CARIBS

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 October 1933, Page 9

CARIBS

NATIVE REMNANT IN DOMINICA. Au amphitheatre of mountains, redscarred where the road runs or where earth has slid from under the protecting mantle of the forest; a few grey houses set upon a smooth lawn, a church, a school, a. ribbon of dark foliage masking the river; at the foot of stern cliffs, in whose shadow little boats are drawn up, the restless waves of the Atlantic beating upon grey pebbles. Such is Salybia, Carib village in the heart, of the reserve. A copper-coloured people, with Mongolian features and blucn, slanting eyes; sonic of genuine Red Indian typo; some almost Japanese, some negroid; a shy, suspicious people, exploiting the casual visitor, yet shrinking from civilisation, building houses deep in the bush, and fearing to improve their condition lest the white man, or the black, should covet their land; a people without traditions, with no language of their own, of whom but 500 survive. Such are the Caribs, the decaying remnant of a once powerful race.

Only in Dominica do they survive at all. These impenetrable valleys and inhospitable coasts prevented the extermination inevitable in more accessible islands. By the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, made in 1748, it was agreed between the great Powers of Europe (how strangely important were the West Indies in those days) that Dominica should remain neutral and—because they appeared to be invincible—be left in possession of the Caribs.

Within a year or two, however, the old take-and-retake game began again between French and English, and when in 1783 the matter was settled once and for all and the island became definitely British, the Caribs, still savages and cannibals, were pushed or withdrew into the mountain districts which now form their Reserve. They break into history again some thirty or forty years later when Caribs unit- 1

cd with runaway negro slaves to terrorise the white population in what were railed the Maroon Wars. It is told that a Carib chief came down into

Roseau itself and posted a notice offering £lOO for the head of the Governor.

THREE YEARS AGO.

After which, as savages, they vanish from the scene, burying themselves in their Reserve, assimilating rapidly the habits, customs, and dress of their negro neighbours, and devoting themselves to the making of baskets, exceptionally nice waterproof baskets of red and white and black straws plaited. In oblivion they remain, of scientific, but no political interest until the “fracas” (the official report piefcrs the word “incident”) of September, 1930. Briefly, the Caribs smuggled rum and tobacco, and the police caught them at it. Smuggling from the French colonies goes on all the time on this coast, but a raid was unexpected. The Caribs defended their goods and defied arrest. Their “king,” Thomas Jolly John, was Pilatelike about the business and metaphorically washed his hands. The police, beaten and bruised, were chased out of the Reserve, and the Caribs sustained casualties of two killed and two injured, the result of revolver shots fired by the police. The subsequent excitement was tremendous. Throughout the island people talked wildly of a Carib rising. A man-of-war was sent round to make a demonstration of force. Starshells were fired and there was a display of searchlights, whereupon the Caribs, unaccustomed to these evidences of I civilisation, rushed from their houses | and took refuge in the woods. An inI quiry was demanded; a commission ! sat; and the report smacked everybody’s head a little and the Carib chief’s hardest of all. He was degraded from his position as “king”; . however, the Caribs continue to treat him as such, and nobody else ever* supposed him to matter, anyway. One, of the two commissioners died a few! months later in England, and local opinion has it that the Caribs killed Dim. If you mean murder in these islands it is not necessary to have your victim in the same hemisphere. You take advantage of obeab, or black magic. But officially the “incident” is closed, and the Caribs are relapsing into their previous obscurity.

The forest grows quickly over the scarred earth, and this wounded country has other, more recent, sores.

“THE KING.”

A milder-mannered chief of native tribe than Thomas Jolly John it would be hard to imagine—not unintelligent, but seemingly so devoid of personality that one wonders how he got himself elected. His wife and child are 'beautiful; the woman with long plaits of straight black hair (what stress one lays on straight hair, living among negroes). Theirs is a new house, set starkly upon a hillside, the timbers and shingles not yet weathered to a uniform grey. Inside the one room (with alcove curtained off for sleeping) the walls are papered with an incongruous assortment of cigarette cards and holy pictures. There are three books on the table—the Bible in English, a Petit Larousse Illustre, and an agricultural handbook. Over the doors hang little cnarms, strips of stuff burn mg crossed sticks. “I am making my new house for foreigners to sleep in,” says Thomas Jolly John, as we drink coconuts together; “it wouiu be nice if you could give a little present.” Hemmed in between the mountains and the sea, their former freedom forgotten, their heritage on a smooth, green lawn, with sticks for stumps, a young coconut for ball, the butt end of a palm frond for bat. A tiny Union Jack waves on a long pole above the schoolhouse, where the three R’s and I “moral instruction” are taught and learnt in English by negro teachers I and Carib pupils, all of whom speak 'a French patois as their native language. Women cross the mountains carrying baskets to Roseau; men build boats, strangely resembling canoes. Once a month the old French priest comes from Wesley—and he, they say, is the only man who really knows these people—sails the rough sea or rides the long road through the forest to say Mass at the altar of St. Mary of the Caribs.