While the September Celebrations in Belize include some of the most important holidays for Belizeans. In November, there is another important holiday on the calendar: Garifuna Settlement Day.
On Belize FAQs, I rarely begin with a personal story; however, I feel that I must share my first experience with Garifuna Settlement Day here in Belize. In November 2018, after having done general research about both Ambergris Caye and real estate on the island for about a year, I traveled to Belize from Kauai, Hawaii in order to look at some properties on the island.
Of course, it was a very long journey, so I was pretty tired during my first day or so on the island, but just as I had recovered from the long flights, I had my first contact with Garifuna Settlement Day. I was staying in the Boca del Rio area of San Pedro, in a small condo building right on the sea.
Little did I know that the San Pedro High School gym was located just down the street, and just as I was ready for bed, I would have my first encounter with Garifuna Settlement Day. Between 9-10 PM, my usual bedtime, just as I had closed my eyes to go to sleep, an enormous explosion of bass-heavy sound hit the condo, and shook not only the bed, but the entire building!
The Garifuna community on San Pedro were holding their Garifuna Settlement Day party at the high school gym, and the thunder of the drumming and dance music rocked the building until around 4 AM. Of course, the next day, I asked some folks in the neighborhood what on earth had occurred the previous night.
While I may have read something about the Garifuna people during my year of research into living in Belize, this experience made me go home and take a real look into who the Garifuna people were and to read about their history in Belize.
As I saw Garifuna Settlement Day on the calendar again this year, I decided to have another look at the Garifuna people and their culture, and to share a bit of what I have learned here on Belize FAQs.
What is Garifuna Settlement Day in Belize?
Garifuna Settlement Day is a public holiday in Belize, and it is celebrated on November 19th each year. The holiday was created by a Belizean civil rights activist, Thomas Vincent Ramos, in 1941.
Garifuna Settlement Day was first recognized as a holiday in the southern districts of Belize in 1943, and it became a national holiday in 1943. The holiday celebrates the eventual settlement of the Garifuna people in Belize after they were exiled by the British from the Grenadines, which is a chain of small islands that lie on a line between the larger islands of Saint Vincent and Grenada in the Lesser Antilles.
The major festivities for the holiday occur in the southern districts of Belize, and particularly in the town of Dangriga. There are always parades, street music, and traditional dancing.
Who are the Garifuna People?
The Afro-Caribbean Garifuna people likely arrived on the Caribbean island of St. Vincent around 1635. The Garifuna were originally from West Africa, and they were on their way to be slaves in the mines and plantations of the Americas when some of them washed ashore on St. Vincent.
The stories of how the first West Africans came to live on St. Vincent do not state with certainty how these people came to live on the island, as there are some stories which say that the first West Africans were shipwrecked on the way to the new world and a life of slavery, and others say they had escaped from the Caribbean islands of Barbados, St. Lucia, and Grenada.
Eventually, these West Africans intermarried with local populations of Arawaks and Carib Indians (Caribs), who were immigrants from South America, and they become known as Garifunas or Black Caribs.
History of the Garifuna people
The Garifuna people existed peacefully for a number of years, living side-by-side with the French settlers who reached St. Vincent in the late 1600s. However, in 1796, the Garifuna were exiled from St. Vincent by British troops, and most of them were sent to the Caribbean island of Roatan in Honduras.
On Roatan, after the Garifuna had successfully developed agriculture to produce cassava, an important part of the Garifuna diet, they began to branch out to the Caribbean/Central American mainland, and they established fishing villages in Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua.
What is Traditional Garifuna culture?
Modern Garifuna Settlement Day has music and dance at its core, and for good reason. Music and dance are extremely important aspects of the Garifuna culture. In 2001, UNESCO declared Garifuna language, dance, and music in Belize to be a “Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.” As the UNESCO declaration implies, traditional Garifuna culture is infused heavily with music and dance.
Garifuna music uses percussion instruments to produce a distinctive style of drumming; the music combines the sounds of the deeper bass drums with the lighter tones of tenor drums. Traditional Garifuna drums are made from hardwoods, such as mahogany and mayflower, which are species that are native to Central America.
Punta Music
Punta music is a style of Garifuna music which evolved from traditional Garifuna drumming. Punta is now the most popular form of Garifuna music and dance. The lyrics for most Punta music are usually written by Garifuna women, and the songs often relate to one gender or the other. Punta dancing requires a great deal of energy, and the dancing can be seen as being almost competitive.
Recently, some younger Garifunas have shown more interest in a popular, contemporary version of Punta known as Punta Rock, which is a mix of traditional drumming, heavy bass, electric guitar, and enthusiastic lyrics.
Garifuna Food
The staples of Garifuna food are cassava, plantain, and banana, combined with fish or other seafood. Interestingly, one of the colors on the Garifuna flag, yellow, represents the color of Garifuna food staples, grated cassava and cassava bread.
Cassava is not only made into flatbread by the Garifuna, it is also used to make cassava pudding, and even sweetened drinks, including sahou. Both ripe and green plantains and bananas are also often used in Garifuna foods, including the popular hudut, which is commonly used to refer to the popular fish and coconut milk stew served with mashed plantain. However, in the Garifuna language, hudut is also the word for plantain.
Green bananas are used in a number of savory Garifuna dishes, such as green banana fritters, and they are also used in making bundiga, which is a stew, as well as darasa, which are tamales made from green bananas rather than corn.
Particularly, if you are visiting southern Belize, especially in Dangriga and Punta Gorda, you should make sure to try some of the delicious Garifuna foods on offer.
Garifuna language
While doing research about the origins of the Garifuna language, I discovered that there has been some disagreement among scholars concerning the origins of the language since the early 1900s.
However, from my understanding, it appears that most scholars now agree that Garifuna is not a dialect, a broken language, or a creole. As explained by Michelle A. (Forbes) Ocasio, PhD on her Garifuna Language and History site: It is not based on any African language, and it is not a mixed language. The Garifuna language is a productive, living language.
The research indicates that the Garífuna language descends from the Arawak language family, with vocabulary influences from both Carib and French.
Garifuna Settlement Day Celebrations in Belize
Each year, the National Garifuna Council of Belize chooses a theme for the national celebration of Garifuna culture. For 2024, they selected, Celebrating Our Roots; Sharing Our Culture, as the celebration theme.
According to the San Pedro Sun, activities for Garifuna Settlement Day celebrations usually start on November 15th, with drumming sessions, and continue through the 19th, when Garifuna Settlement Day is observed.
The San Pedro Sun reports that the celebrations also include:
The reenactment of the first landing of Garifuna, which involved boats arriving from ashore carrying cassava sticks, plantain suckers, and sugarcane, symbolizing the food that the Garifuna people brought with them. These traditional dishes, such as Serre (Fish boiled in coconut milk), Hudut (mashed plantain), and cassava, are served in various forms and are also integral to the celebrations.
The San Pedro Sun
Where are Garifuna Settlement Day celebrations held in Belize?
While there are Garifuna Settlement Day celebrations held throughout the country, including in the commercial capital of Belize City and the tourism mecca of San Pedro, the largest and most important celebrations take place in southern Belize.
The single biggest Garifuna Settlement Day celebration is held in the town of Dangriga, on the southeast coast of Belize in the Stann Creek District, and there are also larger celebrations in villages with larger populations of Garifuna people, including Punta Gorda, Hopkins, and Seine Beight.
Final thoughts on Garifuna Settlement Day in Belize
Well, I must say that I have come to have a very different understanding of Garifuna culture, and of the holiday celebrating Garifuna Settlement Day, since my first exposure to the all night, building-shaking drumming and dance music which introduced me to the holiday six years ago.
One of the best features of living in Belize for me is the mix of people and cultures who call this beautiful, small, quirky country home. Whether these people be Mayan, Mestizo, Creole, Garifuna, or among some of the newer inhabitants of the country, for many of the peoples who have settled here, there is a rich, interesting history which led them to settle here in Belize.
If you are considering a move to Belize, you might want to check out our book: Belize FAQs: A detailed guide for those interested in moving to Belize. In the book, there are more than 150 pages of Belize FAQs at your fingertips. And Belize FAQs is available in both paperback and Kindle formats.
Finally, don’t forget to check out our Interview with an Expat in Belize series, in which we hear from expats who are living in different parts of Belize and have been here anywhere from a year or two, to well over a decade. This is one of the most popular features of the site, as it showcases the variety of experiences that different people have in this small, beautiful, and quirky country.