Food and Identity in the Caribbean

Hanna Garth

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780857853585
• eBook ISBN: 9780857853592
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Agricultural Public Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This compelling volume brings together original essays that explore the relationship between food and identity in everyday life in the Caribbean. The Caribbean history of colonialism and migration has fostered a dynamic and diverse form of modernity, which continues to transform with the impact of globalization and migration out of the Caribbean. One of the founders of the anthropology of food, Richard Wilk provides a preface to this exciting and interdisciplinary collection of essays offering insight into the real issues of food politics which contribute to the culinary cultures of the Caribbean. Based on rich contemporary ethnographies, the volume reveals the ways in which food carries symbolic meanings which are incorporated into the many different facets of identity experienced by people in the Caribbean. Many of the chapters focus on the ways in which consumers align themselves with particular foods as a way of making claims about their identities. Development and political and economic changes in the Caribbean bring new foods to the contemporary dinner table, a phenomenon that may subsequently destabilize the foundations of culinary identities. Food and Identity in the Caribbean reveals the ways in which some of the connections between food and identity persist against the odds whilst in other contexts new relationships between food and identity are forged.

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Cassava and the Makushi: A Shared History of Resiliency and Transformation

Ryan N. Schacht

For every society, there is no more important set of cultural traits than the one related to subsistence. Food, and its necessary growth, gathering, and preparation, is fundamental to the existence of human life. If one would like to know what lies at the very heart of a people, then surely food must be seen as its visible manifestation. Societies throughout time and the world have developed complex ceremonies, rituals, rites, taboos, and beliefs surrounding the growth, harvest, preparation, and consumption of food. The Makushi of southwestern Guyana and their staple foods are no exception. Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz, Euphorbiaceae) and its products are inextricably tied to Makushi identity and are the outward expressions of what defines them as a group.

Amerindian (the term used to describe Central and South America’s indigenous people) societies and cultures have undergone profound transformations through colonization, disease, and missionization. Charles Schomburgk, a German explorer, painted a grim picture of the future of Amerindians after his travels through Guyana in the 1830s.

Driven from their lands, now in possession of the Europeans and their descendants, they have wandered from their ancient homes, strangers in their own country, and diseases and vices introduced by the settlers and feuds among themselves, have all but annihilated the rightful owners of the soil. It is a melancholy fact, but too well founded that wherever Europeans have settled, the extermination of the native tribes has succeeded their arrival. (Schomburgk 1840: 48)

The Makushi represent a striking example of Schomburgk’s depiction because they were nearly wiped out themselves by diseases introduced in the years following European contact with South America (DeFillips, Maina, and Crepin 2004). This was not alarming to the colonial regime at the time because, as one British official stated, Amerindians held “little or no social value and their early extinction must be looked upon as inevitable” (Rowland 1892: 56). However, far from disappearing as victims of “progress,” the Makushi have rebounded to become the second largest Amerindian group in Guyana and the fourth largest in Brazil (Forte 1996b; Conselho Indigena de Roraima 1993). This return from the brink has been nothing short of amazing, and much of their resilience resides in their dietary staple: cassava.

Makushi men and women regularly refer to cassava and its associated products as “we food.” This simple statement encapsulates a complicated history of conflict, colonization, and upheaval that has at times destabilized a people. This chapter will explain the history of the Makushi and their subsistence patterns, and reveal the importance of cassava in their daily lives. In the face of major social and political upheaval, the fact that this food staple has remained integral to what it means to be Makushi is a testament to the importance of cassava to both group livelihood and identity.

The Makushi

The Makushi are a Carib-speaking people living in the Rio Branco-Rupununi Savannahs in northern Brazil and southwestern Guyana. Historical evidence dating back to the early eighteenth century marks the earliest Makushi presence in the region (Hemming 1994). Settlement of the area was a result of their southern neighbors, the Wapishana, an Arawakan group, driving them north (Evans and Meggers 1960). The Wapishana were themselves responding to external forces, pushed north and eastward as Brazilian settlers began populating the area (Riviere 1963). In southwestern Guyana today, the forested Kanuku Mountains, which run east–west, provide a natural dividing line of the Rupununi savannahs with the Makushi generally found in the north and the Wapishana in the south.

Linguistic, cultural, and ethnohistoric evidence places the Makushi in the tropical forest culture complex (Myers 1993), with their origin centered in the Xingu basin of western Amazonia (Evans and Meggers 1960). The groups from this area all share a complex of subsistence traits that include hunting, fishing, and gathering, as well as the cultivation of cassava through shifting (slash-and-burn), cultivation, and a semi-nomadic lifestyle. Makushi settlements historically were dispersed and politically decentralized (Whitehead 1994). Individuals and households were highly mobile, leading to temporary and distant settlements. A household was a self-sufficient entity in terms of production of food and craft staples and could contain three to four generations under one roof.

Although the Makushi are still alive and well today, much of their way of life has changed since the Europeans first made contact in the Americas. Cassava and its products are still central to the idea of what it means to be a Makushi; however, due to contact a greater reliance has been placed on wage earnings and this has influenced the once strict gender division of labor. Thus, in order to understand how this change came about, as well as to understand the importance of cassava to the contemporary Makushi, it is essential to understand Guyana’s colonial history.

Guyana’s Colonial History

The first Europeans came to the Guianas in search of new trade routes, spices, and gold. Early voyagers initially saw little of consequence in the interior and often felt themselves in an impenetrable and meaningless green blanket as they attempted to explore the rainforest. In stark contrast, Amerindians in the Guianas lived in relative ecological synchrony with the forested surroundings and had a thorough knowledge of plants and animals (DeFillips, Maina, and Crepin 2004). The Europeans mostly stayed out, but they entered deeper into the forests of the interior as stories spread of the golden city of Manoa and King El Dorado. They began working their way into what was, at least for the European, uncharted territory, using rivers as highways into the interior. Although they never did find El Dorado, and Sir Walter Raleigh lost his head for nearly bankrupting King James I in his series of misguided voyages in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, they did find areas ripe for colonial exploitation through the development of plantations (Gillian 1963).

The Dutch were the first Europeans to develop permanent settlements in Guyana beginning in 1616, putting their knowledge of building levees, canals, and locks to “recover” the earth from mangrove and tidally flooded swamps (Daly 1974). Initial contacts with Amerindian populations were friendly and the Dutch expressed a keen interest and surprise in the amount of food and crafts they could exchange for cheap European goods. However, this relationship quickly changed, as the colonists needed additional laborers to work in the ever-expanding sugarcane fields. The coastal tribes were first enlisted, with force when necessary, but these overtures were eventually met with resistance and abandonment of plantation life. Because of this, the Dutch in 1686 named four tribes they had contact with immune from slavery and employed them as slave-catchers (Forte 1996c). The Arawak, Carib, Warrau, and Akawaio were not to be used as slaves, but they were to bring other men and women from interior tribes to work in their place.

These slave-raiding exploits carried out by the four immune tribes led to what is known to the locals as the “tribal wars.” Stories abound of Makushis being forced to retreat to higher, more remote areas of the Pakaraima Mountains and deeper into the rainforest to avoid the slave-raiding coastal tribes. The Makushi were at a disadvantage as they were not equipped with European goods such as guns and cutlasses (a local term for machetes). Their southern neighbors, the Wapishana, were under the same pressure from the slave-raiders and there were reports that they were living in the savannahs by day, but at night retiring to cliffs and caves that were defended by palisades (Butt Colson and Morton 1982).

Accounts from Sir Walter Raleigh’s failed expedition in search of El Dorado may have mentioned the Makushi living in the Rupununi savannah as early as the seventeenth century, but the names of tribes and their descriptions are unclear (Gillian 1963). Before the European presence in South America, the Rupununi savannah likely was unpopulated and the movement of people into the area was either as a consequence of colonizers pushing out tribes from their traditional areas or those seeking refuge from slave-raiding, or both (Williams 1991). In 1793, however, the Dutch government outlawed Amerindian slavery in Guyana and the Makushi subsequently drove the Caribs out of the Rupununi (Forte 1996c). Then, shortly thereafter, the Dutch were themselves driven out by the British at the turn of the nineteenth century. The focus now was wholly on African slaves providing the colonial workforce. This was not to last though as slavery was abolished in 1834 and, without African slaves providing the workforce, the British sought out other plantation workers. Initially the Portuguese were enlisted as indentured servants, but once their period of servitude was completed they quickly began filling the merchant class and expected the same rights as the British. The British had set up a system of social stratification by race in Guyana (as they had in other colonies) and the Portuguese would not stay on as plantation workers after their service period ended. Because the British were not looking to bring in those who would expect equal standing in society, but instead were looking for lifetime laborers, the next experiment was with the Chinese. However, the colony was unable to bring them over in any sizeable numbers and it was at this time that the first boats of indentured East Indians began arriving. In total, over 240,000 East Indians were brought to Guyana (Daly 1974). At this time the colony of India also included Pakistan and as such both Hindus and Muslims were carried over. The Africans had mostly been converted to Christianity (Anglican), followed by the Amerindians during the twentieth century, and thus a multiethnic colony composed of multiple religions was produced.

As some colonists moved from the coast and into the interior they saw much that needed changing in terms of the Amerindian population. This sentiment was felt most profoundly by the missionaries. The intimate lives of the indigenous people—childcare, the home, sexuality, marriage, gender relations, and even bodily adornments—came under the scrutiny and condemnation of the colonizers (see Jacobs 2009). This contributed to social and cultural upheaval as missionaries worked to replace many of the local philosophies that formed Makushi social organization with European Christianity. Polygyny (men taking multiple wives) was banned, nuclear settlements were directed, and men were expected to be the head of the family (Myers 1993). This upheaval was further compounded by the new diseases people brought into the area (even throughout the first half of the twentieth century, epidemics were still killing large numbers of Makushi people) (Jones 1952).

Along with the colonists also came new opportunities for subsistence. Because of the expansive savannahs, the Rupununi was looked to as an ideal area for cattle ranching. Initially brought over from Brazil in the late 1800s, grazing cattle in the open grasslands and savannahs became a common sight in the area (Myers 1993). The balata bleeding industry also took off during this time period (Baldwin 1946). Balata is a rubber substitute extracted from the bullet wood tree (Manilkaria bidentata), which is generally found deep in primary rainforest. For these two industries, workers were needed and recruited from local villages. Traditionally, men and women stayed close to their families and homes, but with the advent of wage labor many young adults moved to areas providing jobs. These industries and others had major demographic consequences, affecting cassava demand and production throughout the Rupununi. Balata bleeders, ranchers, and vaqueiros (Portuguese word for cowboys) often spent weeks or months alone or in small groups far from settlements (Myers 1993). As such, they needed a portable food source and this led to a demand for the increased production of cassava. These industries also concentrated the demand for cassava products in new population centers, resulting in many farmers expanding their farms and producing more cassava than needed for their own subsistence for the first time.

Contemporary Guyana and the Makushi

As a result of its colonial history, Guyana today is both a multiethnic and multi­religious state. Of the nation’s roughly 750,000 people, 90 percent live along the urbanized coastlands, which is only about 5 percent of the country’s landmass. The remaining 95 percent of the country is either sparsely or completely unpopulated. Inland from the coast, Amerindians compose the majority of the popu­lation. There are currently approximately 24,000 Makushi, with 9,000 living in Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo, one of ten administrative regions) of southwestern Guyana (Ricardo 1996; Forte 1996b). Throughout the region, there are twenty-seven principle Makushi villages as well as a number of smaller satellite communities (Forte 1996c).

Geographically, Guyana is part of the South American continent but culturally the major population centers on the coast are Caribbean. Much of the interior, including the Rupununi, is more closely connected with the markets and industries of Brazil. Partly this is the result of the inland regions of Guyana being isolated from coastal populations. To this day there is only one road that connects the coast to the interior and it is unpaved and frequently impassable during the rainy season. Because of the interior’s remoteness from the coastland and the close ties to Brazil, much of what happens in the interior is disconnected from the capital.

The racial politics on the coast, created by colonial policies, were (and are) focused solely on the competition between the Afro- and Indo-Guyanese groups for power. After independence in 1966, the paternalism of the colonial government was replaced by a strident nationalism colored by racial overtones (Colchester, Rose, and James 2002). This led to those in the interior, who were neither Afro- or Indo-Guyanese, feeling left out of the political sphere because their needs were not being addressed by the coastally-focused government. A rebellion led by ranchers followed in 1969 and was provoked by many reasons, including “insecure pastoral leases, ambitious government proposals for reallocating land in favor of settlers from the coast, racial suspicions, lack of control of cattle rustling from Brazil, and ill-documented rumors of meddling from neighboring countries” (Colchester, Rose, and James 2002: 125). This uprising was quickly put down by the Guyana Defense Force, and the cattle heyday of the Rupununi was ended overnight as the livestock that had not been rustled by Brazilians was taken by the government. A military base was installed in the capital of Region Nine, Lethem, and settlements of Coastlanders (primarily Afro-Guyanese) were made in traditional Amerindian lands with the purpose of bringing the coast to the interior (Forte 1996b).

This rebellion fueled suspicions that the Makushi were not loyal Guyanese and it poisoned relations between inhabitants of the interior and the coast in a manner that endures to this day. Many government services were suspended including veterinary, rangeland, abattoir and refrigeration, and air transport. Because these connections with the coast were allowed to deteriorate, the ranching economy went into decline (Colchester, Rose, and James 2002). As a consequence, most of the Makushi of Guyana live in remote communities, removed from the national political and economic power and have much more in common with the Makushi in Brazil than with coastal Guyanese (Vereecke 1994; Forte 1996b). The result has been that the economy of the Rupununi is more focused toward the Brazilian state capital of Boa Vista than to Georgetown. Many Makushi in the region now move to Brazil for work because of the decline in the cattle industry (as well as that of the balata industry around 1970). The Brazilian government has also encouraged this movement of people by recently completing a bridge over the Takatu River connecting the two countries near Lethem, making the trip to Brazil even easier. It is quite the transformation to cross into Brazil over this bridge, leaving behind the dusty (or muddy, depending on the season), red, pitted, two-wheeled vehicle tracks of the Rupununi for the paved, illuminated roads of Guyana’s more industrialized neighbor.

The geographical remoteness of the Makushi, as well as most of Guyana’s Amerindian population, exacerbates their marginal status as a group—socially, culturally, and economically—within a country dominated by other ethnic groups (Henfry 2002). Throughout the Caribbean, indigenous contributions to national identity and cultural diversity are rarely recognized, and Guyana is no exception (Palacio 1995). The attent...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• Preface
• Introduction: Understanding Caribbean Identity through Food
• 1. Cassava and the Makushi: A Shared History of Resiliency and Transformation
• 2. Transformations in Body and Cuisine in Rural Yucatán, Mexico
• 3. Tourism, Seafood Memories, and Identity: Lessons from Roatán, Honduras
• 4. Versions of Dominican Mangú: Intersections of Gender and Nation in Caribbean Self-making
• 5. The Intersections of “Guyanese Food” and Constructions of Gender, Race, and Nationhood
• 6. Cooking Cubanidad: Food Importation and Cuban Identity in Santiago de Cuba
• 7. From Colonial Dependency to Finger-lickin’ Values: Food, Commoditization, and Identity in Trinidad
• 8. Peasant Resistance to Hybrid Seed in Haiti: The Implications of Agro-industrial Inputs through Humanitarian Aid on Food Security, Food Sovereignty, and Cultural Identity
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index