Caribbean Folklore: A Lizard’s Lesson with Kesha Christie

Why the Ground Lizard Doesn't Sleep in Trees Anymore - A St. Martin / Sint Maarten Story

Hema and Kesha continue to delve into the fascinating, fun and informative folktales from the Caribbean. This week Kesha shares a story from St. Martin/St. Maarten that explains why ground lizards no longer sleep in trees. Through this short folk story, we learn about Sammy, the ground lizard, tamarind trees and the twin island of St. Martin / Sint Maarten. This one small Caribbean island in the Lesser Antilles is divided into two, with one side belonging to the French Republic and the other side belonging to the Kington of the Netherlands.  

Alongside the tale, the hosts discuss the cultural blend of Dutch and French influences on the island, emphasizing the richness of Caribbean folklore and traditions. They also touch on the significance of tamarind and other regional linguistic variations, while reflecting on the broader historical impact of colonization on the Caribbean islands.

More Caribbean folktales:

Pataki Stories from Cuba

Anansi's Antics in Antigua & Barbuda

Trickster Tales

More episodes:
One island, two countries: St. Martin & Sint Maarten 

Papiamentu: The Language of Curaçao with Sheedia Jansen explores another Caribbean nation that is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands

To learn more about Kesha and her work:

Website

Instagram

Walk Good Podcast

Transcript

Kesha: Sammy couldn't just, he just couldn't take the heat. You know lizards don't like heat. Couldn't take it. And so he thought, oh, I have to move. I can't manage this. And so Sammy started to, to, to try and move and slip off these leaves to come back down the tree. But the steam turned into water on the leaves, and as Sammy started to move, Sammy couldn't hold on as he slipped off of the leaf and tumbled down into the pot, sploosh. 

Hema: Hi Kesha. Welcome back to The Moreish Podcast.

Kesha: Hi Hema. Glad to be here.

Hema: I am really enjoying these folklore,  folktale Caribbean stories episodes, and even though they're quite short, there's so much information packed into them. So I really appreciate you taking the time to share with us.

Kesha: Oh, thank you. I'm glad you're enjoying. I am too.

Hema: I've, I've had some really good feedback and I'm excited to keep going with these stories. So why don't you dive in and tell us where we're going today.

Kesha: All right, so today I wanna do something a little bit different. So we are travelling all the way to St. Martin or St. Maarten, depending on who is asking. So the reason why I chose St. Martin is because colonization took place a little differently. We're familiar with the British taking over majority of the Caribbean islands, but in the case of St. Martin, it was the Dutch and the French. And so that's why we have St. Martin and St. Maarten. And so the languages that are prominent there are French, Dutch, and their Creole has a lovely mix of them together. Uh, so looking into their stories was a lot of fun, and they have a lot of trickster tales that I love.

They, they do have a lot of Anansi stories, but I found one that, it's not, say it's a trickster story, but not really. It's more of a, a mishap story.

Hema: So you said Dutch and French and the island is currently split.

Kesha: Yes.

Hema: Does that mean the story is predominantly Dutch or French, or does it just permeate the island?

Kesha: So what I've noticed is because the culture is a blend of everything, so are the stories. What I did notice is that they are heavy into the spiritual stories, and so the stories about the duppy and the soucouyant are still prevalent on the island even though the culture is technically different from the rest of the Caribbean. But where you find the Dutch and French influences are definitely in the language, in their food, and some of their traditions, but by and by all in all people, the makeup of the people is the same. So you've got the African mix, you've got the European, and you've got the Indigenous peoples from the island. So you've got the Arawak and the Carib, um, who were there first. So the mixes are generally the same. It's just their traditions are a little bit different and their language is colourful.

Hema: Sounds good. Let's dive right in.

Kesha: All right. Now, this is a how and why story, and of course the how and why stories explain the things that science just can't. So this is why the ground lizard doesn't sleep in trees anymore.

Well, on this beautiful island, there was a small house. Now it wasn't big, it wasn't teeny tiny, but it was just average, and it was very colourful, and they had all kinds of greenery around it.

And in this house lived a blind man and his wife. Now in their yard they had, you know, flowers and different kinds of vegetables growing, but their pride and joy was a tall tambrin (tamarind) tree. Now everything happened under this tambrin (tamarind) tree. They would cook, they would talk, they would do all kinds of things, even hang clothes, if that so needed to be. But on this day, ground lizard, we're gonna call him Sammy. 

Sammy had been working all day, walking back and forth and grabbing bugs to eat, and it was starting to get dark, and Sammy needed a place to sleep. But Sammy always dug a hole and slept in the ground, but cha, after all of that work and going back and forth and running up and down and catching all those flies, Sammy was tired. Sammy looked and said, bwoy this tree? It looked nice and I could climb it really quick and find a nice place to, to, to sleep. As a matter of fact, he saw a group of leaves gathered together that could just cup him just right. So Sammy scampered up this tree, made a cushy little bed in those leaves, and boy, just like [snap] Sammy was asleep. Sammy was dozing and a gentle snore [snoring sounds]. 

Under the tree the blind man and his wife were talking. And she was explaining to her husband that she wanted to make him a magnificent meal. The only problem was they didn't have any relish. Now you and I know relish to be a mix of vegetables. Well, in St. Martin, relish is meat. So she didn't have any meat, but he said, you know, my wife, whatever you make for me, will be good enough.

And so she gathered her pot and she gathered some vegetables and she set up up her spot underneath the tambrin (tamarind) tree, as she always does. She lit her fire and the pot started to bubble. She started to cut her vegetables and put them in, and the water boiled and started to change colours as it took on the flavour, and she dropped in the garlic and the scallion and the thyme, and it kept bubbling and the smell just kept woofing, and the steam kept going higher and higher into the air, and it started to just circulate around the tambrin (tamarind) tree. 

Well, it started to get really steamy. And remember Sammy was sleeping in the tree, right? So Sammy was sleeping and then, bwoy, it was starting to get hot. It was starting to get more and more hot as the steam kept rising and the steam started to cause the leaves to sweat and get slippery. Sammy was wondering, what is this? It can't be so hot out here all the time. 

Well, the wife was under the tree cutting her vegetables, stirring her pot, and the steam was just coming up, and she knew that the soup was almost ready. She was so proud of herself. 

Well she went inside to get a few more things, and while she was inside, Sammy couldn't just, he just couldn't take the heat. You know lizards don't like heat. Couldn't take it. And so he thought, oh, I have to move. I can't manage this. And so Sammy started to, to, to try and move and slip off these leaves to come back down the tree. But the steam turned into water on the leaves, and as Sammy started to move, Sammy couldn't hold on as he slipped off of the leaf and tumbled down into the pot, sploosh. 

Well, the wife came outside and she stirred her pot. Oh, it was ready. She was so excited. She called her husband to come and take a seat at the table that she had set. Well he came to the table, and she set down her pot and she shared out soup for her husband. Placed it in front of him, shared out soup for herself and sat down. 

Ooh, it smelled so good. Her husband couldn't wait. He started [slurping sounds] oh, it was so good. And she couldn't believe how fast he was eating. He was slurping the soup so much and he said, you know [slurp], I know you said [slurp] that there was no relish, but whatever you put into this soup, my dear, this is the best soup I've ever had. And he was [slurping sounds], she said, relish, there's no relish in the soup. And he was chewing and slurping and chewing, and slurping, man, he licked the plate clean and was looking for more. Well, she looked in her plate and she, she didn't see any relish in there. She took a sip, and the soup did taste good. I mean, it wasn't her finest work, but it was still good. 

So she looked in the pot and started to stir around the spoon and saw what was left of Sammy. Well, she didn't tell her husband. She gave him more soup and he kept eating. But she couldn't believe what happened. And he kept saying how good it was, but she didn't say a word. 

Well, while all of this was happening, there was a large lizard perched up on the the hen house, looking and seeing everything that was going on. And saw everything that happened to poor Sammy as he fell outta the tree and into the pot. What a way to go. He went and told his grandmother, who told his great-grandmother, who told his grandmother, who told his mother, who told the other person who happened to tell the story to me. That story went up. It came down again, and now story end.

And that is why they don't sleep in trees anymore.

Hema: I did not know that relish was the term used in St. Martin or St. Maarten. That's, that's something very new for me.

Kesha: Yeah, that's, I thought the same thing. 'cause I was like, relish. Nobody loves relish that much. But then when I learned, I was like, oh, okay.

Hema: And you also pronounced a word, uh, tambran.

Kesha: Mm-hmm.

Hema: Now, how would people who are not from the Caribbean say this word?

Kesha: Um, tam brine.

Hema: So it's, it's, so, it's spelled tamarind.

Kesha: It's spelled tambrin. So, um, the ending is B-R-I-N-T-A-M-B. Tambrin.

Hema: Wait. What is…

Kesha: Tambrin. Yeah.

Hema: What are…. maybe we're talking about something different.

Kesha: Hmm.

Hema: What are you talking about?

Kesha: Ah, so I know tambrin to grow in a tree and they have these little, these pods that almost look like, I wanna say string beans, but they're bigger and you know, they come round like this and they're brown. You pick them, you open them, and you use them to make something sweet we call tambrin balls, and then we eat them, and they're kind of gooey, they're firm, but when you bite them, they're kind of gooey, could be spicy, could be sweetie, depending on who's making them.

Hema: So a hundred percent the same thing that I'm talking about. But if you look at the, if you go to buy it in a store here, it's spelled tamarind, T-A-M-A-R-I-N-D. But we, I mean, as a Trinidadian, as Caribbean tambrin is the way I've said it my entire life.

Kesha: Same.

Hema: So that's, that's interesting that the way even you are spelling it is phonetically.

Kesha: Yeah, because it's tambrin, It's, it's, it's, it's probably a plantin plantain situation.

Hema: Yes. Yes. And it's, and, and so tamarind or tambrin is used, in South Asian cooking, you'll find it as a, as an ingredient because that, that sourness is what is added for if you're making a pad Thai sauce, you'll find it there. If you're making a chutney, you'll find it there. I had the most delicious tambrin drink in Puerto Rico that I'd never had before.

Kesha: Yeah, I mean Jamaica, we have it in drink, jelly, a spicy, the spicy chutney I think I had from a Guyanese friend or a Trinidadian friend, but, so it's used right across the Caribbean differently and it's got that, and it's definitely the satisfy your sweet sour as well as your spicy. So it's an all around type of thing.

Hema:  It is. It is a very delicious flavour. And you mentioned tambrin balls earlier. Oh, it has that sweet, that spicy, that tangy.

Kesha: It does. It does.

Hema: This story the, the island of St. Martin, St. Maarten, which is half Dutch, half French, is very interesting because one of the things you said was even though from a colonizer perspective, we have the half French, half Dutch, the people of the island who live there all have the same or very similar backgrounds and came from a lot of the same places. So the influence is the same at the core. And then you, you layer on that European influence.

Kesha: Absolutely. And that plays out in the traditions as well as the language. So for example, in Jamaica you have the official languages, English, Spanish, and then you have Patois, which is the language of the people. In St. Maarten the language of the people is a Creole, and it is, and every island has a different Creole, but I've noticed that in the Lesser Antilles, which includes St. Martin, the Creoles are similar, there can be like this common understanding amongst the people who speak the Creole because it's got that French aspect, the Dutchy aspect. But again, it's, it's almost like, you know, plantin and plantain kind of thing. They've, they've got their similarities where it creates that mutual understanding, and it's just, it's fascinating to see how the similarities connect us and the differences create the uniqueness among us.

Hema: Yeah. This, this tale, with some variances, relish being one of the, the words that would change could be told in so many different places, so many different Caribbean countries. And people would understand it, because the tambrin tree, the lizard, the cooking, all of that is very familiar.

Kesha: Mm-hmm. Yes. And I, that's why I love like deep diving into our stories, 'cause a lot of the times when, I sit down and I look at the stories for our time together, I try to pick the stories that are not similar. So like you can tell, you get an Anansi story, but the versions change from island to island, so there's always a variation.

So I try to pick out the story that's uniquely to the island as opposed to a variation, because there's one story that seems to travel the most or have the most variations, and I think it is monkey liver soup. And o it's told in Trinidad, it's told in Grenada, it's told in various different places, a little bit different, similar, a little bit different, but enough to be the same story, right?

So I try to look at, look for the, the stories that stand out differently, but we've got so many of the same beliefs, and similar traditions that these stories can be spoken right across the island and you're still gonna get the laughter and your punchline is still gonna hit same way because we are one Caribbean.

Hema: As we go through these stories, as I go through the history and talk about the food yes, the countries and the islands have some slight variations, but so many similarities that even if there's a little bit of a difference, you tell almost any of these stories and people will understand it because there is that historical ancestral knowledge that continues.

Kesha: Yes. Ooh, that's beautiful. I love the way you said that.

Hema: It's such a fascinating thing to me in that, we have this, we have such a shared history, during the time of colonization and pre-colonization, right? So the Indigenous people are similar across all of the Caribbean and then what happened during colonization, the same European countries, the same people were brought over, whether it was through indentured servitude, labourers or enslavement, and it just shows up slightly differently and I feel it shows up slightly differently based on the colonizers. But I would love your perspective on that.

Kesha: I agree because, how do I say this? The experiences were different, the way the people responded, the way the Indigenous people responded to the invasion, for lack of a better term, and how the people who were brought to the island adapted, because we came with what we had and our own may have been nothing or what appeared to be nothing. And then it's the foods that we were able to include into in our hair. It's that, that tradition of, of braiding, how we cared ourself and how you took the traditions of home and had to make new home in this space 'cause either you make this your home where you don't know. Right? So we made it new home by adapting what we had. 

So we all had the common, the common choices and decisions to create a language that the colonizers didn't understand. We had the common foresight to figure out survival, what it looked like staying, what it looked like leaving, and what it looked like choosing to be with the Indigenous people altogether. 

So there were some who had to stay in that situation. There were those who, who were air quote rebels who took to via force, and then there were those who ran away and lived with the Indigenous peoples and having to take on their practices, languages, and created family there. And so the base may be the same, the circumstances may be the same, but how the response to the environment is what's different and how we adapted.

And it's, it's like, um, a thread that connects to all of us as individuals, that resiliency it’s in all of us. That transformation is in all of us and how we've done it is how it shows up today and how we look. And now that we're looking back, we can see, oh gosh, that carried on generations forward.

Hema: Sometimes people get upset, when I use the word colonizer. What are your thoughts on that?

Kesha: It's true, like, I mean, um, we are very sensitive on the way that we respond to words and experiences, and so I understand that sensitivity. But would you rather the lie? I mean they were not friends ever. It, this wasn't a mutual, oh, I'm just gonna come and spend some time on the island and just rob you blind.

No, it was by force and that word is indicative of the force that was taken and still, oh, and even to this day, like there's, there's some islands that are still in debt, for what is the question. So I I can I hear that upset, but it's like the truth is the truth, and I'd rather hear the truth and deal with that rather than having to find a mutually respectable word to use to keep you comfortable.

 It's just, it is the reality and the feeling still needs to be there. That anger still needs to be there, so I don't believe the word needs to change.

Hema: I agree with you, which is why I often, you'll often hear me say colonizer, enslaved, indentured, as I'm talking about people, because all of those represent and can bring forth in your mind the circumstances of the people that I'm talking about.

Kesha: Yeah. Yeah.

Hema: And even though people wanna say it was history, it happened so far in the past, in the grand scheme of things, it actually is not that far in the past.

Kesha: It is not that far. And you know what they say about history, if you don't learn from it, it repeats and this is not something that I ever want to see repeated, and I'm gonna keep talking about it. So nobody forgets.

Hema: Yeah.

Kesha: Let's spot it a mile. Let's spot trends or shifts in behaviour a mile away as opposed to, gosh, you were so busy creating all these nice terms that we didn't realize the shift was happening.

We wanna fully be aware and help others to be aware. It's not necessarily about being woke, it's awareness, and the way that we promote this awareness is by using the words in the way that still evokes that emotion.

Hema: Yeah, it, it is an emotional topic and I understand why, why words, have an impact on people. But again, you said it earlier is, it's not our place to change words to make you feel comfortable.

Kesha: Mm-hmm.

Hema: Um, or to make the trauma feel any less traumatic, because you kind of have to understand it, accept it, work through it, instead of just trying to bury it in the sand.

Kesha: Absolutely.

Hema: This, that, that got really heavy for a second.

You said, when we're talking about tamarind tamarind, you said plantin, plantain. How do you say it?

Kesha: Mm-hmm.

Hema: it? Yes, me too. When I was in Puerto Rico they say plantain, which took me aback because I didn't, didn't think that anybody in the Caribbean actually said plantain. But I learned differently.

In my mind, as I'm learning more tamarind, tambrin, plantin, plantain, at the end of the day, I know what you're talking about. And if that's the way you say it, it's not wrong.

Kesha: Yeah. Potato. Potato, that's fine.

Hema: Exactly. This, this was a really interesting one and I'm gonna link the episode we did on, St. Martin, St. Maarten because the island itself is actually quite interesting because it is so small

Kesha: Mm-hmm.

Hema: to be split in two, and it is highly known as a vacation spot. 

Kesha: It is.

Hema: And I feel like the people who live there sometimes get forgotten, because it is so highly promoted as a tourist spot. So I want people to remember that this is home to so many people.

Kesha: Yes. Yes. I’m glad we were able to highlight it today.

Hema: Me too. It's not just a vacation spot, although it is a beautiful vacation spot. It is home. There's people who live there. They have a whole history. They have a whole life, and it's fascinating and I encourage people to, take a look at it and, and learn a little bit more about the people beyond just, it's somebody I met who worked at a hotel.

Kesha: True.

Hema: Thank you so much for sharing this story, I can't wait to see where we go next.

Kesha: Another good one.