Ethnicity, modernity, and retention in the Garifuna punta.

The Garinagu, commonly known as the Garifuna, are a people of West African and Amerindian descent who live along the Caribbean coast of Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua and who share a common language, system of customs and beliefs, series of ancestor veneration rituals, and repertoire of music and dance. The word Garinagu refers to the people as a whole, whereas the term Garifuna refers to the language, the culture, and a person in the singular form. (1) The emigration of Garinagu during the past five decades has resulted in sizable populations in large urban centers in the United States, namely, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Although hegemony, acculturation, modernity, syncretization, and American popular culture have adversely affected the retention of indiginous Garifuna customs in the United States (especially those related to ancestory veneration), the commodification of Garifuna music, art, and dance has resulted in an increased interest in traditional media of cultural expression. The most celebrated of these media is punta, a dance song genre that is a symbolic reenactment of the cock-and-hen mating dance. This couples dance features rapid movement of the buttocks and hips and a motionless upper torso, to the accompaniment of songs performed responsorially, membranophones, rattles, and occasionally, hollow turtle shells that are struck with a mallet and conch shell trumpets. Since the mid-1980s, punta has experienced a revitalization through its immensely popular derivative, punta rock.

With the birth and subsequent development of punta rock in the 1980s and 1990s, respectively, teenaged to middle-aged Garinagu have found a creative contemporary musical outlet for the affirmation of ethnic identity. Punta rock is an adaptation of punta, from which its name is borrowed, and to a lesser extent paranda, a folk-song genre for voice and guitar. Today, punta rock is the musical craze among youth and young adults in Belize and in Garifuna communities in the United States. In Guatemala and Honduras, punta rock is second only to the salsa-like music and dance known as cumbia. This study relies heavily on interpretations of culture bearers of punta, punta rock, and related musical media from Belize, Honduras, and the United States and on fieldwork conducted in Dangriga, Belize, in 2000.

The duple-meter rhythms of punta and paranda are very similar and are the primary rhythmic basis for punta rock. Songs are performed in the indigenous Awarak and Carib-based language of the Garinagu and are often simply contemporary adaptations of traditional Garifuna songs. However, the indigenous language and the rhythms of punta rock are, for many performers, paradigms for the expression of traditional and contemporary urban-influenced ethnic ideas. Ideals expressed by younger American Garifuna performers typically reflect the influence of African-American rap and hip-hop urban culture. For many such musicians, creating and performing punta rock are ways of reaffirming enthic identity through contemporary popular music. The use of traditional punta and paranda songs found in Belize, Honduras, and Guatemala symbolizes the reaffirmation of an identity deeply rooted in the origin, history, and struggle of a common people.

In this article, 1 consider punta (including its derivative punta rock) as iconic of Garifuna ethnicity and modernity. It is the most celebrated of the indigenous dance-song genres, and it permeates performances of both secular and semi-sacred rituals. Punta, as poetic folk art, is the genre through which social commentary is most frequently expressed. The development of punta rock reveals that, musically, traditional punta is amenable to instrumental and rhythmic augmentation because of its repetitive duple-meter structure. Punta rock was born out of the need to create a new and exciting genre of Garifuna music based on a fusion of elements of culture and music that express indigenous and urban social ideals. As such, it maintains its popularity because it incorporates the traditional (the old) and the contemporary (the modern). Modernity--used here as a metaphor for change--functions as the contextual canvas of contemporary musical society on which the sounds of the indigenous punta are retooled or colored through a mosaic of popular American and Caribbean music, namely reggae, calypso, and soca. Through the birth and subsequent metamorphosis of punta rock, punta has remained constant as a strong yet pliable expression of ethnicity through music in Garifuna history.

Most historical accounts of the origin of the Garinagu suggest that they are the product of a cultural and racial amalgamation between Amerindians on St. Vincent in the Lesser Antilles and Africans who swam to the nearby island after two Spanish slave ships wrecked in a storm en route to Barbados in 1635 (see, for example, Taylor 1951, 18). However, the origin of the Garinagu is also believed to be directly related to interaction between Amerindians (Awarak and Carib) and the Mandinga of Mall, West Africa, on St. Vincent in 1307 and 1312 A.D. (Lawrence 1992, 169-214). Neither account calls into question the fact that the birth of the "Garifuna Nation" was most certainly the result of the union between Africans and Amerindians. Both groups' identities are deeply rooted in (1) ancestor veneration, (2) songs of social commentary and communal ideals, and (3) a relationship of reciprocity and respect between the people and the environment in which they live.

Garinagu frequently use the term Garifuna Nation when referring to the Garinagu throughout the diaspora. Historical justification for the use of this term can be attributed to the existence of various tribes of Garinagu under the rules of the paramount chief Chatuye, on the island of St. Vincent. The Garinagu began to migrate to Belize, Guatemala, and Nicaragua following the defeat of Chatuye by the British in 1795 and the subsequent exile of more than two thousand Garinagu to Roatan Island off the coast of Honduras in 1797. (2)

In 1802, Garinagu from Honduras made a series of landings in Belize. The largest migration occurred on November 19, 1832, when Garinagu fled from Roatan and found safe haven in Dangriga following a massacre of many Garinagu during the civil war in Honduras. Since 1977, November 19 has been recognized throughout Belize as National Garifuna Settlement Day and celebrated as an official public and bank holiday. Today, six Garifuna communities are located in Belize. From north to south, these communities are Dangriga (the place of origin of punta rock), Hopkins, Seine Bight, Georgetown, Punta Gorda, and Barranco. The largest Garifuna settlements are the towns of Dangriga and Punta Gorda. A number of Garinagu also live in Belize City, the largest and most densely populated city in the country. Three Garifuna settlements are located in Guatemala, with Livingston, a town near Barranco, being the largest. The vast majority of Central American Garinagu live in Honduras, where there are as many as forty-six settlements. Unfortunately, inhabitants in the two Garifuna communities in Nicaragua have all but lost the use of their indigenous language and many of their traditional rituals.