Celebrate with the Honduran Garifuna
An Unfinished Portrait
April is a month of celebration for Hondurans
of African and Caribbean descent, known as Garifuna. On April 12, 1797, Africans arrived on Honduran soil. Some take pride in the fact that they did not live their lives as slaves. Their languages and customs are almost extinct.
Dr. Darío A. Euraque and Photographer Pablo Delano are professors at Trinity College, who presented at New York University’s Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, April 2, 2010. The study of national identity they were making would be different. Delano said it would not “make a consumer product of the people,” the way tourism can.
©2009 Pablo Delano
They had proposed “A Portrait of the Honduran People,” as a document of living ethnicities in historical context. Their portrait would not focus on the remains of lost Mayan culture. Many Hondurans, having digested the lore, know only about their Mayan ancestry. Euraque called it “Mayanization.” He said, “When you box people, the complexity is lost.”
Delano has photographed indigenous peoples around the world. His last project resulted in the book In Trinidad. Euraque inspired Delano’s interest in Honduras and he made several trips in the past several years.
Euraque had published four books on the country’s history and politics and he was spending some of the year there as director of the Honduran Institute for Anthropology and History, a post he held from 2006 until the recent coup.
Three led an entourage in June, 2009: Delano, Euraque, and Euraque’s long-time friend Guillermo Anderson, a musician and expert on regional styles. He is based in La Ceiba, Honduras where he was born. He is of Caribbean descent. His songs incorporate percussive guitar with punta dance rhythms. The Garifuna celebrate their African ancestry in this sensual dance to accompanying drums.
Places like La Ceiba are part of a network of peoples all over Latin America with common African and Caribbean roots. And many thousands of anonymous ‘outsiders’ have watched punta videos on YouTube. Still, Delano told the New York Times that he saw a group angrily refuse to dance for some tourists who asked, perhaps not so nicely.
Tourism is for tourists. President Manuel Zelaya’s Minister of Culture, Rudolfo F. Pastor, hired the troupe of artists / intellectuals to follow the road less travelled. But a coup d'état curtailed the project.
Zelaya had instituted a referendum earlier that year and many opposed, including the head of the military. Zelaya dismissed and then reinstated him. Violence broke out. On the 28th the new regime ousted Zelaya. Pastor, a Harvard educated Latin American scholar, went into hiding. The militia wanted headquarters in a historic building that housed the National Archives. When Euraque protested, the new heads brought a letter of discharge. They stood in a line at his desk while he read, as if to issue him out. He had only a few days to pack up and go.
Zelaya supporters showered children’s books on the new, un-literate Minister of Culture, Myrna Castro in protest. But not all. Anderson stood by, calling for unification. Euraque, Delano, and entourage returned to the US with "A Portrait of the Honduran People” in limbo.
©2009 Pablo Delano. Garifuna Heritage Celebration in La Ceiba.
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