Chapter V

Raymond T. Smith

CHAPTER V

SOCIAL STRUCTURE

THE contemporary social structure can be seen as the end-product of British Guiana’s historical development, as an operating system, and as the basis on which future growth and development will take place. The historical background to present-day social life has already been considered in Chapters II and III and here the aim is to examine the way in which the historically derived diversity in race, culture, religion, and style of life is contained within a framework of common values and national aspiration. This anticipates some of the questions to be discussed in Chapter VII and provides a necessary background for their consideration.

ETHNIC DISTINCTIONS AND SOCIAL CLASS

It is possible to conceive of a society in which the difference in physical appearance between a person with a black skin, broad nose, and thick lips, a person with a pink skin, thin pointed nose, red hair, and blue eyes, and a person with a yellow skin, high cheekbones, and eyes with epicanthic folds would be of no more significance than the difference, in shape, size, and colouring of the population of Britain today. It may be improbable in practice, but there is nothing about the differing physical characteristics of human beings which makes it necessary and inevitable to distinguish between them on this account for social purposes. In so far as we find distinctions are made between persons on the basis of their physical appearance, the reasons for using this as a distinguishing factor rather than some other must be sought in the structure of the society itself, and not merely in the fact of multi-racialism .

Anyone who is familiar with both the United States of America and the West Indies will know that the way in which a person’s physical characteristics are perceived is mainly determined by the categories of thought which are current in a particular society. In the United States the category ‘Negro’ includes any individual who is known to have any ancestor, no matter how remote, who was descended from a black African. There the categories Negro and White are obviously mutually exclusive categories having less to do with precise physical characteristics than with presumed family connexions or birth status. In the West Indies on the other hand there is a more analytical approach to physical appearance with a whole range of categories such as ‘fair’, ‘dark’, ‘red-skin’, ‘good hair’ (i.e. straight), ‘bad hair’ (i.e. kinky), and many more which serve as criteria for placing individuals on a long scale from black to white. West Indians in Britain often perceive signs of what they believe to be Negro ancestry in the appearance of some English people. They may be right but no English person would see such signs because they would be meaningless in the English context, or would have been until recently.

Bearing in mind these facts about the perception of race differences, the simple classifications presented in Chapter I take on greater complexity. There it was noted that the Censuses and the Registrar General’s Reports adopt a seven fold classification of the population according to racial origin, which is very roughly based upon ‘national origin’. The categories used are East Indian, African, Chinese, Amerindian, Portuguese, Other European, and a residual category of Mixed. The use of these categories originated in the nineteenth century when groups of new immigrants were flowing in to work on the plantations. Before 1838 other social categories such as ‘slave’, ‘free-coloured’, and ‘white’ were in use--terms which reflected real differences of legal status. At the present time there is a conscious move being made to abolish racial classifications in official returns, and it seems unlikely that future census reports will carry racial classifications. This reflects a strong public moral sentiment that racial origin should be unimportant in public life; that ‘a man is a man’ and should be judged ‘irrespective of colour, class or creed’. The growth of this sentiment is one of the key factors in the development of Guianese society and is often seriously neglected by those who visit the country for a few days or weeks and then write knowingly about racial difficulties. Whatever official line is taken on this matter-and few will disagree that racial classifications should be dropped from official documents- the fact remains that a very elaborate system of perception of ethnic differences does exist in Guianese society, and what makes it particularly complex is the way in which criteria other than physical appearance enter into the process of social identification.

Distinctions based on race are distinctions based on birth in that physical features are incapable of more than minor modification. In every society an individual’s family and place of birth serve to identify him socially until he grows up. These two factors may remain the crucial social attributes throughout life so that every position an individual fills and every relationship he develops will be based on these unalterable facts of birth status. In other societies these ‘given’ qualities of birth may be sharply devalued and individuals encouraged to achieve new positions in society on the basis of what they can do rather than what they are. Any society which lays emphasis upon racial differences is, to a greater or lesser extent, limiting the field of individual achievement and emphasizing birth status. The degree of emphasis may vary widely, of course, and in British Guiana there is certainly scope for individual achievement despite the status implications of birth.

The extent of the scope for individual achievement as opposed to hereditary limitation depends upon the structure of the society and particularly upon the nature of the political and economic systems. In British Guiana the different racial groups were introduced as specific occupational groups or they developed occupational specialities soon after they arrived. Today one can detect only an approximate correlation between occupation and ethnic origin, and yet Guianese carry a mental image of their society which assumes that certain occupations are dominated by certain groups. The very existence of such an image is of course important and will influence behaviour, but how accurate is it?

The Europeans (other than Portuguese) are overwhelmingly British. As a group they have always been an important, in fact a dominating, part of the population but they are mainly recruited from outside the society to fill the controlling positions in the governmental bureaucracy, business, the plantations, and mines. A certain number of Canadians and North Americans are employed at the mining centres. In the accepted mythology of race, ‘white’ means of European (other than Portuguese) origin, and is synonymous with authority. In 1959 there were estimated to be 5,000 Europeans (other than Portuguese) and it is safe to assume that more than half of them were born outside the country. Of the rest many will be children of expatriates who have been born in the country and who will probably leave before they reach maturity. Locally-born Europeans are not distinguished from foreign-born and like them are to be found in the upper levels of the occupational status hierarchy.

The social image of this ‘white’ group is a complex one which includes a wide range of characteristics other than skin colour, as the exclusion of the Portuguese indicates. In the first place it is inextricably linked with the idea of ‘English culture’; speech patterns, certain kinds of dress, food preferences, or what might be referred to as an English ‘style of life’.[1] Another component of the image of the ‘white’ group that has become increasingly important in recent years is the picture of the whites as a privileged group occupying all the most favoured positions and exploiting the resources and labour of the country without putting anything back. This is a picture which will probably grow with the transition to political independence and will counterbalance the widespread attitude of dependence expressed in the conviction that Englishmen represent justice and impartiality and protect the less fortunate from the consequences of their own shortcomings. This conception of English ‘justice’ is still widespread and one can still hear people argue that Englishmen should continue to rule British Guiana.

These conceptions, and misconceptions, of the innate qualities of ‘white people’ are very clearly derived from the traditional position of the British in the power hierarchy and they are not applied to special categories of whites such as the seamen who come into Georgetown off British ships. ‘Sailors’, as they are generally referred to, are expected to speak, dress, and behave quite differently from ‘white people’. At the other extreme it is possible for a few coloured individuals to become so culturally and occupationally identified with the ruling group that they are referred to as ‘white people’. The degree to which this old system of colour-based statuses is breaking down can be measured by the extent to which non-whites occupy top positions without being identified with Europeans.

Looked at from the inside the European group is not in any sense homogeneous. Quite apart from the occupational status differences between say a plantation overseer and the Attorney-General, there are differences in education, taste, and culture which can be referred back to the British social system. Middle-class Guianese, who are very much alive to the nuances of British snobbery, tend to regard the resident Europeans as not-quite-out-of-the-top-drawer of English society and they easily detect signs of pretentiousness. The number of Europeans is so small that they do tend to feel a certain unity which finds some expression in reciprocal entertaining, dances, parties, and club life. The increase in the number of public restaurants, bars, and night clubs in the past five years has done something to break down the isolated life which many of the Europeans previously lived in their boarding houses, clubs, and balcony seats in the cinemas.

Of all the various ethnic groups in the country the Europeans conform most closely to their stereotyped image. Generally speaking they see themselves as a ruling group with their main ties in Britain; they feel that their task is to preserve the structure of the colonial government or of the companies for which they work, introducing changes in as orderly a fashion as possible. The vast majority accept the idea that their task is one of tutelage, or bringing a backward, politically ‘adolescent’ people to maturity, and they completely fail to see how vicious and hypocritical such an attitude seems to Guianese. Many Europeans are dedicated individuals, sincerely trying to find means of bringing about economic and social change, and contributing their technical and other skills without which progress would be much more difficult. But by virtue of their very existence as a dominant and differentiated group they are incapable of liberating those energies in the Guianese people which radical change must utilize. The attitude towards the Europeans on the part of the rest of the population is ambivalent and the whites in their turn waver between dissociating themselves from Guiana and the Guianese on the one hand, and committing themselves to a whole-hearted effort in building a better country. This applies as much to the locally-born whites as to the foreign born.

The Portuguese are an extremely interesting group because there is no reason to distinguish them from other whites if physical characteristics were the only criterion. The circumstances of their arrival in the country and the roles they came to play resulted in their acquiring a special identity. Today they remain a special group in these terms but increased intermarriage with the coloured population and the increasing importance of class as opposed to ethnic status is modifying their position. From being a shop-keeping group in the middle of the nineteenth century they have spread upwards into many other occupations and professions. A number of the biggest business houses are still Portuguese, as are the ‘pawnbrokeries’, and this tends to reinforce the idea that the whole group are traders. Roman Catholicism too is a factor in preserving a sense of group identity (although there are many Roman Catholics apart from people of Portuguese descent), and this, allied with their generally middle- to upper-class standing, ensures that they align themselves against any left-wing radical movement. Some Guianese of Portuguese origin have played a prominent part in politics. From about 1880 until fairly recently they could be counted among the ‘radical’ elements struggling for more local autonomy against Colonial Office control and against the planter interest. This was because they had become part of a local élite group which argued that its command of ‘English’ culture fitted it for local leadership and also because the interests of the local business group were always of secondary concern when it came to raising revenue. During the nineteenth century there were daily newspapers printed in Portuguese and later in Portuguese and English. This interest in newspapers is still extant through family interests in two of the three dailies. Portuguese is no longer spoken in British Guiana, and there has been no strong move for unity with Brazil among Guianese of Portuguese descent.

Today the leading politicians of Portuguese origin generally profess a policy of enlightened capitalism as against the socialist policies of most of the other political parties, and some of them have been among the bitterest opponents of the left-wing People’s Progressive Party. One of the best-known Portuguese politicians is Mr John Fernandes (popularly known as ‘Honest John’ in the pre-1953 days). A leading Georgetown business man, he was an elected member of the Legislative Assembly in the days of a limited franchise and fought the 1953 elections as the Chairman of the United Democratic Party. Since then he has transferred his allegiance to Mr Lionel Luckhoo’s more specifically anti-communist National Labour Front. In the 1957 election he got a vote of 2,932 as against Mr Burnham’s 3,570 in Central Georgetown, which is yet another indication of the fact that race is not the only consideration in Guianese politics. Another Portuguese who has been attaining greater prominence in recent years is Mr Peter D’Aguiar, the founder of the very successful Bank Breweries Ltd. This brewery was launched as a specifically local enterprise and shares in it were sold as widely as possible in British Guiana. In view of the fact that British Guiana’s small population was already wedded to rum as the national drink, and that a new brewery was already operating successfully in Trinidad, there did not appear to be a very bright future for Bank Breweries. However Mr D’Aguiar successfully promoted the idea of this as a national industry created by local capital drawn from a very large number of Guianese including very small investors, and the enterprise has flourished. It is said that he intends to apply his entrepreneurial skill to other similar projects and there can be no doubt that this is a very useful way of mobilizing local savings for productive purposes providing that the projects fit into the more general plans for economic development.

The Chinese are less easy to identify as a separate racial group and it is an indication of their popularity and assimilation that there is no real stereotyped image of them. A Guianese typist struggling with a list of East Indian names was heard to say in exasperation ‘Why don’t they have simple English names like Wong?’ The Chinese have intermarried with members of all other ethnic groups and have been absorbed into many different occupations, though practically none remain at the lowest labouring and farming jobs. Having become almost wholly Guianese in outlook and retaining few contacts with China, they have never been regarded as a ‘problem’ group and they enjoy excellent relations with whatever section of the population they happen to belong to. The more ethnically pure Chinese, once they had become Christians and dropped such Chinese customs as opium smoking and wearing Chinese clothes, tended to move quickly to near the top of the colour hierarchy on account of their fair skins and straight hair. Chinese girls always come near the top of the list in beauty competitions, for example. The lack of hostility against the Chinese in British Guiana contrasts sharply with the position of the Chinese in Jamaica. There the Chinese community is mainly engaged in retail shop-keeping and in the past has formed a quite separatist group sending its children back to China for education and retaining the use of Chinese languages. The Chinese in British Guiana run a Chinese Association in Georgetown and periodic parties and festivals are held but they are only pale reflections of a lost Chinese heritage, and do not signify any sentiments of exclusiveness.

The two largest groups are the East Indians and the Negroes, or Africans as they are sometimes called. The Indians are more easily distinguishable as an ethnic group than the Negroes because of their relatively recent absorption into the society. There has been so much intermixture of Negroes with other races that the ethnic boundaries are often difficult to define and such African culture as survives is very marginal to the every-day life of Guianese Negroes. This is less true of the Indians though the degree of assimilation and attenuation of an Indian way of life is remarkable and much more pronounced than in any other overseas community of Indians with numbers comparable to those in British Guiana.

In Chapter III an attempt was made to show that after 1838 (and even before then though the picture is rather complicated by the existence of slavery), a social system emerged in which the Negro, White, and Coloured groups were bound together through their common participation in the social, economic, and political life of the country and through a sharing of certain values and cultural forms, notably the valuation of ‘English’ culture as superior to ‘African’ superstition and the common belief in Christianity. There were few legal disabilities imposed on any person solely because of race; many persons of colour who had been freed or born free, usually because of the interest of the white father, were to be found in the professions or even as plantation owners; they participated in politics and even held commissions in the militia. Prejudice against blackness or even such features as ‘hard’ hair could be counterbalanced by wealth or professional prestige, and mobility for the children of a dark-skinned but successful man could be achieved by marrying a fair-skinned woman. That such factors should have counted in the choice of a spouse bears witness to the strength and degrading effect of racial snobbery, but it also shows that the system was not a closed one and prestige was not based solely upon race. Much miscegenation between whites and blacks and Coloured did take place and the further intermarriage or cohabitation of Negroes with Portuguese, Chinese, and to a small extent with East Indians, has further swollen the number of people who are simply classed as Mixed. The 1946 Census indicated that 10 per cent. of the population should be so classed, but it is quite certain that a large number of persons who are in fact physically of mixed origin simply identify themselves with one or the other of the various ethnic groups.

The purest Negro groups are to be found in the old villages that were founded soon after emancipation. The present-day condition of these villages is highly variable; some, like Buxton on the East Coast Demerara, are large and flourishing, others, like Den Amstel on the West Coast Demerara, have lost a lot of population to the city or have been neglected because of the greater attraction of non-agricultural occupations. It is often said that the Negroes in British Guiana are mainly engaged in occupations other than farming and are now an urban group. This is not strictly true but represents a statement of a trend. The path of development was first off the plantations into villages where wage labour on the estates was supplemented by subsistence farming with surpluses being sold in town or to resident plantation workers. With the gradual withdrawal of Englishmen from the colony as the sugar industry declined and more opportunities opened up in Britain, the Coloured and then the Negroes began to move into white-collar jobs and skilled trades. All through the nineteenth century the civil service was slowly expanding and suitable recruits were provided by the widespread schooling organized through the Churches. Teaching was another means of upward mobility and escape from plantation labour. So that while the values attaching to race and colour continued to be important, class differences no longer coincided with colour differences. The criterion of ability, and particularly of ability to pass examinations to qualify for a position in a rationally organized bureaucracy, modified the social advantages attaching to birth. The Negroes were the first to become assimilated to the common English-based culture (which it is convenient to refer to as ‘creole’), and to pass through the school system giving entry to the middle-class. But still by any standards the majority remained lower class; either lower-class artisans working in sugar plantation factories, in the towns, or in the government service, or lower-class seasonal labourers and small-scale farmers.

In the Negro villages today quite particular customs, beliefs, and elements of folk-lore exist in a semi-submerged form borne under by the weight of Christian scorn and the Negro’s sense of inferiority. They are beginning to emerge as Guianese find a new sense of their own worth. The League of Coloured Peoples has done something to help in this and the work of the government Information Services in making recorded programmes of life in the country has begun to make people aware of the richness of their traditions. Of course no one is going to discover a great ‘African’ culture lying dormant in British Guiana. What exists is a body of living folk-culture which has drawn into itself elements from many different sources and, as with English folk-song for example, it is unlikely that it can be lifted out of its rural context without sharp modification. The words of many folk-songs that one hears sung at village weddings will not suit the ears of urban school-children. But the music, the drumming and the dancing, the folk-tales and the children’s games are all ripe for rediscovery and translation to new contexts.

If the Negroes strove towards ‘whiteness’ in word and deed and devalued whatever they felt to be peculiarly their own, they looked down even more upon the Indian immigrants who were brought in to replace them as cheap labour on the plantations. For a brief period just after emancipation the Negro labourers could demand higher wages and were able to strike in order to get them, but the massive importation of indentured labour soon undermined their bargaining position. Most of the Indians were effectively segregated on the plantations and as soon as the numbers increased they showed little disposition to become Christianized. However, the resurgence of Hinduism and Islam on a fairly well organized basis is a relatively recent phenomenon. There was a long period during which the Indians lived a miserable life in overcrowded barracks where the maintenance of any kind of caste restrictions was practically impossible and the proper performance of religious observances extremely difficult. The shortage of women was a serious handicap to the maintenance of traditional family life, not least because of the frequency with which married women were ‘enticed’ away from their husbands. This was an offence under the Immigration Ordinance and a frequent cause of multiple murders. Caste observances perished completely under these conditions and have never been revived.

Those Indians who were most successful economically either returned to India with their savings or moved off the plantations to become business men or farmers. Towards the end of the nineteenth century a few Indians began to move into the professional classes. Mostly sons of men who were in minor supervisory positions on the estates, they became Christians and went through the long process of education for medicine or the law. They adopted the prevailing middle-class creole culture but no doubt found a certain amount of social discrimination particularly in the matter of admission to clubs and social cliques. The growth in the number of Indian professional men was very slow. In 1914 there were only five Indians in the legal profession and three in medical practice. It appears that by the 1890’s the Indians had begun to consolidate some sort of community life within which they were able to lead a reasonably satisfying existence. Around this time numbers of Hindu temples and Muslim mosques started to appear and by 1917 there were 46 mosques and 43 Hindu temples whereas in 1870 only two temples had been seen by a visiting Royal Commission. If by this time Indians were beginning to find that some of their prestige aspirations could be fulfilled within their own communities, it helps to explain why they were relatively uninterested in colony politics and rarely bothered to register as voters. The main avenue of achievement for those who moved off the estates was through farming or trading. Like the Portuguese and the Chinese, the Indians took to trading and shop-keeping whenever they could, and by 1917 Indians held licences for 10 spirit shops, 363 provision shops, 49 stores, and 41 butchers’ shops. They still lagged behind the Chinese in the number of these trading licences, but by this time the Chinese had practically given up the huckster trade and were soon to dwindle from the ranks of the shop-keepers as their children began to get higher education and enter the civil service and the professions. As they and the Portuguese moved onward and upward from the ranks of the small shop-keepers the Indians moved in, and a new class of Indians began to develop. This was composed of men with money. Perhaps they were not very rich but they were rich enough to command respect within the local communities and there is a good deal of evidence to show that they have been the prime movers in the process of resurgence of ‘Indian culture’. Whereas the educated Indians who went into the middle-class tended to shed all trace of that ‘coolie’ behaviour that was so looked down upon by the other ethnic groups, this other Indian élite sought prestige within the Indian group itself, particularly through observance of Indian religions and performance of proper rituals, and later on they tried to claim recognition for the value of ‘Indian culture’ within a wider social context. It would be wrong to suggest that the first Indian doctors and lawyers cut themselves off from the rest of the Indian community; on the contrary, they enjoyed great prestige within it and could obviously wield great influence. They were instrumental in forming some of the earliest Indian organizations such as the British Guiana East Indian Association, which was formed in 1916 in Berbice and later extended to become a colony-wide organization centred on Georgetown. The objects of the Association were ‘upliftment’ of the Indian race and the securing of political representation in order to redress some of the grievances felt by Indian workers. By the 1930’s the control of this Association had passed into the hands of the Indian merchant and shop-keeper group who were much more interested in ‘Indian culture’ and tended to play an active part in the religious organizations as well. But the increasing numbers of Indians who, on account of education or wealth, could feel themselves entitled to respect from the general community had other results. Dramatic societies, literary and debating societies, and an East Indian cricket club were formed, organizations which paralleled those in existence among other ethnic groups. Indians were beginning to take their place as another segment of the middle-class, differentiated in minor ways but sharing the main value orientation of the middle-class.

While these developments were taking place there was a general and universal process of adaptation affecting all Indians regardless of their occupation or social position. In 1917 the system of organized immigration ceased and after that time very few people entered the country from India. Even during the nineteenth century there had been a marked tendency for Indian languages to be replaced by the Guianese lower-class dialect of English, and now this process was accelerated until today Indian languages are practically never used except on ritual occasions when they are about as widely understood as Latin is among Roman Catholics in England. The same thing happened in other fields of culture, such as dress, home furnishing, and recreational activities. This process of ‘creolization’ affected nearly all aspects of life so that customs and forms of social structure which superficially appear to be entirely ‘Indian’ are in fact sharply modified by the local environment.

In order to appreciate the present position of the Indians and their relations with members of other ethnic groups, it is necessary to understand these various processes and trends in their recent history. At the most general level the whole Indian population has been gradually becoming more and more involved in the social life of the whole country and adopting a Guianese rather than a specifically Indian way of life. This is most clearly seen among young people on the sugar plantations who are increasingly intolerant of ‘coolie’ customs. In certain respects the decay of Indian culture was arrested because adherence to certain aspects of it became symbolic of the prestige of the more successful Indians who were not sufficiently educated or acculturated to be assimilated to the creole middle-class. (The prejudice against Indians who were sufficiently educated also tended to reinforce their self-identification as Indians but this usually resulted in their becoming merely another clique within the middle-class and only slightly differentiated from the rest of it.) These men could not find any satisfactory outlet for their ambitions in a wider Guianese social context because of the frequent rebuffs they experienced, on account of their inability to speak good English, to wear ties and jackets and waistcoats without feeling uncomfortable, to follow proper ‘parliamentary procedure’ in meetings, to eat with a knife and fork. Their reaction was to form self-assertive ‘Indian’ organizations like the Arya Samaj in which they defensively insisted upon the glories of Indian culture, but at the same time condemned the ‘barbarism’ and ‘superstition’ of traditional Brahmanical Hinduism. Furthermore these religious organizations (including the so-called ‘traditional’ Sanatan Dharma and the Muslim organizations), became the focus of the practice of all those patterns of behaviour in which the Indian felt himself to be at a disadvantage vis-à-vis the Negro and Coloured groups. Apart from the performance of traditional Indian rituals which have tended to lose most of their original significance, the major emphasis is upon the making of elaborate speeches in which social short-comings are condemned and the moral ‘upliftment’ of all Indians is urged. In the management of the religious societies great emphasis is placed upon the conduct of meetings, the election of officers, the keeping of minutes and the making of speeches in which a proper command of English is demonstrated. Of course the traditional practice of Hindu rituals and Muslim observances continues, but with gradually decreasing emphasis in the case of traditional Hinduism. The Muslims are different in that they stand between being specifically Indian and the dominant Christian tradition of the total society. They can stress their affinities with the Christian tradition while insisting upon the value of Islam.

The position is, then, that the Indian’s emphasis upon the value and worth-whileness of ‘our Indian culture’ is really a mode of expression of his desire to be treated on terms of equality within a Guianese universe. It is most emphatically not an expression of separatist tendencies. Much of the enthusiasm and energy that went into the conduct of the affairs of religious groups has, in recent years, been diverted into political party activities. The widespread support given to the People’s Progressive Party by Indians of every religious persuasion is evidence of the fact that Indians do not think in politically separatist terms. There have been several attempts to produce political parties based upon a racial platform but they have never made much headway. Even parties like the National Labour Front, which made a big play on the fact that it was opposed to federation in an attempt to appeal to separatist sentiments, was decisively rejected by the Indian electorate in 1957. This is not to say that race is not a factor in politics; Dr Jagan is an Indian but the important fact is that he can depend upon widespread Indian support without pursuing racialist policies.

It is a part of the stereotype to think of Indians as resident sugar estate workers and rice farmers. The majority of resident estate workers are Indians and Indian farmers produce the bulk of the rice crop on small-holdings, but in the past ten to twenty years the mobility of Indians into other occupations has been increasing rapidly. The very rapidity with which Indians are coming to take their place as full members of the community instead of as a special group creates a phantasy reaction among the other members of the society. It is widely believed that Indians are extremely thrifty, that they are gradually coming to dominate the society through control of the higher status occupations as well as through their greater numbers and supposed wealth. In fact Indians are still seriously under-represented in most of the professions, the civil service, and such fields as teaching, nursing, and the police. According to the 1931 Census there were 130,540 Indians out of a total population of 310,933, so that they constituted about 42 per cent. of the total population. The occupational tables show that Indians only constituted 8.08 per cent. of all persons in the public service and nearly half of them were in the lower grades such as messengers. Out of 1,397 teachers only 100 were Indians, and the same proportions applied to the professions such as law and medicine. Only in agriculture and fishing were Indians a predominating element constituting 70.44 per cent. of persons in agricultural occupations and a little under 50 per cent. of fishermen. The census of 1946 did not classify the occupations of the different racial groups but some idea of the continuing under-representation of Indians in the public service and such occupations as school-teaching can be obtained from Mr Dwarka Nath’s estimate of the number of Indians holding appointments on the fixed establishment of the civil service in 1943 which he placed at 74 or 10.1 per cent.[2] The proportion of Indian school-teachers to teachers of all races was 20.6 per cent. in 1956 when Indians constituted over half of the total population of the country.[3]

Although no figures are available it is certain that today the proportion of Indians in the professions is approaching their proportion in the total population and in some it has probably exceeded it. More Indians have become doctors and lawyers than might otherwise have been the case because entry to these professions did not involve breaking into an established hierarchy. With an increasing proportion of Indians going to secondary schools there will quite naturally be an increase in the number presenting themselves for entry to the civil service. The implications of this breakdown of the coincidence of low class and ethnic identity will be discussed more fully below.

The Amerindians do not constitute anything more than a minor ‘problem’ in British Guiana today, and since they are mainly resident in the interior lands they scarcely impinge upon the life of the coastal population or enter into the discussion of social and economic policy. This is not to say that the government is unaware of their existence or their peculiar problems; there is in fact a fairly extensive network of administrative posts and welfare services covering the interior. The number of Amerindians is estimated at about 20,000, and although tribal designations still have meaning and various indigenous languages are still used, the Amerindians have been greatly influenced by over 200 years of contact with Europeans. Missionaries have been, and are increasingly, active and at least half the Amerindian population is now literate in English. Government administration and law reaches even the most remote areas though justice has to be tempered with understanding sometimes. Even the famous Wai-wai Indians, of which tribe only about 100 members survive in British Guiana, are having their traditional remoteness destroyed by the activities of missionaries. Nearer the coast the Amerindians are much more integrated into the normal life of the colony. At Charity on the Pomeroon river the weekly market is crowded with Amerindians who come down in canoes from settlements up the river. This river forms a highway along which people of all racial stocks have settled and there has been a great deal of inter-mixture as well as the development of a sort of special river culture in which all participate.

There has been some tendency to feel that the Amerindians need to be protected from the effects of civilization, and it is no doubt a distressing sight to see a traditional way of life being destroyed and to see the demoralization which frequently accompanies it. But it is now generally agreed that there is no alternative for the Amerindians except to become an integral part of the Guianese population as communications are developed and more extensive schooling becomes available. In the North-West District the Amerindians are already well integrated into the national life and they run one of the most successful co-operatives in the country through which they buy and operate machinery for timber extraction.

No quantitative study of class structure has ever been made in British Guiana although social stratification is an essential framework for the understanding of almost any aspect of Guianese life. The exact degree of interplay between birth status and occupation or wealth in determining social position is difficult to assess without a careful and objective study, but it appears that there has been a definite trend over the last twenty years at least for occupational and income factors to become more important. If one ignores the Europeans (other than Portuguese), who constitute something of a special category, one can see that there appears to have been a consolidation of ‘culture’ and expenditure. Education is important of course but it too is something of a consumer ‘good’, and the highly educated engage in the same patterns of conspicuous expenditure as those less highly educated. Houses, furnishings, cars (the bigger the better), radiograms, and clothes are considered essential to the establishment of high status, and yet the number of persons with high incomes is not very large. Only 8,137 individuals were assessed for income-tax in 1957 and of these over half had chargeable incomes of less than $1,200 (£250). The penetration of North American living standards into the poor countries of the hemisphere is a very general phenomenon and is one of the factors generating the desire for economic growth. It also provides new standards for the middle-classes to set against the traditional pattern of the British élite. Few Guianese today would aspire to live in one of the huge houses inhabited by plantation managers which require a large staff of servants and were designed for an outmoded style of life. The ideal of today derives from the United States, is small and stuffed with labour-saving devices.

The disparity between the standard of living enjoyed by the new élite groups that are emerging on the crest of the wave of economic development and ‘Guianization’ of public and commercial life, and that of the lower classes is likely to be just as great as that between the European élite and the local population has been. It will certainly produce more dissatisfaction because the differences in style of life will no longer exist within the framework of a situation in which the various groups feel their positions to be unalterable.

Despite the somewhat greater fluidity of the class system today the indices of social status are still fairly clear. Apart from birth and colour, which are particularly important in a small community where one cannot escape kinship identity, type of occupation, dress, and speech pattern are all crucial factors still. White-collar occupations which demand the wearing of a tie and jacket still rank highest. This matter of working dress is still carried to ludicrous lengths in nearly all the British Caribbean territories; despite the discomfort and lack of hygiene involved in wearing excessive clothing it is more common to install air-conditioning than to abandon the tie. Rural school-teachers still cling to the jacket and tie as the badge of their calling and even the University College in Jamaica has fallen into line by insisting upon its students wearing scarlet gowns to lectures. ‘Proper’ English rather than local dialect is another most important criterion of status and although speech pattern can be altered with relative ease it would be considered presumptuous of a lower-class person to speak ‘good’ English, just as in England a lower-class person would be thought to be ‘putting on airs’ if he adopted an ‘Oxford accent’ without acquiring the appropriate occupational status.

Some idea of the level of living of the lower income groups in the population can be derived from the survey of family expenditure carried out in 1956, some detail from which is summarized in the following table.

Source: Ministry of Labour, &c., and ILO, Survey of Family Expenditures 1956 (1957)

The figures given in this table only serve as a rough guide; income is a little higher than these figures on current expenditure show because some income goes into savings, but being averages taken over the whole of a small sample, the figures also mask important variations in the level of living. Variations in income at the lower-class level do not give rise to important differences of status unless they are quite large. A person who is lower class in terms of occupation, speech, dress, and other cultural patterns and yet derives an above-average income from farming or shopkeeping will acquire prestige in his local community but will not on that account be accorded higher status in the wider society. He will, however, become the growing point for upward mobility on the part of his children if he spends money on their education.

In summary one might say that the present-day class system is still based upon an occupational structure in which there is a very large group of unskilled and relatively undifferentiated agricultural workers whose income is low. The bulk of the expenditure of this group has to be upon food and clothing with very little left over for entertainment or prestige expenditure. At the other end of the scale are the really few high income earners who occupy positions of top control in business and the government. Professional men such as doctors and lawyers may earn high incomes but they do not belong to the old upper-class group that was based on colour and position of control in the government and business hierarchies. This is one of the reasons that members of these professions have been particularly active in politics; they had the cultural background and the income to qualify them for entry to the old upper-class level but were excluded both on account of race and on account of not belonging to the inner circle of top people in the government. The few Coloured men who achieved high office in the civil service became identified with the whites. In between the small top group and the large bottom group there is a growing intermediate class. Industrial workers and artisans are still a part of the lower class. The development of industry is not sufficiently advanced for there to be a working-class élite; the foreman and supervisory level is very undeveloped because of the tendency to elevate any supervisory position into the status of a white-collar job or to bring in expatriates at inflated wages for the kind of work that has to be done. Even in retail trading the practice in the bigger firms has been to employ Portuguese or other Europeans as general supervisors to whom every cash payment must be submitted for checking. The theory was that you could not trust local people either to add correctly or to be honest. In Jamaica Messrs Woolworths Ltd destroyed this myth overnight by allowing sales girls to operate cash registers directly and they thus ‘discovered’ that they were perfectly competent and honest. White-collar workers, shop workers, and people in service trades such as catering and entertainment are slightly better off financially than agricultural workers but their consumption aspirations are disproportionately higher too. Mostly urban dwellers they have to pay high rents unless they can get one of the new government houses at a low rental, and they probably have to live in quarters that they consider to be unsuitable to their position. Schoolteachers are probably even worse off because their salary levels are quite inadequate to maintain the style of life to which they aspire and the majority are now trying to get out of teaching into better-paid government jobs such as social welfare, agricultural extension, or any other of the ‘development’ occupations. The higher levels of the civil service and administrative posts in the private sector tend to carry salaries at the level necessary to attract expatriates and they carry fringe benefits such as paid leave passages to England every three years or so. Guianization has not made a great deal of difference to the old system though it is obviously illogical to pay Guianese civil servants to go ‘home’ to England. Bookers’ introduced a modified scheme some years ago in which differential treatment was given to different grades of workers which virtually eliminated leave passages for those levels filled by Guianese, and naturally they were accused of discrimination. It is the persons in these higher occupational statuses who are relatively well educated and well paid who are becoming the new upper class, ethnically heterogeneous and deeply divided from the lower class in income, standard of living, and probably eventually in political outlook.

RELIGION

Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam are the religions to which the overwhelming majority of the population nominally belong. Apart from a few cases where Negroes have been converted to Islam, only Indians adhere to Hinduism and Islam, whereas Christianity in some form or other counts members of all races among its adherents. Many Indians accept baptism and membership of Christian churches without abandoning their participation in Hindu rituals and one often sees pictures of Christ on the walls of Indian homes alongside those of Krishna, Hanuman, or Rama and Sita. Muslims too are tolerant of Christianity because of the close affinity between its traditions and those of Islam. Since Christianity has been the religion of the politically dominant group it has carried prestige, and although efforts to convert Hindus and Muslims have not been very successful there has been a definite influence not only upon religious group organization but also upon doctrine, particularly in the reform groups.

According to the 1946 Census Report the Christian Church with the most adherents was the Anglican, with 85,329 persons who told the enumerators that they ‘belonged’ to this denomination. Since there were only 3,568 persons in the whole colony who stated that they had no religion, and therefore did not squeeze themselves into one of the census categories, it must be assumed that the census figures refer to nominal rather than active members of the various denominations. Guianese are very active church-goers so that the proportion of active to nominal members is probably much higher than in most countries. The Christian Church with the next largest following was the Roman Catholic, with 43,594 or 11.8 per cent. of the total population. Most Roman Catholics are to be found in Georgetown and the Portuguese form the nucleus of the active membership. As with most of the denominations the nominal membership is very closely related to the amenities provided; the bulk of any village population usually belongs to the church which runs the school. The third largest group is the Presbyterian, with 25,264 or 6.8 per cent. of the total population. Most of this number is made up of members of the long established Church of Scotland but 2,725 persons claimed to belong to the Canadian Presbyterian Mission. This Church came to the colony expressly for work among the East Indian immigrants during the nineteenth century and although it never made very much progress it did good work in starting land settlement and education thus becoming established in a number of East Indian communities. Although the Wesleyans and Congregationalists did so much of the pioneer missionary work among the slaves, they only command the support of a total of 38,555 persons between them which is well below the total for the Anglican Church. Other Christian denominations such as the Lutherans, Moravians, Seventh Day Adventists, and others muster a combined total of 24,866.

The new census will probably show a number of important changes. The overall proportion of Christians in the population will undoubtedly decline because of the much more rapid rate of increase of population among Indians. There will probably be very little increase in the number of people who say that they have no religion; British Guiana is a country in which many people still feel slightly uncomfortable at the mention of ‘evolution’ and the educational level is not high enough to produce a significant body of agnostics or atheists. Some ‘ethnic’ churches may have acquired a following but it is unlikely to be very large. Some years ago a wave of enthusiasm swept the country for a new ‘Coptic’ Church organized by a visiting evangelist calling himself His Grace Mar Lukos, Archbishop of West Africa and the West Indies. All over the country groups were organized among Negroes of the poorer classes and subscriptions were paid towards the cost of a ship, named the Coptic, which was to take people back to Africa. The press conducted a strong campaign against this movement and there is no doubt that it snowballed partly on account of the publicity it received and partly because of the suspicion that the attack was motivated by racial prejudice. Even leaders of the League of Coloured Peoples such as Dr Denbow, and a prominent barrister such as Mr Robert Adams, hesitated to condemn the movement for this reason though they never gave it their endorsement and full support. It is easy enough to condemn the leaders of a new church for obtaining money under false pretences, and there was never any real possibility that the return to Africa would materialize, but the fact that such a movement could spread so rapidly and mobilize so much real enthusiasm among quite sober and respectable people shows the extent of the latent forces waiting to be released. Coptic bakeries, laundries, and other enterprises were started and run on a co-operative basis and for a brief moment people felt something positive about the fact that they were black. The tragedy was that the pride and the hope could find no more substantial avenue of expression. Whether the leaders of the church were swindlers by intent or whether the whole thing just grew too big for them to handle, is hard to say but they did not produce the ‘S.S. Coptic’ of course and the aftermath of their activities probably caused much disillusionment and self-reproach.

Another modified version of Christianity peculiar to one ethnic group is the ‘Hallelujah’ religion found among some groups of Amerindians.[4] Where missionary activity has been continuous the Amerindians have accepted Christianity in a relatively pure form but up on the borders of Brazil and Venezuela in the region near Mount Roraima the Akawaios have developed a semi-Christian religion which incorporates aboriginal belief. The doctrine of this religion contains an undercurrent of hostility towards the whites who are supposed to have withheld the knowledge of God from the Amerindian. until it was brought to them by a prophet of their own peoples This man was taken to England by a clergyman sometime in the middle of the nineteenth century, had a vision of heaven and escaped to return to his people to preach the doctrine of ‘Hallelujah’.

The 1946 Census Report listed 115,544 persons as Hindu and 2,551 as ‘Aryan’. This latter category obviously refers to members of the Hindu reform group, the Arya Samaj, which has been increasingly active in British Guiana, and therefore they are properly listed as Hindus. There were 29,281 Muslims and 329 persons who were lumped together as ‘other non-Christians’. These latter included eleven Buddhists and four Confucians, indicating the degree to which the Chinese have become Christianized. Interesting though the census figures are they do not show the degree to which the members of the Hindu and Muslim groups are fragmented into various sects, nor can they indicate the extent to which local Hinduism differs from anything found in India.

Caste no longer exists, except in a very attenuated form which is of minor significance, so that one of the major distinguishing characteristics of traditional Hinduism is completely absent. The major prohibitions on social intercourse between members of different castes must have been absent in British Guiana from the beginning but during the nineteenth century, and even well into the twentieth, a certain amount of exclusiveness between major caste groups was common. The process of caste attenuation seems to have proceeded logically. The two opposite extremes of the caste hierarchy, the priestly caste of Brahmans at the top and the leather-working Chamar caste representing the lowest untouchable groups, have been most clearly remembered. Everything in between has tended to become quite vague, though continued familiarity with Hindu sacred literature has resulted in the ideal hierarchy of Brahman, Kshattriya, Vaisya, and Sudra being remembered and people try to assimilate whatever they know of their ancestral caste and subcaste origin to this broad scale. The idea of hereditary caste status conflicts with the dominant values of present-day Guianese society and the tendency is to disparage the very idea that caste differences are important. Dr Jayawardena cites a case which illustrates quite precisely the present-day attitude towards any attempt to claim superior status in terms of caste origin. A group of Indian men were standing talking when one of them declared ‘Me a Kshattriya; me got warrior blood’ whereupon another man gave him a blow which sent him sprawling into a ditch and taunted him with ‘Where you warrior blood now?’[5]

On the other hand the ideals of high caste behaviour have become very widely diffused among all Hindus; these are the purifying effect of a vegetarian diet, the desirability of abstaining from alcohol, the worship of Sanskritic deities, and the performance of Brahmanical rituals. Whereas in the past Brahmans avoided persons of lower castes as much as possible, and groups such as the Chamars would perform their own particular rituals with their own ‘priests’, today Brahmans perform rituals and ceremonies such as weddings and funerals for anyone. This is not only because Brahmans have abandoned caste avoidance but also because special group practices have virtually disappeared. The fact that all Hindus now subscribe to the ideals of Brahmanical Hinduism does not mean that they are scrupulous in their observance of religious prescriptions. Meat is freely eaten though beef is generally avoided, and the consumption of alcohol is higher among Indians than among any other ethnic group.[6] The position of the hereditary Brahman is anomalous at the moment. In order to function as a priest in the traditional manner he must be able to read Hindi fluently (few Brahmans in British Guiana read Sanskrit and Hindi is used in all rituals and ceremonies) and must be able to perform all the necessary ritual acts. The number of active Brahman priests is not very large and it is likely that it will decrease as time goes by. The sons of Brahmans who have acquired a secondary education (as many of them have) do not usually take up the priesthood.

There is a vague feeling that the traditional priest in his dhoti and turban is a less than dignified figure and whereas it was all right for ‘old-time’ Indians to perform these rituals the creolized younger generation tend to avoid them.

The growth of the Arya Samaj has produced a reaction against traditional Brahmanism particularly among people who cannot claim some form of connexion with the higher caste groups. The Arya Samaj, like its parent body in India, attacks the whole idea of hereditary caste and hereditary priesthood as being contrary to the spirit and the teaching of that ‘pure’ Hinduism which is contained in the sacred Sanskritic books, the Vedas. The Arya Samaj is organized like a church and local branches usually own a small school building in which they hold regular ‘services’ as well as running classes to teach Hindi to the children of members. All traditional ritual is reduced to a simple fire ritual which can be performed by anyone who is a pure and clean-living member of the group and can read Hindi, and all idol worship is severely condemned. The Arya Samaj does not exclude hereditary Brahmans from its ranks; on the contrary it welcomes them especially if they are well versed in the sacred literature, but it accords them no special position on account of birth alone. Because of the general attack upon Brahmanical Hinduism which has characterized the Arya Samaj few Brahmans join and the movement has particular appeal for the active, educated, and progressive members of the Indian community who cannot claim high-caste status. Thirty years ago they would probably have become Christians or Muslims. Theoretically the movement is open to all irrespective of race or national origin, and in this it differs fundamentally from orthodox Hinduism, but in British Guiana there are practically no non-Indian members. It runs a secondary school in Georgetown which is open to and attended by children of all races. The Arya Samaj missionaries and teachers who have come to British Guiana from India have been of the greatest help in breaking down the insularity of some of the local Indians and in convincing them of the universality of their religion.

The majority of Hindus in British Guiana claim affiliation to the Sanatan Dharm Maha Sabha, originally a sect of Vaishnavite Hinduism formed among upper-class Hindus in India as a counter to some of the reform movements such as the Arya Samaj. This form of Hinduism has gradually replaced all the lower-caste cults and special practices which used to exist among the immigrants, and it claims the affiliation of practically all the temples in the country. With its sister organization, the British Guiana Pundits’ Council, it may be said to control orthodox Hinduism (or the nearest Guianese equivalent to it), in British Guiana, and has come to constitute a ‘church’ in the technical sense. A few pundits may still perform domestic ceremonies for friends and patrons but the Sanatan Dharm has branches in practically every community with a temple, an accredited pundit and a small Hindi school, all controlled by a local committee of the organization. Remnants of a few special sects or cults which had their origin in India, such as the Siunaraine sect, exist among older people but they are dying out now. In a few areas there is a sufficient concentration of people whose ancestors came from south India for them to have retained special customs and they are now treated as a special sect named Madras. While these older sects and divisions are being gradually erased in favour of adherence to the Sanatan body, new sects such as the Bharat Sevashram Sangh have arisen within the fold of the new orthodoxy. The members of this group consider themselves to be orthodox Hindus but claim the right to perform certain rituals in the temple whether they are Brahmans or not. In some communities groups have broken away to form their own schools and hold their own ceremonies. The old sects were eliminated because their members chose the higher status that adherence to the Sanatan doctrines brought; the new sects are arising because they provide validation for the upward aspiration of a new class of Indians who deny the validity of birth status.

The Muslims are organized in exactly the same way into an orthodox and reform movement, the Sunnatwal Jamaat and the Ahmediyya movement respectively. The latter was founded in India in 1908 by one Mirza Ghulam Ahmed, a Muslim reformer who claimed to be a prophet. The first Ahmediyya missionary reached British Guiana in 1950 and since then the movement has had considerable success and has even carried its proselytizing activities into the Negro villages. There are few fundamental doctrinal differences between the orthodox and reform Muslims; both accept the authority of the Koran and the Hadith, but the Ahmediyya differ from the Sunnis in that they allow the translation of the Koran into English and they permit women to enter a special section of the mosque.

All Hindu and Muslim religious groups are now organized on much the same pattern with local ‘communities’ which own and operate a temple or mosque, usually pay a teacher of Hindi or Arabic and run a school, appoint a priest or official Imam, and own certain communal property like large cooking pots, cups, and plates which are used for community events. The government appoints a number of pundits and Imams as marriage officers and legalized unions are increasing in number. This does not solve the problem of creating a better educated priesthood in the non-Christian groups, a problem that is of national importance since the Hindu and Muslim organizations will almost certainly take on an increasing amount of social work parallel to that performed by the Christian Churches. The last ten or fifteen years have seen a growing recognition of the fact that the Hindu and Muslim organizations have as much right of existence and government support as the Christian Churches. The government makes large grants towards the cost of running the denominational schools; in practice they finance the whole cost of primary education and the Christian Churches are allowed to manage the schools and of course indoctrinate the children with at least a modest daily dose of Christianity. Nowadays the government also gives small grants towards the maintenance of approved Hindi and Arabic schools in which the antidote to Christian teaching is administered after school hours. Radio Demerara and the daily newspapers make a reasonable proportion of time and space available for Indian religious programmes and news. In fact the point has definitely been reached when the society is ready to accord full recognition to Hinduism and Islam as respectable and equally valid religions. The improvement of the quality of the leadership of the different groups is essential and this can only partially be achieved by the excellent work being done by some of the missionaries from the parent bodies in India.

Apart from the conventional religious beliefs and practices of the various ‘churches’ and organizations discussed so far, including the Christians, there is a body of belief and practice which is most conveniently discussed under the same heading though it is socially disapproved and in some cases also illegal. The term ‘Obeah’, which is of West African derivation, has been in use since slavery days as a general designation for all kinds of activities varying from sorcery and black magic to something rather like marriage guidance counselling. Today the term is very generally applied, is used and understood by all racial groups, and whatever it might really be it is illegal and people are regularly brought before the courts for ‘being in possession of articles used in the practise of Obeah.

Originally it meant quite simply the practice of magic and sorcery, probably anti-social in intent. As time went by the original meaning became obscure until after emancipation when the freedmen had all become Christianized it was applied to almost any surviving elements of African belief and practice. No doubt the missionaries were instrumental in getting legal penalties applied to the practice of Obeah, though the Negroes themselves probably concurred in the opinion that practitioners of black magic should be punished. They certainly preserved within their own communities the distinction between Obeah as black magic and certain drumming and spirit possession dances like the ‘Cumfa’ dance which is still performed occasionally today. Since all were Christians and probably active Church members, including the participants in the spirit possession dances, these remnants of African practice gradually tended to become rather disreputable. There was no development of a syncretic church as there has been in some other parts of the Caribbean and in Africa. The activities that came to be lumped together in later years as Obeah included the performance of any kind of magical act designed to destroy or injure an enemy, a rival in love, or an unwanted spouse; magical acts designed to help the individual to get a job or find a lost article; acts designed to effect cures, particularly cases where medical help is not effective. (Of course there is some tendency to by-pass the doctor but these days people usually seek both material and spiritual cures.) The police employ so-called ‘experts’ who solemnly give evidence in court as to the fact that, say, a number of candles and a box of incense are ‘Obeah articles’.

When the Indians came they brought with them a collection of lore which was not basically dissimilar to that possessed by the Africans and there has been a remarkable merging of beliefs and practices into one general colony‑wide system common to all. Today the majority of ‘Obeah men’ are East Indians and the term ‘Maraj’, which is an honorific title for Brahmans, is thought by many Negroes to be synonymous with ‘Obeah man’. Needless to say it is not, and the majority of Brahmans do not engage in these practices. The impression that they do was strengthened by a famous case some years ago where a well-known Brahman was sent to prison for including a quantity of arsenic in a package being sent to a postal client in Trinidad. This client wished to eliminate her wayward husband’s sweetheart by supernatural means.

It would be much too complex a matter to describe the body of Obeah lore here, but it can be said at once that as things stand today it derives as much from European as from African or Indian traditions. A publication entitled The 6th and 7th Books of Moses or Moses’ Magical Spirit-Art, which is printed in the United States but bears no publisher’s name, is widely used as a source book by Obeah men.[7] One of the most usual means of bringing magical power to bear on a particular problem is through the invocation of a powerful spirit. Both Negro and Indian practitioners invoke the spirit of a ‘Dutchman’ by placing Dutch cheese, cigarettes, and gin before the person to be possessed. The idea is that the Dutchman will appear because of these gifts, make himself manifest (he speaks in a gruff sort of English), and diagnose, advise, or injure as the case may be. In some cases a Dutch spirit may ‘trouble’ someone (young unmarried girls are particularly susceptible), and an expert will have to be consulted as to the best means of getting rid of him. Of course other spirits are invoked including those of ancestors, depending upon the purpose for which they are required.

Only occasionally does this phantasy life get out of hand and become dangerous, as in the few cases there have been of child sacrifice, the most recent being that of the murder of an East Indian child in l950.[8] In all such cases it is almost certain that the motive is to sacrifice to a Dutch spirit in return for its revealing the hiding place of ‘Dutch gold’, large hoards of which are reputed to be buried in long forgotten places along the coast. One of the difficulties of drawing the line between various kinds of practices so long as they are all lumped together as Obeah is illustrated by a case in which a Muslim was charged with practising Obeah after selling an amulet. The purchaser was a stall-owner who bought the amulet on the understanding that it would improve his business. When business did not pick up despite his outlay he complained to the police who thereupon charged the seller of the amulet as an Obeah man. The magistrate ruled that the amulet could not be classed as Obeah; it was in fact the usual little metal cylinder used in India and inside it was a prayer in English invoking the help of Christ, as well as a few Arabic characters written on a scrap of paper. The law is wide enough to give adequate powers for punishing persons obtaining money under false pretences and perpetrating frauds and it is clear that a specific law against Obeah is an anachronism. It has no deterrent effect anyway and it is only the change in the whole social system that will eliminate such beliefs. Education alone is not enough, as is proved by the extent of similar beliefs among quite well-educated people in Europe, and among some members of the middle-class in British Guiana. And finally it should be emphasized that much of the cause lies less in lack of education than in a social system which lays stress on the desirability of social mobility and higher standards of living and yet affords limited opportunity for achieving these ends in the real world. The retreat into phantasy is not entirely surprising. Many of the men, and sometimes women, who are regarded as being Obeah men are in fact quite sensible, and even wise, advisers to whom people turn in time of trouble. They often do a good job in sorting out domestic quarrels and difficulties and in reassuring people in time of stress; in fact very much the kind of thing one normally associates with the duties of a clergyman.

The belief in witchcraft is not of very great importance today but it is not uncommon for death and disease to be attributed to ‘old hag’. This is a general term for witches of both sexes which is used by all races in British Guiana. The witch is believed to have the power to leave his or her body and to fly forth to suck the blood of its victim. Similar beliefs are to be found in West Africa, in India, and in Europe so that it is very difficult to determine the origin of the British Guiana complex with any certainty. The beliefs have no seriously detrimental social effects today, unless it be that of providing a theory for child deaths which tends to block the spread of better child-rearing techniques. Even this is doubtful since the belief in ‘old hag’ does not itself have anything to do with the presence or absence of medical care. It is essentially a form of ex post facto explanation.

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY

Since the days when the first missionaries began to work among the slaves the family has been considered a major social problem in all the British Caribbean territories. This is partly because of the high ‘illegitimacy’ rates and partly because members of the upper and middle-classes have always taken the different sexual mores of the lower class as a sign of disorganization and abnormality. In British Guiana the situation is somewhat complicated by the existence of different ethnic groups, but just as many misconceptions exist about East Indian marriage and family life as about other groups.[9]

Generally speaking the idea of family life accepted by everyone in the society approximates to that which is loosely referred to as ‘English’. The ‘proper’ family is one composed of a legally married couple with their own children living in their own house. (The Indian ideal departs but slightly from this pattern.) In fact the majority of domestic groups in British Guiana are of this type except for the matter of the legality of the marriage, but there are important deviations from the normal pattern which both reflect and symbolize class and ethnic differences.

It is lower-class Negro family life that is most often referred to as ‘weak’, ‘loose’ or ‘disorganized’; as evidence of this it is usual to cite high illegitimacy rates and the incidence of ‘broken homes’. Illegitimacy rates are high but this does not indicate the same order of social problem that it would in England. Nor are the allegedly broken homes such a straightforward problem as they may appear to be. The fact is that the majority of ‘illegitimate’ births result from pre-marital pregnancies among Negro girls whose average age at marriage is something like twenty‑five years, from births to women in common-law unions, and from the offspring of customary Indian marriages which have not been ‘legalized’. The pattern of family life among members of the lower class (and this would include members of all ethnic groups except East Indians whose family life is described below) is roughly as follows.[10] As a young woman approaches maturity she begins to develop friendships with young men, as in any society, and if she is particularly fortunate she may find one with sound prospects and a willing family who will marry her legally, in church, and with all the expense that such a wedding involves. In a poor community where few young men have any prospects other than a life of casual labour ahead of them the number of such early weddings is limited. The occasions and opportunities for young people to meet are numerous; at the many dances held in all non-Indian communities, at wakes, or just walking in the evenings; and in the absence of any widespread use of contraceptives pregnancies are frequent. When an unmarried girl becomes pregnant for the first time her mother is normally angry especially if the family is a little better off than most or if the girl has had more than a normal amount of education and could therefore have been expected to make a reasonable match with a ‘monthly’ man. (This is a term applied to anyone who draws a monthly salary; teachers and government employees above the labourer grade particularly.) After the initial anger the fact is accepted, the child is born and no real social stigma attaches to it. Very often the girl’s mother accepts the major responsibility for its upbringing. Young fathers usually acknowledge paternity, especially in the rural areas where the communities are small, and they pay whatever they can towards the child’s maintenance. If the father does not do this the mother can apply to the courts for an affiliation order, and if she is really hard up she can try to get a relief payment from the government. She may try this anyway if she thinks that there is a chance of getting it. Young women may have several illegitimate children but the majority of girls settle into a more stable relationship with a man and eventually go to live with him in his own house. At first they may just live together without being legally married but most unions are legalized after a few years. The age at which women settle into such unions is around twenty-five years and men are usually about thirty years old before they settle down and have accumulated enough money to buy a house. In the towns the situation is rather different; there it is not unusual for couples to live together in common-law unions for mutual companionship and convenience before any children are born. In fact if a woman does have a child she may send it to a relative in the country. These urban common-law unions are often unstable whereas those in the rural areas are as stable as legal marriage, into which they are usually converted.

If late marriage and the existence of common‑law unions serve to explain the high incidence of illegitimacy there is another feature of lower‑class Negro family life that is worthy of notice. This is the extremely high proportion of households which are headed and dominated by women, and the generally powerful position which older women, and particularly mothers, occupy. This is partially explained by the fact that women live longer than men, but of course in a real male-dominated society this would make little difference since control of the family fortunes would pass from father to son. In the case under discussion what happens is that men drop out of the role of family head which they had occupied in the early years of their marriages, either because they die, they leave and find another woman, or they just gradually assume a less commanding position. Women on the other hand grow in influence as they get older. They are very often surrounded by a number of daughters with illegitimate children for whom the grandmother accepts major responsibility, and their sons stay with them until quite late in life contributing part of their earnings to the family budget. This extraordinary persistence of the relationship between a mother and her children is in fact the corner-stone of the whole edifice of family life and it is partly due to the insecurity of the support which men can give to a family for which they have sole responsibility. When a man is the head of a family he is supposed to be the sole support of his dependants; if he contributes to his mother’s household he need not carry such a heavy burden and a woman household head can legitimately receive support from as many sources as possible. Lower-class Negro men are often placed in the very difficult position where they are unable to offer their children either regular economic support or any kind of prestige. The barrage of propaganda from the churches and the welfare agencies exhorts men to take a responsible attitude towards their families but does not explain how they are to do so in a situation where they cannot find a regular job and in a situation where their colour contributes to their permanent low status. The depressed position of men within the family system is not merely a consequence of the havoc wrought by slavery; it has close affinities with that type of family system found in lower-class communities in other parts of the world.[11] Of course many men do make a success of their family responsibilities, and at any particular time the greater number of households in a Negro village contain a legally married couple and their children. Also the range of variation in income, standard of living, and ‘respectability’ is greater than one can indicate in a short account.

Superficially, the East Indian family, marriage, and kinship pattern is very different. In all Indian communities, urban, sugar estate or rice-growing village, marriage is a most important institution. Weddings are not only frequent, but are the most important community events, being the means by which families establish or demonstrate their community prestige and standing. Every Indian, except those infirm in mind or body and those who are undergoing higher education, normally marries at an early age. Girls are expected to marry before they are about twenty; boys by the time they are about twenty-five years old at the latest. These early weddings are still to some extent arranged by the parents, though these days parents do not try to force children into unions against their wishes. Not only are the weddings arranged by the parents but the whole performance is very much an affair between the two sets of kin with the fathers of bride and groom playing the main roles. Elaborate gift exchanges, as well as the public ritual and the provision of a marriage feast which anyone can attend, make such a wedding an expensive affair. The father of the bride bears the lion’s share of the cost. After the wedding the young bride goes to live with her husband’s parents, theoretically having severed her ties with her own family. Normally these first marriages are contracted between people from different villages according to the ideal prescriptions of ‘Indian’ culture. Unfortunately the ideals of ‘Indian’ culture do not survive uniformly and young brides in British Guiana are not as submissive as they are expected to be. The consequence is that they often pack up and go home if they feel that they are being imposed upon. Conversely, the husband or his parents or both may virtually force the girl to leave if she turns out to be not to their liking. Because the majority of these first marriages are contracted according to custom and not according to British Guiana law, the girl has no redress and her parents cannot usually recover the dowry gifts they presented to her husband. There has long been talk of passing a law which would make all customary marriages automatically legal but this idea meets with strong objections, particularly from the Muslims. It would mean that divorce would become costly and difficult to obtain. The parents of girls are beginning to realize that it is in their own interests and those of their daughters to insist upon a legal as well as a customary marriage; most pundits and Imams are now registered marriage officers so that the two rites, secular and sacred, are easily combined.

For a proportion of Indian girls, probably between a quarter and a third, these early years of adult life may be as unstable as they are for a Negro girl, but with the difference that her parents are constantly trying to get her settled, and of course she has been through a community-recognized wedding in the first place. She may have a number of children for different partners with whom she stays for only a relatively short time, but eventually she settles into a permanent union probably with a man from her own village who has separated from his original wife. Normally the Indian woman is not long out of a conjugal union before she enters another and this, coupled with the much earlier age at which she begins a regular union, accounts for her greater fertility and the high birth-rate among Indians. Naturally, since all children except those born in a legally registered union are technically ‘illegitimate’ the rate is very high among Indians and the designation virtually meaningless.

Although the Indian ideal of family life stresses the importance of the extended family, in fact families are not very different in size from those found in the rest of the society. In the rice-growing areas sons may stay on with their fathers for a while after they get married, but even here it is normal for them to be given their own house and some land after a year or so. Young wives dislike being under the control of their mothers-in-law and press their husbands to break away. On the sugar estates the position is different in that the estate may allot a house to the couple as soon as they marry and therefore no ‘joint’ family pattern appears at all. In other areas if there is a scarcity of houses or building land one may find a number of sons and their families continuing to live in the parents’ house for convenience, but they will each have their own room, their own kitchen, and keep separate budgets. Mutual help between kin, reciprocal visiting, and extended kinship solidarity is not much more marked than among the members of other ethnic groups in the majority of cases. The ideal of male dominance in the family is still strong and it is reinforced by religious beliefs and practices. Only in Georgetown do Indian women take much part in life outside the home. This does not mean that they are without influence; in domestic and kinship matters they exercise great influence and women who have a drunken or irresponsible husband often carry the economic burdens of the family. Now that the proportion of girls who attend school is much higher than it was the pattern of overt submissiveness will change, but it is to be hoped that the pace of economic change will be rapid enough to ensure that the family can evolve into one with a stable economic base from which the children have some hope of a better life than their parents had.

Middle-class family life has a number of features which distinguish it from the so-called ‘European’ pattern on which it is modelled. Among Indians who do well in business or the professions there is some tendency to maintain something of the ideal of the large family. In fact some of the success of Indians in business is probably due to the joint efforts and financial enterprise of families rather than individuals. In Georgetown there are many large Indian family houses in which a real extended family can be found. Although a family business may serve to bind a number of separate conjugal families together there is a definite tendency to split up eventually. A wealthy man will always give his children a good education and some of them may become professional men or civil servants. Even those who continue in the business very often decide to divide the capital and each to go his own way. In the Negro and Coloured middle-class too there is a much wider spread of active kinship ties than one would find in Europe or the United States and this is partly due to the smallness of the society itself. When a member of the middle-class dies, unless he had been a particularly retiring person, his funeral is attended by an enormous number of people. The reason is that in a community of this size the ties of friendship, kinship, neighbourhood, and clique membership cross and re-cross each other many times binding everyone into an elaborate system of reciprocal obligation. People feel that their presence will be missed and noted if they do not make an appearance. Of course death calls forth the relations of solidarity, but their obverse side, relations of hostility or envy or jealousy, also find ample expression on other occasions. Georgetown, like all small communities, is always tingling with gossip, and when a name crops up if it is not immediately familiar to the listener the person concerned can soon be ‘placed’; ‘You know, she married Frank Young, Bertha Young’s big boy who works in the Treasury. He’s Jean Brown’s brother. You know Jean who used to go around with Bob Semple before she married Bill Brown.’ And so it goes on until the subject of the conversation has been firmly docketed and pinned in his proper place in the map of social relations. One of the less attractive features of middle-class society that is happily becoming less prominent is the snobbery of colour. This is discussed elsewhere, but it often had a distressing effect upon the internal relationships of middle-class families. Within the extremely heterogeneous middle-class the effect of straining after whiteness, in both its literal biological sense as well as its metaphorical cultural sense, often led to marrying a person of markedly different physical characteristics; not necessarily a ‘mixed’ marriage in the normal sense but a striving after something more nearly approaching the ideal ‘European’ pattern. The offspring of such unions would naturally be physically varied and the preference for ‘lighter’ physical features often led to the ‘darker’ ones being less favoured or even in a few cases being kept out of the way as much as possible as though they were in some sense deformed. This would hardly happen today, though one is continually being surprised by the strength of such sentiments and the profound sense of personal insecurity which they betray. Such features of family life are much more of a ‘problem’ than anything found in the lower class, where despite all the difficulties of life social relations are not vicious and all individuals can find security in the bosom of their family no matter what their colour or legal standing.

SOCIAL INTEGRATION IN A MULTI-RACIAL SOCIETY

In any country such as British Guiana the question must arise of the extent to which its people constitute one society or to which they remain, in the words of the 1927 British Guiana Commission, ‘a congeries of races from all parts of the world with different instincts, different standards and different interests’. This view of Guianese society has been quoted by many people since 1921 including all the recent constitutional commissions. Most observers add their own quota of interpretation but few succeed in understanding the situation, much less in illuminating it. This is mainly because most accounts are written by people whose acquaintance with the country is very short, who are struck by the differences rather than the similarities and interdependencies between races, and who accept the stereotyped ideas of the nature and role of the various ethnic groups. Many examples spring to mind but the following passage from Michael Swan’s Colonial Office-sponsored book is as good as any:

The Negro’s open character arouses an Englishman’s affection more easily than the quiet, sometimes furtive nature of the uneducated Indian--educated Indians are among the most articulate and extroverted people in the Colony. Where the Indian is provident and saves his money cent by cent the African is improvident, spending his money as it comes; where the Indian is gregarious mainly in the market-place the African loves to sit talking or singing all night in a rum-shop; where the Indian cares little about his clothes the African will spend his last penny on a new white shirt or a shiny blue satin dress for his daughter.[12]

It is obvious that most of these judgements are exact reflections of the stereotyped images of the different characteristics of Indians and Negroes which one hears in middle-class circles in Georgetown or from Englishmen who have lived some time in the country. Like all half-truths they are dangerously misleading and the facts do not support the judgements based upon them. More rum is consumed by Indians than by Negroes; more money is lodged in the Post Office Savings Bank by Negroes than by Indians (it is true that the Indians deposit more per capita but fewer of them deposit anything); young Indians on the sugar