Hi old time Guyanese. Have you all ever visite
d Kabakaburi, back in Guyana? That’s in the upper Pomeroon River, District of Region 2.
Kabakaburi is a settlement situated on both banks of the Pomeroon river, 35 miles up extending from the Arapiako River upwards.
There you’ll find some 300 Guyanese who are descended from the Carib and Warrau Amerindian tribes. There are some Afro-Guyanese living in the settlement too.
Besides farming of cassava and other vegetables, Kabakaburi is known for its production of fine Nabbi Craftwork and its hammocks.
And talk about appropriate technology? In the Kabakaburi school compound there was once a familiar, function and vitally-necessary land-mark. Yes, there is, on the school site, a Wind-mill which turned the turbine that generated electricity for the Kabakaburi community.
Yes, visit Kabakaburi in the upper Pomeroon and meet folks like the Harrops, the Lowes and Village leader Captain Smith whose favourite song is still “Not A Blade Of Grass”. But are they still around?
Kabakaburi—the home for internationally-known Guyanese singer Dave Campbell. Kabakaburi—the home too, of the first big-name Amerindian Calypsonian-the Mighty Chief! Kabakaburi in the Pomeroon in the Pomeroon-Supenaam-Region Number 2!
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Former information Minister, Moses Nagamootoo launched his novel, HENDREE’S CURE a few years ago. It’s a semi-autobiographical tale about the richness of life among the Madrasi Indian Guyanese on the Corentyne Coast of the forties and fifties. Do you known WHIM?
In tribute to the book, I, present now for your reading pleasure, examples from Nagamootoo’s Glossary of Terms, which explains some Hindi words.
For example, BABA means lap-cloth, BANDA-short-ened cutlass, BARACHOODA-a wayward person, BELLNA AND CHOWKEE-roti making instruments, CHILLAM-pipe for smoking tobacco, CHURILE-the ghost of a woman who dies in childbirth.
GUDNA is a tattoo, NAAG is a cobra or king of snakes and to PILLIKIN is to catch “left-over” fish.
So now you know!
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