For the past few weeks, my young son has been demanding to watch “Red Panda” or the 2022 Disney Pixar animated film called “Turning Red” about a young Asian-Canadian girl and her mother who take care of their family’s temple dedicated to their maternal ancestor whose totem is the red panda. One of the sub-plots of the children’s animation is that of a heartwarming, albeit Disnified, depiction of ancestral worship but its representation in mainstream popular culture means that it is becoming increasingly visible in representing cultural diversity in film. Many cultures all over the world use altars, temples and other sacred spaces, as well as events, performances and other intangible elements to honour the dead or to call on the ancestors for guidance. Ancestral worship is tied to the UNESCO World Heritage site of Jongmyo Shrine in Korea and and the Royal Court of Tiébélé in Burkina Faso. Regionally, you will see lit candles in the graveyards of largely Catholic cemeteries to honour the dead on All Souls Day (November 2) in our sister islands of Dominica and St. Lucia, but also Tous Saints in Martinique and Guadeloupe. The aesthetic popularity of Dia de los Muertos in Mexico is a festival that honours the dead that has now been replicated in other cultures globally.
The world seems to acknowledge ancestral veneration or worship as part of culture, but we do not seem to fully embrace it here in Barbados. If we did, then we would understand that among the island’s sacred spaces of the well-known Abrahamic faiths, are also the sacred spaces for some African Caribbean practitioners in Orisha and Spiritual Baptist faiths, such as the Burial Ground of the Enslaved at Newton. Orisha or its variants are likely some of the oldest forms of African religious practice in Barbados. While Spiritual Baptist is typically dated to the 1950s but was probably practiced in the island before, these are some of the strongest practices that resonate with the beliefs and rituals of our ancestors including those interred at Newton. However, the Barbados Museum and Historical Society (BMHS) has also worked with multi-faith practitioners in the island to recognize the many cultures and faiths of the enslaved interred there.
Spiritual Baptist and Orisha practitioners regard the disturbance of sacred ground without permission of the ancestors and without attendant rituals as highly insensitive, so the only people who should get to determine how they feel about how a sacred space is treated, are the members of the faith groups who use it. I would encourage the media and authorities to continue outreach and dialogue with communities to determine how they feel about a development, preferably prior to beginning civil works.
The Enslaved Burial Ground at Newton is also a globally recognized archaeological site where archaeology in the 1970s found one of the only communal burial grounds of the enslaved in a plantation setting in the Western Hemisphere. There is particular guidance about sacred sites with human remains enshrined in the International Association of Caribbean Archaeology’s (IACA) Code of Ethics which states that Descendant communities or living populations must be consulted about how such sites are treated.
Also, as a site listed on the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List for Barbados in the serial nomination The Industrial Heritage of Barbados: The Story of Sugar and Rum, each property should be mapped with a buffer zone to control development and protect the property, and in this case protect the burials. Measures should have also been taken prior to development to map the full extent of the burials in the area as they are known to exist very close to and slightly beyond the boundaries of the BMHS’ property (Whiting, Brian. “Reconsidering ‘Rab Land’: A Geophysical Survey at Newton Enslaved Burial Ground in Barbados” Journal of the BMHS, vol. 70 2024 p. 88). This should have been done in more detail at the Enslaved Burial Ground at Newton to protect the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of the burial ground as a site of memory for the slave trade and slavery with the living traditions of religious practitioners. However, a buffer zone would have helped to ensure the protection of burials. I am aware that some of this assessment is now underway with the assistance of developers.
We will await the technical reports that can tell us more about the extent of the site, and the recommendations to protect burials and that this will all be made public to all of us as Descendant communities so we can participate in an important national project.
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