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58-462: Siparia is a town in southern Trinidad , in Trinidad and Tobago , south of San Fernando , southwest of Penal and Debe and southeast of Fyzabad . Also called "The Sand City", Siparia was originally a non- Mission Amerindian settlement. Siparia grew to be the administrative centre for Saint Patrick County , and went on to become the capital of the eponymous region that in 2023 was appointed

116-491: A " Dougla " is a person of African and East Indian descent who may identify as being part of either group. There are multiple festivals on Trinidad, featuring the music of the Caribbean and the steelpan (which originated on Trinidad and is the country's national instrument); These festivals include the multi-national, pre-Lenten Carnivál , J'ouvert , and Panorama , the national steelpan competition. In addition to

174-570: A South American origin. In the early colonial period, the Kalinago had a reputation as warriors who raided neighboring islands. According to the tales of Spanish conquistadors , the Kalinago were cannibals who regularly ate roasted human flesh, although this is considered by the community to be an offensive myth. There is no hard evidence of Caribs eating human flesh, though one historian points out it might be useful to frighten enemy Arawak . The Kalinago and their descendants continue to live in

232-482: A borough. Siparia is the site of the annual festival of La Divina Pastora ( Mary , as the mother of the Good Shepherd ), named for the church's patron saint . The festival occurs each year on the saint's day of La Divina Pastora, a few weeks after Easter. The same statue, a Black Virgin , is venerated by Hindus during a separate festival, held on Good Friday and Maundy Thursday . The Hindu celebration

290-774: A result. Such wars led to a geopolitical boundary separating the Lesser Antilles , inhabited by the Kalinago, from the Greater Antilles , inhabited by the Taíno . This boundary became known as the " poison arrow curtain". In 1660, France and England signed the Treaty of Saint Charles with Island Caribs. It stipulated that the Kalinago would evacuate all the Lesser Antilles except for Dominica and Saint Vincent , which were recognised as reserves. However,

348-530: A sailor to climb up to the main top and sighted a cluster of three peaks, therefore Columbus named the island Trinidad from the three peaks and Columbus's special devotion to the Trinity. Caribs and Arawaks lived in Trinidad long before Christopher Columbus encountered the islands on his third voyage on 31 July 1498. The island remained Spanish until 1797, but it was settled mostly by French colonists from

406-778: A traditional canoe based on the fishing canoes still used in Dominica, Guadeloupe and Martinique . They launched a voyage by canoe to the Orinoco delta to meet up with the local Kalinago tribes, re-establishing cultural connections with the remaining Kalinago communities along the island chain, documented by the BBC in The Quest of the Carib Canoe . Historically, scholars assumed that Island Carib men and women spoke different languages. To explain this phenomenon, scholars proposed that

464-547: Is a subsidence basin formed between the Caribbean and South American plates , and is bounded on the north by the coast ranges of Venezuela and the Northern Range of Trinidad, and bounded on the south by the Guayana Shield . This Guayana shield supplied fine-grained clastic sediments , which with the subsidence, formed a regional negative gravity anomaly and growth faults . Oil and gas discoveries from

522-628: Is also the fifth largest in the West Indies . The original name for the island in the Arawaks' language was Iëre which meant "Land of the Hummingbird". Christopher Columbus renamed it La Isla de la Trinidad ('The Island of the Trinity '), fulfilling a vow he had made before setting out on his third voyage. This has since been shortened to Trinidad . Indo-Trinidadians called

580-464: Is diversified, based to a large extent on oil and natural gas . It is one of the leading gas-based export centers in the world, being one of the top five exporters of liquefied natural gas and the largest onshore natural gas well was recently discovered in southern Trinidad. This has allowed Trinidad to capitalize on the biggest mineral reserves within its territories. It is an oil-rich country and stable economically. The Venezuela Tertiary Basin

638-464: Is located in the Northern Range on the island, northeast of the town of Arima . As of the 2011 Trinidad and Tobago Census, the population was 35.43% Indian , 34.22% African , 7.66% mixed African and East Indian, and 15.16% mixed race . Venezuela has also had a great impact on Trinidad's culture, such as introducing the music style parang to the island. Many groups overlap. For example,

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696-690: Is marked by a fault extending from the El Pilar Fault System in Venezuela. South of this fault is the Northern Basin, or Caroni Syncline , consisting of Tertiary sedimentary rocks unconformably overlying Jurassic and Cretaceous sedimentary rocks. South of this basin is the Central Range, consisting of Upper Tertiary sedimentary rocks lying unconformably atop Lower Eocene and Paleocene rocks. South of this range

754-738: Is often referred to the "Siparia Fete". She is La Divina Pastora, the Divine Shepherdess, a manifestation of the Virgin Mary , to Catholics, and Siparia Mai (Mother of Siparia) to Hindus. Sometimes Sipari Mai is associated with a particular Hindu goddess, such as Kali , Durga or Lakshmi , and sometimes she is a goddess in her own right. These two religious groups are most commonly associated with her, but persons of many other religions, including Jehovah's Witnesses , Anglians , other Christian denominations, Spiritual Baptist , Rastafarians , Orishas , Buddhist , Baháʼís , Muslims , and

812-587: Is the Naparima Plain , a thrust belt of Oligocene and Lower Tertiary beds. Hydrocarbon bearing anticlines include those associated with Pitch Lake , Forest Reserve, Point Fortin, Penal, Barrackpore, and Balata Fields. The Los Bajos Fault is a wrench fault , with Lower Pliocene displacement of 6.51 miles, bordered on the north by the Siparia syncline, and on the south by the Erin syncline. Finally,

870-753: The Carib Territory that was granted to the people by the British government in 1903. The Dominican Kalinago elect their own chief. In July 2003, the Kalinago observed 100 Years of Territory, and in July 2014, Charles Williams was elected Kalinago Chief, succeeding Chief Garnette Joseph. Several hundred Carib descendants live in the U. S. Virgin Islands , St. Kitts & Nevis , Antigua & Barbuda , Guadeloupe , Martinique , Dominica , Saint Lucia , Grenada , Trinidad and St. Vincent . " Black Caribs ,"

928-770: The French Caribbean , especially Martinique . In 1889 the two islands became a single British crown colony . Trinidad and Tobago was granted self-governance in 1958 and independence from the United Kingdom in August 1962, and it became a republic in September 1976. Major landforms include the hills of the Northern , Central and Southern Ranges (Dinah ranges), the Caroni , Nariva and Oropouche Swamps, and

986-486: The Igneri . However, linguistic and archaeological evidence contradicts the notion of a mass emigration and conquest; the Kalinago language appears not to have been Cariban , but like that of their neighbors, the Taíno . Irving Rouse and others suggest that a smaller group of mainland peoples migrated to the islands without displacing their inhabitants, eventually adopting the local language but retaining their traditions of

1044-532: The Pliocene Moruga Group include Teak (1968), Samaan (1971), Poui (1972) and Galeota. These fields are mainly faulted anticline traps producing from depths of 1.2 to 4.2 km (0.75 to 2.61 mi) subsea, with Teak possessing a hydrocarbon column almost 1 km (0.62 mi) thick. The Northern Range is an Upper Jurassic - Lower Cretaceous range of metamorphic rocks striking east and dipping south. The range's southern boundary

1102-887: The Southern Range consists of anticlinal folds, including the Rock Dome-Herrera anticline and the Moruga-West Field. East of this Rock Dome are en echelon folds containing the Lizard Springs Field. South of these folds is another fold trend containing the Moruga-East, Guayaguayare, Beach, and Galeota Fields. South of the Morne Diablo-Quinam Erin Field westward is a strongly folded anticline associated with shale diapirism , which extends west southwestward to

1160-618: The Temple in the Sea . The island of Trinidad has a rich biodiversity. The fauna is overwhelmingly of South American origin. There are about 100 species of mammals including the Guyanese red howler monkey, the collared peccary , the red brocket deer , the ocelot and about 70 species of bats . There are over 400 species of birds including the endemic Trinidad piping-guan . Reptiles are well represented, with about 92 recorded species including

1218-625: The Antilles, notably on the island of Dominica . The Garifuna , who share common ancestry with the Kalinago, also live principally in Central America. The exonym Caribe was first recorded by Christopher Columbus . One hypothesis for the origin of Carib is that it means "brave warrior". Its variants, including the English word Carib , were then adopted by other European languages. Early Spanish explorers and administrators used

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1276-476: The Antilles. Irving Rouse proposed that a relatively small scale Carib force conquered but did not displace the Igneri, and the invaders eventually took on the Igneri language while still maintaining their identity as Caribs. Other scholars such as Sued Badillo doubt there was an invasion at all, proposing that the Igneri adopted the "Carib" identity over time due to their close economic and political relations with

1334-477: The Bahamas and the Lesser Antilles , Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano was killed and allegedly eaten by Carib natives on what is now Guadeloupe , near a place called Karukera (“island of beautiful waters”). Historian William Riviere has described most of the cannibalism as related to war rituals. Chief Kairouane and his men from Grenada jumped off the "Leapers Hill" rather than face slavery under

1392-574: The Carib territory, killing a majority of the Yellow Caribs. After the eruption, 130 Yellow Caribs and 59 Black Caribs survived on St. Vincent . Unable to recover from the damage caused by the eruption, 120 of the Yellow Caribs, under Captain Baptiste, emigrated to Trinidad. In 1830, the Carib population numbered less than 100. The population made a remarkable recovery after that, although almost

1450-570: The Caribbean, the Maipurean -speaking Taínos reportedly relayed stories of the Caribs' war-like nature and cannibalism to him. When he arrived in the Lesser Antilles in 1635, the French missionary Raymond Breton made ethnographic and linguistic notes on the "Caribs", which also informed many of the early stereotypes about the Kalinago. Other missionaries, such as Cesar de Rochefort, would refute

1508-460: The Caribs had a common origin with contemporary groups in the Greater and Lesser Antilles. The transition from Igneri to Island Carib culture may have occurred around 1450. Archaeological evidence in support of either model is sparse, with "no confirmed Carib sites [known] prior to the 1990s." However, Cayo-style pottery found in the Lesser Antilles, and dated between 1000 and 1500, is similar to

1566-609: The Caribs, karibna was apparently associated with ritual eating of war enemies. The Caribs reportedly had a tradition of keeping bones of their ancestors in their houses. Missionaries , such as Père Jean Baptiste Labat and Cesar de Rochefort, described the practice as part of a belief that the ancestral spirits would always look after the bones and protect their descendants. The Caribs have been described by their various enemies as vicious and violent raiders. Rochefort stated they did not practice cannibalism. During his third voyage to North America in 1528, after exploring Florida ,

1624-516: The Caroni and Naparima Plains. Major river systems include the Caroni , North and South Oropouche and Ortoire Rivers . There are many other natural landforms such as beaches and waterfalls. Trinidad has two seasons per the calendar year: the rainy season and the dry season. El Cerro del Aripo , at 940 metres (3,084 ft), is the highest point in Trinidad. It is part of the Aripo Massif and

1682-502: The English later ignored the treaty, and pursue a campaign against the Kalinago in succeeding decades. Between the 1660s and 1700, the English waged an intermittent campaign against the Kalinago. By 1763, the British had annexed St Lucia, Tobago, Dominica and St Vincent. On Saint Vincent the Kalinago intermarried with runaway slaves, forming the ‘Black Caribs’ or Garifuna who were expelled to Honduras in 1797. The British colonial use of

1740-565: The Igneri. As this tradition was widespread in oral testimonies, and internally consistent, it was accepted as historical by Europeans. The second model proposes that the Kalinago developed out of the indigenous peoples of the Antilles. While the Caribs were commonly believed to have migrated from the Orinoco River area in South America to settle in the Caribbean islands about 1200 CE, an analysis of ancient DNA suggests that

1798-532: The Island Caribs may have killed the men and kept the women, allowing the Igneri language to survive among women. This assumption arose from the fact that by at least the early 17th century, Carib men spoke a Cariban-based pidgin language in addition to the usual Arawakan language used by both sexes. This was similar to pidgins used by mainland Caribs when communicating with their Arawak neighbors. Berend J. Hoff and Douglas Taylor hypothesized that it dated to

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1856-539: The Kalinago Territory. As of 2008 , a small population of around 3,400 Kalinago survived in the Kalinago Territory in northeast Dominica, of whom some 70 "defined themselves as 'pure'". The Kalinago of Dominica maintained their independence for many years by taking advantage of the island's rugged terrain. The island's east coast includes a 3,700-acre (15 km ) territory formerly known as

1914-573: The Kalinago occasionally allied with the Taínos to repel European invaders. When the Spanish attempted to colonize Puerto Rico, Kalinago from St. Croix arrived to aid the local Taíno. Daguao village, initially slated to be the Europeans' new capital, was destroyed by Taínos from the eastern area of Puerto Rico, with the support of Kalinago from neighboring Vieques . By the middle of the 16th century,

1972-585: The Koriabo complex from which the mainland Carib or Kari'na pottery tradition is descended. Cayo pottery was once thought to have preceded Suazoid pottery (associated with the Igneri) in the Lesser Antilles, but more recent scholarship suggests that Cayo pottery gradually replaced Suazoid pottery in the islands. Cayo-style pottery has been found in the Lesser Antilles from Grenada to Basse-Terre , and, possibly, Saint Kitts . Cayo pottery also shows similarities to

2030-610: The Meillacoid and Chicoid styles of the Greater Antilles, as well as to the South American Koriabo style. Upon his arrival in the Caribbean archipelago in 1492, the Maipurean -speaking Taínos reportedly told Christopher Columbus that Caribs were fierce warriors and cannibals, who made frequent raids on the Taínos, often capturing women. According to Columbus, the Taínos said the Caribs had spent

2088-662: The Pedernales Field in southeast Venezuela. The northeast portion of the Southern Range separates into a northern trend containing the Lizard Springs, Navette, and Mayaro Fields, while the southern trend contains the Beach Field. Trinidad is considered one of the best places in the world to catch Atlantic tarpon . Island Caribs At the time of Spanish contact , the Kalinago were one of

2146-462: The Siparia area since the 18th century. Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago . The island lies 11 km (6.8 mi) off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is the southernmost island in the West Indies . With an area of 4,768 km (1,841 sq mi), it

2204-453: The bark. The Ceiba pentandra tree is not only functional but spiritual and believed to house spirits that would become angered if disturbed. Canoes have been used throughout the history of the Kalinago and have become a renewed interest within the manufacturing of traditional dugout canoes used for inter-island transportation and fishing. In 1997 Dominica Carib artist Jacob Frederick and Tortola artist Aragorn Dick Read set out to build

2262-420: The common conception of the Caribs as cannibals. Early European accounts describe the taking of human trophies and the ritual cannibalism of war captives among both Arawak and other Amerindian groups such as the Carib and Tupinambá , though the exact accuracy of cannibalistic reports still remains debated without skeletal evidence to support it. Scholars such as Hilary McD. Beckles have instead suggested that

2320-562: The descendants of the mixture of Africans live in St. Vincent whose total population is unknown. Some ethnic Carib communities remain on the American mainland, in countries such as Guyana and Suriname in South America, and Belize in Central America. The size of these communities varies widely. During the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Island Carib population in St. Vincent

2378-478: The dominant groups in the Caribbean (the name of which is derived from "Carib", as the Kalinago were once called). They lived throughout north-eastern South America, Trinidad and Tobago , Barbados , the Windward Islands , Dominica , and possibly the southern Leeward Islands . Historically, it was thought their ancestors were mainland peoples who had conquered the islands from their previous inhabitants,

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2436-593: The entire tribe died out during the 1902 eruption of La Soufrière . Canoes are a significant aspect of the Kalinago's material culture and economy. They are used for transport from the southern continent and islands of the Caribbean, as well as providing them with the ability to fish more efficiently and to grow their fishing industry. Canoes, constructed from the Burseraceae , Cedrela odorata , Ceiba pentandra , and Hymenaea courbaril trees, serve different purposes depending on their height and thickness of

2494-486: The indigenous Warao people have been known to worship the popular saint. The early Chinese settlers who were Buddhist and of the Chinese folk religion saw her as their goddess Guanyin . There has even been some Muslims who regard the site as holy and offer prayers towards Mecca , but they do not worship the statue as it is against the teachings of Islam. The origin of the statue is unknown, but seems to have been in

2552-723: The injury. Formerly the Caribs used an extensive range of medicinal plant and animal products. The Caribs are believed to have practiced polytheism . As the Spanish began to colonise the Caribbean area, they wanted to convert the natives to Catholicism . The Caribs destroyed a church of Franciscans in Aguada, Puerto Rico and killed five of its members, in 1579. Currently, the remaining Kalinago in Dominica practice parts of Catholicism through baptism of children. However, not all practice Christianity . Some Caribs worship their ancestors and believe them to have magical power over their crops. In 1492, when Christopher Columbus arrived in

2610-488: The island चीनीदत्त ( Devanagari script ) , 𑂒𑂲𑂢𑂲𑂠𑂞𑂹𑂞 ( Kaithi script ) , چینی دت ( Perso-Arabic script ) , Chinidat or Chinidad in Trinidadian Hindustani which translated to the land of sugar. The usage of the term goes back to the 19th century when recruiters from India would call the island Chinidat as a way of luring workers into indentureship. On Tuesday, 31 July, 1498 Columbus sent

2668-471: The largest species of snake in the world, the green anaconda , the spectacled caiman , and one of the largest lizards in the Americas, the green iguana . Trinidad is also the largest leatherback turtle nesting site in the western hemisphere; they nest on Trinidad's eastern and northern beaches. There are 37 recorded frog species, including the tiny El Tucuche golden tree frog , Trinidad poison frog , and

2726-498: The last two centuries displacing the Taínos by warfare, extermination, and assimilation. The French missionary Raymond Breton arrived in the Lesser Antilles in 1635, and lived in Guadeloupe and Dominica until 1653. He took ethnographic and linguistic notes on the native peoples of these islands, including St. Vincent , which he visited briefly. Breton was responsible for many of the early stereotypes about Kalinago. Later,

2784-419: The more widespread huge cane toad . About 43 species of freshwater fish are known from Trinidad, including the well known guppy . It is estimated that there are at least 80,000 arthropods, and at least 600 species of butterflies . The William Beebe Tropical Research Station (founded by William Beebe ), also known as Simla, lies 8 kilometres (5 mi) north of Arima . The economy of Trinidad and Tobago

2842-438: The origin of the Kalinago. The traditional account, which is almost as old as Columbus, says that the Caribs were a warlike people who were moving up the Lesser Antilles and displacing the original inhabitants. Early missionary texts suggested the original inhabitants of the islands were the Igneri , while the Kalinago were invaders originating in South America (home to the mainland Caribs or Kalina) who conquered and displaced

2900-488: The resistance of Taínos and Kalinago alike was largely quashed across the Greater Antilles. The survivors were enslaved to work in agriculture or mining. The Kalinagos were more successful in repelling the Spanish—and later the French and English—in the Lesser Antilles, retaining their independence. The lack of gold in the area and the large numbers of casualties inflicted upon the Spanish contributed to their survival. In

2958-459: The rising mainland Carib polity. Both theories accept that the historical Island Carib language developed from the existing tongue of the islands, and thus it is also known as Igneri. By the early twenty-first century, a combination of bush medicine and modern medicine was used by the Kalinago of Dominica. For example, various fruits and leaves are used to heal common ailments. For a sprain, oils from coconuts, snakes, and bay leaves are used to heal

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3016-581: The seventeenth century, the Kalinago regularly attacked the plantations of the English and the French in the Leeward Islands. In the 1630s, planters from the Leewards conducted campaigns against the Kalinago, but with limited success. The Kalinago took advantage of divisions between the Europeans, to provide support to the French and the Dutch during wars in the 1650s, consolidating their independence as

3074-400: The stories of "vicious cannibals" may have comprised an "ideological campaign" against the Kalinago to justify "genocidal military expeditions" by European colonizers. The Island Carib word karibna meant "person", although it became the origin of the English word "cannibal" after Columbus shared stories of flesh-eating Kalinago, apparently heard from their historic Taíno enemies. Among

3132-431: The term Black Carib , particularly in William Young 's Account of the Black Charaibs (1795), has been described in modern historiography as framing the majority of the indigenous St. Vincent population as "mere interlopers from Africa" who lacked claims to land possession in St. Vincent. On Dominica the runaways formed distinct Maroon communities while the Caribs remained distinct. A remnant of these Caribs lives on in

3190-459: The terms Arawak and Caribs to distinguish the peoples of the Caribbean, with Carib reserved for Indigenous groups that they considered hostile and Arawak for groups that they considered friendly. The Kalinago language endonyms are Karifuna (singular) and Kalinago (plural). The name was officially changed from 'Carib' to 'Kalinago' in Dominica in 2015. William F. Keegan and Corinne L. Hofman have outlined two major models for

3248-407: The time of the Carib expansion through the islands, and that males maintained it to emphasize their origins on the mainland. Linguistic analysis in the 20th century determined that the main Island Carib language was spoken by both sexes, and was Arawakan , not Cariban . Scholars adopted more nuanced theories to explain the transition from the earlier Igneri to the later Island Carib societies in

3306-565: The traditional Christian holidays and official public days (such as Boxing Day , Christmas , Easter Sunday, Easter Monday , Emancipation Day , Good Friday , Independence Day , Labour Day , New Year's Day , and Republic Day ) in Trinidad, the island nation also celebrates a significant percentage of its population's Indian ancestry (of both Hindu and Muslim backgrounds), with officially-recognised holidays such as Divali , Eid al-Fitr and Indian Arrival Day . Sites of cultural or religious significance include Mount Saint Benedict and

3364-423: Was greater than that in Dominica. Both the Island Caribs (Yellow Caribs) and the Black Caribs ( Garifuna ) fought against the British during the Second Carib War . After the end of the war, the British deported the Garifuna (a population of 4,338) to Roatan Island , while the Island Caribs (whose population consisted of 80 people) were allowed to stay on St. Vincent. The 1812 eruption of La Soufrière destroyed

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