The Caribs a History

The Caribs

Carib or Island Carib is the collective name of a people given to them who lived in the Lesser Antilles islands, after whom the Caribbean Sea was named. They are an Amerindian people whose origins lie in the southern West Indies & the northern coast of South America.
Although the men spoke either a Carib language or a pidgin, the Caribs' raids resulted in so many female Arawak captives that it was not uncommon for the women to speak Kalhíphona, a Maipurean language (Arawakan). In the southern Caribbean they co-existed with a related Cariban-speaking group, the Galibi who lived in separate villages in Grenada & Tobago & are believed to have been mainland Caribs. Several words of Carib origin became part of the English language, including hurricane, hammock, barbeque, & iguana.These people are believed to have left the Orinoco rainforests of Venezuela in South America to settle in the Caribbean. Over the century leading up to Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Caribbean archipelago in 1492, the Caribs are believed to have displaced the Maipurean-speaking Igneri people from the southern Lesser Antilles. Their legends (as recorded by Fr. Breton in the 17th century) say that they killed (and ate) all the Igneri men (Arawaks) & took their women as wives. Anthropologists are divided as to how true that was, but the fact that the Island Carib women spoke a Maipurean language gives credence to this idea. The islands also raided & traded with the Eastern Taíno of the Virgin Islands & Puerto Rico. The Caribs were the source of the gold which Columbus found in the possession of the Taíno; gold was not smelted by any of the insular Amerindians, but rather was obtained by trade from the mainland. The Caribs were skilled boatbuilders & sailors, & seem to have owed their dominance in the Caribbean basin to their mastery of the arts of war.
The Caribs were themselves displaced by the Europeans, & were eventually all but exterminated during the colonial period. However they were able to retain some islands, such as Dominica, Saint Vincent, Saint Lucia, & Trinidad. The Black Caribs (Garifuna) of St. Vincent inherit their ethnicity from a group of black slaves who were marooned in a 1675 shipwreck possibly after seizing power from the crew. They were later deported in 1795 to Roatan Island, off Honduras, where their descendants, the Garífuna, still live today. The British saw the less mixed "Yellow Caribs" as less hostile, & allowed them to remain in St. Vincent. Carib resistance delayed the settlement of Dominica by Europeans, & the Carib communities that remained in St. Vincent & Dominica retained a degree of autonomy well into the 19th century. The last known speakers of Island Carib died in the 1920s.
Because of Dominica's rugged area, Caribs were able to hide from European forces. Today, on the island's east coast, there is a 3,700 acre territory which was granted by the British government in 1903. This was as Britain was democratisaing, the oppression by English queens and kings was being replaced. There are only 3000 Caribs remaining after many years of brutal treatment by the Spanish, French & English colonists. Still with Carib pots & such. They elect their own chief. In July of 2003, Caribs Observed 100 Years of Territory. & in July of 2004, Charles Williams elected as Carib Chief. It is said that they are the only remaining native Carib people.
There are several hundred ethnic Caribs in Trinidad.
The Caribs are believed to have worshipped many gods. Cannibalism is believed to have been a religious ceremony that even the children would participate in.
European colonists arriving on the Caribbean Islands in the 15th century brutally fought for land & resources which induced the Caribs' aggressive & warlike ways & apparent taste for combat. Due to native Caribs' lack of sophisticated weapons, most of the Caribs on many Caribbean islands were annihilated by Europeans.
Carib culture, looked at from the outside, seems to be heavily patriarchal. Women carried out primarily domestic duties & farming, & in the seventeenth century they lived in separate houses (a custom which also suggests South American origin). However, women were highly revered & held much power. Island Carib society was socially more egalitarian than Taíno society. Although there were village chiefs & war leaders, there were no large states or multi-tiered aristocracy.
Instances of cannibalism were noted as a feature of religious war rituals, & in fact, the English word cannibal originated from the Carib word karibna ('person') - as recorded by Columbus as a name for the Caribs. Claims of cannibalism, however, must be seen in light of the fact that in 1503, Queen Isabella ruled that only people who are better off under slavery (including cannibals) could be legally taken as slaves, which gave Spaniards an incentive to identify various Amerindian groups as cannibals.
To this day the Kalinago people fight against what they regard as a misconception about their ancestors. The film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest was recently criticized by the National Garifuna Council for portraying the Carib people as cannibals.

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