St. David's Night

Friday night at the new Berkeley Institute (mega high school) auditorium. Some 200 people, many St. David's Islanders (SDIs) of today or emigrants, take in 'St. David's Night', a Cultural Affairs sponsored programme honouring the 'unique' culture and history of St. David's. Interview excerpts from Lucinda Spurling's documentary film 'St. David's: An Island Near Bermuda' preceeded the live oral testimony of 'St. David's treasure' Mrs. Dora Hollis. With her son Stuart at her side, she described life on east end St. David's, remembering 'a place you could love' with a strong sense of community and respect for elders at its core, notwithstanding elements of prejudice. Ronnie Chameau, reknown for her own tradional craft making, paid tribute to the women of St. David's, projecting their image and names alongside her recall of their 'strength and determination as the backbone of families' and their talent as herbalists, cooks, teachers and palmetto weavers. Beulah Foggo's slide tribute to the male war veteran's (WW1, WW2, Vietnam) of St. David's followed. With a feathered totem in hand, Stuart Hollis took to the stage to tell some self-depricating SDI jokes, leaving the audience in hysterics and finally asking 'Isn't it nice we can laugh at ourselves?'. During the intermission crowds gathering around display areas of crafts, merchandise, and an amateur archaeological display of various artefacts excavated from a home garden in the west end of St. David's, including pottery shards, copper nails and sheeting, buttons, clay pipes, a horsebit and cedar knees from dinghies.

The reconnections with Native American heritage was a major element of the evening, especially as this event preceeds the major biannual Native American Reconnections festival by a week (that I could not attend because of simultaneous maritime happenings).The keynote speaker was linguistics scholar Jessie little doe of the American Wampanoag Tribe who shared her journey to revive and reclaim that tribe's language, with her daughter being the first native speaker for several generations. Interactive games with the audience illustrated the philosophies and structure encoded on the Wampanoag language. She emphasised the sense of pride engendered through language reclamation as well as the connection she felt to Bermudian SDI's, encouraging those 'with connections to heritage and culture to embrace that, [to not] be afraid'. Following Stephen Tucker's discussion of the goals of the SDO Indian Committee to raise awareness, diversity, pride and particpation in this aspect pf Bermudian heritage, the St. David's Native Roots Dancers, divided into male and female performances and in full native costume, closed out the night.