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Conference Package

Native Americas

The Eleggua Project

CUBA - INDIGENOUS LEGACIES
OF THE CARIBBEAN

Interdisciplinary Conference and Intensive Field Study
November 16 to 23, 1997 in Baracoa, Cuba
Call for papers and panelists

This international encounter will explore and celebrate the legacy of indigenous peoples of the Caribbean. Participants will examine elements of indigenous culture and history through conferences, professional exchanges, workshops and field observations. The conference also features an historic opportunity for a gathering of Taino culture from the eastern region of Cuba as well as Puerto Rico and the North American diaspora.

TOPICS

Speakers and panelists are welcomed for all topics

1. TAINO SELF-INTERPRETATION:

This conference is unique. It comes at a time when Caribbean indigenous people are experiencing a revitalization and groups of families and small communities are reasserting their native identity. For the first time this conference will publicly gather Taino and other indigenous peoples to discuss the question of their survival and share music, food and cultural teachings. The assertion of extinction of indigenous peoples in the Caribbean will be challenged at this event by Cuban and other Caribbean Indians whose presence speaks for itself.

2. SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE AND HERBAL MEDICINE:

Cuba has made great strides in recent years in the field of sustainable agriculture. Alternative, organic techniques for food crops have been encouraged by the gov't and adapted by the population during the "Special Period". A range of techniques derive from Taino "conuco" agriculture. Corn (maiz) manioc (yuca) and sweet potato (boniato) as well as the Cuban herbal medicine tradition, are part of the Taino horticultural legacy.

3. NATIVE STUDIES / ANTHROPOLOGY / ARCHEOLOGY:

Academic researchers and established scholars from various disciplines are attending. In archeology, recent dramatic findings in Cuba and the Dominican Republic will be discussed by Dr. Manuel Rivero de la Calle, dean of Cuban anthropology.

Ecologists from Fundacion del Hombre Y Naturaleza, as well as local scientists will report on the widely diverse original ecology still protected in the region, particularly efforts to preserve the Toa River Valley. Dr. Jose Barreiro and other will discuss the Smithsonian Institution's Nat'l Museum of the American Indian, and recent issues of cultural patrimony.

4. MUSIC AND DANCE:

Indigenous Cuban musicians will join musicians of other Cuban traditions. "Areyto", "Nengon Kiriba", and other Cuban dances will be featured. Taino musicians will attend who have traveled among other Arawaks to share and learn the Caribbean's ancestral music. The ethnogenesis of the island is evident in eastern Cuba, and obviously so in the available, autocthonous music of the region.

5. THE INDIAN IN CUBAN ARTS:

In Cuban letters and in popular culture and art, the theme of indigenousness, and of Taino and/or Ciboney, is significant in various ways. The works of Cuban Apostle Jose Marti, a founder of Latin American modernist poetry, will be explored for its attention to American Indigenous themes and topics. As well, the Cuban literary movement of "Ciboneyismo" as cultural "trinchera" in the 19th century will be discussed. The current art movement identified as "neo-Taino", much in evidence in Baracoa will be featured in a conference exhibition and will be discussed by panelists.

SPONSORS: - Fundacion de la Naturaleza y el Hombre

- Museo Matachin de Baracoa
- Native Americas Magazine
- Eleggua Project / CCS&CF

PRINCIPAL CITIES: Santiago de Cuba, Baracoa.

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