Garifuna Music of Belize
A Few Words of Tribute to Andy Palacio

Photo: Paula Stanley

I met Andy Palacio on the first night of my first trip to Belize in 1996. I had no idea that this charismatic young musician was anyone other than another local performer trying to achieve some viability within the tourist economy. I also had no idea of the important role he would play in my life. From that first meeting, Andy developed into my principle contact for a study of the musical culture of the Garinagu. Sometime in the 1600s (most sources say 1635), two Spanish ships carrying African captives went down in foul weather off the coast of St. Vincent Island (known to the Indians as Yurumé). Some 200 of the kidnapped men and women swam ashore where they were rescued by Arawak-speaking Indians whose seafaring culture and language they adopted. Early on Andy corrected me on the difference between the terms Garinagu and Garifuna. He asked that Garinagu be reserved as a proper noun referring to the descendents of that Afro-Indian encounter, leaving Garifuna as a noun denoting the language or as an adjective describing anything pertaining to the people or their language. As internationally acclaimed musician/cultural ambassador, Andy Palacio was most responsible for the Garifuna cultural revival of the last twenty years. Andy's patient and generous spirit combined with his considerable authority on the music and culture of his people made him an unsurpassable primary source around which to organize my research. I owe him a personal debt for his friendship and the knowledge he shared with me. The picture above was taken the last time that I saw Andy in front of his childhood home where his mother still lives in the coastal village of Barranco. It was Easter of 2005. Andy Palacio died on January 19, 2008. You can read more about him and listen to excerpts from his last album here.