Copyright © 2002 NLThomas
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Spectacular event promises historic encounter!

Ohsweken, Ontario - The Indigenous Legacies of the Caribbean conference and tour, scheduled for January 3-10, 2003, promises to be historic. Always dynamic and engaging, "Indigenous Legacies" will once again be received in Cuba by elders from the indigenous-descendant community of Caridad de los Indios, in the annual event organized by several international foundations and institutions.

For the first time in over 500 years, the Taino descendant population of Caridad de los Indios will be recognized in a formal international encounter. On behalf of their community, Cacique Panchito Ramirez and the elders of la Rancheria, will receive the human remains of seven of their ancestors. The remains, excavated and shipped out of Cuban territory from Taino burial sites by North American anthropologist Mark Harrington in the 1910s, will be returned to the community for proper welcoming ceremonies and reburial.

The remains were earlier repatriated to Cuba by directors of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian. W. Richard West (Cheyenne), director of the NMAI, led a delegation from the Smithsonian that officially accompanied the ancestor remains to Cuba on June 19, 2002, after nearly six years of discussion and negotiation. On behalf of Cuba, the Foundation for Nature and Humanity, received the human remains.

The discussion that led to the present repatriation and the opportunity of a proper final burial for the ancient Taino remains was generated on the Indigenous Legacies tour of 1997, when a member of the NMAI board, Taino elders from Boriken and several American Indian participants attended a workshop organized by Alejandro Hartmann, Ingrid Washinawatok and Dr. José Barreiro of Cornell University. At the NMAI, professional managers Nicolasa Sandoval (Chumash), in the Communities Services department and Jim Pepper Henry, repatriation manager, were forcefully diligent in following up the case.

In Cuba, Cacique Panchito, his elders and families, considered how to approach the requirements of a ceremony of that magnitude. With the research of Alejandro Hartmann, in Baracoa, and Dr. Barreiro, the strategic advice of Tim Johnson, founder of the NMAI's Community Services department, and with the particular attention of Angel Graña and Eugenio Perez, of the Foundation for Nature and Humanity, they studied how the remains were excavated between 1916 and 1919, in caves near Baracoa, and elsewhere on the island. Whole "cemies" (carved statuettes, faces and other deities), even some carved into stalagmites were sawed into pieces (Idol of Patana) and many other funerary and human objects, a bulk of thirty six large crates, left the port of Baracoa, without the country's actual permission, to be possessed for over eighty years in the United States by the George Heye Museum of the American Indian, a major collector of Indian artifacts, arts and remains from the turn of the century to the 1980s. With the advent of the federal repatriation law in 1989, a sister step to the mandate of the new NMAI -- now Indian-run and conceptualized -- the opportunity for enforcing a U.S. federal policy in a cultural-spiritual recovery of the Taino remains arose. For the Legacies network, it became an important and proper mission.

Among others, we appreciate Suzan Shown Harjo, in her capacity as a former Museum trustee, who also encouraged the pursuit of proper disposition of these precious remains. Ms. Ann Roberts Rockefeller, another NMAI volunteer, also immediately encouraged that justice be done in the repatriation matter.

The repatriation of June 19th specified that the remains were to be reburied by the community of origin, the closest Indian relatives being the elders at Caridad de Los Indios, who agreed to carry out the ceremonies, in a special place, on their community grounds. Participants in Indigenous Legacies of the Caribbean VII, January 3-10, 2003, will participate in the final steps of this historic process of repatriation and recovery of Taino ancestral remains. Because of its long-standing relationship with the Indigenous Legacies group, the community has invited the delegation to share in the ceremonials of the event, which will take place during the later days of the conference and tour.

This is a great opportunity to support and partake from this kind of relationship of respect between and among cultural institutions and peoples of diverse traditions. Lectures and interventions from scholars and participants in the movement to apply professional respect to ancient and contemporary American Indian remains, funerary sites and objects will be presented. The conference will explore the role of museums, universities, teachers, curators, professionals and culture-bearers in evolving an ethic of respect and a practice of community collaboration.

As always, the coming January conference and tour will present a roster of panels on the ongoing Legacies' theme of Cuban healing and medicinal traditions and their present-day applications in the medical science of the region. Curriculum surveys the unique history of the Oriente region as place of Cuban ethnogenesis. The cultural and ethnological backgrounds of plant medicinal uses, in Cuba, have direct relationship to various aspects of spiritual ceremony that embrace dimensions of place, cognition and time. The Indigenous Legacies's cultural program overlaps with the living culture of the traditions of the people, in a status of common respect and mutual positive growth that have generated out of the tours a modest but dedicated movement of interest and commitment.

Hosted by the Native families of Oriente, Cuban cultural institutions and managed by a Canadian international development organization, the Indigenous Legacies program has consistently endeavored to carry on humanitarian responses to medical needs and emergencies; it has generated indigenous-based development, strategic planning, documentation and young leadership emergence. Plenty Canada, with Indigenous World Tours, supports the enhancement of self-sufficiency options for rural communities with strong Native agriculturalists, particularly those with roots in land-primary activities who want to maintain and enhance sustainable homesteads. This approach to the improvement of remote mountain villages stresses food self-sufficiency, solar power for access to energy, light and to enable remote or distance education, relative cultural nesting for the ethnicity and local culture of people, ie. opportunity to continue to develop the traditional spiritual and local material culture of the mountains. In this context, Indigenous Legacies has supported medicinal and medical projects with rural clinics and collaborated in the installation of solar power units in remote areas. Helping the empowerment and recovery of the indigenous mountain population is a reason many tour participants attend year after year. And this year's should prove to be one of the most eventful and historic to date.

This is a great year to join the Indigenous Legacies of the Caribbean January 2003 tour. It promises to be an important, historic encounter between cultures and peoples. We thank you for being part of the networking current created by the Caribbean Indigenous Legacies program. Please register now to confirm your participation and once again help support a dynamic, successful and powerful people-to-people program. Remember, the event dates are January 3-10, 2003.

Visit the updated Indigenous World Tours web site. Confirm your participation by sending e-mail to iwt@indigenousworldtours.com, or call and leave a message, phone: 519-445-0422. One of our volunteers will get back to you as soon as they can.

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Indigenous World Tours, a partner to Plenty Canada, is an indigenous organization dedicated to providing authentic educational travel experiences for those who wish to meet and learn more about indigenous peoples of the Caribbean. Indigenous World Tours is based at Six Nations of the Grand River, an Iroquois territory located within Southern Ontario, Canada.

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* Indigenous World Tours, P.O. Box 475, Ohsweken, Ontario, Canada N0A 1M0 Phone: 519-445-0422 (leave message) E-mail: iwt@indigenousworldtours.com * Six Nations of the Grand River * Plenty Canada "A non-profit community development organization." RR#3 Lanark, ON, K0G 1K0, Canada Phone: 613-278-2215 / Fax: 613-278-2416 Email: info@plentycanada.com * National Museum of the American Indian c/o George Gustav Heye Center Alexander Hamilton, U.S. Custom House One Bowling Green, New York, NY 10004 Phone: 212-514-3700 * NMAI Cultural Resources Center 4220 Silver Hill Road, Suitland, MD 20746 Phone: 301-238-6624

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