“Always Watching”

The wild guinea fowl so often seen in St. Croix's south shore pastures were brought to the West Indies from Africa in the 1600s or earlier. They are very social and gregarious birds who travel in large multigenerational flocks. At night, they roost high up in tamarind trees.

"Generally, when the grown people in the neighbourhood were gone far in the fields to labour, the children assembled together in some of the neighborhood's premises to play; and commonly some of us used to get up a tree to look out for any assailant, or kidnapper, that might come upon us; for they sometimes took those opportunities of our parents' absence, to attack and carry off as many as they could seize." -- Olaudah Equiano was captured and sold as a slave in the kingdom of Benin in Africa. He wrote about his experiences in The Life of Olaudah Equiano the African (1789)

"As they could not maintain their ethnic groups due to the transoceanic gap and slavery, the Africans and their descendants participated actively in the processes of creolization and mixture that were to be the source of the new cultures and nationalities in America. Nevertheless, some areas were kept necessarily opaque. The Caribean is a universe - and an idea - par excellence of mestizage, diversity, transculturation, porosity, migrations and open interchange. If by means of resorting to syncretism the slaves were able to maintain their gods, identifying them with those enforced by the colonial power, the strategy aimed both at resistance and appropriation. In many cases the adoption of Christianity was like pushing a door which was already open - and which lead to Africa! The Africans worshipped their own deities in public in the shape of the Catholic saints and virgins, but they also incorporated the Catholic religion within an inclusive system, admirably adapted to survive and adapt itself to fervent America." -- curator Gerardo Mosquera, from an article about Wilfredo Lam on the XXIII Bienal Internacional São Paulo website

The tamarind trees were often used as evening gathering places by slaves, where I imagine they would share a sense of community by telling stories, sharing gossip, dancing to drum circles and otherwise passing on cultural heritage to the younger generation, with their African ancestors always watching.