Lords of the Tiger Spirit

Neil Whitehead's Lords of the Tiger Spirit: A History of the Caribs in Colonial Venezuela and Guyana, 1498-1820 presents analysis of Carib resistance and eventual conquest in Guayana, a region that is today's Venezuela and Guyana. Due to the region's incomplete conquest by the Spanish in the 16th century and the competing spheres of influence of European powers, the indigenes of the Orinoco region, particularly those who came to be identified as Caribs, retained their autonomy until the second half of the 18th century. Whitehead's study seeks to elucidate why Carib autonomy persisted for so long in this region and why, despite the small indigenous population by the 19th century, their relations with the Spanish, Dutch, English and French were so pivotal for the eventual emergence of the states of Venezuela and Guyana. 

Whitehead primarily relies on archival sources, missionary reports, Dutch West India Company records, the Archivo General de las Indias and ethnographic studies of indigenous groups in Venezuela and Guyana to establish an identity for the Caribs. Since there was an inherent ambiguity in the moniker Carib, as used and developed by the Spanish for Indian groups hostile to them, one must look to linguistics, modern ethnographies, and indigenous kinship patterns and political economies to understand how some Indian populations in Guayana became Carib (or were absorbed into that category). Since Spanish slave raiding and conflict with "Caribs" began in the 16th century, Caribs along the Orinoco and other rivers were quick to establish an alliance with the Dutch. By trading dyes, slaves, provisions and supplies to the Dutch, the Caribs were able to receive firearms, metal hatchets, axes, rum, and European manufactured goods. These European goods, in turn, gave the Caribs a prominent economic role in the region since they were able to supply European products to other indigenous populations. The Dutch colonial presence in Essequibo, Berbice and Demerara, especially before the growth of the sugarcane industry (which relied on African slave labor) was especially important for the Carib resistance to the Spanish in the Orinoco.

Unfortunately for the Caribs, the 18th century led to the eventual dislocation, significant population decline, and reduction of Caribs (and other Indians) by the Spanish. The 18th century witnessed the expansion of missions led by orders like the Franciscans, Capuchins, and Jesuits into the interior of Guayana. These missions, with their entradas, militia support, and relocation of Indian populations into a regimented, missionary-controlled existence disrupted Carib political, social and economic independence. Caribs who continued to resist or those who fled further into the interior or to their Dutch allies found them to be less supportive of military conflict with the Spanish. Indeed, the Dutch colonies, with their reliance on slavery and sugar plantations, were eager to receive mules, horses, and other goods from the Spanish territory. Furthermore, in spite of the Dutch reliance on their Carib allies for "bush police" to hunt runaway slaves, the Dutch correctly perceived the greater investment of Spanish resources and forces to subdue and pacify Indian populations was a markedly different development in Spanish colonial policy. However, the Spanish, despite the success with the missions in reducing and controlling indigenous groups, was not able to completely subdue the Caribs or threaten the Dutch in Essequibo, Demerara or Berbice.

What makes the Carib case so interesting is that their more diffuse political system appears to have been what saved them from the rapid Spanish conquest of areas like Peru and Mexico. Instead of a vast, centrally administered state in which the Spanish were able to remove and replace, Guayana represented several small polities or village-level communities. While a prominent war-chief, cacique, or shaman could potentially bring together several villages, the lack of a single political center to neutralize or eradicate led to the Spanish inability to conquer Guayana for centuries. The diffused nature of indigenous polities and dispersed settlements probably also hindered the spread of epidemic diseases of Old World origin, too. Indeed, the reduction of Indians by the missions probably played an essential role in disrupting Indian subsistence pattern and increasing contact with Europeans, eventually leading to substantial population decline by the end of the 18th century. Of course, this lack of a centralized administration was also used against the Caribs (and indigenous Guayana in toto) as the Dutch and Spanish picked allies to pit one against the other. The destructive impact of the slave trade must have also contributed to the instability of the region as Caribs, perhaps acquiring an understanding of the exchange value of captives, likely raided more communities for captives or engaged in conflicts with groups like the Manoa to preserve their privileged access to European goods. 

Overall, the combination of the missions, renewed Spanish efforts at expansion, the decline of Dutch trade with the Caribs, and the demographic collapses caused by exposure to Old World disease led to the defeat of the Caribs. Nonetheless, their centuries-long resistance to Spanish occupation and their key role as antagonists, traders, and raiders helped shape Venezuela and Guyana. Intriguingly, their close relations with the Kalinago ("Island Caribs") in the 16th and 17th centuries also connected them to Antillean affairs. Just as in the Lesser Antilles, Caribs in Venezuela and Guyana were able to use inter-European rivalries to buttress their own position and play an important role in trading, slaving, and anti-Spanish endeavors. One wishes that more could be said about the pre-1498 history of contacts with the Antilles, particularly long-distance trade networks that connected the Guianas with the llanos, Amazonia and Andes. 

Of Cannibals and Kings

Neil Whitehead's Of Cannibals and Kings: Primal Anthropology in the Americas has been on our reading list for some time. A short book consisting of English translations of early Spanish sources on the indigenous Caribbean and an introductory essay by Whitehead, it is important for offering a new translation (based on the Italian) of Ramon Pané and a translation of Rodrigo de Navarrete and Rodrigo de Figueroa. Although Whitehead unconvincingly posits possibly "Taino" or Amerindian influences on Haitian Vodou and West Indian obeah, suggesting Damballa, zombi and perhaps even bokor may be at least in part derived from native Caribbean spirituality and religion, his essay raised a number of legitimate questions about the ways in which scholars have engaged in linguistic analysis of Pané's brief account. Moreover, the translation of Rodrigo de Navarrete's brief relation of the "Aruacas" (who appear to have been centered in the area of Guyana) provides an interesting description of indigenous South American "allies" of the Spanish. Indeed, if the category of caribe was a political rather than ethnic identifier, at least in how it was used by Columbus, Chanca, Figueroa and Navarrete, that dichotomy was clearly understood by indigenous actors who, like the Aruacas, appear to have used trade and alliances with the Spanish to expand their power and settlements against their caribe enemies. Even more intriguing is the unnamed morisco survivor of a shipwreck who lived for years among the Aruacas. He was one of the main informants of Navarrete and perhaps would have given his native hosts a more nuanced perspective on Castile and its history of aggression and expansion. Unfortuantely, Navarette did not share all of the details he learned about the Aruacas (Arawaks), but his brief relation indicates a culture in which astronomical knowledge and lore was important to the shamans. Indeed, similar astronomical lore appears to have been important for the "Carib" and "Taino" shaman class, who likewise played a pivotal role in the ceremonies using song to record history, genealogy, and the deeds of great men. 

Palace of the Peacock

"I had felt the wind rocking me with the oldest uncertainty and desire in the world, the desire to govern or be governed, rule or be ruled for ever."

Guyanese author Wilson Harris's Palace of the Peacock is extraordinarily complex, multi-layered, and perfectly responds to Conrad's Heart of Darkness.  Instead of the Congo, Harris takes us to the jungles of Guyana where Donne and his mixed-race crew pursue Mariella, his woman who left him to stay at the Mission. I had read elsewhere Harris's Hegelian dualism permeates the novel, but as it appears in Harris's prose, its relevance to the impact of colonialism on Guyana becomes ever clearer. Harris intelligently uses the indigenous population and their worldview with respect, too, forming an excellent rebuttal to Conrad. 

Donne and his crew are already dead, existing between life and death on the river (also identified as a river of life, stream of death), a significant theme for the novel's dualism. Alive and dead, heaven and hell, native and non-native, Harris uses dualism to argue for a synthesis of states of binary oppositions, an apt metaphor for colonial society. The 'palace of the peacock' is an astounding symbol for the novel's powerful conclusion, which ends with a seven day search for the indigenous population of Mariella Mission, the laborers Donne exploits and treats cruelly, in spite of his own dark skin. The novel's somewhat ambiguous ending of revelations for the deceased crew are highly suggestive of the colonial society in which Guyana exists. Will they share the land, for example? The ambiguous fate of the Guyanese society is left open to the reader's interpretation, but an optimistic future seems to be the overall message.  

Along the way the world of polar opposites, life and death, peace and conquest lead to trouble among the crew of the vessel. The unstable narration (the unnamed narrator, the Dreamer) mirrors the liminal space occupied by the characters, already dead, as they endeavor to catch up with the Arawaks who flee while dying again in pursuit (and pursued) of their various dreams. Love, race, incest, the search for fortune are some other themes important to the crew. Despite their mixed racial origins, they too perpetuate discriminatory views of the indigenous population, yet rely on an old Arawak woman as their guide along the river. 

Eschewing conventions of the novel form, Harris's first novel can be quite difficult to follow, but it's beautifully written, possesses all of the complex symbolism of Conrad's novel, and avoids any dehumanizing language. As a Caribbean writer of African descent who foregrounds the indigenous population of the region, Harris's novel is also conspicuous as one of the few from the Anglophone Caribbean for including Arawak characters and mythology, an untapped reservoir for Caribbean literature.