NO decision will be made on the relocation of the Walter Roth Museum of Anthropology until consultations have been had with the museum staff and stakeholders, including the leaders of the 212 Indigenous villages, Dr Rupert Roopnaraine, Minister of Education announced Wednesday. “What I have done, is I have asked the President (David Granger) to put the question of the movement of the Walter Roth Museum on hold until I have had an opportunity to discuss the matter more thoroughly with the people, the anthropologists, the toshaos and so on,” Minister Roopnaraine is quoted by the Government Information Agency (GINA) as saying.

He was speaking during his engagement with Amerindian leaders of the National Tohaos Council (NTC) at the Arthur Chung International Convention Centre, Liliendaal.
The Minister’s announcement was met with loud applause from the indigenous leaders, GINA stated.
According to GINA, the Minister assured the Toshaos that the matter is one that is at the heart of his very own family.
The Ministry of the Presidency (MOTP) had recently announced that the museum was being relocated from its Main Street, Georgetown location and that the building would be used as a department for the Ministry. It was announced that the museum would be shifted to the Natioanl Museum,
The Walter Roth Museum of Anthropology contains a wealth of historic information and artefacts about the Amerindian people with the aim of keeping the legacy of Guyana’s first people alive.
Patrick Gomes, toshao of Maruranau Village, Region Nine decried the government’s decision to move the Museum, on the grounds that the artefacts contained within are those founded several hundred years ago, and that many not be able to survive relocation.
Gomes called on all the indigenous leaders present at the NTC to make a recommendation to the government that the museum remain at its present site, “because we do not want to lose our heritage and our connection to the past.”
The indigenous people need to “have that connection to the past, to know where we came from, where we are going and what we have,” Gomes noted.
Acclaimed to be the oldest such museum in the English-speaking Caribbean, the Walter Roth Museum of Anthropology was established in 1974, but was not opened to the public until 1982.
The museum was founded with the collections of Guyanese archaeologist Dr Denis Williams. In 1980, the ethnographic collections of Dr Walter Roth, J.J. Quelch and Sir Everardim Thurn were transferred to the Walter Roth Museum from the Guyana Museum.
An ethnographic collection of the Wai Wai peoples was presented to the museum in 1991 by local cultural anthropologist, Dr George P. Mentore.
The museum’s collections also include excavated artifacts from all ten administrative regions of Guyana.
The museum is a non-profit institution created by the Government of Guyana to collect, exhibit and conserve artifacts relating to the nation’s ancient cultures, to conduct anthropological research and disseminate knowledge of the Indigenous Peoples of Guyana through its in-house and outreach programmes.