Joel Julien

While the Unit­ed States cel­e­brat­ed Colum­bus Day in recog­ni­tion of Christo­pher Colum­bus' ar­rival to the Amer­i­c­as, the place where Colum­bus land­ed in Trinidad was yes­ter­day tak­en over by the de­scen­dants of the peo­ple he met here.

On Fri­day, Trinidad and To­ba­go will cel­e­brate the one-off First Peo­ples Na­tion­al Hol­i­day.

The First Peo­ples yes­ter­day con­gre­gat­ed on the Grand Chemin Beach in Moru­ga to per­form a wa­ter cer­e­mo­ny.

The wa­ter cer­e­mo­ny was the first of­fi­cial ac­tiv­i­ty in the build-up to the hol­i­day.

Among those in at­ten­dance, yes­ter­day was Chief of Moru­ga 98-year-old Paul Navar­ro who said it was a dream come true to see the first peo­ples be­ing recog­nised.

On Au­gust 1, 1498, Colum­bus stood at Pun­ta De La Pla­ta and claimed Trinidad for Spain.

A stone's throw away from that site the First Peo­ples per­formed their wa­ter cer­e­mo­ny which in­clud­ed prayers for their an­ces­tors.

The beach is one of the points that the Amerindi­ans en­tered Trinidad from the South Amer­i­can main­land.

"We have come to ho­n­our the mem­o­ry of the an­ces­tors who en­tered this land from this place," Chief of the San­ta Rosa First Peo­ples com­mu­ni­ty Ri­car­do Bharath-Her­nan­dez said.

Bharath-Her­nan­dez said while the wa­ter cer­e­mo­ny had been done at the rivers of Ari­ma in pre­vi­ous years it was de­cid­ed that it should be done by the sea be­cause it "con­nects us all".

"There is a con­nec­tion to all of us who came from dif­fer­ent lands," he said.

De­scen­dants of the Caribs, Arawaks and Mayans, Or­isha from Trinidad and To­ba­go and that re­gion were among those present.

They prayed in their dif­fer­ent ways, us­ing wa­ter, fire, flow­ers, leaves, herb, corn and cas­sa­va.

They al­so sang and danced as dif­fer­ent in­stru­ments were played.

Carib Queen Jen­nifer Cas­sar said while she is elat­ed to have the first peo­ples ho­n­oured this year she hoped it would be­come an an­nu­al hol­i­day.

"Some­body will have to give up their hol­i­day to ac­com­mo­date us but it is a bat­tle we will con­tin­ue to fight," she said.

The week-long cel­e­bra­tions con­tin­ue to­day a sym­po­sium at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go's O'Meara cam­pus.