The Garifuna of Belize and Honduras are uniquely descended from the West African, Carib and Arawak people. Traditional Garifuna music is rich with African-inspired percussion, and relies primarily on two Garifuna drums fashioned from mahogany that have a drumhead made of the skin of a pig, deer or sheep–the “primera,” (“the heart drum,”) which which has a higher-pitched tone, and a “segunda,” (“the shadow drum,”) which is the bass drum. Sometimes there is also a tercero, which sets the foundation with a bass line while the segunda plays a counter-rhythm to the primera.
The Garifuna are a distinct Afro-Caribbean group that originatedin 1635 when a boat carrying African slaves shipwrecked off of theCaribbean island of St. Vincent. The survivors integrated into theCarib population and developed their own West African/Caribbeanlanguage and culture. Within two centuries the Garifuna had settled in several locations along the Central American coastline yet, unlike many cultures, maintained their own communities and never fully integrated into the Spanish-influenced mainstream. Today, Garifuna “punta” music and culture survive and even thrive on this uniqueness.
A Garifuna drum ensemble, called the garaón, consists of three drums — the lead primera (“the heart drum,”) the segunda, which plays a counter-rhythm (“the shadow drum”) and and the tercera, which sets the foundation with a bass line. Most Garifuna rhythms fit within a 2/4 time signature, or have two beats per measure, though when all the drums there are many intertwining rhythms to drive the dance. Upon that, Garifuna percussion ensembles add drums with wires stretched across them as snares and any number of rattles and shakers. Contemporary Garifuna groups playing “punta rock,” a genre pioneered by “Pen” Cayetano and taken international by Andy Palacio and the Garifuna Collective, add bass and electric guitar.
This song comes from the Garifuna of Honduras and Belize, derived from the opening lines of an epic story performed as a dance by a couple. The liner notes of “The Black Caribs of Honduras,” the Smithsonian Folkways recording which first introduced All Around This World to this song, say “The words of this particular song refer to a man who thinks himself better than anyone. The woman laughs at him and tells him it doesn’t matter how high the floors are from the ground. One day they’ll fall and the crows will take care of everything.” (The song is listed there as “Punta.”) Our version takes just the first couple lines of the introduction, originally translated as, “Sit down see the enjoyment, Won’t kill me misery,” and twists it into a Garifuna song for kids by taking that to imply that the tale in the story may be a sad one, but that we can enjoy the telling of it anyway. A further implication is that though there may be many struggles in the world, we may find a way to survive them with our ability to enjoy life intact, a sentiment that is common throughout the Caribbean.
“Black Carib” is an outdated British colonial term used to describe people who are now known as the Garifuna. The Garifuna are descendants of Nigerian slaves whose transport ship wrecked in 1675 on the small island of Bequia, just south of St. Vincent in the Caribbean. The indigenous Carib people took the survivors to St. Vincent where they treated them harshly. The Africans rebelled, and eventually took refuse in the hills. When the British took St. Vincent in 1796 they viewed the Garifuna as a threat and exiled them to an island off the coast of Honduras. Spanish settlers eventually employed the Garifuna, bringing them to mainland and eventually allowing them to seed communities up and down Central America’s Caribbean coast.
Today the Garifuna mainly live in Honduras, Belize, Guatemala and Nicaragua and have a language, culture and customs that are distinct from those of their Central American neighbors. Our Garifuna song is in the community’s language, a mix of Arawak and Carib, with some words from English, French and Spanish. Look at a video about an album by the wonderful Garifuna women’s singing group, Umalali, for a sense of Garifuna dress and Afro-Caribbean music. Country: Honduras, Belize Language: Garifuna Genre on CD: Punta Instruments on CD: Garifuna drums (primero and segunda)
LYRICS OF ALL AROUND THIS WORLD VERSION
Yunruhuma ya arihabei habuidunmenia
Mafarulubadina lamise
Yunruhuma ya arihabei habuidunmenia
Our story may be sad, but we’ll laugh anyway.
We are revising the AllAroundThisWorld.com site and are currently using a new (better!) site — ExploreEverywhere.com — to tell you all about our curriculum offerings and how to become one of our teachers. That said, if you were on ExploreEverywhere, you clicked to find more information about a song or lesson, and landed here, you’re in the right place! Some links may be broken and a detail or two may be out of date…but close the popup window and enjoy!
