The Lost Songs of Wanaragua: Ramón "Wistewa" Castillo

Ramón "Wistewa" Castillo is one of the last people in Honduras that remembers the old songs of Wanaragua, a type of music created by the indigenous Garifuna people that commemorates resistance against colonizers. This is the first video in our series documenting Wanaragua songs and the people who sing them, in Garifuna, English and Spanish for the first time. Through filming this, we discovered two previously undocumented Garifuna words - Güredibeigia (to prepare or cultivate land) and Haruwe (to clear land).
Wanaragua is a dance performed by the Afro-Indigenous
Garifuna people across the Caribbean Coast of Central America
manifesting a history of resistance against colonizers.
However, due to the lack of standardized Garifuna language
education, the songs are now at risk of disappearing.

This series aims to record these songs and the people
who sing them so the tradition lives on.