10 Amazing and Unexpected Facts About Guyanese Society

10 Amazing and Unexpected Facts About Guyanese Society

Held secret on the north Atlantic coast of South America, Guyana is a country of dramatic contrasts. It is the only English-speaking nation on the continent but is more Caribbean than Latin in sentiment. It is defined by the dense, unmapped Amazon jungle, but coastal life is defined by a complex dynamic with the sea and land reclaimed from it. Often described as the "Land of Many Waters," Guyana's culture is a rich, bubbling stew of traditions, adaptations, and unique elements that have evolved in relative isolation. To understand Guyana is to look over the map and into the fascinating, and often bizarre, realities of daily life. The following are ten strange facts that reveal the hidden rhythm of Guyanese culture.

**1. A South American Society with Caribbean Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Flag in its Heart**

Geographically, Guyana is every bit as much part of South America as can be conceived. But culturally, politically, and socially, its heart beats in time with the Caribbean. This is the most elementary and unconventional element of its national persona.

**When the Cultural Anchor is Played:**

Guyanese dance to soca, calypso, and dancehall. Guyanese play cricket with passion that would challenge any West Indian island. The accent, the humor, the cuisine—everything is distinctively Caribbean. This divergence is a result of history. Whereas its Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch neighbors were shaped by Iberian colonialism, Guyana was a British colony for over 150 years. It was administered as part of the British West Indies, and its citizens—descendants of slaves brought from Africa and indentured workers from India—passed through the same transatlantic systems that populated the Caribbean islands.

**The Political Alignment:** Politically, the cultural identity is institutionalized. Guyana is a founding member of the CARICOM, headquartered in Georgetown. Its main diplomatic and economic allies are the Caribbean islands like Trinidad, Barbados, and Jamaica. For Guyanese, "going to the region" does not mean going to Brazil or Venezuela, but another Caribbean island. This constitutes a society that feels like a continental island, a piece of Caribbean archipelago which has been placed at random into the South American mainland.

**2. A Breathing Racial Mosaic Where Politics are Rigidly Divided**

Guyana is a wonderful ethnic brocade, fashioned mostly from two principal threads: Indo-Guyanese (people descended from Indian indentured laborers, roughly 40%) and Afro-Guyanese (people descended from enslaved Africans, roughly 30%), each with substantial mixed, Indigenous, Chinese, and Portuguese minorities. The strange twist is the way this heterogeneity, making it such a rich culture, has also produced a political system desperately divided along racial lines.

**The Political Dichotomy:** Guyanese politics have been dominated for generations by the two major parties, the People's Progressive Party (PPP), historically supported mainly by the Indo-Guyanese, and the People's National Congress (PNC), whose base is among the Afro-Guyanese. The division is so deep-seated that the result of an election can sometimes be forecast with uncanny predictability just by looking at the ethnic composition of the electoral districts.

**Daily Harmony and Political Stress:** The strangest paradox is a daily one. Villagers and even Georgetown residents share living, working, and social spaces and cohabit each other's company. They all celebrate each other's holidays—Diwali and Eid are widely celebrated, as is Mashramani (Carnival). But as soon as election season arrives, venerable historical phobias and tribal loyalties are unleashed, often leading to heightened tension. This multiculture harmony that pervades ordinary day-to-day life and the polarized politics that enliven a different world is a feature and peculiarity of the society.

**3. A Capital City Built Below Sea Level, Guarded by a Gigantic Wall**

The capital, Georgetown, is not just on the coast; a significant portion of it actually is below sea level. This incredible geographical phenomenon has shaped the city's planning and the very mindset of its populace in strange ways.

**The Dutch Legacy:** The Dutch, who were earlier than the British in colonizing Guyana, were skilled water engineers. They created a very extensive system of canals, kokers (sluice gates), and sea defences in order to reclaim land from the Atlantic Ocean. The middle of Georgetown is protected from the ocean by a colossal concrete sea wall.

**A City of Canals:** The city is bisected by canals that also form a drainage system. They are not quaint Venetian canals but functional ones, and when the tide goes out, they smell at low tide as the mudflats come into view. Living in Georgetown is all very interwoven with water management. The tidal rhythm of each day is echoed in the workings of the kokers, which are opened and closed to sluice off surplus rain and prevent flooding. The Sea Wall itself is not just a barrier; it is a social space, an esplanade upon which people walk, fly kites, and socialize at sunset, always with the awareness that it is the only thing standing between them and the sea. This constant, visible battle against nature is a unique and typical feature of city life in Guyana.

**4. A National Festival (Mashramani) with Indigenous Roots, Celebrated by All**

While Guyana's biggest population bases are African and Indian, its most festive national holiday, Mashramani (or "Mash"), had origins in Indigenous Amerindian culture.

**The Start of "Mashramani":** It is believed in common usage to have come from an Amerindian language, which translates as "celebration after hard work." It was employed to commemorate the country's independence as a republic in 1970.

**A Guyanese-Affair Carnival:** On February 23rd, Guyana celebrates a carnival in response to Carnival. The Georgetown and town streets erupt in colorful display as costumed bands, floats, and tens of thousands of masqueraders dance along to the beat of soca and calypso music. What is new is this fusion: a carnival with an Amerindian name, built out of the African-Caribbean origins of carnivalism, and held in common by all ethnic groups in the country. It is a vivid, powerful expression of Guyanese multiculturalism, in which the national heritage of the Indigenous nation is brought to the peak of its national identity in a carnival, celebratory spectacle.

**5. A "Cookshop" Culture and Unifying "Chow Mein" Dominant Culinary Scene**

Guyanese cuisine is delicious creole food, but one of its most prevalent food and social organization are surprisingly unique.

**The Cookshop Phenomenon:** Unlike most countries with formal restaurants, Guyana has a lively "cookshop" culture. These are small, often family-operated, casual restaurants, sometimes nothing more than a window in a private house. They prepare home-cooked, filling foods such as curry, cook-up rice, and stews to a loyal neighborhood clientele. The cookshop is a gathering place where individuals come for a cheap, genuine meal and rumor. It is an informal, decentralized food economy at the center of everyday life.

**The National Stir-Fry:** In a surprising turn, one of Guyana's favorite national dishes is Chow Mein. This is not Chinese food in the West. Guyanese Chow Mein is a personalized one, made with delicate, steamed noodles (not fried), a hearty, savory gravy, and a mixture of meat and vegetables. It's the favorite at all functions, from weddings to birthday parties, transcending ethnic groups. The experience of a Chinese dish modified to suit local palates being a pan-cultural comfort food for a population with predominantly African and Indian heritage is a testament to the great syncretic ability of Guyana.

**6. The "Backdam" Mentality: A Frontier Spirit in the 21st Century**

Despite being a coastal country, the Guyanese mindset is deeply influenced by the "hinterland"—the immense, forested interior. This has given rise to what one can refer to as the "Backdam" mentality.

**What is Backdam:** In literal terms, it refers to the space behind a farm or an establishment, often leading to the bush. Symbolically, it is the frontier, hard work country, resource extraction (gold and diamond mining, forestry), and lawlessness.

**A Two-World Society:** There are two parallel worlds within Guyanese society: the disciplined, coastal "seaboard" life and the off-the-cuff, exploitative "backdam" life. A majority of men, particularly from Afro-Guyanese communities, spend months traveling into the interior to labor as pork-knockers (artisanal miners). This has spawned a culture wherein risk-taking, hard-boiled individualism, and the possibility of getting rich overnight pervades. Backdam's impact is paid back to the coast in the shape of gold currency, stories, and a persistent frontier mentality anachronistic to the present day, for a unique social attribute.

**7. A Whimsical and Lovable Love for Old British Slang**

As an English-speaking country, Guyana retains its own unique dialect, Guyanese Creole. Quirky is the fact that archaic and formal British English terms and expressions persist in common usage.

**Linguistic Time Capsule:** Guyanese can be heard using words that have more or less fallen out of use at home in the UK.

* **"Cheers"** is used to express "thank you," a use that nowadays is very rare in Britain.

* They claim to be **"knocking you up"** i.e., knocking at your door to wake you or calling upon you (a perfectly innocent and old-fashioned British idiom).

* "**Directly**" is employed to mean "**later**" (e.g., "**I'll do it directly**").

* Formal address terms like **"Mr."** and **"Miss"** followed by a first name (e.g., **"Miss Mary"**) are common, a usage derived from colonial plantation society.

This linguistic fossilization creates a charming, slightly disorienting effect, as though the society is addressing each other in the dialect of a British period drama.

**8. A Society in Which the Supernatural ("Obeah") is a Subterranean Hum**

In an era of science and technology, supernatural faith, particularly in Obeah, remains a silent but deep undercurrent of Guyanese existence, spanning ethnic as well as education lines.

**What is Obeah?** Obeah is more or less akin to Voodoo or Santería, a West African scheme of spiritual and folk magical technique. It comprises the use of charms, spells, and rituals to receive good luck, bring harm, or protect against evil.

**The Unspoken Influence:** Though rarely discussed openly, especially in urban areas, a belief in Obeah can make a difference in key life decisions. It can be suspected in a bout of bad fortune, a mysterious illness, or a loss of business. People can secretly consult with Obeah practitioners to acquire a lover, win a lawsuit, or hex a rival. This produces a society in which, under a Christian, Hindu, or Muslim surface, there is a widespread conviction of religious powers that can be influenced, giving social interaction an underlying complexity.

**9. The "One-Stop Shop" Rum Shop: The Unbeatable Social Hub**

The Guyanese rum shop is far more than a liquor store. It is the uncontested, multifaceted social hub of every village and neighborhood, and its role is remarkably central to community life.

**More than a Bar:** A typical rum shop is really a small, sometimes wood building where men (and increasingly women as well) go to drink local rums like El Dorado. But it also sells essential groceries, soft drinks, and snacks. It is a bar, a corner store, a lottery outlet, and a hub of communications.

**The True "Social Media":** The rum shop is where politics are debated, news is spread, and friendships are forged. It's a space for ad-hoc dominoes matches, heated debates, and intimate discourse. For some, it is the central ground of social life outside of home. The dominance of a single, multi-purpose institution over community social life is a distinctive and powerful element in Guyanese society.

**10. A World of Breathtaking Natural Wonders That Are Essentially Unknown to Its Own People**

Guyana is home to some of the world's most stunning natural icons, including the spectacular Kaieteur Falls (the largest single-drop waterfall in the world by volume) and the massive Rupununi savannahs. The peculiar fact is that, for the vast majority of Guyanese who live on the coast, these wonders are as remote and foreign as they are to a foreign visitor.

**The Hinterland-Coastal Divide:** The lack of infrastructure and the cost of domestic travel guarantee that few Guyanese ever see Kaieteur Falls or the Rupununi in their lives. The interior is imagined as a remote, inaccessible world.

**The Paradox of Ecotourism:** This creates a strange contradiction: a country marketing itself as an "Eco-Tourism Paradise" to the outside world has a population which is in the main unaware of its own top attractions. The culture takes national pride in these places on an abstract level, but for many, it is a pride based upon postcard vistas and rumor rather than actual experience. This separation of the public from their most representative natural patrimony is a final, touching peculiarity of this fascinating and paradoxical country.

---

Overall, Guyanese society is a fascinating contrast and mix. It is a society in which Caribbean rhythm and beat is combined with South American wildness, in which political polarization is extreme but cultural syncretism is profound, and in which antique English is used together with superstitions in antique magic. From its sea-defying capital to its backdam frontiers, Guyana has fashioned a unique identity distilled from its colonial past, its ethnic diversity, and its ongoing negotiation with a demanding and exacting natural environment. To know Guyana is to be amazed by its extraordinary ability to construct a cohesive, vibrant, and decidedly singular society out of so bewildering an assortment of parts.