A short history of the Garínagu
Understanding the history makes the language make sense — Garifuna carries Arawakan, Kalinago, African, French, Spanish and English layers because the people who speak it lived through all of them.
Yurumein
The Garínagu descend from Kalinago and Arawak peoples of the island of St Vincent — Yurumein — and from West Africans who reached the island and joined those communities. The distinct Garifuna people and language formed there.
Exile and the coast
After conflict with the British, the community was forcibly deported from St Vincent in 1797 and eventually settled along the Caribbean coast of Central America — Honduras, Belize, Guatemala and Nicaragua. Settlement Day, 19 November, marks the arrival in Belize.
Recognition and risk
UNESCO proclaimed the Garifuna language, dance and music a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2001. Recognition has not removed the risk: intergenerational transmission has thinned, which is the reason Itara exists.
- For sources and further reading, UNESCO's intangible heritage listing and the National Garifuna Council of Belize are good starting points.
Keep going
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