Creole Indigeneity: Between Myth and Nation in the Caribbean

324 Pages·2012·2.555 MB·English

by  Shona N. Jackson

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creole indigeneity
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Creole Indigeneity
Between Myth and Nation in the Caribbean
shona n. jackson
University of Minnesota Press
•
Minneapolis London
Publication of this book was made possible, in part,
with a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Epigraph “Birds” was originally published in A Tempest by Aimé Césaire, translated
by Richard Miller. Copyright  by Aimé Césaire. Copyright English translation , .
Published by Theatre Communications Group. Used by permission of
Theatre Communications Group.
Epigraph “Natural Ways” was originally published by The Hamburgh Register, .
Copyright  by Basil Rodrigues. Reprinted by permission of Basil Rodrigues.
Portions of chapter  were previously published as “Subjection and
Resistance in the Transformation of Guyana’s Mytho-colonial Landscape,” in
Caribbean Literature and the Environment: Between Nature and Culture,ed.
Elizabeth DeLoughrey et al., – (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, ).
Portions of chapter  were previously published as “Guyana, Cuba, Venezuela,
and the ‘Routes’ to Cultural Reconciliation between Latin America and the
Caribbean,” Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism (): –.
Portions of the Introduction and chapter  were previously published as
“On the ‘Threshold of Nationhood’: The Politics of Language and the
Contemporary Crisis in Guyanese National Identification,” in Ethnicity, Class,
and Nationalism: Caribbean and Extra Caribbean Dimensions,ed.
Anton Allahar, – Lanham, Md. Lexington Books, .
Every effort was made to obtain permission to reproduce material used in
this book. If any proper acknowledgment has not been made, we encourage
copyright holders to notify us.
Copyright  by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior
written permission of the publisher.
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For
Celestine Williams, Joycelyn Squires, Jennifer Jackson,
and
Ayira
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exile thus goes into the feeder made of stars
bearing clumsy grains to the birds born of time . . .
—Aimé Césaire, “Birds”
Out for a long walk along the path I wandered.
What I once took for granted now I see.
Birds sang to me of the joy of being free
as they, the hawk and kiskidee.
Acushi ants and wasps worked united;
laden jamoon branches giving alms
to birds and flies and worms;
dark shadows, dreaded hawk flashes by.
Birds echo a warning cry,
“Escape your death—fly, now fly!”
—Basil Rodrigues, “Natural Ways”
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Contents
Preface / xi
Introduction / 1
1
Creole Indigeneity / 41
2
Labor forBeing: Making Caliban Work / 75
3
4 “God’s Golden City”: Myth, Paradox, and the Propter Nos / 111
5 From Myth to Market: Burnham’s Co-operative Republic / 145
The Baptism of Soil: Indian Belonging in Guyana / 181
conclusion: Beyond Caliban, or the “Third Space” of Labor
and Indigeneity / 211
Acknowledgments / 235
Notes / 239
Bibliography / 267
Index / 285