Punta

For other uses, see Punta (disambiguation).

Punta is an Afro-Indigenous dance and music genre of the Garífuna people in Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, originating from the Antillean island of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (known to the Garífuna as Yurumein).^[1][2] It incorporates African and Kalinago elements, reflecting the hybrid nature of Garífuna culture and the Garífuna language, though the language itself is primarily Arawakan with Kalinago and African lexical influences but not grammatically African.^[3][4] Punta is also known as banguity or bungiu in some Garífuna communities.^[1][5]

Punta
Stylistic origins	Garifuna
Typical instruments	Garifuna drums shekere maracas conch
Regional scenes
Belize Guatemala Honduras Nicaragua United States
Other topics
Paranda, Punta Rock

Example of Punta music

The diaspora of Garífuna people, commonly called the "Garifuna Nation", traces its ancestry to West Africans who were shipwrecked captives who landed near Saint Vincent in 1675 and to the Indigenous Arawak and Kalinago peoples.^[6][7] The survivors of the shipwreck integrated with the local populations, giving rise to the Garífuna people.^[2] Punta is used to reaffirm and express the struggles of the Garífuna people, highlighting their common heritage through cultural art forms such as dance and music, their strong sense of endurance, and their connection to their ancestors.^[2]Besides Honduras, punta also has a following in Belize, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and the United States.^[1]

Lyrics may be in Garifuna, Kriol, English or Spanish.^[8] Most songs are performed in the indigenous Arawakan languages of the Garinagu and are often simply contemporary adaptations of traditional Garífuna songs.^[8] Being the most popular dance in Garífuna culture,^[9] Punta is danced specifically at Garífuna funerals, on beaches, and in parks.^[10] Punta is iconic of Garífuna ethnicity and modernity and can be seen as poetic folk art that connects older cultures and rhythms with new sounds.^[8] Chumba and hunguhungu, circular dances in triple rhythm, are often combined with punta.^[9]

Origins and historical context

In Garífuna culture, the people call themselves Garinagu (plural) or Garífuna (singular or adjectival form), with the term "Garifuna" often used for their language, music, and dance.^[3] The word punta has more than one proposed origin. Some trace it to the West African bunda rhythm, meaning "buttocks" in certain Mande languages.^[8] But since the Garifuna’s Founder’s African roots come mainly from the Ibibio (once called Mokko) of Nigeria’s and Cameroon's Bight of Biafra, survivors of a 1675 shipwreck who mixed with Kalinago and Arawak locals, this link is questioned.^[11][12] A stronger view ties punta to the Spanish "de punta a punta" ("from point to point"), describing the toe-to-toe footwork or travel between villages.^[13][14]

A man and woman perform punta inside a circle of onlookers. They face each other and dance on their own, using fast, sharp steps on the balls and toes of the feet. The energy rises through the legs and makes the hips and pelvis move in rhythm while the upper body stays mostly still.^[15][8] The steps act out a courtship: one chases, the other pulls back, then they switch. The dance ends when one tires out or runs out of moves and steps aside for the next dancer.^[15] Viewers cheer with calls like mígira-ba labu ("don’t quit on him!") or mígira-ba tabu ("don’t quit on her!"), pushing for sharper steps and flair.^[15]

Punta is mainly Amerindian in style, with strong and significant African touches in rhythm and theme. It shares traits with Afro-Peruvian landó (slow hip rolls in a fertility rite) and Afro-Mexican son jarocho (lively footwork with rhythmic zapateado patterns).^[2][16][17]

Through hard times, Garifuna turned to song and dance to tell their stories, keep their past alive, and lift their spirits.^[8] Oliver Greene writes: "Punta songs stand for holding on to culture through music; punta dance stands for the ongoing cycle of life."^[8] Anyone can join, iyoung or old, man or woman, either with soft hip rolls hinting at interest or bold toe-driven swings full of power.^[8]

Punta appears at key gatherings, especially ninth-night wakes after a death.^[18] Nancie González saw in Honduras, and checked with work in Belize—that the real dancing and storytelling came on the ninth night, not earlier.^[18] Cynthia Chamberlain Bianchi noted punta at Christmas Eve and New Year’s celebrations in Garífuna towns during the late 1970s and 1980s.^[19]

Punta songs use call-and-response and layered drum beats drawn from African and Amerindian roots.^[13] Elder Rutilia Figueroa said: "The Garifuna sing their pain. They sing what worries them. They sing what’s happening. We dance at a death to bring the family a little joy. Each song means something different. We don’t sing about love. We sing what touches the heart."^[13]

Role of women

During her field study in southern Belize from 1974 to 1976, Virginia Kerns witnessed the women's roles and participation in punta first hand. She recalls: "During the course of the singing, one woman distributes rum to the others present. Later, feeling the full effects of several drinks, the women begin to dance punta and the atmosphere grows increasingly festive. Outside, the inevitable crowd of spectators gathers, mainly young adults and children, who hover on the periphery at such ritual events."^[20] She also notes that the length of the dancing can go on as long as the next afternoon, depending on the supply of rum and the enthusiasm of the dancers.^[20]

In a more recent study done in 2009, Amy Serrano took a closer look at Garinagu roots and influence within New Orleans. She notes that during some performances the men partake and the women watch, while others involve both men and women interacting and dancing or solely women performing. These influences can be seen in the call and response aspect of punta, as well as the dancing and playing of the instruments.^[21]

While men in the Garifuna community tend to learn their customs through informal apprenticeships in New Orleans, women consciously conserve and pass on the cultural dances and songs to the younger generations through storytelling. This continuing practice resembles the past, like when the Garifuna first arrived in Honduras and the women cultivated the homes where West African and indigenous spirituality merged with the Catholic religion into their emerging Garifuna folk expression, and above all, within family, ritual, and celebration.^[21] To clarify this statement from Serrano's research, "Juan M. Sambula, a former community activist from Honduras who recently came to New Orleans for reconstruction work shares the following:

'For us, the women are dedicated to the children and the church because customs we have are based on the Gari tribe of Africa, mixed with Arawak. So I think that the mother's role in this case is different because she is dedicated to the children and the church while the man is dedicated to his friends.' "^[21]

Instruments

Musicians in the pororó festival in the streets at Livingston, Izabal, Guatemala. December 2015

The music of punta involves responsorial singing accompanied by indigenous membranophones, idiophones, and aerophones.^[8] Membranophones are instruments that create sound through a vibrating skin or vellum stretched over an opening, as in all drums.^[22] Idiophones are instruments that produce sound through the vibrating of a solid material that is free of tension, commonly found in shakers, scrapers, and xylophones.^[22] Aerophones are instruments that create sound through vibrating air within a column or tube, like pipes and horns.^[22] Other instruments used in the Garifuna culture include calabash rattles called shakkas (chaka) and conch-shell trumpets.

The two principle Garifuna instruments are single-headed drums known as the primera and segunda.^[8] The primera, or the lead tenor drum, is the smaller of the two. This drum is used as the drummer contrives a series of rhythms key to punta. The segunda is the bass drum. The drummer playing this instrument repeats a single duple-meter ostinato throughout the song. While the second drum plays steady, the first drum and the other instruments like the maracas and conch shell improvise solos similar to those in a jazz song.^[23] The punta ritual for a wake is sung in Garifuna, with a soloist and a chorus. Although punta music may sound happy, the words can often be sad. One song can be translated as, "Yesterday you were well. Last night you caught a fever. Now in the morning you are dead."^[23]

Evolution and changes in Punta

From its original context, punta has been transformed by time and modernity. Before, punta consisted of a dance between a man and woman, where they competed against each other by shaking their hips and moving their feet to the beat of a drum.^[24] This theme of sensuality and intimacy was considered inappropriate for children, who were excluded from the ritual. Now, it is much more common to see children participate in and view a punta dance.^[24] Another change that has been developing in the past century has come in the increasing role of women as singers and drummers, which were thought to be solely male roles and women were only allowed to play if there were no men available.^[24] Women have expanded their influence in punta, as well as punta rock, although punta rock does still involve more male-oriented arrangements and performances.^[25] Punta also was formerly performed in ancestral celebrations and religious rituals of the recently deceased, but can now be seen in all forms of celebrations, such as birthday parties, communions, or holiday gatherings as a sense of cultural expression.^[24]

Traditional punta music was also played with two wooden drums, a conch shell, and a type of maracas. Today, acoustical and electric instruments have been added to create "punta rock", which has become a main export of the Garinagu and grown in popularity across Central America and into the United States.^[24] The double-meter rhythm of punta is the primary basis for punta rock.^[8] Punta rock is a musical craze that began in the early 1980s and persists today among young adults in the Garifuna communities of Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.^[25] Andy Palacio, a homegrown Belizean artist, believes that punta rock is "a mix of Garifuna rhythms with a little bit of reggae, a little bit of R&B, and a little bit of rock and roll".^[25] Although punta rock has achieved national attention for the modern Garifuna youth, it has not replaced the original punta music. Punta is believed to coexist with punta rock, and maintains its significance as the primary musical genre of social commentary.^[25]

Popular Punta and Punta rock bands

"Punta served as a paradigm for a new language of musical expression (punta rock) as well as a continuum for the revolution of popular contemporary Garifuna music in general".^[25] Modernity and punta exist simultaneously as interdependent and interrelated scales of technological and musical transformation, with modernity as the epicenter for the evolution of punta, serving as the medium through which the effects of modernity can be seen. This transformation has also allowed punta rock and punta to appeal to different age groups and be used in a variety of social contexts.^[25]

Musician and visual artist Pen Cayetano and the Turtle Shell Band introduced punta rock in 1978, at 5 Moho Street, Dangriga, Belize. His songs in the Garifuna language added electric guitar to the traditional punta rhythm.^[26] Cayetano's style caught on quickly in Belize and from there spread to Garifuna communities in Honduras and Guatemala.

Young progressive Garifuna men and women who looked to American style and did not carry on traditions experienced a resurgence of their culture.^[26] More artists began composing Garifuna songs to traditional Garifuna rhythms. Their lyrics gave the political, social and economic issues of Belizean Garifuna people a global platform and inspired a new generation to apply their talents to their own ancestral forms and unique concerns.

Punta musicians in Central America, the US, and elsewhere made further advances with the introduction of the piano, woodwind, brass and string instruments. Punta rock has grown since the early 1980s to include other electronic instruments such as the synthesizer and electric bass guitar as well as other percussive instruments.

Punta along with Reggaeton music are predominantly popular and influential among the entire population in Honduras. Often mixed with Spanish, Punta has a widespread audience due to the immigration of Hondurans and Guatemalans to the United States, other parts of Latin America and Europe, notably Spain. Honduran Punta has caused Belizean and Guatemalan Punta to use more Spanish due to the commercial success achieved by bands that use it.

When Banda Blanca of Honduras sold over 3 million copies of "Sopa De Caracol" ("Conch Soup"), originally written by Belizean Chico Ramos, the Garifunas of Belize felt cheated but celebrated the success. The genre is continuing to develop a strong following in the United States and South America and the Caribbean.^[26]

Belizean punta is distinctive from traditional punta in that songs are usually in Kriol or Garifuna and rarely in Spanish or English. calypso and soca have had some effect on it. Like calypso and soca, Belizean punta provides social commentary and risqué humor, though the initial wave of punta acts eschewed the former. Calypso Rose, Lord Rhaburn and the Cross Culture Band assisted the acceptance of punta by Belizean Kriol people by singing calypso songs about punta - songs such as "Gumagrugu Watah" and "Punta Rock Eena Babylon".^[26]

Prominent broadcasters of Punta music include WAVE Radio and Krem Radio.

Punta and Garifuna culture beyond Central America

Garifuna culture has grown and transcended national borders through punta's integrative expression of ethnic identity through music, dance, and language in Central America and the United States. Currently, the largest population of the estimated 200,000 transnational Garfiuna people can be found in Honduras (90,000), with smaller populations in Belize (15,000), Guatemala (6,000), and another several thousand scattered in South America and almost 50,000 living in North America.^[21] Three areas of larger Garifuna presences include New York City, Miami, New Orleans and mainly Houston.^[21] Though sometimes they go unnoticed in the larger aspect of their communities in America, the Garinagu continue to preserve their language, customs, cuisine, and renowned storytelling through their diverse and unique music and dance styles.

In 2001, UNESCO proclaimed the Garifuna language and culture to be "a masterpiece of oral and intangible heritage of humanity", in recognition of the risk of an endangered status and loss of such an interesting culture.^[25] The Garifuna communities use punta dance and music to continue their culture and to teach younger generations of their ancestry. This tradition instills a sense of pride and gives the younger generation a tangible identity to cling to in an environment where globalization can overpower smaller cultures.