Turtle Bogue

About this book

"This study records an oral history and ethnography of the Afro-Caribbean individuals and families who settled in Tortuguero, a small village in northeastern Costa Rica. It is the product of nine months of field work in Costa Rica by the author and subsequent library research in the United States."--BOOK JACKET. "The purpose of the study is twofold: (1) to describe and analyze the Afro-Caribbean social structure, cultural life, and ethnic identity within Tortuguero, and (2) to place Tortuguero within the larger context of that phase of the African diaspora that placed people of African descent on the islands of the western Caribbean and on the eastern coast of Central America from Belize to Panama."--BOOK JACKET. "The author uses the concept of creole cultures and societies to analyze and interpret the descriptive, ethnographic data in the book.^ He argues that creole cultures and societies, and the ethnic identities associated with them, although structured on past traditions, are essentially dynamic and emergent and are constantly in the process of being re-created and remolded."--BOOK JACKET. "Culturally, the Afro-Caribbean residents of Tortuguero are African, Amerindian, and European/American. They have black cultural roots that reach back through the ex-slaves and freedmen of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, San Andres, and Jamaica to West Africa. They have red cultural roots, entwined with their black roots, that connect with the Zambo-Miskitu and the Garifuna (Black Carib) in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, back to the Carib Indians of the Lesser Antilles.^ They also have European…

Themes & subjects