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MY DAY TRIP TO THE KALINAGO TERRITORY
Open your eyes. Needles of golden daylight pierce tiny spaces in the taboui roof, but dark blueness is still everywhere. Open your ears. The whistle of the crickets rises and falls in a rhythm, muted by roseaux leaves dancing in the wind’ s occasional puffs. The hum of Brother’ s and Sister’ s breathing floats around the taboui and settles on you, caressing you back to sleep.
Open your nisiru. The aroma
Taboui
of cassava bread baking in the ajoupa outside swirls its way to your nostrils, swelling even more as Mother puts another cake to the fire. Your tongue relishes its slightly burnt flavour mingled with the mild freshness of the coulirou that you and Father will catch in the river today. Father comes soon, so move your nocobou now. Your bed mat of woven larouma, softened after so much use, reluctantly peels itself away from the moistness of your skin as you rise to meet the day.
Fast forward 500 years. You are
standing in a small taboui in the Kalinago Barana Autê, the model of a typical village of
by Shana Jones, @ theroamingaviatrix
the Kalinago, the original inhabitants of Dominica. This model village( with a central karbay for cultural performances) lies in the protected Kalinago Territory on Dominica’ s northeast coast, where roughly 3,000 Kalinago descendants live and still preserve their ancient culture. From the taboui you follow a circular, forested trail dotted with different lean-to structures that illustrate the unique architecture of the indigenous people.
In some of the ajoupas, daily activities are carried out as they would have been by the original Kalinago: in the first ajoupa, a karipona grinds and prepares cassava( a starchy plant) to be baked into a flat