Caribbean cultures

What are the main features of Caribbean geography ?

1. Low lying: limestone islands with offshore coral reefs,long whit beaches 2. Mountainous volcanic: green, lush mountains, old volcanoes higher rainfall, fewer hours of sunshine 3. Large islands: similar structure to the volcanic islands, but with a wider variety of landscapes

Who was Toussaint L'Ouverture?

A former slave from Haiti that learned to read and write. He lead the Haitian independence movement.

Why the legacy/ outcome of the revolution still has an effect on politics of Haiti today?

Anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot famously argued that, for many in Europe and North America, the Haitian Revolution was and has long remained an "unthinkable" event

What role did Afro-religions play in shaping the cultures of their respective societies?

Caribbean peoples fashioned a heterogeneous system of beliefs out of the multiple practices and traditions that came forcibly together in colonial society

What are the main differences between the accounts Columbus and las casas on the Taínos?

Columbus: sees it as a great discovery, changed the name of the Island to la española, trying to persuade to them that Christians were good people too but they just kidnapped a lady. Sees the people as good servants, trying to convert them to Christianity, Las casas on the taínos: Spaniards behaving like wild beasts, terrorizing, afflicting torture and destroying the native peoples lives. Killing innocent souls yo have the ultimate aim of acquiring gold.

What are the main features of Caribbean ecology?

Constraints: pace of conversion to plantations Opportunities: for refuge and resistance It's location: strategic opportunity, commerce

What are the cultural practices that "make them" garífuna?

Drumming and punta music

What are the different forms of Afro-religions of the Caribbean?

Fon and Ewe Religion; Santería; Vodou; West African Religions; Yoruba Religion.

How did they become garífuna?

Garifuna, also known as Garinagu, are the descendants of an Afro-indigenous population from the Caribbean island of St Vincent who were exiled to the Honduran coast in the eighteenth century and subsequently moved to Belize.

What are the main problems of perspective and translation of panes accounts?

He assumed he learned the Macorís language

According to pane, what was the Caribbean native cultural and symbolic worldview like, according to early ethnographic accounts?

He reported down the names, functions and attributes of the Taino gods, and he recounted the aboriginal peoples beliefs about what became of their souls when they passed. He also mentions that they know like wise where they came from and where the sun and the moon had their beginning And how the sea was made. They believe the dead appear to them along the road when traveling Alone.

Culture

Is shared, socially transmitted knowledge and behavior

Why was the Haitian revolution a threat to the rest of the Western Hemisphere?

It transformed the very meaning of freedom, not just in the Caribbean but for beyond it, ushering in a new vision of human rights

According to mintz, how did colonialism and slavery shape the Caribbean?

It was the region's suitability for "development" by means of slavery and a plantation system, and emergent world capitalism's readiness to batten on the needs and desires of the peoples of the conquering nations, that made its colonization such an enormous European success.

What was Toussaint L'Ouverture importance during and after the Haitian revolution?

Leader of the Haitian Revolution. He freed the slaves and gained effective independence for Haiti despite military interventions by the British and French. ... Originally, African slaves were brought to Saint Domingue to supply labor for these crops. It was very profitable and was ideal for growing in this region. This revolution set up the first black government in the Western Hemisphere and the world's second democratic republic (after the US).

Who were the Caribs?

People of the lesser Antilles Aggressive warriors who fought newcomers Not originally from these islands Mainly west African decent

How did colonialism, slavery, and revolution shape Haiti?

The Haitian Revolution left a complex and paradoxical legacy. The most radical revolution of the Age of Revolution, it created a state undermined by internal conflicts and a society in which the struggle for true dignity and freedom would continue indefinitely.

Ethnocentrism

The attitude or opinions that the morals, values and customs of ones own culture are superior to those of other peoples

What role did Afro-religion of voodoo play in the revolution?

The beginning of the Revolution, and the event often seen as the founding of Haiti itself, was the Bois-Caiman ceremony of August 1791 led by Dutty Boukman at least one and perhaps two religious ceremonies were organized before the great uprising of 1791. Plans were made, oaths taken, and inspiration gained from communication with deities.

Who were the Taínos?

The native people who occupied the greater Antilles during the Spanish invasion. They were originally called arawaks because they spoke an Arawak language.

Why was Toussaint L'Ouverture a controversial figure?

There's pros and cons about him because since he did free black slaves; he was their oppressor. It is also a murderer and fraud and people said he was too close to white planters. he called himself a dictator

Why do garífuna consider themselves an indigenous group while being also of African descent?

They are the descendants of the African survivors of human cargo ships that were wrecked off the island of St Vincent around 1675. These West Africans, along with the steady stream of maroons escaping slavery on other Caribbean islands, found refuge and started families with the indigenous Kalinago (Carib) population. An Afro-indigenous culture developed that existed independently of the region's colonial forced labour plantation system.

Does the Taino/Carib distinction still hold today? Why?

Yes they do, a study has shown that there's 14 percent of indigenous dna living in some Caribbean islands. We've also seen documentaries showing us that they aren't extinct more that they're just not where people can easily spot them.

Who are the Ganga of Cuba and what kind of traditions were they celebrating?

a small Afro-Cuban ethnic group, have kept their unique heritage alive. Incredibly, through decades of brutal enslavement, independence wars, and then the denying of all religions after the revolution, they have retained a collection of distinct songs and dances that one of their ancestors brought from Africa as a slave. Every December they meet to pray to Yebbe, as the Ganga call San Lazaro (St Lazarus), in a night-long ceremony of dance, drumming and song that has remained intact through the decades. San Lazaro is a saint known for curing the sick,

What other ethnic groups (beside Africans) were introduced in the Caribbean?

asians,middleeastern,indians

Who are the black Caribs?

comprise more or less fifty thousand individuals, of mixed African and American Indian descent, living on the Caribbean Coast of the republics of Honduras and Guatemala, and the colony of British Honduras.

According to mintz, how does anthropology and history analyze and conceptualize the Caribbean?

he sees the Caribbean as a region made coherent by its geography, climate, and terrain and also by particular features of a largely common history. That history was built on its tropical location, its mostly insular nature, and its early conquest by the Europeans

How did other ethnic groups reshape the ethnic, political, cultural, and economic dimensions of the Caribbean?

promoted migration,integration of different cultures, more workers to work on plantations and factories

cultural relativism

the notion that one should not judge the behavior of other peoples using the standards of one's own value

What is anthropology ?

the study of humankind, from a broad perspective, focusing more on the biological and and cultural differences and similarities among populations and societies of both past and present.

How did taínos/ Caribs adapt culturally and ecologically to island environments?

they had different groups. Archaic: focused on foraging, hunting, fishing. Salacloid: focused on horticulture,fishing, egalitarian. Ostionoid: chiefdoms , complex material production. Other things that were mentioned were conuco which is a horticultural biodiverse garden, manioc cultivation: a bitter variety for casssava bread which was their staple etc. they masked the diversity and variability of the late prehistoric people in these islands and the myriad of influences that shaped them. Which is the cultural mosaic of the indigenous Caribbean.

Explain the black Caribs Caribbean journey to Belize?

turned away from Belize three times by the British government before they were allowed to settle there in 1832