September is Indigenous Heritage Month in Guyana
By Janette Bulkan – University of British Columbia , Vancouver , Canada
ABSTRACT: In Guyana’s racialised geography, Amerindians live in scattered villages in the vast hinterland that covers 90% of the country. Amerindian iconography is appropriated in statemaking, even while Amerindians themselves are consigned to a patron–client relationship with the dominant ‘coastlander’ society. In the late 1950s, Amerindians made up only 4% of the national population but voted as a bloc in the national elections of 1957, 1961 and 1964, rallying around Amerindians, coastlanders, reserves, mining, Venezuelan land claim, Rupununi Uprising, proportional representation, government-organised non-governmental organisations,
Guyana Action Party the first Amerindian member of the legislature. Continue reading
