As more and more young Guyanese writers refuse to become a part of our country’s great

literary tradition, which has emerged from the pens of great writers like Martin Carter, A.J. Seymour, Wilson Harris, Pauline Melville, and others, it does seem as if the literary landscape of Guyana will become a more and more barren one. For if our own people, those situated within the country, refuse to write about themselves and what is theirs, then who will do it for them? The importance of maintaining a core of local writers and ensuring that Guyanese people, especially young people, know their literary heritage are two things that Dr. Michelle Yaa Asantewa, a writer and academic of Guyanese heritage who recently returned to the country of her birth, is keenly aware of and, perhaps, is one of the reasons why she, as woman who was born in this country, continues to focus so much of her own research and writings on Guyana.

Dr. Asantewa has written three books that are all intricately tied to the Guyanese experience and she was recently hosted at a Moray House event where, in collaboration with the University of Guyana, she was able to launch all three books to Guyanese readers. The main book, called Guyanese Komfa: The Ritual Art of Trance was borne from Asantewa’s PhD research. The research explored Komfa through the postcolonial lens, through literary criticism, through social anthropology; it was even viewed as literature, which clearly indicates the dynamic nature of Komfa and the multidisciplinary ways in which that particular Guyanese practice is so rich in meaning and content that

it lends itself well to a variety of fields. Dr. Asantewa, has said that Komfa is ultimately “an artistic expression as well as an obviously spiritual one” and that she was intent on showing “how dynamic it is as a representation of art and also as a representation of cultural identity, especially Guyanese cultural identity.”

Dr. Asantewa admits that conducting research for the book was quite difficult as there is not much literature that is readily available on Komfa. This lack of preservation of Guyanese folklore and oral traditions is something that will continue to plague writers and academics who are interested in our folklore and oral traditions. Although, it should be mentioned that there is potential for the preservation of such intangible literary heritage through the University of Guyana’s Oral Literature course, which falls under the School of Education and Humanities’ English program, where students conduct field research in the field of Oral Literature every year. Dr. Asantewa’s struggles, therefore, to find material for her own research only emphasizes the need for more initiatives to preserve the country’s folk forms and literary traditions.

Another reason why it is sometimes difficult for proper research to be done when it comes to Guyanese folk traditions has to do with the fact that Guyanese practitioners of Komfa and other spiritual arts, probably because of stigma and label of being taboo that is attached to them by their fellow Guyanese, usually have to practice their arts in the underground, in secret, away from prying eyes. This is something that Dr. Asantewa seems very much against, as she says that were she to write another book on Komfa, she would want the practitioners to be named and photographed in the same way that other practitioners of similar folk traditions are represented in the literature of the Caribbean diaspora. “I would want them to be more proud and celebrative”, Dr. Asantewa says of the Komfa practitioners in Guyana.
The way in which Komfa engages with all ethnicities present in Guyana (in the way that the practice sometimes includes spirits from varying racial backgrounds) is something that is also of interest to Dr. Asantewa, especially when Komfa, as a cultural, spiritual and artistic form that exists among the folk, among the people in the villages away from the city, and the way when it is juxtaposed against what exists outside of the rural and real background from which Komfa emerges highlights what might almost be considered an inclusivity of all the major ethnic groups in this one cultural form which means that, at its core and the way it which it engages all people, Komfa manages to form a nice contrast to the ethnic disharmony that is constantly plaguing Guyana.

Commenting on the stigma attached to Komfa and those who practice it, Dr. Asantewa taps into the postcolonial ideology that has wrapped up all of the Caribbean since the arrival of the Europeans to this part of the world and, according to her, Guyanese people need to get over some of the stigma of Komfa because such an attitude to the art means that “even though we are independent…even though we are no longer under the yoke of colonialism, we, in fact, still are… They [Guyanese] need to embrace all the aspects of our culture.” She finds it quite interesting that because of cultural imperialism and the existence of a persistent colonial ideology that there are Guyanese people who wholeheartedly embrace foreign traditions, such as Halloween, and yet become confused and even shun Guyanese traditions that deal with the spiritual, such as Komfa itself. Similarly, she was able to point out, based on her travels in Guyana, that Guyanese children are not reading enough of our local literature and highlighted an experience she had in Austin’s Book Store where Guyanese teenagers were unable to name a single Guyanese author when asked. Summing it up quietly nicely, she remarked that such experiences show her that we as a people are looking outside ourselves instead of looking inwards and seeing what we have and what we can celebrate.

The second book released at the launch by Dr. Asantewa is called Something Buried in the Yard and like Guyanese Komfa also came out of the research Asantewa was doing for her PhD research. Something Buried in the Yard is a novel presenting a storyline that has to do with Komfa and the spiritual. The third book is Mama Lou Tales which Dr. Asantewa describes as both a biography of her mother and a collection of stories that her mother often told. All three of the books can be found at Austin’s Book Store, where they can be bought by the Guyanese reader interested in learning more about the rich culture of Guyana.