The Kalinagos

Pottery, Art and painting -Within the Kalinago Territory, calabash are carved with creative and traditional
designs on them.
The calabash can be used both as eating utensils and as decorations. Calabash as wall decorations are pictured
below.
Pottery has been an art form practiced for thousands of years by our Kalinago ancestors and handed down from
generation to generation. Pottery items often have mythical or religious designs and items range from: water
goblets, ceremonial bowls, tea cups, cups, and ashtrays of different animal formations, plaques of Kalinago
Territory and Dominica, and flower vases.
During the days of our Kalinago ancestors, while the men hunted and fished, the women sat and made pottery.
They used the coiling techniques with rolls of clay dough. Utility vessels were often decorated such as Cassava
griddles and bottles where sweet potato and manioc alcohol was stocked. However, other ceramics in different
forms used for ceremonial purposes were decorated with patterns incised or painted in red, white or black.
Kalinago women often shaped small animals or human representations called adornos on the rims of their
pottery. Some figurines are of great authenticity and are easy to identify such as human faces, agoutis, frogs,
birds, manatees and dogs. Others are more complex and mysterious. A religious and mythical signification is
transcribed behind these geometrical decorations.
There is a Kalinago Traditional Pottery Stall at the Kalinago Barana Aut.

Crafts Made from Coconut

The coconut tree provides many components for making crafts such as the roots, trunk, flowers, fruits, leaves
and the nuts. A large percentage of the Kalinago population is directly and indirectly dependent on coconut,
and a wide range of craft products, foods and drinks are derived from the coconut.
Carved Hanging Planters are one type of craft made from the coconut (photo at right).
Coconut Oil is also a very important product of the coconut. It is made by using fresh coconut meat with no
chemicals added. Hence a natural, pure coconut oil is obtained this way with a shelf life of several years.
Coconut Oils are used to help fight attacking viruses, bacteria, and other pathogen. It can be used for cooking or
applied directly to the body.
Music and Dance- Music Songs were used for ceremonies to appease spirits, both good and bad. For instance,
the Tawouana tamourou song was for a bad spirit, the grandfather vulture a pyai man song. A good spirit song
is the Touki song for warriors. Songs were also made for celebrations, to tell stories about survivals and
successes.
Traditional musical instruments were used in ceremonies and to communicate with the spirits. The instruments
were made mainly from local raw materials found in the environment.

Instrument Source of Material

Drums Goat Skin
Maracas Calabash and seeds
Flute Bamboo stick
Stick Conch shell

Dance
Dances have played a vital part in the culture of the Kalinago people. Some dances depict different elements of
nature, such as the rain dance, wind dance, eclipse dance and moon dance. Many of the dances, such as the bird
dance, would imitate animal movements. There were also dances which depicted the Kalinago way of life, such
as cassava grating, fishing and hunting. In addition, dances were made for special purposes, such as the
inauguration of a chief.
 Dances Purposes
Bird dance Hunting (bird movements in flight)
Snake dance Ceremonial for guardian spirit (snake movements)
Sisserou dance Celebration (Sisserou movements in flight)
Moon dance Ceremonial (different phases of the moon)
Eclipse dance Ceremonial (appearing of spirits)
Marie Marie dance Ceremonial (wedding)
Cassava grating dance Stages of cassava preparation
Harvest dance Stages of any crop production
War dance Ceremonial (preparation for war)
Bow and Arrow dance Ceremonial (preparation for war)
Marouka dance Dream dance
Celebration (the use of Maracas a musical
Shack Shack dance
instrument)

Architecture- All materials used by the Carib/Kalinago people came from the land around them. Their houses
were of several types.

Ajoupa: The basic ajoupa, which was a shed-like or lean-to structure made for sheltering a cooking or
cassava making area of a shelter easily put up in the forest as a camp for hunting and canoe construction. This
was made of about four stout posts anchored in the ground and held up by two other posts and a cross-beam.
Thin laths of wood were placed across this frame which then was covered with balizier leaves or various types
of forest palm leaves. The buildings were tied together with maho bark rope.

Maho: The Caribs grouped plants according to their uses and any plant with a bark capable of making rope was
described as a maho. The French took the word and wrote it in their own way: mahaut. Since there were no
nails or wire or bolts, everything was tied together with maho. House posts, roofing thatch, hammocks, head
straps for carrying load, for attaching things to canoes, anchor ropes, net ropes and for hauling, all depended on
maho. As Father Breton writes in his Carib Dictionary, In short, I do not think that they could exist without
maho. In Western scientific botany the Mahaut is found in divers plant
families: Cordia (Boraginaceae), Pavonia and Hibiscus (Malvaceae), Triumfetat (Tiliaceae)
and Sterculia (Sterculiaceae).

Karbay: Also written in French as Carbet. A term used by the French to describe the main meeting house and
settlements of the Caribs. The Caribs themselves called this house Taboui, but the French settlers had picked
up the name Karbay when they had lived among the Tupi-guarani tribe of Amerindians in Brazil. The French
had also brought many Tupi-guarani people from Brazil to work for them in Martinique, Dominica and
Guadeloupe. These people used their own language to describe familiar things that they saw in Dominica.
Several words that today are passed off as Carib have their origins in the Tupi-guarani language. This word
Karbay is one of them. It was used so often in the new French/Carib/Tupi-guarani/Creole language that was
emerging, that succeeding generations of Caribs abandoned their own word Taboui and adopted Karbay. It
has been used for so long by the Caribs, that today it is considered by them to be a Carib word.

The Karbay was a large building, in most cases about 60 feet long and thirty feet wide. It was made of tall round
wood posts and was of an oval shape with a tall steep roof. The posts which supported the roof were also used
to tie hammocks for sleeping. The roof was thatched with palm leaves or the leaves of roseaux reeds.

Roseaux: (Arundo saccharoides) Wild Cane in English. This tall reed grows throughout tropical America. It is
found on Dominica mainly along stream banks and its French name was given to the capital of the island.
Among the Carib/Kalinago people the name was bouleua, arrow, pierce and mabulu. It was used in numerous
ways. The hard main stem was used as wattle work for the sides of houses and for lathes or thatching rods for
the roof. The fan-shaped leaves were used as thatch.