Year: 2017

As the only British colonial territory in South America, British Guiana was probably better known to the outside world than it appears today. Every effort was made by the-then Colonial Office and government to promote British Guiana abroad. Guiana’s industries as they were – timber, mining, forest products and, of course, sugar – added to the rich diversity of exotic flora and rare species of fauna and the anthropology and artefacts of the colony’s aboriginal peoples, made a worthy  showcase of the colony’s resources. The Royal Agricultural and Commercial Society…

By Odeen Ishmael Many years ago, there was a little forest village on the bank of a wide river in southern Guyana. All of the inhabitants were very happy as they always reaped good crops from their gardens, and wild animals they hunted for meat were abundant in the forests on both sides of the river. In this forest village lived twelve teenage girls who always gathered in the evenings under a tall mora tree on the riverside to sing songs their mothers had taught them. After their singing, as…

The coconut is described as the ‘Tree of Heaven’ because almost every part of the crop, from the roots, to the bark, to the fruit, has been of some economic value to the locals long before the Europeans ever knew about the tree. Also called “the tree which provides all the necessities of life” in India, and “the tree of a thousand uses” in Malay, the coconut’s flowers, husk, shell, water, milk, leaves, sap, bud, and the white, fleshy part of the seed- the coconut ‘meat’, are all used up…