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The Dugu: Health and Healing in Garifuna Societies
| Article
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19054 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1991 |
3,597 Words |
| Author
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Kathryn Vance Staiano
Medical anthropologist Kathryn Vance Staiano, who concentrates
on the analysis of ethnographic material, has done principle
fieldwork in the multiethnic community of Punta Gorda, Belize,
over the past decade. Her book on Garifuna medical beliefs and
practices, Interpreting Signs of Illness: A Case Study in
Medical Semiotics, appeared in 1986. |
It was an early August evening, a break in the wet season weather; it was hot and humid now, but a slight breeze from the sea reached the back streets of the multiethnic village of Punta Gorda on the southern coast of Belize. A block away, about a hundred people gathered around a building that I had never noticed before. Perhaps it had never been there until this moment, or perhaps I had never paid attention, though it stood apart in size and structure from the surrounding buildings. The hum of voices and the sound of drums intensified as we approached.
The building we faced was called a dabuiaba. We stepped quickly toward a side door; my friend passed unhesitatingly through the roughly framed door with overhanging thatch. I followed, but was barely past the threshold, when I was confronted by an imposing woman, who, without speaking, forced me back out through the door. My friend stepped back outside. "It's all right," she said. "she's possessed and doesn't known what she's doing". She took my arm and we reentered the building. I hung to the back, reluctant to be seen, but the "possessed" women had moved to the other side of the building and didn't pay attention to me. The shaman, known as a buiai, sat toward the center of the building on haunches. His eyes were closed, and he rocked silently backward and forward. Twenty or thirty dancers, mostly women, slowly circled the room, hips swaying continuously to the mesmerizing beat of drums and evocative songs know as abaimahani and amalihani. The only light came from several lanterns. Hammocks, occupied by resting dancers and women with small children, moved as though self-propelled. About fifty people filled the dabuiaba. Occasionally, someone would break away from the circle with a distracted expression, possessed by one of the many sprits present. They say possessed persons will sometimes climb the rafters of the building, enticed there by the spirits. Perhaps they are encouraged, as well, by the enthusiasm of the other participants and the flow of rum. It is not surprising that outsiders have referred to these ceremonies as "devil dances."
The Garinagu
The Garinagu are the descendants of the Arawak and Carib groups of Indians and West African slaves. Garifuna is a singular and adjectival form, as well as the term for the language spoken by the Garinagu (the plural form of Garifuna). What happened for certain to bring together these culturally, linguistically, and physically very different populations several centuries ago remains a bit of a mystery, but today their descendants are found scattered in towns and villages along the coastline from Nicaragua through Honduras
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