St. Vincent & Dominica (travel-documentary from the season "Caribbean Moments")

the islands of Dominica and st. Vincent lie in the Eastern Caribbean they're part of the Lesser Antilles a group of islands which separate the Atlantic Ocean from the Caribbean Sea descendants of the Carib Indians who long ago migrated from Venezuela to the Southern Caribbean live on both of the islands in their own reservations like most of the islands in the Lesser Antilles San Vincente is a volcanic island together with 32 other islands in the northern Grenadines it forms the island nation of San Vincent and the Grenadines long before Christopher Columbus visited San Vincente the island was settled by Indians from South America in around 700 BC the peaceful Arawak people were driven out by the Caribes after whom the Caribbean is named in 1498 Christopher Columbus arrived in st. Vincent he found the island ruled by the Caribes they were determined to defend the island which they called heroine or Island of the blessed from foreign invasion in contrast to the larger neighboring islands Saint Vincent remained uncommon iced and free from European rule for over 200 years Columbus described the Caribs as a warlike people they referred to them as being warlike but I think what they were trying to do is to defend their torrid territory and not just being walleye it's obvious if anybody tried to come into your home and take it over you would fight and I believe that was one of their reasons for fighting they were not just warlike what he tried to defend themselves and their territory in 1675 a Dutch slave ship ran aground near the islands the African slaves were able to escape and lived among the carobs with whom they reproduced the resulting ethnic group of mixed african and carob descent her known as Garifuna the Garifuna succeeded in remaining independent during the long struggle between france and england for control of the region after the island was occupied by the british in 1795 the new settlers and colonial administration regarded the Garifuna with suspicion as they were an example of free African slaves the French allied themselves with the black Caribes but the conflict ended with their defeat in 1796 Blackpoint tunnel on the east coast of San Vincente is a reminder of the slave period the 113 metre long tunnel was built by slaves in 1815 on the orders of the British colonial administration to allow sugarcane to be loaded onto ships for export to Europe Fort Charlotte is a British fortress built in the 18th century in the capital Kings town it's an impressive structure that's indicative of the current culture the three remaining cannon all point towards the interior of the island as it was the black carobs who represented the greatest threat to the British it was only in 2002 that Joseph shot ie the leader of the Garifuna who died in a battle against the English in 1795 was proclaimed a national hero of San Vincente he was like I'm a war hero like whenever they were fighting between the French and the inhabitants there here he was in the front where it is believed that he was killed in a battle of dosage to Hill which is in Kingston and it was a battle against the English well this is the first one to stand up and fight for his country against the white colonial rule so he was the first one to organize a fight and defend his nation that's why he become a national you some of the Garifuna still live on some vincent in the Grenadines despite suffering a long period of persecution they're now officially recognized and have been granted equal rights they remain conscious of the traditions of their ancestors and are anxious to keep them alive farmer years the Garifuna people all looked down upon they were looked at as the less fortunate and so are the less educated people try to belittle them but I think recently a lot of focus have been made been made on the Garifuna people and people see them different but I think before the war despised yes I can recently focus of being put on them and now they are trying to get back into the tradition like the food before claw and so on people are trying to revive the culture of the Garifuna in the small village of fancy Garifuna continue to cook with traditional natural ingredients breadfruit or cassava and yams are prepared in one of the small huts cassava bread is cooked in a pan over a wood fire cassava root originally comes from South America and was part of the diet of the indigenous people of the Caribbean and I was a little girl I met the my grandparents Terrence and everybody in the community planting these tea the carded cassava and it go on a tree we scraped across scribbly wash and and with the greeting on the hand machine wasn't the right note they greeted and ahem work that was previously carried out by hand is made easier nowadays with technology long before this lady Maura was born even before my mother was born it's a tradition so it was almost out of existence almost extinct so we trying to revive it bring it back because it's a staple food is a very healthy food anyone who partake of this food they will feel great breadfruit meanwhile originates from the South Sea Islands the plantation owners on the Caribbean islands needed an alternative basic food source because of shortages caused by independent struggles and hurricanes and so breadfruit trees were imported from Tahiti to provide nourishment for the slaves the nutritious breadfruit is placed directly in the oven peeled and then eaten as a side dish with a range of foods but primarily with fish the island of Bequia lies closest to the main island of San Vincente near the well-known islands of mystique and palm island it's the largest island in the Grenadines the name BIC way comes from the language of the arrow acts and means Island at the clouds it's a young and friendly Island where the pace of life is slow when you ask what there is to do on the island the answer is nothing whale hunting on Beck Way has a tradition going back centuries until well into the 20th century it was an important part of the local economy and provided for the survival of the islands population these days the inhabitants have been given official permission by Greenpeace to hunt for humpback whales for their own consumption using traditional methods involving a small boat and harpoon the quota has never been filled the fishermen of Beck way were the first to document the singing of the humpback whale the Bulls sing a different song every mating season to attract a partner back we the island that your honor is a whaling station allowed to wheel by the Greenpeace it's been in our tradition for over a hundred years the whale hunters boats are made out of wood by the locals using traditional methods boat building has a long tradition on Beck way that has sustained the local economy ah we use every part of the whale the whale meat is a very delicacy for the locals on the island and we cook it in a traditional style called Dovan and it is sold and divided up between the PD locals life in Roseau the capital of Dominica is much more hectic Dominica lies between the French islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Eastern Caribbean the indigenous people called the island y tu kabhi Li or its body is high in reference to its mountainous terrain because of the islands abundant and diverse animal and plant life Dominica also has the unofficial title the nature island over 300 rivers and streams are to be found on the island as well as waterfalls and lakes the largest freshwater lake on Dominica lies 762 metres above sea level called the freshwater lake the body of water is contained in the crater of an extinct volcano it serves nowadays as both a drinking water reservoir and hydroelectric dam when Christopher Columbus discovered Dominica in 1493 he didn't set foot on the island he named the island after the day of its discovery a Sunday which is Domingo in Spanish Dominica was the last island colonized by Europeans because of the fierce resistance of the Caribes the killing goes live in a reservation in the east of Dominica known as carob territory they're the descendants of the Caribes who ruled over the islands before the arrival of the Spanish colonization came to Dominica 200 years after every other island in the Caribbean was already colonized history has taught us once the teachers that we fought over the Caribbean islands at the era wax then then took over the islands but the people who would the history was not there time they were not there so the history that they know is the history that they participated in that they were part of under the history of a part of was the the word record was all resistance to be up taking over these islands to setting up their plantations and taking our men and young men on and into slavery for raping and killing our women and children we we fought to resist colonization among those living in the reservation is a medicine woman who practices traditional healing methods using natural means I said myself in my lab I use all the herbs around my house for healing there are different herbs which can cure different illnesses but I have to ask people who come to me to tell me the symptoms of the illness in order to be able to help them Marland yoga will achieve on up this traditional medical knowledge of the Kalinga is handed down from one generation to the next we grab a bottle of our way my parents used herbes to cure illnesses and I've also learned to use everything that grows here the knowledge is transmitted from generation to generation my children can also apply the herbs and their children are very interested in this law and then Teal'c I just go back to you leave your vehicle that person as far as I know that she has performed pretty close to 100 deliveries delivery offers 100 babies without any complications need at the baby or mother and this is assistance of special significance amazingly she had been able to as she was able to deal with all these many cases that that she encountered and delivered successfully with no loss of life and shall never been to school however modern life has also arrived in the current territory the young culling goals are determined not only to preserve the traditions and culture of their people but also to disseminate them the whole idea of the whole going to commercialize enough medicinal plants by the culinary heritage that came about when there was a youth loss program which was held in a carp territory and I'm in year 2006 and in that program 25 20 participants to to part in that everybody program where the whole G salt of the program was basically go about interviewing elderly people as holding medicinal plants have been used traditionally and documenting all that information then from after the program was ended the very same participants we basically stood together from the culinary heritage society and we decided to use that very similarly that we have acquired to go actually to take this into a next level into going to commercializing these very same traditional use medicine plants the whole culture medicines and all that it is a medicines in itself is is very important it is has been used by the kind of people for centuries almost all their life and even today it is still being used and unknown if there's a history in the character that we don't normally go to doctors unless they can't hear them unless they can't actually help themselves you know so on this is this which is which is I am very proud of that or people can actually use although own local medicines or own local herbs which is grown in our backyard or inaudible normal also nonlinear in the various environments and we can use unscrew source in a relatively healthy lifestyle canoes are made in the Carib territory using traditional building methods the boats are constructed from a single tree trunk which is hollowed out and then expanded using fire the dugout canoes were once used to transport people and goods even today they remain irreplaceable for the fishermen of Dominica in the centuries before what do you understand by wood I don't know really be true but what I understand is that they used to make it in the kernel by itself one would buy 60 feet long and they will travel shoot from here to the other countries like Maryland or Matunuck with it but no certain stage down the line they must probably believe that it was not sufficient to hold us see you see waters so then they put an addition to it which you call the border do you just turn and a bow and the other not episode would we call it our border a plank so that it comes higher and much stronger so it can hold more more load to travel the tree trunks used for the canoes are felt in the surrounding rainforest you go to cut it and we cut it in any moon we're all just going to cut it like this we choose the moon to cut the wood to build our boots because when you cut it it is in the new one that going to big money's gonna be big all the termites they go to it and hit the spoiler wood but when you cut it down down way down the moon you got good wood like this because I mean plain wood nice wooden whatever and then from there oh when you lock the one down you cut the stomach and then you draw a skeleton and they start digging San Vincente and Dominica are two of the most untouched islands in the Caribbean these two volcanic islands have the only kerry reservations in the whole of the caribbean it's here that the descendants of the people who gave their name to the region continue to live there the last remnants of a people who long resisted the colonial ambitions of the europeans and never allowed themselves to be enslaved

Channel: wocomoTRAVEL

Views: 565,472

Rating: 4.6251941 out of 5

Keywords: garafuna, Joseph Chatoyer, Elna Michael Fancy, yams, breadfood, whale hunters, Fresh water lake, calingo, rainforest, Creole Music (Musical Genre), creole language, natural medicine, fisherman, karibik, destination, Trauminseln, robinson Crusoe, einsame Insel, Reiseziele, Destination, places to see, places to visit, lonely islands, PLAY_DOC_EN, PLAY_TETD

Id: MhVyayADEt8

Length: 24min 0sec (1440 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 27 2014