Talk:Garifuna

African ancestors

Garifuna or Black Caribs are descendance of Mali Sultan Abu-Bakr II expedition who the left the Mali empire around 1312 to find the end of the Atlantic ocean. in 1312 Mansa Musa the richest man ever succeeded Sultan Aba Bakr when he did not return from his expedition. The ship wreck narrative is a lie b/c there would have been some white Spanish blood within the Garifuna genes and there are none. Plus there are no Spanish words in the Garifuna language.

Garifuna are originally from Mali empire. Set foot on Caribbean soil with Abu-Bakr II descoveries lover than his brother Kankou Moussa, the most richman after king Salomon, whose wealth created crisis in El Cairo cause giving cash gold to hopless and helpess People. Garifuna are not Abu-Bakr II slave but his family where everyone have his task in empire. I'm really convinced, if garifuna are not there from post columbus slave trade ?? They were précolombian Caribbean inhabitants with king Abubakar, this time only one Subsahara West Africa royal distinguished personality to conquer New Land where peacefully he have signed human and kind treaty of course with indians.garifuna are from ours ??? Mandingo, They idiom seem like, like senegalese wolof idiom. There are also another tribe with idiom called BONI, in Guyana, Who are from Tiassale, a city from AKAN lenguages from the Ivory Coast.i really want to get in touch with you cause interested any black history in Caribbean Land ??? Much to give and hear in return. I'm guide, painter, art sculpture galeries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.196.77.132 (talk) 01:33, 15 July 2023 (UTC) Would be useful to refer to the flag in the article - it's origins, status, use and symbolism (if any). Davidships (talk) 15:51, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

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Proposed merge of Black Caribs into Garifuna

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

To merge Black Caribs into Garifuna, discussing difference in the meaning of these terms, and different uses of each, in one place; merge reason is overlap. Klbrain (talk) 11:03, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

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Both articles seem to indicate that the terms are identical in meaning. Garifuna is clearly the most common name according to Google Ngram Viewer. Daask (talk) 13:18, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

• Support - Both terms refer to the same ethnic group. Most of the Black Caribs article should be merged into the history section of this article. Kaldari (talk) 23:26, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support - I can't see any argument for keeping them separate. Wikipedia articles are grouped by semantic meaning. 2hip2carebear (talk) 20:06, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support: Garinagu is just the Garifuna word for "Garifuna people". It's the plural ending of the word "person". "In colonial times and up until the late 1970s in the writings of Douglas Taylor, among others, the Garínagu were known to outsiders as 'Caribs', 'Black Caribs' or 'Island Caribs'." A Grammar of Garifuna by Steffen Haurholm-Larsen, Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Humanities Department of Linguistics University of Bern in pursuit of the title Doctor of Philosophy, September 22, 2016, page 6 Ogress 20:17, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose: The article is about the Black Caribs of Saint Vincent. The article is not about the Garifuna people of Central America. The term "Black Carib" refers to a ethnic group of the Antilles and there the name "Black Carib" still stands. I could rename the article as "Black Caribs of Saint Vincent" if it is more suitable.--Isinbill (talk) 15:52, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose It would make more sense to merge this article into the "Black Caribs" article, considering that, as this article itself says, "The Garifuna people developed through a process of ethnogenesis on the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent, and were exiled in the colonial period to the Caribbean coasts of Central America." As I understand it, the Garifuna people developed from the people called Black Caribs, so the Black Caribs were known to history before the Garifuna people existed. Carlstak (talk) 18:17, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose: The article on the Black Caribs is about the Black Caribs of Saint Vincent. The article is not about the Garifuna people, who are the descendants of the Black Caribs exiled of Central America. The article on the Black Caribs, although it can be improved upon. Abstrakt (talk) 04:58, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Renewed discussion

• Comment: It seems apparent from some of the cited sources here that the names "Black Caribs" and "Garifuna" both refer to the diaspora group as well as the inhabitants of Saint Vincent, but with a term usage shift over time. Both groups were referred to as "Black Caribs" until relatively recently, and both groups were referred to as "Garifuna" more recently.

  In colonial times and up until the late 1970s in the writings of Douglas Taylor, among others, the Garínagu were known to outsiders as “Caribs”, “Black Caribs” or “Island Caribs”.
  — Haurholm-Larsen, Steffen (September 22, 2016). A Grammar of Garifuna (PDF) (PhD). University of Bern. p. 6.

  The Black Caribs (Garifuna) are descendants of West African and Amerindian groups from St. Vincent Island who were transplanted to the coast of Central America in 1797.
  — Crawford, MH; Gonzalez, NL; Schanfield, MS; Dykes, DD; Skradski, K; Polesky, HF (February 1981). "The Black Caribs (Garifuna) of Livingston, Guatemala: Genetic Markers and Admixture Estimates". Human Biology. 53 (1): 87–103. JSTOR 41464596. PMID 7239494.

  The current naming pattern does not really make sense, since both names referred to both groups (with "Garifuna" being the modern WP:COMMONNAME for both). This can be fixed in several ways, including the proposed merge, renaming the articles to "Garifuna" and "Garifuna diaspora", renaming the articles to "Garifuna (Saint Vincent)" and "Garifuna (Central America)", etc. — MarkH₂₁^talk 15:05, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

  Pinging the participants hopefully for new discussion, since the original proposal discussion was drawn out over several months: Daask, Kaldari, 2hip2carebear, Ogress, Isinbill, Carlstak, Abstrakt. — MarkH₂₁^talk 15:27, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

  • The proposal to reorganize these two articles into Garifuna and History of the Garifuna (a more WP-consistent title for Garifuna history) probably makes the most sense, given that this is really just a common group with different common names at different points in time. — MarkH₂₁^talk 06:21, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

I renamed the article to "Black Caribs (St. Vincent)".--Isinbill (talk) 16:24, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

• Move Black Caribs to Garifuna history, merging History and Genetics and ancestors sections from Garifuna to that page. Thank you MarkH21 for helping to clarify the issues! Splitting instead based on Black Caribs (Saint Vincent) and Garifuna diaspora (which is more or less the status quo ante) doesn't readily make sense to me based on the sources I see, as the culture, music, religion, and food seems similar. Merging as I originally suggested would be fine, but I think it's a long enough article that a split is reasonable, and the pre-existing pages and their incoming links roughly correspond to my proposal.
  I make my recommendation based on the current article contents. If there is an editor with more knowledge, interest, and ability in improving either or both of these articles, I would gladly defer to their preferences. Daask (talk) 16:39, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
• Comment Furthermore, based on MarkH21's comment above, I oppose any article title containing Black Caribs as being confusing for readers. I think it leaves the misleading impression that Black Caribs and Garifuna refer to separate cultural groups. I don't believe the sources support this distinction. Daask (talk) 16:44, 26 February 2021 (UTC) is
• The Garifuna and Black Caribs are the same people. The reason the Black Caribs article focuses on Saint Vincent is purely due to the fact that the term Garifuna wasn't used by writers until after the Garifuna were forcibly displaced from Saint Vincent, as the idea of respecting the self-identities of black and brown people is a relatively new idea among academics. The articles should either be merged or Black Caribs should be moved to Garifuna History. Kaldari (talk) 19:04, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

I agreed, I have renamed the article to "Garifuna (Saint Vincent)".--Isinbill (talk) 16:11, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

• So I strongly oppose the changes proposed here.
  • Haurholm-Larsen, who uses the term "Antillean Garifuna" includes a note The term “Antillean Garifuna” was coined by myself as an alternative to the “Island Carib” or “Black Carib” which give one of two mistaken impressions: a) that Garifuna is a Carib language, or b) that the language spoken in the Lesser Antilles until 100 years ago was unrelated to modern Garifuna. So not only is this a term that was coined in a four-year-old unpublished dissertation, but it's also a neologism, not only for Black Caribs, but for all Island Caribs. It turns out that there already is a term for this group - Kalinago.
  • The Garifuna are only the descendants of the people who were deported, they are one of two people descended from the Black Caribs. The other group are the Caribs of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The British decided to deport the Black Caribs, but leave the "Yellow" Caribs behind. Problem is, the distinction was artificial, and members of the same family could be declared "Black" and deported, while others were declared "Yellow" and left behind. Quite simply, we shouldn't erase their history without a lot more consideration, and without a lot better sources. Guettarda (talk) 00:52, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
    • @Guettarda: Just to clarify, when you say this a term that was coined in a four-year-old unpublished dissertation do you mean that "Garifuna", as a term for the Black Caribs population still in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, has only been used by the dissertation? Or specifically "Antillean Garifuna"? — MarkH₂₁^talk 01:49, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
      • I mean "Antillean Garifuna" - the application of the name Garifuna to Lesser Antillean "Caribs". Guettarda (talk) 02:53, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
        • @Guettarda: There are other sources that use "Garifuna" (just not "Antillean Garifuna") to refer to the population in St. Vincent (i.e. not the population in Central America), e.g.

          The outcome was that by the mid-eighteenth century the Garifuna were the effective owners of substantial lands on St Vincent: a map of 1764 shows substantial territory, particularly in the north-east, occupied by five Garifuna subtribes.
          — Foster, Byron (1987). "Celebrating autonomy: the development of Garifuna ritual on St Vincent". Caribbean Quarterly. 33 (3/4): 75–83. JSTOR 40654135.

          — MarkH₂₁^talk 03:23, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
          • Lesser Antillean Caribs have referred to themselves as Karifuna/Garifuna since at least the 1700s. What I'm not sure about is how often the term "Garifuna" is used for modern Black Caribs in St. Vincent. Kaldari (talk) 04:04, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
            • @Kaldari: In fact, probably even earlier:

              The fact that the Island Carib rather than the Afro-Carib were the victims of the French attack suggests that the Afro-Carib had already formed communities in the island's interior. If this was in fact the case, the Afro-Carib would in all likelihood have, by 1654, begun to refer to themselves as Garifuna - an African modification of Karifuna, the Island Carib term for them
              — Foster, Byron (1987). "Celebrating autonomy: the development of Garifuna ritual on St Vincent". Caribbean Quarterly. 33 (3/4): 75–83. JSTOR 40654135.

              — MarkH₂₁^talk 04:08, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
              • Some other useful sources:

                The Garifuna, initially known well into the 20th century as Black Caribs, are the expression of a process of miscegenation between Africans trafficked as slaves and indigenous Caribs and Arawaks that occurs during the colonial period in the Lesser Antilles, mainly on the Island of Saint Vincent.
                — Agudelo, Carlos (2011). Afrodescendencia: Aproximaciones contemporáneas desde América Latina y el Caribe (PDF). pp. 59–66.

                The Black Caribs (who refer to themselves as Garifuna) form a biological and cultural amalgam of Amerindian and West African components.
                — Gullick, C. J. M. R. (1984). "The changing Vincentian Carib population". In Crawford, Michael H. (ed.). Current Developments in Anthropological Genetics. Black Caribs A Case Study in Biocultural Adaptation. Vol. 3. Springer-Verlag. pp. 37–50. doi:10.1007/978-1-4613-2649-6. ISBN 978-1-4613-2649-6.

                Those Black Caribs who avoided the British deportation of 1797 gave issue to the estimated 1100-2000 Garifuna on St. Vincent Island.
                — Crawford, Michael H. (1984). Current Developments in Anthropological Genetics. Black Caribs A Case Study in Biocultural Adaptation. Vol. 3. Springer-Verlag. p. 3. doi:10.1007/978-1-4613-2649-6. ISBN 978-1-4613-2649-6.

                — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kaldari (talk • contribs)
• It seems that "Black Carib" essentially has three different uses:
  1. As a current(?) label for an ethnic group on St. Vincent (that doesn't speak the Garifuna language, but are also called "Garifuna")
  2. As a historical label for the Garifuna of Central America (which is now rarely applied to that group)
  3. As a label for the people both of the groups above descend from (which called themselves Garifuna)
• Perhaps Black Caribs should be a disambiguation page which links to Garifuna for #2, Black Caribs (Saint Vincent) for #1, and Garifuna history for #3. If anyone has a better idea, please share. Kaldari (talk) 03:47, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
  • After thinking about it some more, I've returned to my original opinion that merging Black Caribs into Garifuna is the best solution. We know that historical "Black Caribs" of Saint Vincent referred to themselves as "Garifuna" (perhaps as far back as the 1600s), and we know that the post-expulsion Garifuna were also called "Black Caribs" until the 20th century. Thus there is far too much overlap between the two labels to cleanly separate their scope into two different articles. The roughly ~2,000 modern Garifuna/Black Caribs on Saint Vincent are a small footnote compared to the ~400,000 Garifuna elsewhere, and they should not be entitled to exclusive claim over the lineage and cultural legacy of the original "Black Caribs", especially since they have less cultural and linguistic connection to the original "Black Caribs" than the Garifuna of Central America do. Given the information presented above, I would like to ask the participants who objected to the original proposal to reconsider: Isinbill, Carlstak, Abstrakt. Kaldari (talk) 17:12, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
    • Thanks for pinging me regarding this, Kaldari. I'm too tired now to give the issue proper attention, and will look at it tomorrow when I have more energy (one hopes). Regards, Carlstak (talk) 03:11, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
    • I think that the original proposed merge would also be a viable solution. I agree that neither article (Black Carib or Garifuna) should only cover one group, based on the overlap, common terminology, common ancestry, etc. The original merge and/or a split/rename to History of the Garifuna are all workable solutions.
      @Kaldari: A minor comment not ultimately consequential about the decision: I agree with your points, up to the wording about they have less cultural and linguistic connection to the original "Black Caribs" than the Garifuna of Central America do. The remaining Garifuna in St. Vincent are much fewer in number and less well-documented than the descendants of those who were deported, but they still share a common heritage and ancestry. They aren't entitled to the a claim of exclusivity over the original St. Vincent "Black Carib" inhabitants, but that should be true for all of their descendants. — MarkH₂₁^talk 03:36, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
      • The modern Garifuna/Black Caribs of Saint Vincent don't speak Garifuna and are more commonly intermarried with other ethnic groups, both of which make sense given their small number. In other words, their cultural and genetic connection to the original "Black Caribs" is more diluted than that of the Central American Garifuna. Yet they are the only modern descendents currently included in the Black Caribs article. It should also be noted that the article's claim that "Black Caribs" are tallied in the Saint Vincent census is incorrect. Their census includes "Indigenous (Amerindian/Carib)", "African/Negro/Black", and "Mixed" (at least since 1991). The numbers we were citing for Black Caribs were actually the numbers for "Indigenous (Amerindian/Carib)". I've since fixed this, but I wonder if it influenced the oppose votes in the discussion. Kaldari (talk) 05:14, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
• Follow-up comment: Roughly two weeks have passed, and it seems that there is a mild consensus for reorganization, based on the five opinions expressed here. — MarkH₂₁^talk 22:50, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
• Comment The Black Carib article reads more like "A history of The History of the Black Caribs". I see a merge as the least painful method of organizing the info. If Black Carib were to be a separate history page, then Garifuna would need to be combed very carefully; otherwise run the risk of conflicting information between the two articles. As a reader, I prefer getting my information from one article that is well-fleshed out, rather than disjoined/disconnected bits and bobs. Cheers, Estheim (talk) 12:55, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

U.S. population

Our article says that there are 159,653 Garifuna residing in the United States and cites this to the "2005 American Community Survey: Race and Hispanic or Latino. U.S. Census Bureau". Unfortunately, the Census Bureau's website has been redone a few times since this citation was created and the original link doesn't work any more, but I found it on archive.org: [1]. The data on that page doesn't mention "Garifuna" anywhere, nor does the number 159,653 appear in it, nor have I been able to find any data related to the Garifuna at data.census.gov. This isn't surprising since every other source I've read says that there are no reliable estimates for how many Garifuna reside in the U.S. The only decent info I've been able to find is:

There are no precise statistics on the figures of the Garifuna population residing in the United States but different sources speak of an amount equal to or greater than that of the Garifuna who inhabit Central America.
— Agudelo, Carlos (2011). Afrodescendencia: Aproximaciones contemporáneas desde América Latina y el Caribe (PDF). pp. 59–66.

Thus I'm inclined to change our "159,653" figure (which as far as I can tell was simply made up) to "c. 200,000" and cite it to the source above. Does anyone have more specific information that could be used? Kaldari (talk) 20:38, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

I have not seen any sources with that figure either, so the proposed change seems appropriate. The edit that added the figure to the article in 2013 (diff) does not give any more indication as to where this figure came from either. — MarkH₂₁^talk 03:51, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

By the way, something similar was also done at Garifuna Americans, where the 2018 American Community Survey figure for all Honduran-Americans was used for the Garifuna American population. — MarkH₂₁^talk 05:39, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Upside-down Flag

The Garifuna Nation's website displays the Garifuna flag with the black on top.

The government of Belize appears to agree.

Should the flag be inverted? 1.126.106.50 (talk) 20:23, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. I’ll try to take a look. Both variations do appear in different places (example with the black on the bottom). Also you linked the National Garifuna Council, not the Belizean government. — MarkH₂₁^talk 23:13, 1 November 2023 (UTC)