Guyana
The only English-speaking country in South America, a Caribbean land of many waters and six peoples, of Indian, African, Amerindian, and other roots, of pepperpot and Mashramani, now transformed by a vast oil boom. The complete guide.
Guyana is a country on the northeast shoulder of South America, on the Atlantic coast, bordered by Venezuela, Brazil, and Suriname, yet it is the only country on the continent whose official language is English and the only one that thinks of itself as Caribbean rather than Latin American. About eight hundred thousand people live there, most of them crowded onto a narrow coastal strip, while behind them stretches a vast, almost empty interior of rainforest and savanna. Guyana is one of the most ethnically diverse nations anywhere, a land of Indian, African, Amerindian, mixed, Chinese, and Portuguese roots, often called the land of six peoples, whose food, faith, and festivals reflect this remarkable mixing. Once one of the poorest nations of the region, Guyana has lately been transformed by the discovery of vast offshore oil. This guide walks through the land, the peoples, the faith, the food, the festivals, and the customs in turn, taking no side on the dispute over its borders.
Overview
Guyana is a country on the northern coast of South America, facing the Atlantic Ocean, bordered by Venezuela to the west, Brazil to the south and southwest, and Suriname to the east. Though it sits on the South American mainland, Guyana is in language, history, and culture a Caribbean country, the only nation on the continent with English as its official language, and a member of the Caribbean community of nations. About eight hundred thousand people live there, the great majority gathered on the narrow, low coastal plain, much of it below sea level, where the capital, Georgetown, stands.
Guyana is a republic, the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, with a president who is head of state and government, currently Irfaan Ali. The official language is English, spoken by everyone, alongside the rich everyday Guyanese Creole. The people are famously diverse: those of Indian descent are the largest group, followed by those of African descent, with sizeable mixed and Amerindian communities and smaller Chinese and Portuguese ones. The main faiths are Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam. After long being poor, the country has lately become, through offshore oil, one of the fastest-growing economies in the world.
A few deep forces shape life in Guyana. There is the land of many waters, coast and vast forested interior. There is the rich mix of six peoples, Indian and African above all. There is the Caribbean identity within South America. There is the heritage of the first peoples, the Amerindians. And there is the meeting of many faiths and the famous food and festivals. The sections that follow trace these and walk through the customs.
The land of many waters
The name Guyana is said to come from an old Amerindian word meaning land of many waters, and it fits a country laced with great rivers, the Essequibo, the Demerara, and the Berbice among them, which pour down from the highlands and through the forests to the sea and have shaped the country's life and history. Guyana divides sharply into two worlds: the narrow coastal plain in the north, where almost everyone lives, and the vast, wild interior, or hinterland, behind it.
The coastal strip, where the capital and the farms and most of the people are, is remarkable for lying largely below the level of the sea at high tide, kept dry only by a long system of sea walls, dams, and drainage canals first built by Dutch settlers and tended ever since, so that the land is wrested from the water by constant effort. Here lie the cane fields and rice paddies, the villages, and Georgetown, a city famous for its graceful old wooden buildings, its great market, and its tree-lined avenues.
Beyond the coast stretches the immense interior, one of the least spoiled regions on earth: dense tropical rainforest, part of the great Amazon-Orinoco wilderness, giving way in the south to the open grasslands of the Rupununi savanna, and broken by mountains, rivers, and the thundering Kaieteur Falls, one of the world's mightiest single-drop waterfalls. This wild hinterland, rich in wildlife, gold, and timber, and home to the Amerindian peoples, is a world apart from the crowded coast. The land of many waters, coast and forest, is the setting of Guyanese life.
The six peoples
Guyana is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the world, often described as the land of six peoples, and its story is the story of how these very different groups came to share one small country. The largest group are the Indo-Guyanese, descendants of indentured labourers brought from India in the nineteenth century to work the sugar plantations, who make up around two-fifths of the people; close behind are the Afro-Guyanese, descendants of enslaved Africans brought to work those same plantations before them.
Alongside these two great communities are a large group of people of mixed heritage, the Amerindians or first peoples who are the land's original inhabitants, and smaller communities descended from Chinese and Portuguese labourers who also came in colonial times, as well as some of European descent. This remarkable mix is the legacy of Guyana's history as a Dutch and then British colony built on sugar, slavery, and indenture.
The country's motto, one people, one nation, one destiny, expresses the hope of binding these groups into a single nation, and in daily life Guyanese of every background share a language, a love of food and festival, and a strong national pride. Yet the differences run deep, and the country's politics have long divided largely along the lines of its two main communities, the Indo-Guyanese and the Afro-Guyanese, a division that has shaped, and at times troubled, national life. This diverse mix of six peoples is the human foundation of Guyana.
A Caribbean nation in South America
One of the most striking things about Guyana is that, although it lies firmly on the South American mainland, it is in nearly every way a Caribbean country, sharing far more with the islands of the West Indies than with its Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking neighbours. This comes from its history, for Guyana was a British colony, like much of the Caribbean, peopled by the same waves of enslaved Africans and Indian indentured labourers, and it shares the language, the culture, and the outlook of the English-speaking Caribbean.
So Guyanese speak English, and among themselves the warm, musical Guyanese Creole that is close kin to the creoles of Trinidad, Barbados, and the islands. The country belongs to the Caribbean family of nations rather than to Latin America, and indeed the headquarters of the Caribbean Community is in Georgetown. The music, the festivals, the food, and the humour all belong to the Caribbean world, and Guyanese think of themselves as West Indian.
Nowhere is this Caribbean bond clearer than in the love of cricket, the great shared passion of the English-speaking Caribbean, for Guyana plays not as itself but as part of the West Indies team, and the sport stirs deep national and regional feeling, having long been a field where the talents of ordinary people could shine. This Caribbean identity, carried in language, cricket, music, and culture, sets Guyana apart on its own continent and binds it to the islands across the sea.
The first peoples
Long before the Europeans, the Africans, or the Indians came, the land that is now Guyana was home to its first peoples, the Amerindians, the Indigenous nations who have lived here for thousands of years and who remain a vital part of the country, making up around a tenth of the population. They belong to nine distinct peoples, among them the Arawak, the Carib, the Warao, the Wapishana, the Macushi, the Patamona, and the Akawaio, each with its own language and traditions.
Most Amerindians live in the vast interior, the hinterland of rainforest and savanna, in villages along the rivers and across the Rupununi grasslands, far from the crowded coast, where they keep a way of life closely tied to the forest, the rivers, and the land, living by farming, hunting, fishing, and gathering. They are the keepers of a deep knowledge of the wild country, its plants, animals, and seasons, that reaches back beyond all the other peoples of Guyana.
The first peoples have given Guyana much of its distinctive character, above all in food, for the cassava, the bitter root that Amerindians learned to make safe and turn into bread, drinks, and the dark cassareep sauce, lies at the heart of the national kitchen. Their heritage lives on in place names, crafts, music, and art, and is honoured each year. Yet the Amerindian communities also face real hardship, with poorer services and pressures on their lands from logging and mining. This heritage of the first peoples is a deep and distinctive root of Guyana.
A meeting of faiths
Guyana is a land where many religions live side by side, a meeting of faiths that mirrors the mix of its peoples, and the churches, Hindu temples with their fluttering prayer flags, and mosques stand together as everyday signs of the country's diversity. The largest faith is Christianity, brought in colonial times and followed by most Afro-Guyanese, many Amerindians, and others, with Anglican, Roman Catholic, and a growing number of Protestant and evangelical churches.
Hinduism, brought by the Indian community, is the faith of a large part of the population and a powerful presence in the country, with its temples, festivals, and rich traditions kept alive far from the ancestral homeland, and Islam, also brought by Indo-Guyanese, is followed by a smaller but significant community. These faiths are widely respected, and their great festivals are shared and even made national holidays, so that Guyanese of every background join in one another's celebrations in a spirit of tolerance.
Beneath and alongside the established religions run older folk beliefs, brought from Africa, India, and the Amerindian world, in spirits, healing, and the unseen, including the African-rooted practices known as obeah, long woven quietly into the country's spiritual life. Religious leaders of every faith are treated with deference and respect. This peaceable meeting of Christian, Hindu, Muslim, and older traditions is a defining feature of Guyana.
Pepperpot and the Guyanese pot
Guyanese food is one of the great pleasures of the country and a delicious expression of its mixing of peoples, drawing together African, Indian, Amerindian, European, and Chinese flavours into a rich and distinctive cuisine. The national dish is pepperpot, a dark, rich, spicy stew of meat slow-cooked with cassareep, the sauce made from cassava that the Amerindians gave the country, flavoured with cinnamon and hot pepper, traditionally eaten at Christmas, a dish that joins the first peoples' heritage to the national table.
The Indian heritage runs deep in the food, in the curries and the many kinds of roti, the flatbread wrapped around or served with curried meat, vegetables, or chickpeas, and snacks such as the fried dough balls called pholourie. From the African and Creole tradition come dishes such as cook-up rice, a hearty one-pot of rice, peas, and meat cooked in coconut milk, and metemgee, a rich stew of ground provisions and dumplings in coconut. Garlic pork, of Portuguese origin, and Guyanese-style Chinese food add yet more layers.
Christmas is the great season of Guyanese cooking, when homes fill with the smell of pepperpot, the rich, dark, rum-soaked black cake, and homemade bread, washed down with ginger beer, sorrel, and the tangy local drink mauby. Tropical fruit, fresh fish and seafood, and the bustle of the great markets round out the country's food. Rich, spicy, and gloriously mixed, Guyanese food is a delicious reflection of the land of six peoples.
Mashramani and the festival calendar
The Guyanese year is filled with festivals drawn from all the country's communities, kept with enthusiasm and, in the national spirit, shared across every background. The most distinctively Guyanese celebration is Mashramani, or Mash, held on Republic Day in February, a great national carnival, its name taken from an Amerindian word for a celebration after hard work, with costumed bands, music, dancing, and parades filling the streets in a joyful show of national pride.
The Hindu community brings two of the most beautiful festivals of the year: Phagwah, the spring festival of colours, when people douse one another in coloured dyes and water in joyful play, and Diwali, the festival of lights, when thousands of small lamps glow outside homes in one of the loveliest sights of the Guyanese year. The Muslim community keeps the holy month of Ramadan and the festival of Eid, and all of these are widely shared.
The African heritage is honoured at Emancipation Day, which marks the end of slavery with drumming, dance, African dress, and pride, while the first peoples are celebrated during Amerindian Heritage Month, and the whole country keeps Christmas, the greatest season of all for food and family. Through the festivals runs a rich musical life, with calypso, soca, the Indian-rooted chutney, reggae, and the beat of drums. This shared festival calendar, from Mashramani to Diwali to Emancipation Day, reflects the diversity and unity of Guyana.
The Guyanese welcome
Guyanese are known for their warmth, openness, and easy friendliness, and a visitor is met with genuine hospitality, drawn into conversation, and made to feel welcome, for sharing food, talk, and good company is at the heart of social life. The Guyanese way of speaking is famously direct and frank, plain-spoken and quick with humour and a sharp turn of phrase in the lively Creole, which can surprise a newcomer but is part of the country's warmth.
Family and community lie at the centre of Guyanese life, with strong extended-family ties and a deep respect for elders, and life moves at a relaxed, unhurried pace, with a flexible attitude to time that asks for patience. Across the different communities, the customs of family, faith, and celebration vary, yet a shared Guyanese identity, warm, sociable, and proud, binds them together, and hospitality is common to all.
In dress, everyday wear is modern and Western, while the traditional clothing of each community, the sari and other Indian dress, African-inspired garments, and Amerindian craft, comes out for festivals and religious occasions, bright and beautiful. For a visitor, the keys to Guyana are friendliness, respect for the country's diversity and faiths, patience with the relaxed pace, and an open enjoyment of the food, music, and welcome. This warm, direct, and hospitable spirit is the heart of Guyana.
The nation today
Guyana today is a country being transformed at extraordinary speed. For most of its history it was poor, living on sugar, rice, gold, bauxite, and timber, and losing many of its people to emigration, so that a vast Guyanese diaspora now lives in North America, Britain, and the Caribbean. Then, in recent years, enormous reserves of oil were found off its coast, and as the oil began to flow, Guyana became one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, with its wealth and its budget soaring. The great task now is to turn this sudden fortune into lasting good for all, for more than half the people still live in poverty, and to use it wisely and fairly.
Two great matters weigh on national life. One is the country's deep political division between its two main communities, which has long shaped its parties and elections and which the nation works to overcome. The other is a long-running dispute with neighbouring Venezuela, which claims the Essequibo, the large region that makes up much of western Guyana; Guyana administers and governs the region and rejects the claim, the matter has been taken to the International Court of Justice, and tensions have risen as the oil wealth has grown. This guide takes no side in that dispute.
Through it all, Guyana holds firmly to the identity built over its history. The land of many waters, coast and wild interior, still shapes its life; the rich mix of six peoples remains its foundation; the Caribbean identity within South America still sets it apart; the heritage of the first peoples runs deep; and the meeting of faiths, the famous food, and the love of festival still bind the nation together. Diverse, resilient, and suddenly rich, Guyana carries its traditions into a fast-changing future.