African Influence in Garifuna Language and Oral Literature -Stories with a sung Chorus Part III

African Influence in Garifuna Literature and Language Part III Including Garifuna stories with a chorus probably in an African language

 By Wendy Griffin

All over Spanish speaking Honduras, including among the Miskitos, the Pech Indians and Chorti Indians, people tell Uncle Rabbit and Uncle Coyote or Uncle Rabbit and Uncle Tiger (Jaguar) stories, which are thought related to Brer Rabbit stories in the Southern US and the Carribbean which are in turn related to Bantu stories of the Rabbit.  Surprsingly these type of stories are very rare among the Garifuna.  I have only collected one Garifuna Rabbit story in Tela and none in Trujillo ( Griffin and CEGAH, 2005), while I have seen none in other collections of Garifuna stories.. 

 

As mentioned above, the Miskito Indians tell kisi stories, where the word kisi for a nature spirit like an ogre probably comes from the Bantu word nkisi. The Africans who intermarried with the Miskitos may have applied the word kisi to the Mesoamerican stories of sisimite, and that is why there is such a range of kisi stories in the Miskito culture that kiska is one whole genre of Miskito stories.

 

The Garifunas do not tell kisi stories. The Miskitos also tell  "twin" stories, where one person does something with good intentions and they become rich. Another person who is envious and greedy tries to do the same thing, but with bad intentions and the person dies or remains poor or becomes injured, etc. (Miskiwat, 1995a, Miskiwat, 1995b). The only place I have seen this type of story in collections of African stories in English is in Angola. Since one kisi story is also a twin story, it would make sense that both kinds of stories have a common origin.  The Garifunas also do not tell twin stories, either.

 

Nancie Gonzalez (1988) said most Garifuna uraga were Anasi stories, but in the areas I have worked, only one Garifuna man knew Anasi stories (Griffin and the Garifunas of Limon, 1995) and the Garifunas of Trujillo said that Anasi is one of the names of the "devil" (Justa Silveria Gotay, personal Communcation).  None of the other collections of Garifuna stories that I know of in Honduras or New York have Garifuna Anasi stories. Anasi is one Garifuna word for spider according to UCLA linguist who studies the Garifuna Dr. Pam Munro. Anasi stories were the speciality of the Ashanti people of Ghana.

 

 Several of the traditional Garifuna stories "uraga" do have witches (Griffin and CEGAH, 2005, Griffin and Garifunas of Limon, 1995).  Honduran Spanish speakers, the Miskitos and the Garifunas themselves consider that there are Garifuna witches.  Garifunas have in the past used poison, curses, plants, and spells which could kill or make sick or make crazy or cause a snake to appear or have the person end up doing something good when they meant to do something bad or become lost in the mountains, or cause couples to split up, or keep a man from leaving a woman. The Ladinos also accuse the Garifunas of knowing how to put something in their belly. See the article on this blog about Witchcraft as a reason for poor interethnic relationships in Honduras during the Truxillo Railroad era. Garifunas have reported some types of witchcraft that are specialities of certain types of witches like putting something in the belly of the person and making them swell up or making the penis of a young man disappear and have a vulva in its place, known as penis snatching in Africa, a particularly dreaded type of witchcraft according to Wikipedia articles on witchcraft. One Garifuna word for a curse that is coming from far away to kill you is the same word as gorilla in Garifuna.

 

There are a number of Garifuna songs about the fact that someone has sent "mal" (witchcraft from the Spanish word "maloficio") or "a gorilla", usually from New York and in a few days it will arrive and they will be dead. The topic of witchcraft comes up more in personal coversations than it does in stories. For example, Herman Alvarez, a Garifuna from San Juan Tela told about his nephew who raped a Black English speaker's daughter in Belize.  He was sent to jail, but the parents of the girl asked for him to be released and he came home to Tela.  shortly thereafter he became sick.  Herman went to see him before he died, and said he had no more penis, that he had a vulva like a woman.  Then the boy died. 

 

Herman said, Now I believe that "mal" exists.  Belief in Witchcraft is still strong in Subsharan Africa (Wikipedia, Witchcraft).  While placing something like a frog in the belly is a speciality of the Igbo of Nigeria, in Central and West Africa there has been a lot of concern about reports of "penis snatching" witches(Wikipedia, Witchcraft, Wikipedia, Igbo).

 

A story of witchcraft from Trujillo was there used to be a woman named Mindula in the neighboring Garifuna village of Santa Fe.  One man said she came to visit his grandparents and brought them coconut bread.  They ate part and saved part for the morning, but they never woke up.  They died.  Finally people got so tired of her evil doing that Garifunas in New York paid a Hindu to kill her by witchcraft.  One day she was walking on the beach.  A gringo stopped her.  Suddenly a ball of fire came from the sea and hit her and she was burning up.  She called for garlic, but no one would help her and that is how she died. (Griffin and CEGAH, 2005).  Often stories about witches and spirits including duendes, mafia, the Agayuma, gubida, the spirit of the sea, the devils under the trees, are not formal "uraga" among the Garifuna, but instead are just accounts of what happened to people someone knew.

 

In West Africa, there are two kinds of stories--stories with sung choruses and stories without choruses. I don't know if this is also true for the Bantu area of Africa.  These two types of stories exist among the Garifuna uraga.  The story teller--uragista teaches the chorus to the audience before the story and then they sing along when he gets to the part with the chorus.  The Garifunas say this makes storytelling, which is usually done as part of all night long wakes, less boring.

 

 Some of these choruses are still in English.  For example, in the Garifuna story of Anti Dua, which is almost identical to the story collected among the Ga near Accra, Ghana, the chorus is "You know me, It was not me" in English.  In Ghana the story is of Auntie Dua or Aunt in English and Dua Wood in Ga.  Since the story is about a woman who has all the firewood in the world, and makes fun of people and does not give it to them, it makes sense that it should be called Auntie Wood.  And since English is the official language of Ghana, it makes sense for a Ghana story to have a chorus in English (Griffin and CEGAH, 2005).  The Ga story of the crab and how he got his hard Shell that Anti Dua is part of was collected and published by reknown folklorist Howard Collander.

 

There is another story about a man who marries a pelican, where the wife before she changes into a pelican and goes to eat fish, always sings a song "I am sorry, so sorry" in English.  (Juan Arzu, personal communication).  The Garifunas tell the stories with the choruses in English even though they themselves do not speak any English and the listeners do not speak any English, probably because the choruses are sung and if they were translated they would not match the tune or beat of the song. The use of English may reflect the story originally came from a part of Africa which the English controlled like Ghana or Nigeria.  West African stories of people changing into animals have been reported.  

 

In the Garifuna story below, the chorus is in an unknown language. This chorus is well known and several people mentioned it to me and could sing it to me, but only my 92 year old buyei friend Yaya could tell me a story that went with it.  There is no guarantee that this is the original story that went with the chorus, because as I said it is a popular chorus, and people could make up other stories and have people sing this chorus.  Garífuna shaman like shaman everywhere are guardians of the oral tradition and so Yaya knew both songs and stories which helped her give advice on how to live as a good Garífuna so that your actions would not anger the ancestors, your neighbors who might do witchcraft against you if they were envious or resentful, or the nature spirits. She was the only person I spoke to who could tell me about the ceremonies for the nature spirits so that they do not withhold the rain.  Honduras has been suffering a serious drought over the last year, and rain over the last 5 years has generally been less than before. Is there a relationship with the fact that the people forgot about the nature and wáter spirits and now they are angry and are withholding rain and fish and rainforest animals as some believe?

 

What is special about Yaya's story is that it is about two children killing a baby gorilla to take its skin to make a bag, and then the mother gorilla is looking for the children. So they get on a vulture and are flying away to safety.  The boy says, The vulture smells bad.  The girl says, "Stop it." and sings to the vulture so that it will keep flying. There are no gorillas in the Garifuna area of Honduras or on Saint Vincent or on the mainland where the Arawaks and Caribs Indians came from, so this is almost certainly an African tale.  There are not gorillas everywhere in Africa, just in a few areas, often in areas where Bantu speaking people now live and where people eat a lot of bananas and plantains, like the Garifuna do.

 

 I read in a book once that sese meant dance in Bantu, but a Bantu linguist at UCLA had not heard that and  without knowing the whole meaning of the chorus, it is hard to evaluate if the chorus is really in a  Bantu language. I am sorry that I did not ask Yaya what was the Garifuna word for gorilla, as that is almost certainly an African word.  The Garifunas also tell an Anasi story about the wedding of a guinea hen (Griffin and Garifunas of Limon, 1995). The word for guinea hen is likely to be an African word, too.  The chorus the girl sings to the vulture to escape from the mother gorilla is below.

The use of the Garífuna Word for gorilla to mean curse is in the Garífuna songbook Lanigi Garífuna (Garífuna Heart), by Salvador Suazo which had a casette with it for the songs,but no university in the US bought a copy according to WorldCat.

 

yau mi yau, Miguelei

Eh, yau mi yau

yau mi yau

 

Bambu sese sese sese se

Yau mi yau, yau mi yau

Yau mi yau, yau mi yau.

 

(Griffin and CEGAH, 2005)

 

There is also a game played at wakes where the Garifuna women wave their arms like they are flying and turn around and sing bambu sese sese sese se.  The women said they did not know what the words meant, that maybe they meant the pelican is flying, flying, flying. This game, a similar one for children,  and the language it is in is obviously related to the chorus of the story.

Songs about vultures are also common among the Miskito Indians and the song "Usus Mairin" (Female Vulture) seems to be similar to the Gullah song and dance of Buzzard Stomp of the Blacks in the US South in the Sea Islands. Buzzard is another word in English for vulture. The buzzard stomp dance has been identified with a similar dance among the Mandiko people of the old Mali Empire in Western Africa.  Most of the songs still in an African language among the Gullah were also found to be in the Mandiko language. See the article cited at the bottom of the Wikipedia article on Afro-Hondurans in English. The whole article is available on the Internet. The relationship of Garifuna harvest dances and the Miskito agricultural dances, the rain cycle in Honduras, and the cycle of planting rice and harvesting it are in Wendy Griffin's Spanish language blog article about Honduran ceremonies and calendars www.crisisderechoshumanoshonduras.blogspot.com
 

 

People I have asked to translate stories or songs for me, like Enrique Gutierrez of Trujillo, say there are a lot of words, particularly in dugu songs that modern Garifunas do not know what they mean.  They are words in sacred songs which are part of the overall ritual, so the Garifunas sing them without knowing the meaning, just like the story choruses in English or a possible African language. Maybe the early composers of Garifuna dugu songs used borrowed words from their native African languages. 

 

So far studies of Garifuna looking for African words have found under 10 words (Suazo, 2002), but maybe that is because they were comparing to West African languages and cultures, which do not seem to be the major influence in Garifuna ceremonies or foods, or because they were searching among modern Garifuna words, instead of the older forms of Garifuna frozen in dugu songs and uraga, the traditional stories.   It may also be that the person who was looking did not know the esotheric words in the language as Dorothy Frazone in her doctoral thesis on Africanisms in Garifuna Culture quotes a Yoruba priest who said he found many Yoruba words in the practices related to the dugu ceremony. Her thesis is available from PROQUEST.com.

 

 

Bibliography

 

 Allsopp, Jeanette (2003) The Caribbean Multilingual Dictionary of Flora, Fauna, and Foods in English, French, French Creole, and Spanish.  (El diccionario multilingüe caribeño de flora, fauna y Comidas en Inglés, Francés, Creole Francés, y español).  Kingston, Jamaica, Arawak Publications.

 

Amaya Banegas, Jorge Amaya (2005) "Los Negros Ingleses o Creoles de Honduras: Etnohistoria, Racismo, Nacionalismo, y Construcción de Imaginarios Nacionales Excluyentes en Honduras", Boletin No. 13, AFEHC.

 

Arrivillaga Cortés, Alfonso (2007) "Asentamientos Caribes (Garifuna) en Centroamerica:  De heroes Fundadores a Espiritus Protectores"  Boletín de Antropología, año/vol. 21, No. 38, Univerisidad de Antioquia, Medellin, Columbia, pp. 227-252. 

 

Avila, Tomás Alberto (2009) Black Caribs-Garifunas Saint Vincent' Exiled People and the Origin of the Garifuna. A Historical Compilation. (Caribes Negros a Garifunas, El Pueblo Exilado de San Vicente y el Orígen de los Garífunas. Una Compilación Histórica.)  Providence, Rhode Island EE. UU.:  Millenio Associates. Este libro escrito por un Garífuna en los EE. UU. da la historia y explanación de la cultura garífuna de punto de vista de los mismos garífunas, princiaplement Garífunas Beliceños.  Se puede comprar a través de www.Amazon.com. This book written by a Garifuna in the US gives the history and an explantion of the Garifuna culture from the view point of the Garifunas themselves, principally Belizean Garifunas. It can be ordered from Amazon.com.  Highly recommended.

 

Chambers, Glenn A. (2010) Race, Nation, and West Indian Immigration to Honduras, 1890-1940 (Raza, Nación, y la Imigración de Afro-Antillanos a Honduras, 1890-1940). Baton Rouge:  Louisana State University Press.

 

Davidson, William V. (2011)  Censo Etnico de Honduras, 2001, Cuadros y mapas basados en el Censo Nacional.  (editado por Mario Argueta).  Tegucigalpa:  Academia Hondureña de Geografía e Historia.

 

Davidson, William (2009) Etnología y Etnohistoria. Ensayos. Tegucigalpa:  Instituto Hondureño de Antropología e Historia.

 

Flores, David (2003) Evolución Histórica de la Danza Folklórica Hondureña. Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Incluye descripciones y  mas de 125 fotos de danzas folklóricas incluyendo  muchas danzas afro-hondureñas incluyendo las danzas ceremoniales o religiosas. Estudio de danzas Garifunas de Wendy Griffin, Estudio de danzas de Isleñas de Wendy Griffin y David Flores, Estudio de danzas Miskitos de Miskiwat y Wendy Griffin, Danzas Ladinos de David Flores.  Danzas Lencas y Maya-Chortis de David Flores y Wendy Griffin.  Unas danzas ceremoniales  grandes conocidos como "los Guancascos" de los Ladinos, Chortis y Lencas tienen una sección especial que se llama "Los Negritos" y los bailaraines andan con máscaras y hacen danzas graciosas.

 

Gonzalez, Nancie (1988) Sojourners of the Caribbean. Urbana, IL:  University of Illinois Press.  Este libro sobre la historia y cultura de los Garífunas fue traducido al español y republicado en Honduras bajo el nombre Peregrinos del Mar.

 

Griffin, Wendy (2004)  Los Isleños y Los Ingleses de Honduras:  Su Historia y Su Cultura, manuscrito inedito.  Hay copias de la versión en español en la bibliotecas de la UPN y el IHAH en Tegucigalpa, Honduras, y la University of Pittsburgh, y Tulane University, EE.UU.y PRONEEAAH.   Unas personas como Jeanette Allsopp, los representantes de PRONEEAAH, y profesores de Tulane y la Unversidad de Pittsburgh tienen copias electronicas de la versión en inglés.I have an electronic version of this book on the English speaking Bay Islanders of Honduras.

 

Griffin, Wendy (1998) "Coconuts play Central Role in North Coast Cultures" (Cocos juegan un papel  central en las culturas de la Costa Norte)  and "Coconuts can be good medecine"   (Los Cocos Pueden Ser Buena Medecina), en Honduras This Week Online (Honduras Esta Semana En Linea), Mon. Feb. 2, 1998 at http://www.marrder.com/htw/feb.98/cultural/htm. Había muchos artículos mios sobre la comida típica, la medecina casera, las danzas folklóricas, las ceremonias, las leyendas, de los afro-hondureños, indígenas y Ladinos  en este periódico en inglés en el Internet. There are many of my articles in English on Afro-Honduran culture, including the story The man who married a Pelican in this newspaper where I wrote for 12 years..  You can search Pelican or GArifuna and Honduras Wendy Griffin on google and they will come up. 

 

Griffin, Wendy (1996) Los Miskitos:  Su Historia y Su Cultura.  manuscrito inedito.  Hay copias de la versión en español en las bibliotecas de la UPN y el IHAH en Tegucigalpa, Honduras, El Museo de Antropología e Historia, San Pedro Sula, Honduras, y la University of Pittsburgh y Tulane University, EE. UU. y PRONEEAAH.

 

Griffin, Wendy, Juana Carolina Hernandez Torres y Hernán Martínez Escobar (2012)  Guia de Artesanía y Arquitectura Pech y Reflexiones de la Cultura e Historia Pech en el Museo de antropología e Historia de San Pedro Sula, Honduras.  Obra inedita.  Hay versiones digitales en el Museo de San Pedro Sula, Honduras, el Museo Peabody de Harvard University, el Burke Museum, Univeristy of Washington,Seattle, WA. y PRONEEAAH.  Además de información sobre las artesanias Pech, este libro incluye también información sobre como se siembra, limpia, cosecha, y procesa el arroz y también como se hace dulce o rapadura y la chicha al estilo pech  en Honduras y las artesanías que necesitaban para hacer esto.

 

Griffin, Wendy y Tomasa Clara Garcia Chimilio (2012) "Yaya:  La Vida de Una Curandera Garífuna"  Manuscrito en español en la biblioteca del Museo de Antropología e Historia de San Pedro Sula Honduras, la University of Pittsburgh y Tulane University, EE. UU.  Este artículo en inglés (Yaya: The Life of GArifuna healer)  y en español será publicado por la revista Negritud, de Atlanta, Georgia, EE. UU. en 2013.    To be published in English by the Journal Negritud, Atlanta, GA.  I can also send it by email.

 

Griffin, Wendy, y Juana Carolina Hernandez Torres y Hernán Martínez Escobar (2009) Los Pech de Honduras: Una Étnia que Vive.  Tegucigalpa:  Instituto Hondureño de Antropología e Historia (IHAH).

 

Griffin, Wendy y el Comité de Emergencia Garífuna de Honduras (CEGAH) (2005) Los Garífunas de Honduras:  Cultura, Lucha, y Derechos bajo el Convenio 169 de la OIT.  San Pedro Sula:  Central Impresora. Casi todas las copias de este libro publicado con fondos de la Fundación Edwards de los EE. UU. fueron donados a escuelas, colegios y bibliotecas en las comunidades Garífunas de Colon. Hay copias en la UPN y el IHAH en Tegucigalpa, el Museo de San Pedro Sula, Tulane, University of Pittsburgh, University of New México, Western Washington Univeristy, Central Washington University, Peabody Museum, Harvard Univeristy, EE. UU.  There is a preliminary version in Tulane University, Garifuna Coalition, Nueva York,  and University of West Indies, Barbados.

 

Griffin Wendy y los Garífunas de Limon (1995) Once Upon a Time in a Garifuna Village/Había una vez en una Comunidad Garífuna. manuscrito inedito bilingüe español/inglés. There are copies in the library of IHAH en Tegucigalpa, el Museo de Antropología e Historia, San Pedro Sula, Honduras, and the University of Pittsburgh and Tulane University (but it does not show up in WorldCat). La Escuela Socorro Sorrel, Trujillo, Honduras.

 

Gudmundson, Lowell y Justin Wolfe (eds.) (2012)  La Negritud en Centroamérica:  Entre Raza y Raíces.  San José, Costa Rica:  Editorial Universidad Estatal a Distancia.  There is an English version Blackness in Central America.  Between Race and Place.

 

Martinez Perdomo, Adalid (2011) Antropología Alimenticia.  San Pedro Sula:  Central Impresora. Incluye mis estudios de la Comida Miskita e Isleña. Tiene el estudio de Virgilio Lopez, un profesor Garífuna sobre la Comida Garífuna.  Adalid validó mi estudio de la Comida Pech y lo incluyó bajo su nombre. Incluye los estudios preliminares de sus estudiantes de la Comdia Chorti y Lenca, mas información étnohistorica.

 

Metz, Brent E., Cameron L. McNeil, y Kerry M. Hull (2009)  The Chorti Maya Area:  Past and Present (La Zona de los Maya-Chortis:  El Pasado y el Presente),  Tallahassee:  University Press of Florida.

 

Miskiwat--Miskitu Iwanka Watla/Centro de Cultura Miskita(1995a)  El Kisi que Se llevó a Un Niño y Otros Cuentos--versión bilingüe Miskito/Español (Wendy Griffin, coordinadora)  Tegucigalpa: Editorial Guardabarranco. Con dibujos del artista Miskito David Smith.  Casi todas las copias de este libro publicado con fondos de UNICEF fueron donados a escuelas en La Mosquitia.  Hay copias en la biblioteca de UPN y el IHAH en Tegucigalpa, el Museo de Antropología e Historia de San Pedro Sula, University of Pittsburgh y Tulane University, EE. UU. y PRONEEAAH. Unas personas como Jeanette Allsopp, Elmor Matute Wood y la biblioteca del IHAH también tiene la versión electronica en inglés. the book The Kisi that Carried Away a Child and other Stories.  I have the English digital version.

 

Miskiwat--Miskitu Iwanka Watla/Centro de Cultura Miskita(1995b)  Miskut Kiuma Nisanka Kiska Nani Cuentos de la gente de Miskut--versión bilingüe Miskito/Español (Wendy Griffin, coordinadora)  Teguicgalpa: Editorial Guardabarranco.  Con dibujos del artista Miskito David Smith.  Casi todas las copias de este libro publicado con fondos de UNICEF fueron donados a escuelas en La Mosquitia.  Hay copias en la biblioteca de UPN y el IHAH en Tegucigalpa, el Museo de Antropología e Historia de San Pedro Sula, University of Pittsburgh y Tulane University, EE. UU.  y PRONEEAAH. No hay versión en inglés.There is no English version yet of this Miskito story book, which has 4 "twin stories".

 

Perez, Isabel  Entre la Vida y la Muerte.  A study of Miskito ethnomedecine.

 

Sarmiento, José (1992) Historia de Olancho:  Guaymuras:  Tegucigalpa.

 

Stone, Doris (1943) The Lencas (Los Lencas) in Steward, Julian (1943) The Handbook of South American Indians, Washington, DC, Smithsonian Institute.  Hay una traducción en español de este artículo en las Bibliotecas del IHAH, Tegucigalpa  y el Museo de Antropología e Historia, San Pedro Sula.

 

Suazo, Salvador (2002) Conversemos en Garífuna: Gramática y Manual de Conversación.  Tegucigalpa:  Editorial Guaymuras.

 

Será Publicado Próximamente/To be published soon.

 

Graham, Ross (2013) "Bay Islands English" (Inglés de Islas de la Bahía) en Hopkins, Tometro, John McKenny and Kendall Decker (eds.) World Englishes: Vol. 3 Central America. London: Continuum.

 

Laura Hobson Herlihy, Hawks, Chip, Grate, and Squeeze:  Recipes from the Bay Islands (Recetas de las Islas de la Bahía).

 

Scott Wood Ronas (2012) La Mosquitia Desde  Adentro. Tegucigalpa:  Ministerio de Cultura.(The Mosquitia from the Inside, the first book on Miskito culture and history written by a Miskito Indian)

 

Diaspora Conversions

 

Websites consulted

Wikipedia, dugu, 

Wikipedia, Garifunas

 Wikipedia,  Afro-Latin American religions

Wikipedia, Palo

 Wikipedia, Traditional African Medicine,

 Wikipedia, Traditional healers of South Africa 

Wikipedia, Shamanism

Wikipedia, Divination,

Wikipedia,  Rooster 

Wikipedia, Cuisine of South Africa

Wikipedia, rapadura

Wikipedia, East African Cuisine

http://www.ikuska.com/Africa/Gastronomia/kwanga

Videos with Garifuna Dances of their sacred Ceremonies 

Garifuna in Peril (2012) Abeimajani, Punta, also non-religious dances like Wanaragua (Mascaro or the Dance of the Warriors)

El Espiritu de Mi Mama Dugu, Punta

Tierra Negra, about the Garifuna land problems done by Telesur in 2013, available on Youtube. Shows a chugu.

Both available at www.garifunainperil.com and through Amazon.com

CD’s

 

Ayó, by the Garifuna Collective (a Belizean group) Available from Stonetree Records and other places.

Folkway Records Garifuna CD’s available through Folkway Records of the Smithsonian.

Doctoral Thesis

Dorothy Frazone (1994) Africanisms in Garifuna Culture. Done among Belizean Garifunas. Available from PROQUEST.com