Yurumein: Homeland

Join Our Mailing List

Make a tax deductible
donation to Yurumein.
Thank you!

"The film is most appropriate for a people struggling to throw away a shameful past as they rediscover their true history. This applies to indigenous peoples, afro-descendants, and any other people to whom cultural revitalization is a painful process. As a region the Caribbean is the crucible par excellence for such experience, for it was here where the identity of the non-colonizers was brutally suppressed and all efforts made to extinguish it permanently."
- Joseph O. Palacio, PhD, Anthropologist

About The Film: Yurumein
Resistance, Rupture & Repair:
The story of the Caribs of St. Vincent in the Caribbean

50 minute documentary / DVD format / 4:3 aspect ratio / surround sound
Completed January 2014

Synopsis
YURUMEIN (your-o-main) is an important UNTOLD STORY of Carib/Garifuna resistance against slavery that deserves its place in the annals of the African Diaspora. The film recounts the painful past of the Caribs on St Vincent and the extermination of scores of their ancestors at the hands of the British, while building an intimate portrait of Garifuna culture in-transition today. We are given firsthand accounts from both Carib descendants who remain on the island of St Vincent and voices of returning descendants whose ancestors were exiled to Central America—where Garifuna traditional culture was able to survive and flourish.

When members of the Diaspora are first reunited and make a collective pilgrimage to the sacred site of Balliceaux (where the genocide occurred) the film reveals the beginnings of a movement among Garifuna people to revitalize traditional language, music, dance, and ritual. This scene features the Garifuna National Folkloric Ballet of Honduras.

As Garifuna from around the world come together to remember and celebrate the lives and resilience of their shared ancestors, they also begin to discover possibility and hope for the future of Garifuna culture and a greater worldwide community. The film includes original music by Garifuna artists: Andy Palacio and Rhodel Castillo. Additional music by Abuza from St. Vincent. Original artwork by Garifuna artist Greg Palacio.

Background
While post-colonial stories of re-identification and cultural retrieval among indigenous people—particularly in North America—have captured broader public interest in recent decades, the story of Garifuna, or “Black Carib” people, and their homeland of St. Vincent, has largely been untold. Garifuna culture, dating back to the Pre-Columbian Caribbean, has been revitalized in Central America and other parts of the Carib Diaspora, however, little of it remains on the formally colonized homeland. Few, if any Carib descendants who presently live on St. Vincent can speak their native language. While there are some traditions that remain (and a noticeable absence of Western tourism), few Caribs remaining on the island intimately understand their traditional music, food, and spiritual practices. This is beginning to change.

In 2001, UNESCO awarded the Garifuna community the title: “Proclamation of Masterpieces of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.”

The Yurumein Project Links:
New Day Films
Center For Black Music Research
GAHFU, Inc.