Ovid Williams’s valuable research of Indigenous place names is labour of love
Cultural activist and former aircraft pilot Ovid Williams of the Patamona nation, North Pakarimas is on a mission to research and retain the original place names as earlier ascribed by the Indigenous People of Guyana, as well as their meanings. He hopes to make obsolete the names by which they are now known.
“In English, the names of the places originally named by the Indigenous People do not have meanings, but in their original languages they do. For example, Aishalton should be reverted to Aishara Toon. In Wapichan it comes from the ‘aishara’ vine known also as the ‘haiarie’ vine and ‘toon’ meaning land or island. I want Guyanese to know the history and value of our Indigenous names,” Williams, 68, told Stabroek Weekend in a recent interview.
Indigenous People named places after animals, birds, fishes, or plant species endemic to the area, disasters or scenic beauty, onomatopoeia for various reasons and personalities like Kaieteur named after an old man, or out of convenience, like Dishikibo now called Essequibo.
Dishikibo or Jishikibo
Recently, Williams was asked to get the history of the word Essequibo. He noted the Venezuelans claimed that when Christopher Columbus’ son, Don Diego Colon visited Guyana he brought his second-in- command, Juan Esquivel. As a tribute to the second-in-command, they named the Essequibo River after Esquivel. However, the Lokono or Arawaks dispute this. Crossing from bank to bank, especially at the 26-mile mouth of the Essequibo River, the largest and longest river in Guyana, took a long time by a paddle boat.
Because of that distance, Williams said, they took a fireside called a ‘dishiki’ or ‘jishiki’ in the Lokono language, depending on the area the people were from, on their journeys. The fireside was a prized possession and the risk of losing a part of it, was a serious matter. The ‘dishiki’ consisted of three identical stones. The earthen pots had no handles so they rested on the stones like a tripod. The stones were adjusted depending on the size of the pots. Suitable sizes of stones or rocks were difficult to find especially in swamp and sandy areas. The name ‘Diskiki’ was given to the river after the word ‘fireside’ and ‘abo’ means ‘with’ in the Lokono language. So Dishikibo means ‘going or walking with fireside’.
Essequibo was sparsely populated and it was a challenging area, he related. “Due to its strategic location it was used as a meeting place to resolve grievances between the Lokonos and Caribs. Because, figuratively fire destroys and purifies everything, it was good to incinerate all grievances. ‘Dishikinu’ means ‘let us bury it under the fireside’, much like the saying ‘bury the hatchet’,” he said.
Lokono, Berbishi
Because the Lokono (Arawaks) were plentiful and inhabited coastal Guyana, a lot of places have been named in Lokojan. Loko is singular for person and Lokono is the plural. The language of the Lokono is Lokojan or Lokodan, depending on the area.
“The Lokono never called themselves Arawak,” Williams said Wakapau in the Pomeroon River comes from the Lokojan word ‘wakukwa’ meaning a pigeon.
Berbice got its name from the Lokono word ‘berebishi’ after the red banana also known as ‘buck banana’ on the coastal area and ‘black banana’ in some hinterland areas.
“When the Dutch colonised the area they called the area ‘Berebish’ and when the British colonised Guyana, they called Berebish, Berbice,” Williams said.
Barabina in Mabaruma subregion is a Lokono word for ‘seasickness cure’. ‘Bara’ means water and ‘bina’ is ‘cure’.
“People refer to ‘bina’ as a charm but that is misleading,” he said. “In Lokojan the word for charm is yaraymehi. The origin of the word bina in Lokono is ‘ibihi’ which means medicine. So when people say they get bina, they are saying they get medicine.”
The Orinoco in Lokojan is two words meaning snake mouth. ‘Ori’ means snake and ‘noroco’ is ‘mouth.’
Barima also flows from Guyana into Venezuela. Bara is water and ‘ima’ is an estuary. The mouth of the Barima was invariably rough, Williams noted, so
‘bara’ connotes a rough river mouth in Lokojan.
Kaieteur and Orinduik
Kaieteur and Orinduik both originate from two sets of words. In Patamona it is ‘Kuh-yeek Tuwuk’ with the last syllable as in ‘took’ with a soft ‘w’ in between the ‘oo’). ‘Kuhyeek’ is old man and ‘yuwuk’ is ‘falls’.
“When Barrington Brown, the first known European to visit the area asked the Patamonas the name of the falls, they told him ‘Kuhyeek Tuwuk.’ Mr Brown put his own spelling to the word and so we have Kaieteur Falls,” he related.
Similarly, Uhleeng Tuwuk (as pronounced) in Patamona was mispronounced as Orinduik. It got its name from the Uhleeng, a moss that grows on the tiers of the falls which is harvested by the Patamonas, dried, burnt and mixed with tobacco leaf and honey wax, and sucked.
“It gives you a little high. Because the area is 2,000 feet above sea level in the Pakaraimas, it helps us in breathing when climbing the mountains as the air is light up there,” he explained.
The Ireng River, which feeds water to the Orinduik flows, is the only river that flows North to South in Guyana.
Kurukubaru, Mahdia, Kato, Monkey Mountain are all places with Patamona names that have been corrupted or evolved to what they are now.
“I can’t cover them all now. I’m trying to promote, revitalise and preserve Indigenous languages as far as possible. Wherever I go, I try to encourage Indigenous People to follow up on their languages in a bid to preserve them,” he said.
In 2017, after he was no longer employed formally in the public or private sector, Williams established a translation service with 18 translators to cater for the language barriers that Indigenous People who cannot communicate in English at the official level face, particularly in the courts and in the hospitals.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the Ministry of Health used his services to translate public service advisories into the various Indigenous languages. He engaged translators to do the work he himself could not do.
Williams established the service because he saw the need for it when he worked at the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs where he provided a translation service gratis when the need arose.
A former Guyana Defence Force pilot, he noted that when they did medical evacuations, the medical histories of some Indigenous patients were not recorded because they could not be understood. He learned some of the languages so that proper medical reports could be obtained.