MISSION STATEMENT
The Museum of the West Indies is dedicated to creating awareness for West Indian culture, identity, and art locally and internationally. To manifest this commitment, MOWI establishes, collects, and preserves work from contemporary and historical West Indian artists based in the Caribbean and abroad. MOWI’s collections travel internationally and host events with curators that highlight the West Indian diaspora and immigrant experience. MOWI strives to inspire West Indian artists at home and away to create a space for their work, and identity, to build a more vibrant and unified future for West Indians and their communities.
THE HISTORY
The story of the deities was passed down through oral tradition in the West Indies. The Simmons-McDonald family today can directly trace their family line all the way back to the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, to a very rare joining of The Arawak and Carib cultures.
In Barbados the first indigenous people were Amerindians who arrived there from Venezuela. Paddling long dugout canoes they crossed oceans and currents that challenge modern sailing vessels. On the north end of Venezuela a narrow sea channel called the Dragon's mouth acts as a funnel to the Caribbean Sea and the nearest Island of Trinidad. It is a formidable passage of swift flowing water and cross currents. It is dangerous water for an open dugout canoe. But they came, families and villages, adventurers, descendants of the first people who travelled across the Alaska land bridge, down through Canada and the Americas to the South. They made their new home in Barbados along the coast.
In 1200, the Caribs conquered the Arawaks. The Caribs were a taller and stronger Amerindian tribe than the Arawaks. They were incredibly accurate bowmen and used a powerful poison to paralyze their prey. Chance had it that during this conflict, there was a forbidden love between a Carib man and an Arawak woman, and they were able to hide inland away from the clashing tribes. They stayed there until it was safe to travel to St. Lucia. It is said that this Arawak woman was the one who saved Komoruni from the net, and because she practiced the ritual of returning the deity to the sea, the couple was able to make it safely to St. Lucia.
Komoruni, Atabeyra, and Diosa Luna are the deities of the indigenous peoples of the West Indies. They are part of the belief and tradition of the contemporary and historical culture of the Caribbean.
In Barbados the first indigenous people were Amerindians who arrived there from Venezuela. Paddling long dugout canoes they crossed oceans and currents that challenge modern sailing vessels. On the north end of Venezuela a narrow sea channel called the Dragon's mouth acts as a funnel to the Caribbean Sea and the nearest Island of Trinidad. It is a formidable passage of swift flowing water and cross currents. It is dangerous water for an open dugout canoe. But they came, families and villages, adventurers, descendants of the first people who travelled across the Alaska land bridge, down through Canada and the Americas to the South. They made their new home in Barbados along the coast.
In 1200, the Caribs conquered the Arawaks. The Caribs were a taller and stronger Amerindian tribe than the Arawaks. They were incredibly accurate bowmen and used a powerful poison to paralyze their prey. Chance had it that during this conflict, there was a forbidden love between a Carib man and an Arawak woman, and they were able to hide inland away from the clashing tribes. They stayed there until it was safe to travel to St. Lucia. It is said that this Arawak woman was the one who saved Komoruni from the net, and because she practiced the ritual of returning the deity to the sea, the couple was able to make it safely to St. Lucia.
Komoruni, Atabeyra, and Diosa Luna are the deities of the indigenous peoples of the West Indies. They are part of the belief and tradition of the contemporary and historical culture of the Caribbean.