The East Indian Diaspora in Costa Rica: Inbreeding Avoidance, Marriage Patterns, and Cultural Survival

Abstract

Anthropologists have long been interested in the survival of Indian cultural traits in the New World. In this article, we present results of an ongoing project with a Costa Rican community that descends from East Indian indentured servants. We focus on the group's marriage patterns and how these patterns might have helped keep the community as a cohesive ethnic group. We investigate the group's level of inbreeding by computing the inbreeding coefficient using two different methods. We show that the community has been successful at keeping its inbreeding low, despite its small size, by allowing marriage with nonmembers of the community.We propose that unless consanguineous marriages are allowed virtually all of the community's marriages will be with noncommunity members. Absorption into tourism, as well as the community's staunch avoidance of consanguineous marriages and virtually universal marriage with noncommunity members, will likely contribute to their disappearance as a viable ethnic group. [Keywords: East Indian diaspora, inbreeding avoidance, Costa Rica]

Indentured migration and differential gender gene flow: The origin and evolution of the East‐Indian community of Limón, Costa Rica

“…Because there is more variation within than among human groups, when we say that a marker has only been found in a particular region of India, we do not mean that the marker is inexistent someplace else. Madrigal et al (2007) noted that the Culís avoided close kin marriage, a pattern found in Northern/Central non-tribal Indian Hindu communities. They proposed that this cultural trait suggested that the ancestors of the Culís migrated from these regions in prepartition India.…”

“…In this paper, we report results of an on-going biocultural investigation with a recently described Indo-Costa Rican population (Madrigal et al, 2007). The group was keenly interested in participating in the genetic aspect of the project, as it wished to know where in prepartition India (or even if) their ancestors came from.…”

“…Since in Limón this term does not have any pejorative connotations, we felt it was appropriate to use it in publications (for a more in-depth discussion see Madrigal et al, 2007). Thus, we refer to our community with the name they use with pride: the Culís of Costa Rica.…”

“…Our analysis of the community genealogies indicated that all living individuals descend in one way or another from a few initial founding couples, that migration continued through several generations, and that gene flow with non-Culís has been very common. Madrigal et al (2007) discuss in detail the pedigree, the Culí culture in general, and their marriage patterns in particular.…”

Anthropological genetic insights on Caribbean population history

“…Their labor was instrumental for powering the economic sugar boom the Caribbean experienced during the 19th and early 20th centuries. 79,100,115 Extensive anthropological research has been conducted among self-identified Culí communities of East Indian descent living in the coastal region of Puerto Lim on in Costa Rica. 115,116 Combining longterm ethnographic research, including the collection of detailed pedigrees, with the use of uniparental markers, Castrì and coauthors 116 found this community descends from a small number of indentured migrants transported from Central India.…”