Now trick­ster Anan­si is an­cient, and when he and the folks, in­clud­ing Pa­pa Bois, La­ga­hoo, Soucouyant, La Di­a­b­lesse, and Ma­ma D’leau, gath­ered around Colum­bus’ stat­ue to tell sto­ries about long ago, trou­ble was to be ex­pect­ed.

With nerve-based re­cep­tors on his eight long legs and two rows of four eyes, he perched him­self on the stat­ue where he could hear and sur­vey every­thing. He was par­tic­u­lar­ly in­ter­est­ed in hear­ing from La Di­a­b­lesse, the beau­ti­ful fe­male dev­il woman and se­duc­tress of male trav­ellers. In fact, in tales of old, it was said that she had se­duced the fa­mous ex­plor­er and had him so tootool­bay that most of the time he didn’t know where the hell he was. One time he thought he was in In­dia, an­oth­er time in Chi­na, and then the bib­li­cal land of She­ba when he reached His­pan­io­la.

The thing is, Di­a­b­lesse was known for caus­ing El Tu­cuche to rum­ble when she got damn vex. So, it was on In­de­pen­dence Day, in the land of scin­til­lat­ing steel­pan mu­sic, that they got to­geth­er while the peo­ple were quar­relling over a plan to re­move Colum­bus’ three ships from the coat of arms.

Pa­pa Bois, the beloved pro­tec­tor of the for­est, sat on the branch. “Now folks, tell me why some peo­ple vex about re­mov­ing the three ships.”

“Well,” Soucouyant said, “Some mad like hell be­cause dey say the PNM big man sound­ed like a colo­nial mas­ter. Some un­hap­py be­cause he wants to re­place them with a steel­pan, and some say it’s eras­ing their his­to­ry.”

“Eras­ing his­to­ry? What his­to­ry?” La Di­a­b­lesse light­ning-crack­ing voice blast­ed through the square all the way to Sans Souci. Ma­ma D’leau hissed, flap­ping her scaly snake-like ap­pendages, say­ing, “Gen­er­a­tions were taught Colum­bus dis­cov­ered Trinidad in1498 and ar­rived with the San­ta Maria, the Ni­na and the Pin­ta, and that is un­touch­able his­to­ry.”

“Where dey went to school?” Di­a­b­lesse shout­ed.

La­ga­hoo, who had sailed on the ships, popped up from his cof­fin. “I re­mem­ber the San­ta Maria. In 1492, it was wrecked in La Es­paño­la, six years be­fore the ex­plor­er ar­rived here, in Iere, and with Chris­t­ian ar­ro­gance he changed the name to Trinidad. In 1494 the Ni­na ran aground but sailed again and its fate re­mains elu­sive. The Pin­ta dis­ap­peared af­ter the first voy­age. So, per­haps, ghost ships sailed here. “Get your ar­se back in yuh cof­fin,” or­dered Pa Pa Bois.

“Well,” La Di­a­b­lesse blast­ed, “So why are the firetruck­ing three ships still part of our iden­ti­ty on the coat of arms?”

“Watch your con­tents,” warned Pa­pa Bois.

“Watch meh what? I damn vex. We still teach­ing chil­dren jackarsery 62 years af­ter in­de­pen­dence. Dey should rub them off like we used to rub off chupid er­rors in we copy­books.”

Pa­pa Bois scold­ed, “I told you to watch your mouth un­less you want me to wash it out in the Or­toire Riv­er where the re­al dis­cov­er­ers of Trinidad and To­ba­go used to fish.”

Ig­nor­ing him, Di­a­b­lesse mouthed, “Imag­ine the bright gov­ern­ment spend­ing bil­lions on ed­u­ca­tion and no one, not even the uni­ver­si­ty his­to­ri­ans, could do re­search and en­light­en the chil­dren? Even so, you know any in­de­pen­dent coun­try that has 532-year-old for­eign sym­bols as their dis­tin­guish­ing iden­ti­ty. I go­ing to see the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion.

“Eh Eh,” Pa­pa Bois said, “Yuh not go­ing any­where to cuss up any­one and cause trou­ble.”

Now burn­ing mad, La Di­a­b­lesse stood arms akim­bo, bat­ting false eye­lash­es, and rolling her eyes like a chameleon. Pa­pa Bois, sens­ing bac­cha­nal, said, “I will go. I must first tell the Min­is­ter to tell the chil­dren and their con­fused par­ents that Trinidad is not the name of our coun­try.

The name of our coun­try is Trinidad and To­ba­go, that the is­lands of Trinidad and To­ba­go be­fore uni­fi­ca­tion were dis­cov­ered thou­sands of years be­fore Colum­bus ar­rived. That the dree­vay­ing ex­plor­er may have been the first Eu­ro­pean here. He nev­er land­ed in To­ba­go.

I must tell them that our sym­bols must rep­re­sent truth­ful foun­da­tions, who we, the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, are and the val­ues of truth, jus­tice, uni­ty, in­no­va­tion, strength and re­silience, and the beau­ti­ful en­vi­ron­ment. I must tell them to stop mess­ing with our chil­dren’s heads and teach them truth, that his­to­ry evolves in a con­tin­u­um. Re­mov­ing his­tor­i­cal sym­bols and putting them in a mu­se­um does not change his­to­ry, (if in fact his­to­ry was told truth­ful­ly in the first place), no more than re­plac­ing the grand­par­ents’ pho­tographs in the liv­ing room with the grand­chil­dren’s is eras­ing the fam­i­ly’s his­to­ry.” Si­lence.

Anan­si crawled from the stat­ue. “Folks, leh we hur­ry down by Des­pers’ yard. I hear dey play­ing Rud­der’s song, and peo­ple swear dey see de Ham­mer pong­ing a pan.