Garifuna Music and Dance resources for Ethnomusicologists Submitted to Society for Ethnomusicology

Dear Friends Interested in Ethnomusicology,

While living in Honduras, I have been told by ethnomusicology students who come to study Garifuna music that Garifuna music is not well known in the US. In the Master’s thesis on Garifuna music by an ethnomusicology student in Tomas Avila’s book published in 2009 she says, it is too bad nothing is known about Honduran Garifuna music and ceremonies, when books were published in 2003 and 2005 describing all Garifuna dances and ceremonies in Honduras with photos. I also read a book published in Havanna on Afro-latin American music and it included almost every country, even Afro-Uraguayan music which most people do not even know Uraguay has Blacks, but it said nothing about Garifunas. In a search of the holdings of US universities it seems almost none have holdings related to Garifuna music and videos with Garifuna dances in them.

 This is in spite of the fact that Garifuna musicians are quite famous winning awards like First at the World Music Expo and Best Young Caribbean Artist and appear on US shows about music like Afropop Worldwide, NPR, and have been written up in National Geographic. They are very popular at the Vancouver Folk Festival and often Garifuna stars from Honduras, Belize, Guatemala and the US play in New York City and in Los Angeles both cities where thousands of Garifunas live. The new Garifuna in Peril movie which has 19 cuts of Garifuna music, and many of the Garifuna dances, won prizes at film festivals in Tuscon, Boston, and Houston, and Trieste, Italy in 2013.   I thought that perhaps Ethnomusicologists were having problems identifying what are the resources available and maybe they did not know who the Garifunas were or that they were a mixture of Africans, Arawak Indians, and Carib Indians living in Nicaragua (where they no longer speak the language or drum), Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, and the US,  and are also known as Black Caribs in some of the older materials. Also just having a CD of Garifuna music, without the description of when it is played and what is its parts in the ceremonies, is not tremendously interesting. Some work has been done trying to find the African connections of Garifuna dances. Honduras had 4 Afro-Honduran groups, whose dances are all described in David Flores’s book. Filed under Folk dances, perhaps most people would not think to look there for Afro-Honduran ceremonies, African origin instruments, religious and non-religious dances, costumes, etc. I have been working with the Latin American collection librarians who are members of SALALM.org about who are the vendors of Garifuna audio-visual materials and books, and that information should be on their website which has a data base about Latin American audio-visual materials, but the information may not be organized in a way that ethnomusicologists are finding them. I have found Garifuna materials cataloged under Honduran blacks, Caribs, Cannibals, Garifuna Indians, Black Caribs, Belize, Folk dances Honduras, etc. so the guide below might help you or your grad students find the materials you are currently lacking in your collections. Also please tell grad students that people all over the world do not dance large outside dances in the rainy season, and so coming to the North Coast of Honduras only during the rainy season and expecting to see most of the dances, some of which are only done on one specific day a year such as during the Christmas season, does not work.

Best wishes, Wendy Griffin

Resources for Garifuna Music, Dances, and Understanding the Ceremonies of which the Dances and songs are a part of

General Books with Information on Garifuna music, dances, and ceremonies

Tomas Alberto Avila’s book Black Carib-Garifuna (Avila,2009) This book contains a Master’s level Ethnomusicology thesis on most Garifuna dances (from Belize) with interviews with leading Garifuna parranda and punta rock people. Also has an article about punta songs and special vocabulary associated with punta songs written by Roy Cayetano a leading linguist of the Garifuna language, so that he knows what the songs actually mean. It has all the information on the project of the Belizean Garifunas including the late Andy Palacios to have the Garifuna language, dances, and songs declared Patrimonio Mundial (World Heritage) and Masterpieces of Intangible Heritage by UNESCO in 1981.  The video which they presented together with this information is Garifuna Heritage which 2 university libraries have.  Tomas Alberto Avila is a Garifuna who lives in Rhode Island and most of the articles in the book are by leading Belizean Garifuna intellectuals.

Los Garifunas de Honduras: Cultura, lucha y Derechos Bajo el Convenio 169 de la OIT by Wendy Griffin and CEGAH (2005) San Pedro Sula: Central Impresora held in 22 US libraries.  Has a description of almost all the Garifuna dances and the ceremonies in which the dances are used, from Honduras. Includes non-religious dances and includes descriptions of all the Garifuna religious ceremonies done in Honduras. Also includes examples of songs that are choruses inside of stories, which is also typical of stories in parts of West Africa. Includes which dances are known to have African antecedents. There are notable differences between the ceremonial music of Belizean Garifunas and that of Honduran Garifunas, such as in the number of drums used. 125 photos.

David Flores (2003) “La Evolución Historica de la Danza Folklorica Hondureña” IHER: Tegucigalpa.  This book has Wendy Griffin’s studies of Garifuna, Black Bay Islander, and Miskito dances in Honduras and the ceremonies that they formed part of, all of which have African influence. It also includes David Flores’s studies of the Guancascos of Western Honduras, most of which have a part known as “Los Negritos” (The Little black People). In addition to dances and ceremonies, the origins of Honduran musical instruments of all ethnic groups are discussed, and also costumes. Very rare is the description of the children’s game The Obeah Man among the Black English speakers of Honduras, and songs like The Muffin Man, Have you ever seen a lassie, Here we go loopty loo, sung in Miskito and also the song London Bridges sung in English by Miskitos, but with a different ending and danced with a quadrille not the US versión of the song. 125 photos of dances and costumes.  Held by 27 US libraries.

Dorothy Franzone‘s .doctoral thesis A Critical and Cultural Analysis of An African People in the Americas: Africanisms in the Garifuna Culture of Belize, compares Garifuna ceremonies in Belize to ceremonies among the Igbo and Yoruba cultures of Nigeria in West Africa (Franzone, 1994), showing that these represent ancient traditions the Garifuna have maintained in spite of being displaced several times—from Africa, from Saint Vincent, and now from Central America to New York and Los Angeles. She had access to a book by a Yoruba priest who had studied Garifuna religion that is not easily available.

Johnson, Paul (2007) Diaspora Conversions: Black Carib Religion and the Recovery of Africa.  University of California Press. Includes a very good description of a dugu in Corozal, Honduras and descriptions of Garifuna ceremonies in New York City. The descriptions for the New York City ceremonies are often significantly different from those ceremonies in Honduras, because of the “reafricanization” of the ceremonies due to contact with other Afro-Caribbean peoples in New York City. It has been said if you want to study traditional Yoruba religión, go to New York City and not Nigeria, where many people who had practiced these religions are now Muslim.

I have also seen advertised on the Internet the History of Belizean Music and the History of Honduran Music both of which specifically say, includes Garifuna music.

Videos With These Dances

Historia de Corozal from GariTV.com

This film says which dances are which is unusual in Garifuna videos. Good quality filming. Shots of the drummers as well as of the singers and dancers, and talks about the different musical instruments. It is so clear you can see the strings on top of the drums which produces the snare sound.

Dances included in this video are:

Fedu/hungu hungu

Moors and Christians/Moros y Cristianos/Tiras

Gunchey (related to the Cuadrille) A dance rarely done any more

Punta/Banguity

Parranda by Women of a Garifuna dance group

Yan Canu (John Canoe)/Wanaragua/the Warrior’s Dance

Processions done at Patron Saints Fairs

Dance from the ceremony of chugu

Discussion of where do Garifuna songs come from and discussions about Garifuna women’s dance clubs. The functions of Garifuna women’s dance clubs are similar to those of Ghana and even the uniform is similar.

Historia de Corozal-From GariTV.com

Includes Fedu/Hunguhungu inside the club house of the dance group.

Also available from GariTV. --Historia de Punta

Punta is the most famous Garifuna dance, generally sung at wakes and the ceremonies at the end of one year after death, and sometimes at other social occassions. Punta was traditionally a women’s song while Punta rock is generally sung and commercially recorded by Garifuna men.

“Garifuna in Peril” movie Available from Amazon.com and www.garifunainperil.com and www.garifunaenpeligro.com

Includes abeimajani, the women’s song without drums, which is done in a circle with little fingers laced together and gesturing while singing.

Also includes a very dramatic Wanaragua or Yan Canu Dance of the Warriors/Mascaro in the context of a play about the last battle of Chief Satuye, which the Wanaragua dance supposedly is related to that battle and the story of Barauda, Satuye’s wife suggesting that she should wear the trousers and lead the men into the battle and Satuye should wear the skirt. (This type of change is also part of the story of Queen Ya in Ghana).

Includes Garifunas dancing in discoteque style to modern Garifuna music.

Also includes punta, including the variation of dancing punta one behind the other in a circle, which is now specifically done at midnight on Christmas Eve. Most of the dances are done by Garifuna young people in Los Angeles, California where part of the film was filmed. Includes the step of consulting a buyei about an illness.

El Espiritu de Mi Mama movie Available from Amazon.com and www.garifunainperil.com

Includes punta, and most of the steps of the dugu ceremony from the time the person feels ill, to consulting with the shaman or buyei, to getting the food ready, to dancing, to see if the ceremony was accepted by the ancestors, escorting the ancestors back to the sea, and draping the sick person in a sacred white sheet to keep the ancestors from coming back and bothering them. While the dances in Historia de Sambo Creek and Historia de corozal were videoed exactly as they happen in natural settings in the community, those in El Espiritu de Mi Mama and Garifuna in Peril were staged specifically for the movies. Usually no one will let you film a dugu because modern things like video cameras can bring witchcraft, so this version which was filmed in Honduras in a traditional Garifuna village shows most of the steps of a dugu, although some slightly out of order. In Spanish with English subtitles.

This movie also includes some brief shots of the Garifuna ceremony of the bath of the soul, which generally does not include music.

“Tierra Negra” from the Causa Justa TV show on Telesur. On YouTube.

Although the whole program is about the Model City or Ciudades Modelos which threaten the Garifunas a real chugu ceremony with very good shots of the buyei or shaman with maracas is shown as part of the video. In Spanish.

Dance films filmed in Honduras by the Garifunas of Monico Productions

Moors and Christians from Trujillo

 Fedu from Santa Fe, very authentic Garifuna tradition for 24 December, 31 December, and during the Patron Saint’s Fair. Fedu means Celebration, and the dancing of Celebration 7 days after the beginning of the holiday also corresponds to the Swahili Festival that was the inspiration for Kwanzaa in the US.

Balet Folklorico Garifuna Wani from Santa Fe, which is an interesting project with Garifuna young people in a zone highly affected by tourism. The dances done by this young people’s group shows moves associated with Ladino folk dances like lifting up the skirt that are not generally part of Garifuna traditional dancing.

I have not seen the TV show below, but it should also provide a lot of insight into the ceremonies, which are usually done because an ancestor has made someone sick, so they are considered part of the Garifuna medical system. Note that the translations Such as Strange Medecine instead of Medecina Desconocida (Unknown Medecine) and calling Garifuna traditional medecine Magia Garifuna (Garifuna Magic) leads one to believe that a general problem of sensationalizing and disrespect may affect the translations.

Univision/Fusion TV show “Medicina Desconocida” (Strange medicine in fusion’s English version)

This is directed by a Guatemalan Female Director who believes in traditional medicine. The show includes a section on Guatemalan Garifuna medicine and spiritual values and use of plants called Magia Garifuna. There were also sections on Mayan medicine, and the use of rattle snake to cures from Chiquimula and Zacapa areas of Guatemala. They are also going to include shows on alternative medicine traditions in the States. 12 shows were produced in both English and Spanish versions. Just the titles of the shows indicate some cultural sensitivity or appropriateness issues especially between translations, that both Garifunas and non Garifunas have remarked on. This show is currently being aired on Univision, it started in February 2014. It has already played on Fusion. Univision usually lets the TV show play during the season, and then makes the whole season available in DVD format. This will probably include Garifuna music and dancing as both are central to Garifuna healing ceremonies.

Garifuna Music in other genres that is for listening, not dancing

CD’s of Antonieta Maximo

Nostalgia: Dedicado a los imigrantes.  Antonieta Maximo composes music, but her songs on this CD were sung by  men and in Spanish, as she grew up not speaking Garifuna. Antonieta Maximo was one of the Afro-Honduran authors in Wendy Griffin’s 2014 SALALM talk and in 2012 she published a book of poetry Duda, by Editorial Pacura, San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Antonieta Maximo composed the songs in Spanish on this CD Dedicaded to the Immigrants, but two other singers sang them. Antonieta Maximo is currently organizing a festival of Music of Female Composers for March 2015 in San Pedro Sula, partially supported by the Municipality of San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Antonieta Maximo splits her time between Honduras and New York City where she lived over 30 years, had a Spanish language TV show on cable TV, and acted. She appeared in so many plays by Cuban playwrights she was often asked if she was Afro-Cuban. 

CD: Nostalgia: Dedicado a los Emigrantes

Cd’s by Garifuna Sabas Whittaker who lives outside of Hartford, Connecticut

These CD's are available on the Internet.

Soul Survival

 Eternal Optimist,

Sabas Whittaker, Flight Of The Phoenix (Dedicated to Middletown,CT)

Sabas Whittaker is also an author and a painter and one of the people discussed in Wendy Griffin’s 2014 SALALM talk on Afro-Honduran writers. Both Sabas and Antonieta are of mixed Black English speaker and Garifuna background. Sabas’s music is instrumental rather than sung.

There are hundreds of examples of Garifuna music by Garífuna musicians available on the Internet in at least 10 genres, and in 3 different languages—Garifuna, Spanish, and English. A primary source of Garífuna music is www.garistore.com I ordered my Garífuna videos from them and had excellent service.  Religious Garifuna music is available from the Smithsonian’s Folkways collection. The first  record ever made of any Honduran music is The Folkways CD of Music of the Black Caribs of Honduras with liner notes by and probably organized by US anthropologist and archaeologist Doris Zemurray Stone, daughter of the president of United Fruit Company, Samuel Zemurray. This 1954 recording includes Garífuna women's groups from the Trujillo and Puerto Cortes áreas through which the United Fruit Company shipped most of its bananas and many of its employees were Garífuna men especially on the docks.

Many Garifuna videos often including music and musicians especially those that recorded with Stonetree Records of Belize (they have an excellent website) are also available on the Internet.  There are at least three different videos of Honduran Garifuna Aurelio Martinez who has recorded with them such as on the Parranda álbum singing his song "Africa" about how he felt about possibly going to Africa with a Rolex scholarship to study with the World Music legend who leads Etoile Noire in Senegal.

The words of the song "Africa" which is accompanied by guitar and is in the male parranda style say that some people of my race want to forget where they are from, but I will never forget. I will go to where my ancestors left their footprints on the sand. Oh, Africa, Oh, Africa. In the video Aventura Garifuna Aurelio Martinez meets up again with 80 plus year old Belizean Garífuna Parranda Singer Paul Nabor and Paul Nabor tells why he composed his most famous song Nuguyanei My older sister as she was dying, and that he wants the community to sing the song on the occassion of his death, too, as they take him to the cementary. He tells how he writes songs to get even with people when they have done something bad to him. He also sings his song in front of an appreciative Garífuna audience for the video.

There are literally over 1,000 photos of Garifunas singing and dancing on the Internet, for example on Flickr.com.

CD Ayó (Good bye in Garifuna) by the Garifuna Collective of Belize

A Garifuna CD with unusually good liner notes is the new CD Ayó (Good bye in Garifuna) by the Garifuna Collective of Belize and produced by Stonetree Records.   It has the words in Garifuna and in English, it has photos of Garifunas playing most of the instruments they commonly use, including the jaw bone of a horse or a donkey and “claves” (two pieces of Wood struck together) both of African origin, and it includes information about what would have been the occassion such a song was written and its genre.

The álbum is called Good bye, because the Garifuna Collective used to be the back up band for Garifuna Singer Andy Palacios who won the World Music Expo in London in 2007 for his álbum Watiña, and the posthumonously the BBC3 World Music Award in the Americas división, the last winner of this award was then discontinued. In 2008 he suddenly died, and two of the songs on the álbum were written related to his death including the track “Ayó”.  Writing songs when someone has died is one of the most common reasons to write songs among the Garifuna people. Although they look all happy dancing punta at a Wake, the words are often very sad, Such as last night you were fine, and we were having fun, but then you got a fever, and now you are dead. Reportedly the saddest person is the one who should most dance punta. The Garifunas believe the soul of the dead person is still with them the night of his death, and so the wake is a send off, a recognition of the type of person he was in life. It is a good sign if the wake was well attended and every one stayed a long time and the children and wife all mourned loudly and convincingly.  Some people who treated others badly in life, do not enjoy such a nice send off and it is commented on that that is what happens if you are not good with the people. 

A number of Honduran Ladino musicians include Garifuna percussion in their music, the most famous example being Guillermo Anderson of La Ceiba, Honduras’s Cultural Ambassador. (He has a website and a blog). Garifuna musician and Singer Aurelio Martinez got his profesional start as a percussionist for Guillermo Anderson and his first band Lita Ariran (Black Rooster) was mostly made up of the percussionists who played with Guillermo Anderson. You can hear Aurelio Martínez and Lita Ariran on the Garífuna Coalition (New York City) website as he sings Yarumein, the Garífuna name for Saint Vincent, the hunguhungu song that is the unofficial national anthem of the Garífunas about how they were exiled from St. Vincent to Honduras in 1797. 

The most famous Honduran song, Sopa de Caracol (Conch Soup), a merengue was originally composed by a Belizean Garifuna with Garifuna words. The court case that ensued when the Banda Blanca who sold 3 million copies of the song tried to take out a copyright of the song without acknowledging the original Garifuna composer of the Garifuna versión was settled out of court,and the copyright acknowledged the leader of the Banda Blanca as the writer and composer of the Spanish versión, but acknowledges there was a previous Garifuna versión which had been copyrighted, something fairly unusual in Garifuna music, because of how the Garifunas view the ownership of songs. The Honduran Garifuna organization OFRANEH also sued the Banda Blanca, because they pirated the Garifuna ceremonial dance for wakes Punta and danced it commercially and in a perverse manner. That court case came to nothing.

Part II Resources for Garifuna Music and Dance

For those who do not read Spanish, a preliminary verion of Wendy Griffin’s  Garifuna book exists in English—Griffin, Wendy (2000) The Garifunas: Resource Loss and ILO Convention 169, which is listed in WorldCat. This includes most of the Garifuna dances and ceremonies, but not the dugu ceremony.

In addition to seeing Garifuna music in videos, it is feasible in the US to see Garifuna dances live. In New York City there are two traditional dance groups. There are also traditional Garifuna dance groups that I know of in Miami, in Los Angeles, and in Seattle. In New York City, in Los Angeles, and in Miami traditional Garifuna dance groups opened for the presentations of the Garifuna in Peril movie.  It is likely that there are also Garifuna dance groups in Houston, where many New Orleans Garifunas went after Hurricane Katrina, and in Chicago, both cities where the Garifuna in Peril movie sold out during its initial presentation.

In recent years, the Roman Catholic Church has permitted masses in Garifuna. Copies of the hymn book for the Garifuna mass exist in US libraries.  The entrance of the Bible, the offering, and the Lord’s Prayer all have dances associated with them. The musical instruments are drums and marracas. The Lord’s Prayer in Garifuna includes the movments of the semi-sacred traditional gestured Garifuna dances without drums abeimajani/arumajani. Garifuna masses are done in the US at least once a year in New York City, in Los Angeles, and in New Orleans.

Bungiu Wabai lemesi luma uremu Garifuna by Roy Cayetano et al. (Hymns, Garifuna, Texts, Liturgies, Belize)  There has been a small revolution within the Catholic Church which now permits and encourages masses said in the indigenous languages. The Garifunas have embraced this and do Garifuna Masses for special occasions like Garifuna Day, or in Trujillo every second Sunday of the month is a time for a Mass with the songs in Garifuna and accompanied by Garifuna instruments like drums and marracas,and the Lord’s Prayer is even accompanied by the semi-sacred dance abeimajani and arumajani, the gestured songs done without drums.

 A Belizean Garifuna Father Marin rose to the level of Bishop of Belize and Chiapas in the Catholic Church and has helped increase this positive attitude towards the use of the Garifuna language and instruments in Church. There is a special part of the Catholic Church el Pastoral Garifuna which helps attend to the spiritual needs of Garifunas and includes radio shows on Catholic Radio in Garifuna. The use of Garifuna on the radio in Belize, where they had to write down messages people wanted to give over the radio, was part of what spurred some activists to really study how do we write Garifuna. So the two most oppressive institutions which were killing the Garifuna language—the public schools and the Church have both done an about face in their official policies since 1992, some of which has trickled down to the actual communities. In Trujillo, some teenage Garifuna girls went to older Garifuna women to learn Garifuna so that they would be able to sing the songs of the Garifuna mass. This is in a community where trying to form youth dance groups of traditional Garifuna dances has usually failed due to the low or non-existent level of Garifuna among Garifuna young people. In Trujillo, there is also a local access cable TV channel owned by the Garífunas and it frequently shows Garifuna activities in the community, including anything with Garifuna songs and dances. So Garifuna is being heard in the media, too, in Garifuna communities.

My favorite story about including African dances in the church services was told to me by an African Presbyterian Minister. He said when he was Young, it was prohibitted to dance African dances.  Then he went to seminary in Scotland, and they had him take classes in the Highland Fling, the traditional folkdance of Scotland. He asked himself, Could it be that God only likes Scottish dances?  Now that he is an authority in the Presbyterian church, I think in Uganda, they include African dances as part of the worship service.

Loubavagu by Rafael Murrillo Selva and Salvador Suazo.  This play uses both Garifuna and Spanish intermixed. Loubavagu tells the story of the history of the Garifuna people from their formation of Indians mixing with Blacks, includes some ceremonies with dances and music like wakes, where punta is danced, and includes hysterical parts about government corruption, immigration, illiteracy, sending money home, and the walking postman (correo peaton) in relation to the building of the road to the community of Guadelupe, Honduras. The script of the play is available in US libraries. A video was made of the play in Honduras, but I have not seen it commercially available in the US.

The play Loubavagu (El Otro Lado Lejano) translated as Far Away on the Other Side was presented over 1,000 times nationally and internationally at theater festivals by the Garifuna theater group Superación Guadelupe,from the Garifuna community of Guadelupe,  Honduras and is Honduras’s most famous play by Honduras’ most famous playwright. Rafael Murrillo Selva who also did another Garifuna play Las Danzas de las Almas (The Dance of Souls, based on the dugu ceremony)  with a Garifuna theater group from Triunfo de la Cruz, but it never reached the same success. Rafael Murrillo Selva also did a play combining Garifuna and Miskito about AIDS with Normal School students in Tegucigalpa. Honduran students often do plays about diverse aspects of the AIDS epidemic, and also on other topics impacting the Garifuna community like immigration.

Topics related to immigration are common in modern Garifuna songs—asking men not to go, saying one is thinking of immigrating because here there is no work, singing a song wishing you could be a pelican to go and see a father who has immigrated, singing about preparing for your family that is coming back from the US to visit you, etc. Songs about curses that are coming from New York to kill me and I will be dead in a few days also exist.

If you want to know what is happening musically in New York City with the Garifunas there, whose population there may almost equal the number of people in Belize, look at the blog by Garifuna Teofilo Colon www.beinggarifuna.com  The biggest times for music are Garifuna American Heritage Month 11 March to 12 April, the Central American parade in the Bronx, and at Christmas. There are at least 11 Garifuna dances done principally at Christmas time, and I think a Child’s Christmas in Wales has nothing on the excitement of a Garifuna Christmas. Videos have been made of the principal activities of the Garifunas in New York. The music study of what was popular at Garifuna parties by doing a national survey of Garifuna DJ’s which is on this website is extremely interesting, both to see who and what the Garifunas in the US are listening to, and also because the people that are most requested by Garifunas at parties are not generally the Garifuna musicians that have the attention of international music critics.

So if Garifuna music is generally not known to US ethnomusicologists, it is not because it is not available. It is there live almost at their doorsteps in US cities like Miami, New York, and Los Angeles. My article Garifuna Immigrants Invisible with information on the leading Garifuna organizations in the US and in Central America and their websites and reflections on how the music and dance of the Garifunas have made them internationally famous is available as a pdf for free on the Garifuna in Peril movie website.