Video of Our House

Cool to See, Artifacts Returned...

Gift of Honduran Artifacts Returned by Anthropology Dept.

TAMPA, Fla. (March 26, 2008) –Is it possible that some gifts are simply too precious to keep? Such was the case of a gift of rare prehistoric pottery given to the University of South Florida’s Department of Anthropology. An important collection of 157 prehistoric pottery artifacts was returned to the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History, the branch of the Honduran government that oversees the country’s cultural heritage. The artifacts, which are associated with the prehispanic Pech culture of the eleventh through fifteenth centuries AD, include ceramic bowls, plates, and jars from Roatan Island in the Bay of Honduras, Central America. The collection was donated to USF in 1990 by a Tampa Bay area family after having been recovered from the family’s property on Roatan earlier last century. The Honduran government plans to display the pieces in a new museum being constructed on Roatan Island.
“Much as we have enjoyed having the opportunity to study and display this collection at USF, we believe that the right place for them is Honduras, where they can be exhibited and appreciated by the people of that country,” noted USF Anthropology Chair Elizabeth Bird. “We were delighted to be able to work with the Honduran officials to repatriate this precious collection and we know that the original donors were also pleased to hear that the collection is going home.”
USF Assistant Professor Christian Wells, accompanied the collection to Tegucigalpa. “I have worked in Honduras for nearly 15 years and have never seen such a large collection of archaeological materials from Roatan ever in one place,” he said. “This collection is hugely important because the prehispanic cultures of the Bay Islands are virtually unknown archaeologically.”
The repatriation took place at a press conference at the Ministry of Culture in Tegucigalpa on March 11, where Wells was joined by Honduras Minister of Culture Rodolfo Fasquelle, Director of the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History Darío Euraque, and the Institute’s archeology chief Eva Martínez.
Wells and his archaeological team from USF, which included Assistant Professor Karla Davis-Salazar and graduate students José Moreno-Cortés and Lorena Mihok, analyzed the collection before it was returned to Honduras. They believe the pottery was probably manufactured by the Pech during the Early to Middle Postclassic period, roughly AD 1000 to 1400. Wells describes the pottery as “shallow outcurving and flaring-walled bowls, plates, and jars, decorated on the exterior with abstract curvilinear scrolls, usually finely incised.”
Wells said, “The Pech are indigenous hunter-gatherers and small-scale farmers that occupied the Bay Islands throughout the eleventh to sixteenth centuries. After being displaced to mainland Honduras by Spanish and English settlers in the seventeenth century, the Pech today occupy parts of the north coast of Honduras. As of 2001, the Pech numbered roughly 3,800, making them one of the smallest ethnic groups in Honduras.”
As reported by the Honduran press, the team believes that the pottery was likely used by shamans in ceremonies carried out after the death of a community member. Wells explained that these practices involved drinking fermented (alcoholic) beverages made from yucca or corn and eating special foods such as tamales made of yucca.
“Today, Pech communities along the Moskito Coast continue this tradition, although participants typically use plastic dishware instead of the traditional pottery,” said Wells.

My Wife is a Babe

Am I showing off?  Heck yeah, wouldn't you?

Some of my New Favorite Things

*BUTTPACK: The buttpack is sadly out of fashion at this moment, but it is one of mankind's great inventions.  I can throw a half gallon of water (a juice bottle, nothing fancy), my netbook, food, and other whatsits to keep me self contained for a full day.  No strain on shoulders, no nothing.  Its like a super-powered utility belt!
*DEET:  I buy Off! in lotion form by the case.  It is expensive but without it the sand flies make life hell at night.
*GLACIER GLASSES:  These mothers are the real deal glacier glasses.  Dark as night, leather siding, and wraparound ear jobbies.  Glass polarized lenses.  I thought they would be too dark, but out on the water they are perfect.  And they don't make you look like a snowboarder.
*ARMY SURPLUS SUN HAT, TYPE II: I use the neck strap to tie up the sides most of the time.  But its great to have the 360 degree brim when you need it.  I only do that when necessary, as having the sides up makes me look like I just walked out of the Louisiana Bayou.
*DOC MARTEN LOW TOP STEEL TOE BOOTS:  They are just plain old thick leather with a giant sole. I don't care how hot it is, when I've got serious work to do, flip flops (thongs, we used to call them), just don't cut it. 

On a side note, there are lots of thrift shops on the island now.  Whatever doesn't get sold at Goodwill in the U.S. ends up in third world countries at for-profit used goods stores.  Normally I would say that would be bad for the Honduran economy, but since almost nothing is produced in Honduras for Hondurans, I don't think it hurts.  But that is for another post.

Obsidian Chip from the Workshop

A piece I picked off the ground at "The Workshop" as I call the site up the hill.  Black obsidian.  I can see one bit of the surface of the original surface of the rock, i.e. dull as compared to shiny, so this was a chip produced from someone making a tool.  The the question is, where did it come from?  Pips, we need your mass spectrometer, stat!

Another Pottery Nerd Post: A Little Sculpture I Made

Just dorking around with some clay.  Our house is in the midst of a pottery/anthropology nerd's paradise.  I dug the clay out of the ground downhill from the house, like 100 feet away.  The land crabs dig holes and leave piles of perfect clay.  I've been adding a little sand, but basically it is perfect straight from the ground. 

The more I look at the pot shards left behind the more I am amazed at the level of craftsmanship of the work.  Where I took this video is locally considered a pottery workshop, and it would not surprise me to learn that folks were exporting a lot of pottery in pre-columbian times.  The beach on the north side is scattered with shards that have worked there way down.  They are worn down like a river rock would be.  

I think I could spend a decade or two studying and marveling at the work here.  At this point with the level of corruption in every level of government etc., benign neglect may be better overall for this place.  I have been talking to the guys who dig in the hill here why it is cooler to leave the pots in the ground in that the story of the people is erased forever when stuff is taken out willy nilly.   Mostly they haven't thought about that part of it and consider it the same as "prospecting" for pirate bottles and such.  They are smart and soulful guys for the most part. 

They were actually like, "Wow, I never thought of that before.  I'm going to think about that more."  So, hey, that's better than nothing, eh?

Awesome Reggae Song from Pack's Wake

Many of Helene's customs are of British Isles origin, one of which is holding a wake after a person dies.  The deceased person is laid out in coffin and friends and relatives stay up all night singing and celebrating in honor of the dead.  Most of the music was country gospel, gospel, and some reggae; and really well sung all around.  Unfortunately, nobody was in charge of the sound system.  Someone set it up at the beginning and it sounded decent, but as the night went on and the music and singing got louder, the sound got worse and worse to the point that around three a.m. the sound from the mic was probably 80 percent feedback, and the speakers were peaking out at probably about the same ratio.  I happen to be fascinated by feedback, static, popping, and other such sonic artifacts so I was fascinated by it. 

I also thought it was cool and touching that the people singing did not seem to mind that their performance was being slaughtered by the sound system.  It was all very un-self conscience.


The link will hopefully bring you to Soundcloud, where you will hopefully be able to hear Zeke (name spelled wrong I'm sure).  Just turn the volume down before you play it.  I recorded it about twenty feet away from the sound system, which was pushed beyond anything it was designed for.  I was sitting directly behind Pack's coffin recording with ye olde ipod.

Here's to you, Pack!

Click below to go to soundcloud to hear one of the songs:
Rise Up! Rise Up! (turn down your speakers first)

Paya Indian Pottery Shards, Unexcavated, Mildly Looted

Young Fellows Fishing

I came across two groups of kids when I paddled my canoe to and around the island of Morat.  No 'helicopter parents' around here...

Wading on the North Side

Pal with pollitos

Adderley is a young mam

Some cute pics of Divya

In Memory of "Pack" Matute

One of Vanessa's best friend's father "Pack" Matute was killed at sea last week.  He was bringing materials for our house and we will memorialize him in some manner in the building of the house.  The seas were very rough and there were other factors involved. 

The same week a similar dory manned by two fellows from down island overturned as it was leaving the dock at Old Port Royal.  Inexperience in loading drums filled with water was the main factor in that incident.  Nobody was hurt and there was no damage. 

The sea gives and the sea takes away.  I have utter and complete respect for its power.

Paya Indians, Early Inhabitants of Roatan

I just came across this article on the Paya Indians in The Bay Islands Voice  Link.  Paya artifacts (yabba ding dings in island English) are common.  A few people try to sell pot shards and such to the few tourists who come through, but there isn't much of a market.  To my knowledge no serious archeological studies or excavations have happened on the island of Helene.  I plan to get some clay and make some of my own yabba ding dings soon...


I pulled out some snippets from the Bay Islands article:

With all the trade in the region, Bay Islands provided some exotic goods for the native mainland inhabitants. The original Bay Islanders exported stingray spines and seafood to the mainland and in return brought back jade and basalt from the Guatemala area, copper from nearby mainland Honduras and obsidian, cocoa beans and seashells from the Sula valley. Most of these raw materials do not occur naturally on the archipelago. Utila, formed partially from volcanic activity, was an exporter of basalt – an important material used in making grinding stones on the mainland.

Monochrome baked clay bowls with finger stamped decorative patterns have been commonly found on Roatan, Utila and Guanaja. These potsherds are very durable, and provide opportunity to study the Paya ability of decoration and techniques of clay manufacturing. The analysis of the ceramics from Bay Islands and northeast of Honduras indicates that these peoples formed a united cultural region at the time of European arrival.

The pirates were often violent and destructive towards the Paya. They often burned to the ground entire Indian settlements, steeling boats and supplies. Still, with the increase presence of pirates on the Bay Islands, the Spanish came to see the Paya as providing assistance to them not the Honduran mainland. The Spanish came to see the Bay Islands as a place where pirates came to regroup and resupply.

In 1864 Honduran government awarded the Paya legal title to their communal lands. The mestizo population continued to move eastward and engulfed the Paya that now live in only 11 isolated communities surrounded by Garifuna, Miskito and Ladino people. Since the 1950s, loggers and immigrants have continued to exert pressure on the Paya resulting in erasing almost all vestiges of their traditional culture. With around 1,500 Paya surveyed around 990 speaking Pech, but among the 6 to 20 age-group, only half of them speak Pech at all. Even more striking is a report from 1982 that documented only 17 “racially pure” Paya Indians.

Paya Indians are considered to be isolationists, proud of their ethnicity and culture, in spite of colonization and assimilation of other indigenous groups. The Paya struggled hard to avoid intermarriage with other cultures. Today greatest concentration of Paya Indians is in the towns of Dulce Nombre de Culmí and Santa María del Carbón in Olancho.

The Paya with strongest cultural roots live in the community of Las Marías. They maintain much of the traditional life-style: they continue to catch iguanas by hand, to catch fish with handmade harpoons, and to navigate the waters of the local rivers in dugout canoes. They raise maize, beans, cassava and Opuntia cactus plant on which the cochineal insect feeds, using simple tools.

The future of the Paya doesn’t look great. They are isolated and their culture is engulfed in the homogenizing setting of the Honduran melting pot. In the next decades the remaining Paya could very well disappear like their cousins that once inhabited the Bay Islands.

May 1st, 2011

by Thomas Tomczyk
Source:  http://www.bayislandsvoice.com/2011/05/the-paya-of-bay-islands-after-around-1000-years-of-living-on-the-archipelago-the-original-inhabitants-of-bay-islands-have-been-forcibly-removed-the-echo-of-their-presence-is-hidden-in-pottery-moun/

Map of East Bay Islands

The First Week

I met Vanessa at the airport on Roatan, and we rented a cabana on the beach at West End to spend a night away from the kids before we all got together. We ate at a nice creole restaurant, had a great night, and then loaded an extremely large amount of luggage (hint: don't bring extra luggage during semana santa) into the taxi for the 18 mile ride to French Harbour, the end of the road, literally, on the east end of Roatan.  Vanessa's brother Samir picked us up in his small dory and we got a good saltwater bath motoring the remaining 5 miles or so into the wind to the island and village of Helene.



(Image not mine, I don't have a camera, guh.)

Once we were in Helene, I rested a couple of days, played with lil Divya and big Adderley (who has changed his name to Benten), I got to work cleaning up the land.  The lot's view rather amazed me once I got it cleaned up.  We are about half way through the cement portion, and are planning the house as we go.  That's just a better way to do things around here.  The sand, rocks and gravel are all being brought in by dory from the island of Morat nearby by motor dory:

We have also been having to get fresh water for bathing and such from the island of Morat, as the pump for the spring to the main water tank for the community has been broken.  We haul the water a couple of hundred feet from a well said to have been dug by pirates hundreds of years ago.  I have no reason to doubt that story, as the innermost part of the well is done in rock with no cement.  There are two outer layers that have been put in since then.