Ethnoecology, Resource Use, Conservation And Development In A ...

CHAPTER 2: INDIGENOUS PEOPLES AND
DEVELOPMENT IN GUYANA
This chapter provides an overview of the situation currently faced by indigenous
people in Guyana as a whole. The emphasis is on relationships with the state and the
impacts that the activities of various actors, national and transnational, in
government, industry, development and conservation are having or might have on the
situation of members of the indigenous population. This provides essential context for
subsequent chapters of the thesis. The local systems of knowledge and praxis with
which this thesis is concerned are embedded in social, political and economic systems
operating on larger scales. A full understanding of the local situation can not be
achieved without reference to this broader context and the linkages between the
two. As I will demonstrate, events on regional, national and international levels have
been important factors in the history of Guyana’s indigenous population, not least the
Wapishana people with whom this thesis is largely concerned. At the current time, the
prospect exists that the effects of exogenous forces on these people might shortly
come to be felt with greater force than ever before.
2.1 Indigenous populations in Guyana
Members of Guyana’s indigenous population are locally referred to as "Amerindians",
distinguishing them from the numerically dominant Indo-Guyanese. Guyanese
Amerindians are conventionally considered to comprise members of nine distinct tribal
groups. However, some of these include descendants of people formerly belonging to
linguistically distinct groups and incorporate remnant groupings still conversant in
these minority languages. This is most notable in the cases of the Waiwai (Yde 1960:
84; Dagon 1967b: 9; Mentore 1995: 20) and the Wapishana (Farabee 1918: 4; ARU
1992). Formally recognised tribes include six speaking Carib languages: Karinya or
"true Caribs", Akawaio, Arekuna, Patamona, Makushi and Waiwai; two speaking
Arawakan languages: Lokono or "coastal Arawaks" and Wapishana and, in the Warao,
a single member of the Warao linguistic branch. Additionally, I have met Trio people at
least temporarily resident on the Guyanese bank of the Correntyne River, although
the traditional homelands for this tribe are across the river in Suriname.
The most recent nation-wide census of Guyanese Amerindians estimated their
number, on the basis of data of variable quality and accuracy, at around 47,000
people, or around 8 percent of the national population (Forte 1990a). However, the