Crisis Future Making Garifuna Musical Instruments Caused by Destruction of Habitat of Resources Needed

A Crisis Exists for the Future of Making Garífuna Musical Instruments Caused by Destruction of Resources in their Hábitat

By Wendy Griffin January 2015

The principal Garifuna musical instruments are drums, maracas, turtle Shell drums, “claves”, and conch horn. Other instruments are known such as the commercially produced accoustic guitar, saxophone, trumpet, bass drum and snare drum,  or have been used in the past like graters (rallador Spanish, grata Garífuna), wooden washboards (rival Spanish beibod Garifuna), wooden boxes (gafu), jawbone of a horse or a donkey, and gut bucket (tina Spanish, singi Garifuna).

Rainforest habitat

There is a generalized destruction of the rainforest that is located behind the Garifuna communities in the mountains. This means that the skins (quequeo—white collared peccary, or venado—white tailes deer) for the drums and the Wood (aguacate silvestre—wild avocado in the Trujillo área, other anthropologists have reported the use of mayflower wood), and the red seeds with black eyes used inside the maracas are all scarce. Some of the Wood such as for drums is now in national parks that surround 24 of 48 Garífuna communities and there is a fine if they get caught taking Wood out to make drums. I would assume the Wood for "claves" (two round small sticks which are hit against each other an African origin instrument and for which the prefered wood is grenadillo, the same Wood as the marimba, has similar problems as the wood for the drums.  There is also a secret plant from this habitat that is added to the buyei’s or shaman’s maraca as protection.

Beach habitat

 Also the destruction of the beach hábitat for tourists who like clean views also is making it difficult to obtain the vine that is used to make tight the drum head on the drum. 

Loss of patio land around the house

 The tree from which the gourds for making maracas was generally grown on patios of the people, but as the Garifunas make larger houses, and they have children who make houses on their house plot, there is no room for jicaro trees for the gourds. Of the about 5 jicaro trees left in Trujillo, 4 are on the land controlled by foreigners and the other on land of a Garífuna who lives in New Orleans. In the whole Garífuna towns west of Trujillo in Santa Fe there are no jicaro trees for making maracas.  In the town área of Trujillo is also where “buei”, the bark of a tall tree that is added to tobacco and smoked to make people more easily fall into a trance, grows, so the problem with urban land maybe also be affecting the sources of buei.

 

 

Problems in the Salt Water Habitat

The conch from which the conch horn is made is also now an endangered species due to overharvesting by Bay islander comercial fishing fleets. It has been so overharvested that it is prohibitted to import it to the US.  

Problems in the Fresh Water Habitat

Something has affected the fresh wáter sources of most of the Garifuna communities so that they are no longer teaming with life and edible foods as was the case before. The Hicotea turtle usually lives near the rivers and creeks. It is edible. The Garifunas hit the turtle Shell with a wooden stick like of grenadillo to make different sounds in different parts of the turtle. The Miskito Indians probably play this type of turtle shell drum even more than the Garifunas. In Garifuna oral literature, the Hicotea turtle is the one that replaces Brother Terrapin in Brer Rabbit tales from the US South which are in turn related to Yoruba stories of their folk hero the turtle.  These turtles are disappearing and often the lands where they lived are now part of wildlife preserves or national parks.