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People and Cultures
If there is something extraordinary about the Caribbean is their people and their ethnic diversity, result of the fusion between the different ethnic groups and culture that throughout history have setled down on this land.
People of all over the world live with the indigenous and the Afro Caribbean culture, each one contributing with their unique identity, creating the Caribbean of today, a crossroads of cultures. They are Cultures who have known how to live in harmony by creating and fotifying a more open and unique identity, which reflects itself in their people's idiosyncrasies and in therir artistic and cultural domonstration.
Indigenous Culture
The montain Range of Talamanca is a cradle for different native ethnic groups, the Bribris and Cabecares, whose culture, beliefs, language and architecture have been kept almost intact throughout the centuries. Their wisdom has been transmitted generation by generation through the awapas.
We owe the art to do tamales, to prepare liquour or to cook the cocoa to the old indigenous culture, but above all we owe them the rational use of nature's resources.
They emphasize on the use of organic materials for their constructions, such as the chonta and the wood from their forests, which they tie up with vegetable fibres such as reeds and vines, and they make their roofs by covering them with Suita leaves. in their architecture they reproduce the universe created by Sibo, their God.
Sibo, threw the seed of corn from the top of the hill Namásul, wich germinated and gave life to the Talamanca clans. They are matriarchal clans, where the woman complies an important role in it and from whom they inherit their clan status.
Therir handcrafts were daily used for transporting and storing food and wather. They made wickerwork of reed, bags and backpacks of burio and pita, arcs and arrows made of Pejibaye wood or pumpkins, which were decorated with vegetable inks.
They have a thorough knowledge of herbalist medicine and they need a long career to be graduated as an Awa (Sukia, doctors). The Awa treats the sick with a conjunction of curative plants, psychology and auto-suggestion, where with ritual chants they evoke telluric energies in order to heal.
They have a ceremonial dance the "Sorbon" where men and women dance at the compass of their feet forming a big circle symbolizing their solidarity and their connection with the Earth. They normally perfom this dance accompanied with "chicha", a ceremonial drink made of the corn's fermentation, after any community work was carried out, such as the uprising of a hut or the repair of a suspension bridge
Afro Caribbean Culture
The afrocaribbean culture in their architecture, food, music and customs was definitely influenced by the customs inherited from Western Africa and the Antilles traditions. You find a clear British Afro influence in their architecture, which originally comes from Antilles and Jamaican islands. They had colourful Elizabethan houses built of wood with pillars, verandas and decorated with playful motif trim.
In gastronomy you find delicious dishes cooked in coconut milk, as the rice and beans or the rond�or delicate curry sauces with spices for the fish and shellfish. On their dishes you find a rich contrast of flavors due to the spices used such as pepper or the strong spicy peppers indispensable ingredient in a "Pati". And for sweets tooth they have the "Plantinta" a pastry stuffed with pineapple or plantain and the sweet bread "Pan Bon"
With the Calypso Rhythm
Caribbean's rhythm is Calypso, a musical genre that, along with Reggae, are always present in everyday life. Calypso' s roots are from Trinity and Tobago, born among the slaves as a way of communication among them, and came in 1871 to Costa Rica to the zone of port Limon, by the hand of Jamaican workers hired for the construction of the rai/way. Music for the working class, formed by small bands who gathered around the singer, and who spontaneously composed the music not long before of the concert, which were held in beaches, bars, taverns and street festivals.
By the age of 87, Walter Gavitt Ferguson is still the ultima te representive of this genre. His humorous and ironic Iyrics accompanied by the rhythm and particular interpretation portray everyday life of the South Caribbean villages. His biography "The calypso king" has been recently published and can be found at the Butterfly Garden of Cahuita. Nowadays, new groups appear that have that same music ingenuity and spontaneity, the musical language of Costa Rica's Caribbean.
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