The early travellers of the Caribbean, the Guianas (which are now divided into Venezula, Guyana, Surinam, French Guiana) and the rainforests of Southern America, told stories of their meetings with ‘wild Indians’. They created images of these Amerindians people as ‘backward’, ‘pagans’ or ‘cannibals’- which were mostly based on stereotypes of the time.
Archaeologists and anthropologists researching in the Caribbean Antilles and mainland South American regions, are still finding more evidence of the Amerindian’s complex social, cultural, artistic and ritual traditions.
There are many different groups of Amerindians speaking different languages. The land they occupy is vast – from deep in the Amazonian jungle to the Caribbean Island – making it difficult to cover all the groups. Therefore this exhibition shows only glimpses of Amerindians heritage and explores some of their numerous contributions to the world we live in.
The exhibition brings together collections from the Tainos of the Caribbean Antilles and objects mainly from the Arawaks and Carib-speaking groups of the Guianas and adjacent Amazonian cultures. Contemporary works of art are juxtaposed with archaeological and ethnographic pieces to show the endurance of the surviving Amerindian peoples in a rapidly transforming world.