The Countdown Begins: 10th Anniversary of the CAC

In just a little over a month, the Caribbean Amerindian Centrelink will celebrate its 10th anniversary!

It's remarkable (troubling even) that these ten years have flown past. My personal thanks to my fantastic and inspiring co-editors/colleagues/friends, who have made the CAC such a unique success and who have stuck it out for this long:

Tracy Assing
Janette Bulkan
Gerard Collomb
Jorge Estevez
Pedro Ferbel-Azcarate
Lynne Guitar
Cheryl Noralez

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The Open Anthropology Project (OAP)

Editor's note:

For those one or two individuals who may have been minimally curious as to how I could let more than a week pass without posting to this blog, I have to announce the following.

I have started a neighbouring blog which has consumed my energies. This is the OPEN ANTHROPOLOGY blog at:
http://openanthropology.wordpress.com/

The blog was partly motivated by two separate yet coincidental events: my teaching a graduate course in anthropology, focusing on the decolonization of anthropological knowledge, theory, and practice, and the now considerable volume of media and blog articles on the participation of anthropologists in counterinsurgency campaigns. My notion of an Open Anthropology is one that is free of the constraints of "discipline," "profession," and institutionalization, one that is open source and open access, collaborative and participatory, and directly engaged in the politics of liberation (by first beginning to understand that anthropology is an insider's knowledge system...the insider in this case being the colonizer).

So what does "Open Anthropology" look like in actual practice? Well, you could say that I am doing it in this very moment of writing, and the reader is doing it in the very same instance of reading this.

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Andy Palacio: UNESCO Artist

Thanks to CAC editor, Cheryl Noralez, for the following news item from the Garifuna Heritage Foundation:

Belizean musician Andy Palacio designated UNESCO Artist for Peace

The Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, has designated the celebrated Belizean musician and singer Andy Palacio a UNESCO Artist for Peace.

OCTOBER 1, 2007 - UNESCO Artists for Peace are internationally-renowned personalities who use their influence, charisma and prestige to help promote UNESCO's message and programs. UNESCO works with these distinguished personalities in order to heighten public awareness regarding key development issues and to inform the public what our Organization's action is in these fields. Andy Palacio's designation makes him the 40th UNESCO Artist for Peace alongside prestigious international figures such as Manu Dibango, Celine Dion and Gilberto Gil.

Born in 1960 in the coastal village of Barranco, in Belize, Andy Palacio started to gain popularity in Belize and abroad in the late 1980s. He has since become his country's most popular musician and one of the most prominent defenders of the regional Garifuna culture and traditions.

With his band The Garifuna Collective, Andy Palacio has created a unique musical style known as Punta rock, an upbeat, popular dance form based on Garifuna rhythms. Palacio also sings in the Garifuna language, which blends many linguistic influences and which UNESCO declared in 2001 a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.

Andy Palacio is Cultural Ambassador for his country and holds the position of Deputy Administrator of the National Institute of Culture and History.

http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=39602&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

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Disney Rears Its Cannibal Head Once Again: Cannibal Trinidad, 1900s

Hopefully, but doubtfully, a report such as this will finally dispel those optimists (opportunists?) who posted comments on this blog against some of our suggestions that Disney's renditions of cannibalism among indigenous peoples of the Caribbean would be learned and perpetuated as if it were fact (see our debates on Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean). The argument raised by some of these commentators, schooled in the arts of dull acquiescence, was that children--yes, children--would have the intellectual acuity necessary to discern fact from fiction, myth from reality, propaganda from honesty, and pure "entertainment" from truth.

Thanks to Dr. Roi Kwabena for forwarding the following comment from another Trinidadian resident in the UK:

I am a Trinidadian living in the UK. Last night (Sunday 4th November 2007 ) I was horrified when my children drew to my attention a segment of a popular children's Disney TV-Series "Lizzie McGuire" where a young actor presents information from his script stating "do you know that less than a century ago there were cannibals in the country of Trinidad and Tobago" he goes further to insinuate that "back then there was lots of pirate activity in that region".

There you have it: cannibals and pirates in Trinidad, in the 1900s. With entertainment and education of this quality, who needs the brazen imperial propaganda of cable news?

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TURTLE ISLAND CONFEDERACY: Press Release

Many thanks to Dr. Roi Kwabena for forwarding this press release to The CAC Review several days ago:

PRESS RELEASE
September 14, 2007:

Dozens of Indigenous Sovereign Nations throughout Canada and the United States have agreed to move forward with a Declaration of Sovereignty, by which these Indigenous Sovereign Nations will band together to re-assert their inherent sovereignty, inviting all Indigenous Sovereign Nations from all around the world to join. This newly con-federated Nation is appropriately named "The Turtle Island Confederacy." Those who know will understand that "Turtle Island" is another traditional name for "the World." This is truly a universal Declaration. The Hereditary Chiefs of these Indigenous Sovereign Nations will gather at a signing ceremony to take place at a central location in Michigan on November 24, 2007, at which time The Turtle Island Confederacy will be born.

Again, those who know will understand that the traditional governing systems and the traditional cultures of these Indigenous Sovereign Nations were and continue to be decimated by laws enacted by their "host" countries, including Canada and the United States, which laws, among other things, impose false (proxy)(foreign) governments on our people. This true Declaration of true Sovereignty has the blessing of the Creator and International Law.

The creation of The Turtle Island Confederacy on November 24 will immediately free the Indigenous Sovereign Nations to re-assert their sovereignty, an inherent sovereignty that was never surrendered and never could have been surrendered. It has taken the Indigenous Sovereign Nations over 200 years to regroup and arrive at this crucial point in history to re-commence performing their sacred duties to care for Mother Earth and, hence, all people. It is no accident and no coincidence that the Creator has chosen this time to arrange the rebirth of this ancient Nation. The air, the water, the land and all living things are in danger now as never before. The Turtle Island Confederacy is born from all things positive, not from anger for past oppression and atrocities undeniably committed. These things are forgiven. When the colonizers arrived, we welcomed them and cared for them when they could not care for themselves. They were like children sitting at our feet in need of sustenance, which we gladly provided. The children grew up steadily over the course of several hundred years, only to rebel against their caregivers, reacting with greed and forgetfulness of all we did for them and all we tried to teach them. For this they are also forgiven. The time has come, however, when these now young adults must realize and admit the innocent error of their youthful and frivolous ways and turn once again to the wisdom and care of those who raised them. Unwittingly, they developed along the way the technological and linguistic means for all Indigenous Sovereign Nations to now join together with one good mind and one pure heart for the good of all humans.

In conclusion, The Turtle Island Confederacy extends an open invitation to all Indigenous Sovereign Nations to join us on this historic and epic peaceful path into the future and also to convey this all-important message to all colonizing states: "The Turtle Island Confederacy extends, once again, its open hand in friendship and in good faith as our gesture of our desire to continue to coexist for the benefit and respect of all people and our one true Mother, "Turtle Island."

Contact Information:

tmnottawayratt@hotmail.com (Jacob Wawatie, Chief, Algonquin)

Chief_Capilano@hotmail.com (Jerry Capilano, Chief, Squamish)

Gmetallic@hotmail.com (Gary Metallic, Chief, Mi'kmaq)

Tonyplaw@optonline.net (Tony P., Attorney, Mohawk)

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Online Audio Recordings of the Lokono Language

Many thanks from the CAC to David Campos for forwarding this news several days go:

David Campos was able to find Audio recordings of Lokono (proper) online, with over 22 minutes of spoken Lokono from Guyana. It is part of a Christian site called Global Recordings. They have recordings in hundreds of global Indigenous languages. The recordings are of New testament stories.

Those with a special interest in the Arawak and Carib languages will be particularly excited to hear these recordings.

The following are the sites hosting the audio files of the languages. They also have Carib (kalina).

http://globalrecordings.net/program/C20630
http://globalrecordings.net/program/C06440

The Kalina (Mainland Carib) language files can be downloaded from:

http://globalrecordings.net/program/C06440

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