New evidence on the origins of the Black Carib, with thoughts on the meaning of tradition

Abstract

Twenty-seven years ago, I first undertook ethnographic field research among the Black Carib then a relatively little-known group of peasant-fishermen/ wage laborers on the coast of Central America. Over the years I have revisited them repeatedly, working primarily in Livingston, Guatemala, but also in Honduras, Belize and New York City. Since that time also, numerous studies have been made by other anthropologists. We have examined their ethnohistory (Beaucage 1966; Gullick 1976; Palacio 1973a), social and economic organization (Cosminsky 1976; Gonzalez 1969; Kerns 1983; Sanford 197 1), religion (Foster 1981; Palacio x973b; Taylor 195 1), food system (Beaucage 1970; Palacio 1981), language (Holm 1978b; Taylor 1951), folklore (Hadel 1972; Kerns & Dirks 1975); and physical status and blood types (Crawford et al. 1981; Firschein 1961; Gonzalez ig63;Tejada, Gonzalez et al. 1962). Nevertheless, in spite of all this work there are still a number of fundamental puzzles remaining to be solved in relation to the origins and history of these people and their culture. The Black Carib are a hybrid group living today in Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, as well as in urban centers in the United States and England. Phenotypically Negroid, they speak an Amerindian language (Island Carib, which is actually Arawakan), and exhibit cultural patterns similar in many (but not all) respects to other creole populations in the West Indies (see Gonzalez 1959). Their ethnogenesis took place largely on the island of St. Vincent in the Lesser Antilles over several centuries,