'Guiana' has long been the name given
by the native people to the mysterious, mostly unexplored land of
dark, dense rainforest that lies behind a 900 mile stretch of muddy
coastline, just above of the Equator on the north east flank of South
America. However Guiana is
not only a name, but also a description, a reflection upon the most
influential feature the country has on the lives of its people- it
means the 'Land of Many Waters'.
Today
Guiana consists of
three territories, marked by vague, disputed boundaries. The largest
of these is Guyana, which
lies to the west, bordering Venezuela, and has roughly the same
surface area as Britain. Closest to the mouth of the mighty Amazon
river is French Guiana and
sandwiched in between is Suriname.
The
sheer abundance of water in Guiana previously led people to believe
that the country was nothing more than a closely packed collection of
islands. Solely in Guyana, over 1500 rivers gush through the forest,
racing to the Atlantic Ocean. They do so with such turbulence that no
ship bigger than a canoe makes it further than 90 miles inland along
even the largest rivers, without being torn apart in the torrents.
These rivers define boundaries, isolate tribes, block passage through
the country and act as a lifeline, a source of food for those who are
brave enough are to inhabit the interior. The rivers are home to
hundreds of species of fish, perhaps including the largest freshwater
fish in the world, as well as less friendly creatures such as
stingrays and electric eels.
Over
three times as much rain falls each year on Georgetown, the capital
of Guyana, as does on the Scottish town of Perth. Water is everywhere
in Guyana, it fills the air, resides in the swamps and feeds the
rainforest, creating the prime conditions for a miraculous ecosystem
in which many undiscovered species still roam. Water rots buildings
and spreads disease, it constantly threatens the inhabitants of
Georgetown, who live precariously below sea level, with only a
man-made wall holding back the Ocean, which is said to be the colour
of plaster due to Peruvian sediments, washed across the continent.
However,
Guiana is by no means the only name ever used to describe this watery
world. Early French and English maps label the region as
'Equinoctiale' or 'Caribana, Land of Twenty-one Tribes'. For a
while to the Dutch it was the original New Zealand, before they came
up with an enchanting name that captured the sense of danger and
remoteness, the possibility of success, the curiosity associated with
an unknown world. They called it de Wilde Kust, 'The
Wild Coast'. There are no natural harbours along the entire
coastline of Guiana, although it is on this 10 mile wide muddy
stretch of land by the sea that 90% of the population live.
The
naming of the place which lies between the Orinoco and Amazon rivers
is ultimately a trivial thing, for the simple reason that it has
never truly been owned by humans. Throughout its turbulent history of
bloody wars between French, British and Dutch settlers, current day
Guyana changed hands 9 times, Suriname 6 times and French Guyana 7
times. These squabbles over sugar plantations and coastal towns never
changed the fact the vast majority of Guiana is untamed, unexplored
jungle, they never made any part of the country an easy place for
humans to thrive or gave the population any real sense of national
identity.
Even
today the population of Guyana is a mere 750,000, and not a single
road leads to the outside world. Without an aeroplane, it takes four
weeks to travel to the interior of the country. Most of its
inhabitants are insects, trees, snakes or jaguars. It is a
comforting, solid reminder that the world has in no way been
conquered by human development, that nature still rules in some
little forgotten corners.
