during evenings or large gatherings. The melodies bring together African and Amerindian elements and the texts constitute a veritable reservoir of Garifuna history and traditional knowledge about manioc cultivation, fishing, canoe making and the construction of houses made of terracotta. There is also a strong satirical component in the songs that are sung to the rhythm of the drums and are accompanied by dances in which the spectators participate.

As for the highlights of the Garifuna musical culture, the energetic and captivating rhythms of the drum stand out. The Segunda (a bass drum) stands out, which is generally handmade by the Garifuna from wood, trunks and antelope or deer skin.

They participate in peculiar and relatively competitive chumba and hunguhungu dance contests in which most of the movement revolves around a circular rotation of the hips.

There are certain types of songs that are associated with their work: some are played, some are danced to and they have some reserved for rituals in their culture. There are two main styles, the Punta and the Parranda.

The Garífuna people continue to exist and struggle to be recognized within the nations where they exist. They have been recognized as Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

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