10 Strange and Fascinating Facts About Dominican Society

10 Strange and Fascinating Facts About Dominican Society

Located in the heart of the Lesser Antilles, the Commonwealth of Dominica is a world far removed from the typical Caribbean fare of sandy white beaches and resort-style vacations. This island, stoutly defended and proclaimed proudly as the "Nature Isle," is an unforgiving tapestry of volcanic ridges, rainforest cover, and a culture that has carved out a unique niche against a backdrop of awe-inspiring natural forces. To the uninitiated, many aspects of Dominican life are paradoxical, mysterious, or indeed quite bizarre. But it is these bizarre idiosyncrasies that contain the key to a nation who walk boldly to their own beat. Here are ten things about Dominican society that verify its distinctiveness.

#### 1. The Island with a World Bank for Sperm Whales

Whereas all but one of the Caribbean islands boast about their sea life, Dominica boasts about having something uniquely different: it is the only country on Earth where the incredible sperm whale overwinters. The reason this unusual and strange phenomenon exists is in the island's very unusual underwater topography. The deep waters of the Dominican trench, plunging to well over 1,000 meters just a few miles from the shore, create the perfect environment for the whales to dine, mingle, and breed.

This has led to a community relationship with the whales that is nearer to one of respectful neighbors rather than tourist attractions. The Dominican whale-watching industry is based on a respect for the creatures and strict regulations to avoid disturbing these gentle giants. To the Dominicans, the sperm whales are their country's unique ecological gem and a backbone to their economy. The fact that the existence of such huge, clever creatures on the beach has created in the society a lasting appreciation for the wonders of the sea, so that the protection of their sea "citizens" becomes an issue of national prestige.

#### 2. A Citizenship Program That Actively Recruits "Climate Refugees"

In a world of climate transition, Dominica has embarked on a boldly innovative and unconventional course. Its Citizenship by Investment (CBI) program, globally recognized as among the best in the world, is more than just an investment vehicle for affluent investors. The government has wisely and intentionally repositioned it as a way of building the world's first climate-resilient state and, remarkably, of offering a potential lifeline to its people.

Most of the CBI program funding is invested in a Climate Resilience Fund. The government's publicly stated, and actually bizarre-sounding, goal is to invest the funds in reinforcing the island's infrastructure against hurricanes and other impacts of climate change. The long-term vision is even more powerful: in the contingency of worst-case climate projections, the wealth generated today will likely cover for resettlement or support of Dominican citizens. This transforms the CBI into an essential national survival strategy, creating a nation that voluntarily is investing in its own security in the future while there is chaos in the world.

#### 3. The Village That Legally "Owns" a Stranded Whale

A sperm whale drifted onto the beach in Roseau Valley village in 2015, dead. This was followed by a surreal and informative display of Dominican custom and community law. Instead of the central government stepping in, the dead body belonged to the local village council by law. The villagers had the right to decide what happened to it.

After much discussion, they resolved to entomb the giant on the beach. The strangeness does not end there. The bones were later exhumed and articulated for display in a local museum, an initiative that would bring education and tourist rewards directly to the people. This incident sheds light on a community where the line between national treasure and public property is quite clear. It demonstrates grassroots empowerment and a functional reaction to natural events, whereby even a tragic event such as the whale's death becomes a shared asset through group decision-making.

#### 4. The National Dish is an Imported, Unknown Meat Can

Among the strangest Caribbean food paradoxes lies in Dominica. Although the island is teeming with fresh, organic vegetables and an abundance of seafood, perhaps its most beloved and ubiquitous national dish is "Mountain Chicken." Don't be misled by the name; it's not actually chicken, but the legs of the giant ditch frog (*Leptodactylus fallax*), a frog so enormous that the legs are said to taste like chicken. But through over-hunting and the killing disease of a fungal disease, the mountain chicken is now critically endangered and legally protected, so its consumption is a thing of the past for everyone except a few.

This has been succeeded by an even stranger truth: the dominance of the "tinned meat" culture. The canned sausages, corned beef, and other industrial meat products are dietary mainstays of the Dominican diet. It is not surprising to find shops that contain entire aisles of these imported canned food products. This flavor, a remnant of colonial commercial practices and the convenience of imperishable food in a hurricane region, is a curious anomaly to the island lifestyle of living naturally. A society that lives in an earthly paradise eats the most industrialized of foods, a testament to the fascinating dance between history, convenience, and taste.

#### 5. A Society Where "Jing Ping" is the Soundtrack of Resilience

Bouyon is Dominica's national music, a frantic style that emerged on the island in the 1980s. Yet the heart of its rural villages and festivals is a strange and fascinating form called **Jing Ping**. It is strange due to its instrumentation, a homemade arrangement which seems to eliminate musical heritage. The anchor band features a *lapeau kabwit* (goat skin drum), a *tambal* or triangle, and the *accordion*—but most characteristic is the *boom-boom* bass.

The *boom-boom* is not a drum, but rather a long bamboo tube, laid out horizontally and played by a musician blowing across the open end of the tube while rhythmically opening and closing a hole at the lower end with his hand. The resulting sound is a deep, resonant, almost percussive bass note that provides the music with its heartbeat. This ingenious use of a plain, native material is testament to a nation that has long made do with what it had, extracting rich cultural forms from that to which it had access. Jing Ping is not just music; it is an acoustic symbol of Dominican intelligence and hope.

#### 6. A Modern, Independent Nation Still Formally Governed by a "Chief"

Today, in the 21st century, Dominica is a parliamentary republic. However, its official head of state is not a home-grown president with deep local roots but a distant monarch: King Charles III of the United Kingdom. Dominica is a Commonwealth realm, a bit anomalous for an Afro-Caribbean nation renowned for its rugged independence.

The practical governance is, of course, in the hands of the Dominican Prime Minister and democratically elected government. The monarchy is simply a constitutional and ceremonial formality. This strange political hybrid, however, results in the survivals of colonial heritage symbolism, such as the photograph of the King in official buildings and the "Royal" Dominican Police Force. This is a subtle duality that pervades society: a people proud of their Kalinago heritage and hard-won independence, yet still governed by a constitutional order that acknowledges a foreign crown. It is a subtle, insistent ghost from the past in an otherwise modernizing society.

#### 7. The "Waitukubuli" Consciousness: Recuperating an Ancient Name

For decades, the island was known as Dominica, named by Christopher Columbus. But a fierce reclamation of culture has the name "Waitukubuli," or "Tall is Her Body" in Kalinago, having a profound resurgence. It is not just an afterthought to history; it is a living, emerging aspect of modern Dominican life.

You will be hearing "Waitukubuli" from the mouths of radio announcers, reading it on signs outside businesses, and most notably, it is the title of the Waitukubuli National Trail (WNT)—the Caribbean's longest hiking trail at 115 miles from the island's southern tip to its northern tip. The adoption of this pre-colonial name indicates a change in society. It is a deliberate effort to found national identity not in some European "discovery," but on the island's own earliest geography and original people. This strange doubling of names—using both Dominica and Waitukubuli—occurs in a culture that is speaking to its own complicated past, actively weaving its indigenous heritage into its contemporary way of life.

#### 8. The Village that Travels for a "Lazy" River Festival

Most holidays celebrate a harvest, some historic event, or a god. Dominica has one holiday celebrating a state of being: laziness. The "Laziest River Festival" in the village of Layou is a strangely wonderful one where hundreds of people take inflatable tubes and float, drift, and meander along the serene Layou River.

The festival is a lighthearted taking leave of doing nothing, but it reflects a greater social truth about Dominican recreation and time. In an era obsessed with productivity, the event hallmarks *dolce far niente*—the sweetness of idleness. It is a communal affirmation of the relaxed pace that nature on the island seems to encourage. The festival is a powerful social ritual that claims that happiness is not always to be discovered in frantic activity, but sometimes in releasing the soft current of a river—and of life. It is a culture that officially sanctions and celebrates the art of relaxation.

#### 9. A Dialect That is a Living Archaeological Dig of History

Its national language is English, yet the street and home talk is actually Dominican Creole (Kwéyòl). It sounds like French to the untrained ear. But to the linguist, and to the native speakers, it is a strange and beautiful linguistic fossil. Dominican Kwéyòl is not a broken variety of French; rather, it is a complete, structured language that emerged from contact among French colonizers, West African slaves, and the indigenous Kalinago people on the island.

Its vocabulary is derived largely from 17th-century French, but its grammar and syntax are based primarily on West African models. It also contains borrowed items from the Kalinago language, specifically for items indigenous to the plant and animal life of the island and island geography. This makes every exchange a living museum of the island's tempestuous history. Speaking Kwéyòl is not communication; it is an involuntary act of preserving the voices of the ancestors—African, European, and Kalinago people—who constructed the island. It is the quirky, sing-songy glue that holds the heart of Dominican identity together.

#### 10. The Invisible "Beny" - A Cash-Based Society in a Digital World

In the fast-emerging cashless world economy, Dominica boasts a strangely tough and lively cash culture. While cards rule in tourist areas and large chains, local economic lifeblood is the Eastern Caribbean Dollar (XCD), affectionately named "Beny" after the portrait of Sir Benjamin Pine on the now abandoned $100 bill.

Wads of cash are not unusual to see on individuals making important purchases, ranging from market produce to hiring a carpenter. This is due to a mixture of reasons: some of the people's distrust of banks, the informal nature of local business, and the practicality of doing business in distant villages with spotty internet access. This creates a society where a handshake and a stack of "Beny" are still able to conduct business, where the tangibility of money supports communal bonds, and where the digital economy is somehow taken out of it. It is a strange but comforting anachronism that is used to highlight the island's emphasis on physical reality and interpersonal relationships.

**Conclusion**

Dominica is a country of stark contradictions. It is a place where high-tech citizenship programs sponsor climate change resilience, and the sound of a bamboo *boom-boom* reverberates on Saturday evening. It is a society that eats foreign canned meat while living amidst an uncultivated botanical garden. These ten strange facts are not oddities; they are the rhythm of an unique national character. They introduce us to a nation of practical people but also joyful ones, with strong ties to their venerated heritage but an uncertain future, autonomous to the very end yet engaged in the communal ethos of "all of we." To know Dominica is to adore its immense, powerful, and wonderfully quirky spirit.