WE have commenced Indigenous Heritage Month which is commemorated in September each year.  The month was appropriately kicked off with a service of the Halleluja Religion which is an Indigenous Christian-inspired faith.  The heritage of ethnic communities is largely concerned with cultural, historical and societal matters in their broadest sense and not with economic and social requirements of that particular community.

For example, to speak of the State creating roads or water supplies or electricity or educational institutions or village government and attempting to link these things with Indigenous Heritage Month misses its focus. wwwwwwwThe State is obligated to provide these public works and social amenities to all communities and the country as a whole and is involved in doing those things every month of the year.  Indigenous Heritage Month and its activities are national events which all ethnic groups are expected to respect and in which to even participate.  Politics in Guyana is a divisive thing and as such we should avoid it touching Indigenous Heritage Month since it will diminish the meaning and impact of it.

There are numerous aspects of our Indigenous Heritage which need to be explained and exposed to the wider community and they range from many simple things which persons who are not of Indigenous heritage take for granted such as the Presidential emblem with the large macaw feathers.  It would be an enlightening exercise to explain the use of feathers in the Indigenous tradition, their colour, length, how they are placed in relation to each other and so on.  There are many other more important areas of Indigenous Heritage which need to be explored and researched.

One of the most important areas is the Indigenous languages.  Although some philological work has been done on the Guanani language of Paraguay and the Quecha language of Bolivia, both of which are widely spoken languages, no philological work has ever been undertaken on the seven Indigenous languages of Guyana, some of which are spoken in the neighbouring countries.

The University of Guyana, for many years, has had an Amerindian Research Unit which was headed by Dr. Desrey Fox and whose mother-tongue was an Indigenous language. The unit was always underfunded and little or no philological work was done.

It was recently reported in the press that the Child Care and Protection Agency (CC&PA) would be issuing some notices in four Indigenous languages.This was a very welcome initiative for it gives the Indigenous languages some official recognition and communicates with Indigenous language speakers.  In the past, because so large a part of the population were Hindi/Urdu speakers, the Law Courts always had Hindi interpreters available.  And ballot papers used at national elections until the 1950s had their basic instructions in Hindi as well as in English.  Despite this and the fact that Hindi/Urdu is still used in the mandirs and masjids and is the language of Bollywood films and Indian TV Soaps, it fell out of spoken usage.  Our Indigenous languages, in contrast, have far less of a survival potential than Hindi/Urdu and are in imminent danger of being eliminated by English. Quick action is, therefore, necessary to save and sustain the Indigenous languages and preserve one important aspect of the cultural heritage of not only the Indigenous community but of all Guyana.  A number of activities could be taken by the State, the educational authorities, NGOs which are involved in Indigenous affairs, the churches and the Indigenous community itself to preserve these languages:

In the first place, some economic benefit should be accorded the use of the language. One such could be that Government employees who work in Indigenous areas should be given extra allowances if they could speak and understand Indigenous languages.  Also, advertisements for small contracts or for certain jobs could be carried in the Indigenous languages.

The widest spoken Indigenous language should be chosen as the lingua franca and taught in the schools while the smaller languages should be encouraged as “home languages”.  In time, prizes could be given for literary attempts in the language.

Word spellings should be agreed upon and dictionaries should be produced both for the language itself and with Indigenous words in English.  These actions will standardise the language and make it more accessible.

The basic language could fairly quickly be introduced in the elementary classes of the schools in the Amerindian areas.  Since there would be initially a shortage of teachers, they could be shared.

Lastly, help could be sought through UNESCO and from the relevant academic institutions in the USA, Britain and France.   Amerindian Heritage Month 2018 could be a watershed if the language programme could be substantively considered.