Taino people believe, much like other Indigenous peoples that everything has a Spirit. No matter if it is inanimate or animate, there is Spirit/consciousness that embodies the physicality. Whether a stone, the river, you, myself, an ancestor.
‘Cemi is the name of this concept, and like other peoples, my great-great-great grandmother’s people, the original people of the Caribbean islands of the greater Antilles (modern-day Cuba, Hispaniola 〜 Haiti and Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Puerto Rico) had an original peoples. My family is from the island of Jamaica, better known as Yemaye. Taino revival is resulting in the re-weaving of our community. Slowly and with humility, I follow the breadcrumbs back to a lineage, that so many of been conditioned to believe all died off, with the arrival of Columbus.
But, no there was resistance and survival. The crab found in the other seed video of me creating a symbolic representation of a Cemi, is to symbolize and honour the memory of Kasike (Chieftess Anacoana of Ayiti or Kasikaya) who bravely resisted the imposition of the Spaniards.
In this exploration of creating the Cemi what stood out to me as a reflection was how the Ancestors didn’t have a large boundary between their concept of human and animal. As I created this to connect to my Ancestor, my eyes and hands were shaped by the clay, resulting to what looks like the head of a goat.
Resilience? Persistance? Endurance? Self-reliance? Community?
The creation and exploration was definitely molded under having to find the humour in technological mishaps, support from my colleagues, and relying on my Fire Spirit to both follow my inner vision while embracing how life wanted me to plant this seed.
Credit:
Clay Sculpture & Essay: Sharrae Lyon
Photographer: Julie Tamiko Manning