Grand Chief vows to ‘give his life’ to preserve Indigenous heritage

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

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Grand Chief of Moru­ga, Er­ic Lewis, says he is pre­pared to give his life to pro­tect and re­vive the tra­di­tions of T&T’s First Peo­ples, ar­gu­ing that al­though In­dige­nous com­mu­ni­ties have shaped the coun­try’s val­ues of hu­mil­i­ty, broth­er­hood, uni­ty, and to­geth­er­ness, they re­main “for­got­ten, side­lined and os­tracised.”

Lewis made the de­c­la­ra­tion on Tues­day as he un­veiled a stat­ue of Chief Utuyaney on Har­ris Prom­e­nade as part of San Fer­nan­do’s City Week cel­e­bra­tions. Utuyaney was among the Amerindi­an war­riors who fought against Span­ish gov­er­nor An­to­nio de Sedeño in the 1500s, along­side chiefs Guy­na, Pa­ma­coa, Amanatey and Paraguany.

“I fight a fight that be­gan with my an­ces­tors 500 years ago,” Lewis said. “I have nev­er backed down from any­thing in life, and I’m not dead yet. Even if I should die, I know I would have done my part while I ex­ist­ed. I will give my life to pre­serve what our an­ces­tors stood for.”

Lewis said the First Peo­ples con­tin­ue to wel­come all re­li­gions, cul­tures and races—just as their an­ces­tors did cen­turies ago—but re­main ex­clud­ed from na­tion­al life.

“We wel­comed every­one. And to­day I still wel­come every­body,” he said. “But at the same time, we are not wel­comed. We are still os­tracised. We are still put on the back burn­er. And I live it dai­ly.”

He crit­i­cised the coun­try’s his­tor­i­cal record, say­ing In­dige­nous de­fend­ers of the is­land—es­pe­cial­ly those who re­sist­ed ear­ly Span­ish oc­cu­pa­tion—have been erased from main­stream ac­counts.

“How dare you for­get our an­ces­tors’ con­tri­bu­tions to our own lands?” he asked. “Un­til the li­on learns to write the sto­ry, the sto­ry will al­ways glo­ri­fy the hunter.”

Read­ing from colo­nial texts, Lewis de­scribed the 1530s bat­tle in which Utuyaney—de­scribed as a “gi­gan­tic Amerindi­an”—led 300 war­riors in a co­or­di­nat­ed at­tack on Span­ish forces. He said restor­ing these his­to­ries was es­sen­tial to re­claim­ing na­tion­al iden­ti­ty.

“It took 500 years for this stat­ue and this sto­ry to be re­stored,” he said. “This is the his­to­ry we want to re­vive, the his­to­ry our chil­dren must know.”

Lewis said the First Peo­ples com­mu­ni­ty fund­ed and sculpt­ed the stat­ue them­selves, with sup­port from both lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al In­dige­nous groups and co­op­er­a­tion from San Fer­nan­do may­or Robert Par­ris.

“We put our mon­ey where our mouth is,” he said. “We will con­tin­ue the fight—not a phys­i­cal fight, but a fight for el­e­va­tion, in peace, uni­ty, and love.”

The cer­e­mo­ny end­ed with a smoke bless­ing and a tra­di­tion­al meal as Lewis called on the pub­lic to stand with the First Peo­ples in restor­ing their right­ful place in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s his­to­ry.