CULTURAL

Traditional hair care treatment still available today

By WENDY GRIFFIN

Many of Honduras' Indian groups have horrible traditional names. Paya means "brute" while Jicaque and Sumu mean "uncivilized person." The exception to this rule are the Miskito Indians, who are also known as the Tawira, or "the people of beautiful hair."

The secret to the beautiful hair of the Miskitos is batana, an oil extracted from pine nuts. It is believed to prevent baldness and greying and to encourage the growth of thick, shiny hair. Batana in its traditional form is dark brown. A Guatemalan anthropologist once used for several years on his silver hair and ended up with light brown hair. Batana probably prevents greying by a natural coloring process.

The sun on the North Coast is strong, but unlike other ethnic groups like the Garifunas and Ladinos, the Miskitos usually do not wear a hat. The oils in batana may have helped their hair be less brittle and softer, keeping it from breaking. Most traditional remedies which prevent baldness do so by improving scalp health also so that hair is less like likely to fall out.

Batana is available in two forms. The MOPAWI La Mosquitia development agency sells traditionally processed batana oil in each of its three stores in Puerto Lempira, La Ceiba and Tegucigalpa. And now the oil is also available in shampoo form from the Honduran company Helixe, which also makes other natural health and beauty care products. On the North Coast, this shampoo is sold in the Despensa Familiar Supermarket, located on Central Park in Tela and one block over from San Isidro Church in La Ceiba.

ALOE VERA

In Central Honduras, a number of plants are used to prevent hair loss and dandruff. These include achiote (anetto seed), zapote fruit, cola de raton and aloe vera (more commonly known as zabila). Aloe is the best known and is grown all over Honduras, although the plant is native to Africa.

Ethnobotanist Paul House of the National Autonomous University of Honduras says aloe has been proven to improve the health of the skin. This is why it is also used to heal burns, cuts, insect bites and skin and stomach ulcers. The part of the plant that is used is the gel inside the leaves.

Aloe is used in three form in Honduras. First you can use the leaf itself, which can be grown in your garden or a flower pot. Split open a leaf. Rub it into your hair and scalp, using a little water if your hair is thick. Let it soak in for about 20 minutes, during which your scalp will itch like crazy if you have dandruff problems. Then wash or rinse it out.

Salvadoran pharmaceutical companies also make aloe bar soap that is meant to be used on the skin and scalp. Wash your hair with it, let it sit 20 minutes, then rinse.

Aloe is also available in shampoos and conditioners made in Honduras by Helixe. Vett, another local manufacturers, makes aloe shampoo as well algae and ginseng shampoos and conditioners at under a dollar a bottle. Both this and the batana shampoo leave your hair clean, but not stripped like some harsher shampoos.

CASTOR OIL

Looking at Afro-American hair care products in the Bay Islands, you will notice most are made with castor oil. The castor plant, also known as higuero or higuerilla in Spanish, is native to Africa but grown on the North Coast.

The technique of extracting the oil of the castor plant is known by the Garifunas, who also use it to prepare a laxative, and clean out whatever it wrong in the digestive track. No one has yet commercialized the extraction of castor oil in Honduras, even though the plant grows well on the North Coast. All commercial castor oil hair care products here are made in the United States, even though 20 to 30 percent of Hondurans are at least partially descended from Afro-Americans and could thus benefit from this specialized hair care product.

Hondurans also use herbs to prepare healing baths. Rosemary, ruda, cucumber, aloe and oatmeal are all available in soap form under the brand name Dermacare, produced by the Chemical Manufacturing and Exporting Company of Honduras. For those bothered by insect bites that do not heal, or heat rash, Honduran soaps made with sulphur, such as Jabon Sulfa or Dermacare's Jabon Azufre can be quite effective. Dermacare's products are also available at Despensa Familiar.

Other Honduran plants, like surecy, chilca and madriado (madre cocoa) are used for rashes, itching, and healing, but are not yet available in commercial form. Of these plants, chichipins shows the most potential to be made profitably into a soap, as it has been scientifically been shown to have antibacterial and antifungal properties, as well as helping to heal and promoting the scarring of wounds when used as a soap, according to the book Plantas Medicinales Comunes de Honduras, available at Libreria Guaymuras in Tegucigalpa.

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ANSWER TO LAST WEEK'S TRIVIA QUESTION

A: Founded on May 18, 1525 as Punta de Caxinas by Francisco de las Casas, Trujillo is considered the first capital of Honduras. Comayagua, founded in December 1537 as Santa Maria de Comayagua by Capt. Alonso de Caceres, was the capital of Honduras from 1573 to August 29, 1824, and alternate capital until 1880. Tegucigalpa was made the capital of the Estado de Honduras on June 22, 1849 and became Capital de la Republica on October 30, 1880.

Garifuna bicentennial celebrations fill coast with rhythm and color

By WENDY GRIFFIN

TRUJILLO -- By most accounts, the celebration of 200th anniversary of the arrival of the Garifuna to Honduras was a tremendous success. In La Ceiba, crowds filled Central Park for dance performances; lectures and art exhibits were well attended; handicraft sales were good; and the national media covered the event extensively.

In Trujillo, the celebration of the Garifuna bicentennial was even more special because it was combined with the International Conference of the Afro-American Pastoral Group (EPA), an organization of lay people, nuns and ordained priests who work with Afro-American Catholics. Representatives came from Brazil, Ecuador, Guatemala, St. Vincent, Nicaragua, the United States and Panama.

The EPA chose Trujillo for its 7th annual conference for many reasons. First, it was in Trujillo that the first bishop of Honduras had his seat, before Comayagua became the bishop's seat. Second, it was at Trujillo that the first Garifuna arrived on the Central American mainland. The EPA members wanted to be in Trujillo to help the Garifuna of the communities of Barrio Cristales and Rio Negro celebrate the 200th anniversary of their arrival.

The current head of the Latin American Congress of Bishops (CELAM) is the Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Monsignor Oscar Rodriguez. One of the topics EPA members discussed at this year's conference was the establishment of a permanent Department of Afro-American Affairs within CELAM. This motion has been approved. Monsignor Rodriguez led the event's opening mass in the Garifuna language.

At the conference, representatives from each participating country spoke about the problems facing Afro-Americans in their respective nations. Helen Alvarez, a Garifuna member of the conference's coordinating committee, said she believes the church should be working to combat many of the problems facing Garifunas everywhere. Part of this work is done through the Pastoral Juvenil Garifuna, a youth outreach program directed by lay people.

Almost any major Garifuna celebration begins with a mass. The bicentennial started with two. The first was held in the village of Campamento, known in Garifuna as Gafamelu, the place where the Indians first landed after leaving the Bay Islands in rafts. The mass was given in Garifuna and followed by a mini-chugu, a feast that honors ancestors. Although most of the traditional dishes prepared for the feast -- a yucca drink called hiu and other foods like pumpkin, coconut and cassava bread -- were enjoyed by the participants, a portion was thrown into the sea to give thanks to the ancestors.

On the walk back to town along the beach after the celebration, people commented that it was a sign of the times that most of the houses and land in the areas between Cristales and the Garifuna community of Santa Fe is now in the hands of foreigners and Ladinos.

The following day, the day of the official ceremony, began early with a 3:00 a.m. alborada vigil. It is customary for many different occasions to get up before dawn and sing songs of celebration. The bicentennial vigil included firecrackers and songs like Yarumeui, the Garifuna national anthem, which tells the story of why the Garifuna were forced to leave Santa Lucia and come to Honduras. About a hundred people turned out for the alborada, despite the early hour.

An official flag raising ceremony in Cristales followed. The Garifuna flag is black, white and yellow. Black for Africa, white for desert or beach sand and yellow for the sun. A second flag raising ceremony was held in the Central Plaza where the Garifuna flag was hung together with the flags of the Central American countries attending the EPA conference. School teachers and students sang Yarumei, as well as the Honduran national anthem translated into Garifuna.

The Garifuna's love of dance and song is legendary. Dance movements from songs abeimajani and arumajani are used in the Garifuna mass, particularly to sing the Lord's prayer. Worshippers link little fingers with one another and move their hands joined in a circle. This motion is believed to repel bad influences. At the conference mass, the physical unity of this movement was combined with a show of linguistic equality. The Lord's prayer was said in all of the languages represented at the conference -- Spanish, Portuguese, English, Garifuna and Kiswahili.

The singing of the mass was accompanied by drumming and maracas. Some of the drummers and maraca players were buyeis, or traditional Garifuna shamans. One buyei wore his ceremonial dress and carried a pipe, used in ceremonies that require purification with tobacco.

Considering that in the past, the church and the state had prohibited Garifuna ceremonies like the chugu and the dugu so that they could only be performed in isolated places, many believed that the confidence with which the Garifuna now display their culture is extraordinary.

Garifunas from as far away as Puerto Cortes and Tegucigalpa came to the event, making it a huge success with the attendance of several thousand at the opening and closing ceremonies.

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ANSWER TO LAST WEEK'S TRIVIA QUESTION

A: Ana Joselina Fortín won five gold medals in swimming.

'Chona' unearths forgotten massacre, pays tribute to Garífuna

By ERLING DUUS
Special to Honduras This Week

It has seemed to me for some time that as good a writer as Guillermo Yuscarán is, he is a better painter. His art has a timeless transcendent dimension that his fiction only suggests. But the illustrious career of this American-Honduran writer-painter has reached a new level with the publication of his latest book: When Chona Sang.

With both Spanish- and English-language versions included in the same book, Chona involves a largely unknown but infamous event in Honduran history. It is a tribute to a Honduran people who are too little known and appreciated. In l954, Honduran soldiers massacred a group of Garífuna men in a small North Coast village. This was apparently because a young Garífuna had been overheard complaining about the government's policies one night in a Tela bar.

But while Yuscarán clearly wants to make this event known, the purpose of the story is not to expose a crime; it is to tell a story and reflect on the enduring spirit of a people. The author recreates the massacre through the eyes of a young girl named Chona. After being raped by one of the soldiers on the day of the massacre, she began to keep a journal to assist her in spiritually recovering from the trauma.

Chona grows up and is educated in an Episcopal school in Tela. Later she takes over as the director of a school. But she has a wonderful singing talent, which eventually takes her to the United States and a singing career. She becomes involved in the Civil Rights movement, sings at rallies, and becomes a friend of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. During these years she lives in New Orleans, raises a family and continues to write in her journal. But eventually, she returns to Honduras to live her last years in the place where she began her life. Only once, however, does she return to the village of the massacre, to visit the mass grave of the bodies of the Garífuna men. After many years, the memory is still too searing.

Chona's story doesn't come to light until years later when there is a fire in her daughter's house in New Orleans. Chona's journal is discovered in the attic during the subsequent clean-up. It is her granddaughter who becomes particularly interested and who introduces the reader to Chona. It is also the granddaughter who discovers the Garífuna people and the heritage that is hers.

Chona takes on a mythological and symbolic stature in the story. In addition to the narrative voice of her granddaughter, we hear Chona's own voice through her journal. This testimony of two Garífuna women of different generations achieves an inter-generational connection that is fundamental to the book's structure and meaning.

What is so striking about Chona is its authenticity. While the massacre actually took place, Chona and her family are entirely products of the imagination of the author. But they are wrought with such subtlety and conviction that the reader quickly accepts their realness and believes in them. That Yuscarán is able to achieve this is a tribute not only to his skill as a writer, but also to his profound knowledge of the Garífuna people.

Chona's character becomes transparent and opens up to the transcendent reality of the people. The individual in her personal triumph of courage and love makes vivid the endurance of the Garífuna people through the suffering years. Amid the crucifixions of time, there exists the timeless village and the undying people beside the eternal sea.

This is really the subject of most of Guillermo Yuscarán's writing and paintings, but he has realized it in Chona with a new power and clarity. Hondurans and others often say there is no Honduran culture, only cultures. Yuscarán contradicts that. His Chona point the way forward and back, the timeless enduring village which broods behind all true Honduran consciousness.

When Chona Sang deserves to be greeted as an important Honduran literary event.

Erling Duus is a U.S. teacher and writer living and working in Honduras.

Did you know?

Honduran Curiosities

The fear of snakes is one of the most common human fears. Even though most of the world's snake species are completely harmless to people, these slithery reptiles have earned themselves a place of honor when it comes to phobias. And if you're among those who can think of nothing worse than encountering even a simple harmless garden snake, don't expect to get much relief from your anxiety in Honduras.

There's a snake species that has adapted itself to every one of the many different climates in Honduras. Some like the dry, dusty South Coast. Others prefer the cooler mountains of central Honduras. And many have found the verdant Caribbean coast to be the perfect habitat.

The barba amarilla or fer-de-lance is one of the best known snakes in Honduras. It's also one of the most poisonous. And it loves the climate of the North Coast. Farmers often tell stories of cutting away old corn fields, a favorite hideout of the barba amarilla. As they cut away the old stocks, they circle their way around a central uncut core. The snakes, frightened by the chopping, try to get as far away from the farmers as they can, eventually congregating in the last remaining uncut section of the field, just a few meters in diameter. Some farmers say they have corralled as many as 50 snakes in this way. Once the snakes are trapped, the farmers either kill them one by one or set the uncut circle on fire.

In the 1920s, the Tela Railroad Company's Department of Medicine set out to take a census of the snake species inhabiting the Honduran North Coast. They paid workers money for bringing them the heads of snakes, no matter what species, how large or how small. In all, 3,109 snake heads were collected between July 1924 and October 1925. The specimens were then sent to Harvard University to be classified. According to historical records,

only about one of every six snakes was poisonous. Of the 3,109 collected, 312 were barba amarillas, 207 were coral snakes, 12 were chatas and 10 were cornudas.

The barba amarilla is the largest and perhaps the most common snake in Honduras. It is usually the culprit when humans are bitten by poisonous snakes. It is nocturnal and tends to be terrestrial, although specimens have been found in trees as high as three meters above the ground.

The snake gets its name from the yellow-ochre coloring it sports on its lower jaw. Females can have as many as 60 young at once, all completely independent and already poisonous, though to a lesser degree.

If you're afraid of snakes and would like to avoid meeting up with a barba amarilla, keep in mind that their habitat, though large, is limited to the North Coast, from sea level to an altitude of 1,000 feet.

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ANSWER TO LAST WEEK'S TRIVIA QUESTION

A: 316 is the sum of the 101st, 105th and 110th Brigades. The first commander of the 316 was Col. Luis Alonso Discua Elvir, who would later become general and chief of the Honduran Armed Forces. Discua currently forms part of Honduras' delegation to the United Nations in New York.

Carnival in La Ceiba!

* Masses at the San Isidro Church every day at 6 a.m.
* Masses at the San Isidro Church every day at 6 p.m. except May 10, May 14-17, May 19, May 25.

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ANSWER TO LAST WEEK'S TRIVIA QUESTION

A: Dionisio de Herrera, born in Choluteca on October 7, 1781, was elected the first Honduran chief of state by the Constituent Assembly on September 16, 1824. He held that post until May 1827, when he was deposed. Herrera died June 13, 1850 in San Salvador.