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Indigenous Materials
A fresh look at available wealth from your back yard
Sandra O. Brown, PhD The Caribbean as a region, based on its geographic location and its faunal stock, possesses a wide range of indigenous raw materials for use in crafts production. Indigenous raw materials in this article refer to animal or vegetable materials which are resident in the Caribbean and which are used, or, suitable for use in the production of quality crafts which are capable of competing against highend crafts in the international arena. From Guyana on the South American continent, with its Amazonian rainforests and vast resources, to Jamaica in the North with its equally verdant ?elds, mountainous terrain and diverse ?ora, artisans of the region have a suf?cient stock for ample choice-selection and product diversi?cation. Barbados too, with its comparatively small land mass and hence limited supply of raw materials still has a wealth of materials which are currently underutilized or in some cases never used. This situation obtains regionally because there exists a relatively small number of artisans who are prepared to exploit these resources in a sustained manner, while the majority prefer to source extra-regional resources which come from the “ship to their doors” as it were. Raw materials can be grouped into three broad classi?cations – vegetable, animal and mineral. These classes may then be divided into subgroups or categories which include ?bres, vegetable and animal; woods; clays and minerals; leathers; bones and horns; shells, animal and vegetable and seeds. The region is well-endowed with all of them. In Barbados for example, the most abundant resource now used is clay, used liberally for domestic In this photo, Dr. Brown examines an over pottery and for commercial 50-year old Dung Basket made of wild vines use in roof and ?oor tiles; Guyana with its huge land mass is rich in woods and ?bres. In a 1993 survey of raw materials in Guyana, Elaine Walcott notes that while all ten of Guyana’s regions have abundant resources, “the most widely utilized materials are found in the hinterland regions of the country” and include the vegetable ?bres nibbi, kufa and tibisiri (6). Jamaica has diverse straws and ?bres used in crafts production such as Jippi-Jappa, silver thatch, big thatch, sisal and many more. Likewise for many of the other islands which all share a similar stock of vegetation but may maintain individuality by using one or other ?bres more than sister islands. Consequently, Dominica basketwork is recognized through the use of the Larouma reed while artisans in St. Vincent exploit Pandanus. However, while artisans throughout the region make reasonably good use of traditional materials, there are yet many more materials left under-used or not used at all. Some of these include coconut wood and coir, sugar cane ?bre in particular, most plant ?bres including banana and ornamentals, grasses and sedges, ?sh skin, ?sh scales, cow horn, bones, and of course skins/hides from many animals such as pig, sheep, goat, rabbit and cow. All of these materials present themselves for exploitation but are not now used or used sparingly. Fish skin for example presents the combined region with tons of raw material annually which is now wasted or minimally used in the production of animal feed. Fish skins are a valuable raw material suitable for the production of ?ne exotic leathers. Pelagic ?sh in particular present with skins ideally suited for leather production as do some locally occurring types such as Turpits (pot ?sh) and Trigger?sh (Old wife) with their leathery skins.
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www.creativeindustriesexchange.com Volume 3 July - September 2011