Amerindianante-coloniality in contemporary Caribbean writing: Crossing borders with Jan Carew, Cyril Dabydeen and Pauline Melville

Abstract

When speaking of the Caribbean, one often finds it difficult to reconcile the singular term used to refer to it and its linguistic, social, historical and aesthetic plurality. Even if the archipelago has shared similar experiences of traumatic transportation and indentureship, the specificities of each island have hindered the emergence of a shared Caribbean identity. Emphasis has been put on the extinction of the indigenous Amerindian peoples, but Amerindian resilience has not been granted sufficient scope. Only a few writers have chosen to imaginatively return to that Amerindian past that precedes the trauma of forced transportation -a past that has almost receded out of collective memory, dominated as it has been by the African dimension. In the wake of Wilson Harris, Pauline Melville is one of the writers who have been trying to gain access to a collective identity that might be termed ante-colonial. With reference to the work of Melville, Jan Carew and Cyril Dabydeen, this article reads the presence of Amerindian culture in Caribbean literature as a renewed symbol of resistance to domination and a symbol of a shared identity, providing a stronger bond between the land and the people. It argues that this détour through Amerindian culture finds its meaning in the desire to override colonial dispossession, thus providing a possible focal point of connection for the Caribbean at large.