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From Punta to Chumba: Garifuna Music and Dance in New Orleans By Amy Serrano History of the Garifuna / Garifuna of New Orleans
Continuity of Tradition and the Role of Women While men in the Garifuna community tend to learn their customs through informal apprenticeships, when it comes to the active teaching of folk traditions within the Garifuna of New Orleans, it is the women who consciously conserve and are especially interested in passing these on to the younger generations. This continuing practice resembles the past when the Garifuna first arrived in Honduras and it was the women that were the incubators of the space where West African and indigenous spirituality merged with the Catholic religion into their emerging Garifuna folk expression, and ultimately, within family, ritual, and celebration. This is not to suggest that at a fedu (a Garifuna word for a gathering or party), men and women do not intermingle. In fact it is typical for women to dance with men in the drumming circles, while children watch and easily begin to sway. But outside of these fedu, the women consciously nurture tradition in a different kind of appointed space that usually involves a family and spiritual context, and is specifically organized for the passing on of traditions. To shed some light on the background of the custom of women ensuring the passing on of traditions within a family and spiritual setting, Juan M. Sambula, a former community activist from Honduras who recently came to New Orleans for reconstruction work shares the following: For us, the women are dedicated to the children and the church because customs we have are based on the Gari tribe of Africa, mixed with Arawak. So I think that the mothers role in this case is different because she is dedicated to the children and the church while the man is dedicated to his friends. Doņa Zoila Martinez reflects upon a time in the late 1980s when she realized that if their traditions were not passed on to children now in this country, they would soon be forgotten or lost forever: I can tell you that at the beginning it was hard, but because we are as we are, even humbly do we continue to not forget our ancestry through our ways of life. I always told people that I did not want this [our traditions] to end. Young women and men were being raised here and did not know where they came from, who they were, so I always talked to my people. To pass on the Garifuna music and dance traditions to the children in the early years, Doņa Zoila organized the parents and voiced her concerns. She asked for parents to allow her to teach the children their Garifuna music and dance traditions. Before long, Doņa Zoila was able to find about 20 young girls who volunteered to learn the Garifuna ways under her tutelage. She taught them the traditional Garifuna dances while her good friend Doņa Maria Elena Martinez, who at the time sang in the church choir, taught the children the traditional Garifuna songs. Doņa Zoila remembers how she rallied the mothers to action: What motivated me was that I never wanted that the Garifuna traditions be lost. So I found other mothers who felt like me and when I began speaking with them about this, they said "we are with you." When I spoke I would speak to the mothers. After, the girls also became accepted as my daughters because they [the mothers] knew that with me, they were fine. To be able to afford to feed the girls after the vigorous teachings, Doņa Zoila and the girls collected and sold aluminum cans they would find on the street. She recalls how they raised the money: I never liked to ask for anything. Thats why we collected and sold our cans. And I would make and sell cooked foods to have a little money for the events. Because in my case, there was also the transportation involved and since the dance is so hearty, when they finished, I always wanted to make sure they had something to eat. See? In this manner and right up until Hurricane Katrina, Doņa Zoila and Doņa Maria Elena have passed on the dance and music traditions of the Garifuna to many sets of Garifuna girls in New Orleans who have now passed these on to their own daughters. This is not to suggest that the men in the community are not involved, but while they engage in drumming and singing during public festivities and pass on traditions through observation to younger generations, it is the Garifuna women in New Orleans who ensure continuity of the traditions of their community by active recruitment, teaching, and storytelling in a more private and deliberate sphere. Next - A Garifuna Day of Celebration / Video Clip
Amy Serrano is an award-winning filmmaker and poet living in New Orleans and working on a book on sugar and modern day slavery based on the findings in her last film, "The Sugar Babies." This article was written for the Louisiana Division of the Arts New Populations Project in 2009. |
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