Tribes Without Tribes - 1

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TRIBES WITHOUT TRIBES: RACE AND TRIBE IN THE CONSTRUCTION OFAMERINDIAN HERITAGE IN GUYANA

By Christopher Carrico

http://ccarrico.wordpress.com/

A different version of this article was printed in Guyana Times, 6 September 2009

In this article I will address the significance of µrace¶ and µtribe¶ in the publicconstruction of Amerindian heritage in Guyana. It is an ironic but familiar story in

colonial and post-colonial histories, that the main categories that organize the publicconstruction of identity have more to do with the ideologies of the colonizers than they

have to do with the traditional forms of indigenous self-identity. Race has been the mostobvious and insidious of these categories since the early modern era, and has taken its

current biological and µscientific¶ form since the time of the European Enlightenment.The notion of µtribe¶ has also been one which European colonizers imposed upon the

indigenous social formations of Guyana, of the Americas in general, and of much of thecolonial world.

RACE

As a biological term, the overwhelming scientific evidence of the past hundred years has

indicated that race is not a useful biological concept when applied to the human species.Race in a biological sense refers to a sub-species, a population that is genetically distinct,

and genetically isolated enough from other populations that these separate groups are enroute to speciation (becoming separate species). Nothing like race in this biological

sense can be said to exist among modern humans. Based on anatomy, physiology, andintelligence testing, scientists such as Alfred Binet and Franz Boas began arguing over a

hundred years ago that it is impossible to divide the human species into discrete, fixedraces with distinct physical and/or mental characteristics. More recently, human

geneticists have validated the conclusions of these earlier observers of the human mindand organism. Particularly since the 1970s and 1980s, the science of genetics has

produced clear evidence that all living humans are very closely related to one another,and are all descended from common ancestors who lived in sub-Saharan Africa less than

200,000 years ago.

All of the things that make us human (having large brains, walking upright, using tools,using complex language and forming complex social bonds, creating art, music, and

religion, and forming beliefs about the cosmos, the afterlife, and the meaning of humanexistence) were characteristics first developed during our shared pre-history in Sub-

Saharan Africa. These traits are universal in the human species, and are shared by allliving human cultures. Conversely, the characteristics that are used to categorize human

beings by race are all easily observable physical characteristics whose genetics are notwell understood, but clearly bear very little relationship to a person¶s overall genetic

make-up. Differences in skin color, hair texture, or shape of a person¶s eyes are all recentand superficial differences that are adaptations to the various environments into which the



human species has moved. These traits also do not help us to define discrete races, because the existence of these traits varies gradually across geographic space, rather than

being neatly contained into clearly defined populations that we can indentify as races.

However, while race d oes not have any biological reality, race d oes have a very powerful

social and cultural reality. Despite the fact that Henry Lewis Gates, Jr. is just as likely to be closely genetically related to someone from Denmark or Korea, or to the officer thatarrested him, as he is to be genetically related to Barack Obama, this was irrelevant to the

woman who had been Gates¶ neighbor for many years and called the police because anon-white person was fumbling with the lock at his home in a predominately white and

wealthy neighborhood. That race does not have a biological reality also did not matter tothe police officer who charged Gates with disorderly conduct when he became upset

about being arrested for ³breaking and entering´ into his own home.

Similarly, consider the situation of the Amerindian in Guyana who is discriminatedagainst or not given opportunities because he or she is considered to be a µstupid buck.¶

Whether this is explained as being a result of nature or of circumstance, it does not matter for this individual that in a biological sense, there is really no such thing as the

Amerindian µrace,¶ but only the human race. For the person categorized as raciallyinferior, race is real because it has real effects in that person¶s life.

THE PEOPLING OF THE AMERICAS

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are descended from the same common ancestors

as all other living human beings. The best available archaeological and biologicalevidence indicates that the main migration of indigenous Americans into the hemisphere

occurred across the Bering Land Bridge which connected Siberia and Alaska until aroundthe end of the last ice age. There are artifacts that clearly date a major migration into the

Americas from around 12,000 BC. Some archaeologists, however, speculate that earlier and smaller migrations took place across the Bering Straits as early as 18,000 BC, and

some geneticists have claimed that the colonization of the Americas may have begun asearly as 40,000 years ago.

The earliest Amerindians (often referred to by archaeologists as µPaleo-Indians¶)

probably came to the Americas following herds of megafauna (very large animals like thewooly mammoth) that they relied upon for subsistence. The mastodon, and the giant

sloth whose fossil was recently discovered in the Bartica area, are examples of megafaunal species that were around at the end of the Pleistocene, and were probably

hunted by Guyana¶s first Amerindians. Some archaeologists suggest that once Paleo-Indians reached the Americas, they very quickly moved throughout North America, and

perhaps as far south as South America within a few generations after crossing the BeringLand Bridge. As soon as a century or two after walking from Siberia, it is likely that

Paleo-Indians were already living in what is today Guyana.

Paleo-Indians throughout the Americans probably first lived in small (25 ± 50 persons)egalitarian hunting and gathering bands, and many probably nomadically followed herd



animals while collecting plants and other animal sources of food along the way. Theymoved throughout the Americas following megafauna, but whether because of

overhunting, climate changes, disease, other reasons, or a combination of the above, their occupation of the Americans was soon followed by a massive extinction of the

megafaunal species.

Throughout the Americas, Paleo-Indians adapted to the megafaunal extinctions by becoming more diversified foragers: fishing, hunting, and gathering a wider variety of

plants and animals than they had previously. Among the early settlers of the Guyanacoast, Paleo-Indian foragers diversified the kinds of marine resources which they

collected, and some of the earliest evidence of continuous human settlement in theGuyana can be seen in the shell middens of Guyana¶s North West, where people have

used shell fish as a source of food for thousands of years, and the shells which are therefuse from their meals form enormous mounds. Fishing also took on greater

significance in Guyana: very large stone fish hooks found along Guyana¶s riverbanks areamong the oldest surviving artifacts in the region.

WAROAN, ARAWAKAN, AND CARIBAN MIGRATIONS

Of the Amerindian groups that live in Guyana today, the group whose ancestors seem to

have come here first is the Warau.

From around 5200 BC there is evidence that early Waroan peoples lived along the coastof Guyana¶s North West and in the Orinoco River Delta area of neighboring Venezuela.

They subsisted by gathering plant materials, such as the Ite palm, and by exploiting

marine resources such as oysters, conch, lucines, mussels, netirites, crabs and snails(Williams 2003: 86). After around 3300 BC they began making canoes, and a wide

variety of stone tools that were used in canoe manufacturing (130-148). There was also adivision of labor between communities, as the skills and resources were unevenly

distributed between Waroan groups. Canoes most likely lead to an increase in the productive capacity of fishermen and collectors of marine resources, and there was a

resulting increase in population density (145).

The language of the Warau people is not closely related to any of the other languagesspoken in Guyana. It forms its own language family.

Speakers of Arawakan languages, and Cariban languages came to Guyana at a later

date. The Arawakan languages that are currently spoken in Guyana are Lokono(commonly simply called ³Arawak´ in Guyana) and Wapishana. The Cariban languages

are Carib, Arekuna, Makushi, Akawaio, Patamona, and Wai Wai.

Sometime around 1600 BC, the peoples inhabiting the mouths of the Orinoco andAmazon Rivers developed horticulture. According to Jennifer Wishart (1995), the first

farmers to move into Guyana were the ancestors of modern-day Lokono Arawaks, who



settled the coast around 1550 BC. Denis Williams (1995) elaborates on this notion,attributing environmentally determined causes to the rise of horticulture:

³Around 3550 years ago, all of the factors that were necessary for the

transition to horticulture existed in Guyana several varieties of wild

manioc, adequate flour-processing expertise and its associatedimplements, sedentary populations and the indispensable technology of pottery-making. The only thing needed to precipitate the change to

horticulture was a major subsistence crisis. At this time, comprehensivedrying out of the swamps over several generations provided that crisis.

Neo-Indian culture based on horticulture was the result.´

According to Irving Rouse (1985), around 2000 BC, early Arawakan peoples set out froma homeland somewhere in the Upper Rio Negro area, and colonized in a ³double pincer´

movement down the length of the Orinoco and Amazon rivers by around 1600 BC.When the Orinocan or Northern branch reached the mouth of the Orinoco, they moved

northward into the Caribbean Islands and southward along the Western Guiana coast.When the Amazonian or Eastern branch reached the mouth of the Amazon they moved

northward along the Eastern Guiana coast. The two groups met somewhere along GuianaCoastal Plain, and today¶s Lokono Arawaks are the mixed descendants of these two

groups.

Given the many similarities in pottery styles, and ways of life of Arawakan and Cariban peoples of this era, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the migrations of these two

groups of horticultural peoples who probably migrated into Guyana around roughly thesame time.

The mode of production that the Proto-Arawak and Proto-Carib peoples practiced was

based on horticultural production with cassava (manioc) as the staple crop. Cassavasubsistence production is a labor intensive activity involving under brushing, the felling

of trees, burning and clearing of logs, planting and harvesting; as well as labor intensivefood preparation involving squeezing, grating, boiling, straining, baking, etc. Every stage

of this process is communally organized along kinship lines. This mode of productionrelies on the activities of part-time specializations in basketry, ceramics and stonework.

It also relied on the expansion of the stone axe making industry especially in order tocontinually supply firewood for food preparation. Furthermore, these new horticultural

societies developed exchange relations of mutual dependence with each other, and withthe still thriving Warao people of the Orinoco delta and the Guyanese North West

(Williams 2003).

By the end of the first millennium BC, linguists suggest that the original Caribanlanguage had differentiated into the distinctly different languages of Carib, Kapon

(Akawaio & Patamona) and Pemon (Arekuna and Makushi). Denis Williams suggeststhat the Kapon and Pemon speakers migrated into the interior of Guyana around the end

of the last century BC, introducing the horticultural way of life into the deep interior, andalso becoming specialists in long distance trade. Archaeological evidence suggests that



there developed in pre-Colombian times systems of long distance trade that connected thesocieties of the Amazon, the Orinoco, and the Caribbean Islands with the societies of

Guyana¶s coast and interior.

Some archaeologists have suggested that more complex systems of agriculture developed

along the Amazon and the Orinoco, and perhaps also along the Guyana Coast, from thefirst centuries AD on. Horticultural peoples such as those of Guyana¶s interior played therole of trading goods long distance between these societies. More complex systems of

agriculture were perhaps also accompanied by more complex forms of politicalstructures, such as societies with forms of hierarchy, status, and rank: i.e. lineage

systems, chiefdoms, and perhaps even classes and states. Neil Whitehead, MichaelHeckenberger and George Simon have recently suggested that the raised-field complex

which covers large areas of the Berbice Savannas, and extends into Suriname, is a logical place to look for archaeological evidence about more complex systems of agriculture and

possibly more complex political systems in the prehistoric Guianas.

THE TRIBES

Just as we are told that Guyana is the land of six races, only to learn that race in the sensethat this notions implies is an illusion, it is also somewhat of an illusion to represent

Guyana as having nine µtribes.¶ There really is no agreed upon definition of the µtribe¶either in lay terms or in the anthropological literature. The most common reference point

for anthropologists trying to reason through the notion of µtribe¶ is American culturalanthropologist Elman Service¶s 1962 work, P rimitive Social Organization: An

Evolutionary P erspective. In that work, Service suggested that the tribe was a stage of political evolution in human societies that was more complex than the bands of hunting

and gathering societies, but not as complex as chiefdoms and states.

The band organization of hunting and gathering societies was small scale, egalitarian, andhad no political institutions that linked groups beyond the level of small, fluid, kinship-

based co-residence.

The tribe, as Service saw it, was a level of political organization that was morecommonly found among horticultural and pastoral societies than among hunters and

gatherers. It was more complex than the band, involved greater numbers of persons in asingle polity, had the beginning of forms of hierarchy based on status, rank or prestige,

and had forms of organization such as the lineage, moiety, or clan which linked together groups beyond the level of the kinship-based bands.

For Service, the band and the tribe were the first two stages in an evolutionary model

which progressed towards chief d oms and culminated in the state-based and class-stratified societies which he referred to as civilizations.

There are many problems with Service¶s concepts, not the least of which is his one-

directional evolutionary model which posits state-based and class-stratified societies asinevitable and irreversible advances over more µprimitive¶ forms of social organization.



From the point of view of the societies of the Guianas, however, another real problem isthe lack of empirical µfit¶ between Service¶s model and the manner in which Amerindian

societies that have been closely studied by ethnographers actually function. The majorityof the societies that Peter Rivière surveyed in his work I nd ivid ual and Society in Guiana,

for instance (these were mainly the Cariban speaking peoples of the Guiana Shield),

seemed to operate more according to the principals that Service attributed to the band

societies. They are small, largely autonomous groups, who have no chiefs, leaders, or even ideas of tribal identity or affiliation that normally exist beyond the level of the

individual settlement. The settlement itself is a small, fluid, and fragile social unit that iseasily dissolved when intra-group conflict arises. And yet, these are not bands of hunter-

gatherers, these are horticultural peoples, some of whom are involved in complex long-distance trade, and some of whom have periodically been involved in complex political

negotiations with state-based colonial and post-colonial societies for the past four centuries. They are not less evolutionarily adapted to deal with the realities of the

modern world than their tribal, chiefly, or state-based contemporaries, they have simplyadapted to modern conditions d ifferently.

Having said that the tribe as an idea about a certain stage of political evolution does not

work very well (in general, or in the Guianas), this does not mean that there have never been tribal kinds of political organization in the Guianas, or that the idea of the tribe has

not taken on some kind of reality as a result of its employment by the colonial and the post-colonial states.

Historically, it seems likely that the Lokono Arawaks of Guyana at the time of European

contact had some kind of tribal or chiefly political organization that integratedcommunities beyond the level of the settlement. Likewise, we have a very clear and well

documented depiction of the formation and the disintegration of a chiefdom in theGuianas in Neil Whitehead¶s work

Lor d s of the Tiger Spirit: A History of the Caribs in

Colonial Venezuela and Guyana 1498-1820. These two examples, the first of which probably predates European contact, and the second of which was in part a response to

European colonialism, should by no means be considered anomalies, but are probably part of a larger pattern of the formation and disintegration of tribes and chiefdoms that

has existed since the time of the introduction of horticulture into the Guiana Shield andthe surrounding regions.

While the idea of the tribe in the anthropological sense meant by Elman Service or by his

critics is not one that can be easily applied to the Amerindian groups as they exist inGuyana today, there is, however, another important sense in which these groups can be

said to have been µtribalised¶ during the colonial and post-colonial eras. As recently asthe 1950s, when Audrey Butt Colson did her doctoral research in the Upper Mazaruni,

she reported that the majority of persons whom the state identified as µAkawaio¶ did notself-identify with that name. She found that identity was a part of a nested hierarchy that

included information about residence, geography, language and culture, but did notinclude an overarching notion of a shared tribal identity. By contrast, my own

impressions of the situation when I did fieldwork in the Upper Mazaruni in 2001 and



2002, is that today the Kapon-speaking peoples of the Upper Mazaruni seem to havenearly universally internalized the notion of an µAkawaio¶ identity.

This internalization of an identity that was probably initially a name imposed by strangers

to describe an aggregate of peoples who did not necessarily originally perceive

themselves as having a shared common identity is a phenomenon that is probably equallyapplicable to a number of other groups in Guyana, such as the Caribs, the Arekuna, thePatamona, the Makushi, and the Wai Wai. The colonial state, and now the post-colonial

state, used these names as ways of categorizing groups which it sought to keep track of and control for various reasons such as the state¶s claim to territory, the need for a labour

force in extractive industries in the interior, and originally for purposes of makingstrategic alliances that would enable small European colonies to survive in areas that still

were effectively controlled by Amerindian peoples.

Interestingly, for the purposes of future political organization, the British colonial stateascribed identities to Amerindian peoples on the basis of so-called µtribe¶, but they never

recognized entities known as µtribes¶ or recognized political institutions that couldnegotiate on behalf of their peoples in the same sense that µstates¶ negotiate on behalf of

µnations.¶ In the post-colonial era, when land title has been given to Amerindians, andwhen political institutions have been created and incorporated as part of the state, land

has been granted to villages, and political representation works through village councils. Nowhere in Guyana does a tribe collectively own land, nor are there large blocks of

unfragmented land controlled by a single µtribe¶ of people. Furthermore, nowhere inGuyana are there tribal councils that are invested with the authority to negotiate on behalf

of the peoples who have today internalized the tribal identities that were ascribed to them by the colonial state.

This situation of tribes without tribes has historically been the best of both worlds from

the point of view of the state. Tribal identities have made it easier for the state tocategorize people for the purposes of social control, but there are no tribal political

institutions which could be used to mobilize demands for recognition, respect, moreequitable social conditions, or greater control on the part of Amerindian peoples over

their own resources and destiny. Whether a process of ethnogenesis on the part of Amerindian peoples, and a political movement to secure the conditions of Amerindian

self-determination will arise out of the µtribalisation¶ created by the colonial and post-colonial states remains to be seen. Just such a movement has flourished in recent decades

in many other parts of South and Central America, and is vibrant and militant among theMakushi and Wapishana of Roraima State, Brazil, with whom Guyanese Amerindians

have many contacts and relations. What effect their presence will have on Amerindian politics in Guyana remains to be seen.



References

Rivière, Peter 1984 I nd ivid ual and Society in Guiana: A comparative stud y of Amerind ian social

organization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Rouse, Irving B.1985 Arawakan phylogeny, Caribbean chronology, and their implications for the study

of popular movement. Antropologica 63/4: 9-21.

Service, Elman1962 P rimitive Social Organization: An Evolutionary P erspective. New York: Random

House.

Whitehead, Neil.1988 Lor d s of the Tiger Spirit: A History of the Caribs in Colonial Venezuela and

Guyana 1498 ± 1820. Dordrecht, Holland: Foris Publications.

Williams, Denis.1995 P ages in Guyanese P rehistory. Georgetown, Guyana: Walter Roth Museum of

Anthropology.

2003 P rehistoric Guiana. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers.

Wishart, Jennifer 1995 The P rehistoric Arawak of Guyana. Georgetown, Guyana: Walter Roth Museum

of Anthropology.

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