The Practice of Whe-Whe in Trinidad - A Cross-Cultural Exchange

An Essay by Gérard A. Besson

During the colonial era in Trinidad and Tobago, several forms of indigenous behaviour as demonstrated by the Jamette society (Jamette from the French "diametre", meaning beyond the diameter of polite society) were proscribed against. 

From the 1840's the beating of the drum was outlawed within the town limits, and later Cannes Brulées and Hosay were contained and suppressed wherever possible. Severe restrictions were placed on certain religious practices: the Shouters and Spiritual Baptists for example. So too cock-fighting and obeah, and of course the steel band was frowned upon and placed in opprobrium. 

Amongst these so-called anti-social behaviours was included a form of gambling called whe-whe. Whe-whe was declared illegal with an Ordinance passed in 1888, the first of several attempts to stop this practice, described in the press as "pernicious ... and an evil."

Over the years, the restrictions on some of the above were to some extent either completely removed or considerably reduced. This has not been the case, however, for whe-whe. Instead, under the auspices of the National Lotteries Act and controlled by the National Lotteries Control Board, "Play Whe" was created as a replica of the original game, and is now accepted and enjoyed by a wide cross-section of the people of Trinidad and Tobago.

Whe-whe came to these islands with the indentured Chinese immigrants, perhaps as early as 1806. Significantly, Chinese immigration really began after Emancipation. Between 1853 and 1866 about 2,500 Chinese, mostly men, arrived to work on the estates as indentured labourers. During the mid­-19th century, whe-whe took root and began to be assimilated into the creole culture. This took place as the Chinese gained freedom from their indentures and as Chinese shops began to appear all over the island.

Although at first whe-whe was played only by Chinese, it was soon assimilated into the general Trinidad life-style, among other factors because of the intermarriage of Chinese immigrants with non-Chinese locals. An ancient pastime, it was also known as "Chinapoo"; a numbers game played by intuition, superstition, dreams and caprice. It drew its financial support from the community into which it became implanted. By the 1920s, in formed an important part of the island's underground economy. For example, a Chinese shop-keeper would have had to extend credit to his customers and may have operated a whe-whe bank to offset his cash-flow difficulties by creating another income stream. 

Whe-whe then gradually contributed to a sense of community. Through the process of acculturation it gave on the one hand to the society an added distribution of income and the possible access to cash and on the other hand absorbed the customs and belief systems of its host environment, comprised as it was of a wide variety of people from diverse racial origins and backgrounds.

No longer in its original form, it has been creolised, acquiring words (marks) like Jamette (#16: low class man or woman), Crapaud (#13: frog), Corbeau (#11: vulture), Coco Bay (#24: eye infection or leprosy, from the name of a bay at Chacachacare where there was once a leper colony). It has retained one Chinese word, albeit corrupted, Tie Pin, correctly T'ai P'ing (#12: Heavenly Kingdom).

A whe-whe "turf", as the yard or ground where the main activity takes place was called, was usually in a secured place in the high woods or in a clandestine spot. It might have been started by a person well known in the area, like the local shopkeeper, or might have been taken over after the demise of a former ''banker'', as this person was called. It might also have been inherited, staying in the hands of a single family for several years.

In any event, it required a considerable sum of money to guarantee a whe-whe bank, as bets were sometimes very large. A ''bank" was the money staked to be used to make payments on bets. Bankers usually declared the value of the bank to the markers or punters. Some banks were described as limited, some were unlimited.

The whe-whe banker, having established his turf, employed several markers or punters, sometimes called runners or travelling agents, who were deployed in various areas taking bets. They retained $6.00 on any $1.00 bet that won. Sometimes the bank would ''buss", i.e. it was forced to pay out more than it had taken in, in which case it paid only a percentage of the bets.

A banker may ''buss the mark" several times in the course of a day: at 10:30, 1:30, 4:30, or at 12 midnight. 

At the selected time the banker gives a marker a mark: a strip of paper with a number on it, and the marker puts it on a tree or in a match box. The banker must never put the mark in his pocket, as this may be regarded as grounds for suspicion, and it must however remain a secret. Long ago, when the Chinese operated whe-whe, the mark would be suspended on a string from the ceiling of the shop. Pre­selected, this number may not be repeated or "dambled" more than once in any day, it is considered "dead". At the signal from the banker, a marker busses the mark by opening the paper and displaying the winning number.

When punters or markers collect marks from their clients they are "picking up punts". The commission earned by a marker is known as "waters". Markers who collect bets may be tempted to "cut the mark" by checking his lists to see how many people have played the same mark, and see how much cash has been involved for the day's play. He may decide to take a cut on each person's mark, reducing the bets that he takes to the banker. He, however, always makes sure to pay off the winners.

This "cutting the mark" is a somewhat risky undertaking, as the- banker may not take too kindly to this fraud. To safeguard against this a "list'' is made. A list is a sheet of paper on which marks are listed and the bets are entered. This is totalled and the marker/punter puts his symbol at the bottom (not his name). This list is handed into the banker. Marks are listed on the left side and the amounts on the right. A nominal sum of 4% is added to each bet on the list. This is the commission (“waters”) that markers earn. For example, if the bet is $100, he puts $104.

The game has acquired several terms to describe its various aspects, such as "mark-under'' or "mark­-under-mark" or "pull-down". This is a strategy used by a banker to throw the players off. The mark played on Wednesday is played the following Wednesday at the same time. A banker is thought to be under a mark when it is observed that he plays that number on a particular weekday for more than one week.

A banker may try to outwit players by "pulling across a mark": he may play a number, e.g. 8, on Wednesday, and play it again on Tuesday of the following week, playing the mark a day earlier than the day he was under the mark.

A mark is dead when played in the morning, and cannot be played again that day, however it may be played the following day. ''Whappi" is a rare event which takes place when more than one bank in the same area plays the same number on the same day at the same time. To get a whappi is regarded as very good fortune.

The symbol of whe-whe is a drawing of the Chinaman jumbie, or Chinapoo. His anatomy is divided into some 36 segments, each marked with either mark partner or spirit numbers, depending on the chart. Originally Chinese characters were used, but as Chinese is very difficult to learn and pass on, the successors to the established banks or those setting up new ones proceeded to creolise the original Chinese ideograms, leaving only the original numbers. 

Long ago this chart would belong to the Chinese banker and would be made available to punters/markers as an aid to divining the meaning of the dreams. These numbers all have names and these names and numbers are the marks. The derivation of the chart may have sprung from the Chinese belief in the currents, electrical, magnetic and psychic as described in the Yin and Yang philosophy. These currents flow through the universe, the human condition being a reflection of all this and echoes it in microcosm. 

Whe-whe is drawn from an ancient belief system that seeks to interpret and to anticipate this grand plan. Its methods have to do with numerology, astrology, cabala, divining, nature cults and other systems linked to the Chinese lunar and solar calendars. Dreams and visions may thus be interpreted to dictate which mark should be played at what time.

It is interesting to note that unlike other forms of gambling, in whe-whe money is paid to develop a person's intuitive faculties by causing them to remember dreams, associate ideas, regard the significance of numbers and attempt to anticipate the coincidental. In the process of creolisation, whe­-whe assimilated the folklore of Trinidad and Tobago, itself a syncretised amalgam of African, Spanish, French and Amerindian experiences, beliefs, myths and superstitions. "Rakes", that is observed events and various forms of gossip such as arguments and quarrels, the unfaithfulness of another's spouse or other deriving from the community, are all important to the informing of a choice of mark.

In the process of assimilation some marks have changed in name, for example Scorpion (1) became Centipede, Butterfly (14) became Money, and Carpenter (22) became Rat.

Over the years, markers/punters have become expert diviners and interpreters of dreams and readers of the "astral", the sole purpose being to second-guess the banker and in so doing earn more "waters" for themselves, and a wider circle of clients.

Each mark has a partner, and some, though not all, have spirits. Further, according to the rules of numerology, the value of a mark may be arrived at, by adding together its digits. For example, one may say that two is 2, 11 or 20; or that five is 5, 14, 23 or 32. Therefore, there are three twos and four fives on the chart, and you may decide to play all the twos or the fives, as the case might be. 

The mark and its partner may be played together because they have the same meaning or may be interpreted similarly. They are “family", having in common the same association of ideas. 

The mark and spirit are only represented in half of the 36 numbers. The intuition or hunch to play a mark may be supported by playing the partner of the mark and be further endorsed by playing the spirit as well. It is here that the subtle association of ideas informs the choice of mark, aided of course by the memory and the correct interpretation of dreams, hence the importance of recording dreams.

Various dreams relate to particular marks. According to one very old chart, if you dreamt of a fowl, you could play 26, 11,13 and 25: 26 being Fowl, 11 Corbeau, 13 Crapaud, 25 Morocoy. As a matter of interest, the partner of 26 is 8, Tiger, and its spirit is 27, Little Snake. Eleven's partner is the un-number 37 or Police, and when that mark buss, clear out the place. The spirit of 11 is 36, Cat Pan, which has sexual overtones. All of this may be perused in greater detail in the attached charts.

That the creation of a legal form of whe-whe in Play-Whe has brought this ancient game in from the cold may be regarded as yet another step in the process of cross-cultural assimilation of the peoples of Trinidad and Tobago. The tremendous interest that today's Play-Whe has generated demonstrates the extent to which the game, in its original form, had found a place in our national consciousness. There is no doubt that Play-Whe exercises the imagination, creating an interest in the process that associates ideas, encourages a regard for the meaning of numbers and the remembering of dreams. It is hoped that this little book will serve to bring a greater understanding of the game and to encourage you to record your dreams and to use them as inspiration to play and win.

May the subtle currents of Air, Earth, Water and Fire be with you.

The Reaction of Ethnic Minorities to Black Power in Trinidad and Tobago, 1970

by Gerard A. Besson

              

This abstract is based on conversations with five Trinidadians of European descent, three were men and two were women, all of whom were over 30 in 1970. Two of the men were company directors, the women were housewives. Three were Syrians, comprising two women, one was a housewife, the other worked in her husband’s business and one man who was a teenager in 1970 and worked in his father’s business. A Chinese woman who was in her twenties in 1970 who worked in a bank and whose father owned a shop, An Indian man, a national of India, who worked in Trinidad as a retailer in the period. And a Portuguese housewife whose husband worked in rum shop owned by a Portuguese family. Three other informants were interviewed, there were coloured, mixed race Trinidadians and two Black Trinidadians who do not consider themselves Afrocentric. Indo Trinidadians were not included.

The views of the ethnic minorities in T&T with regard to the Black Power disturbances of 1970 are varied depending on what was experienced by those individuals.

These were the Chinese, the Portuguese and the Syrian/Lebanese communities, the Indians (from India), the French Creoles, that is European-appearing persons with French, Irish, Italian or German names, and the English Creoles. Some of these were evolved, more or less, in trade or other forms of family-owned and operated businesses. Light-complexioned people in general, persons of mixed-race backgrounds who may have identified themselves as French Creole, Chinese, Spanish or other and Afro Trinidadians who did not identify with the Black Power movement, that involved demonstrations of thousands of people.

The most common emotion felt by most of the above was fear, and a sense of surprise that was mixed with a feeling of disappointment. The sense of fear was founded on the experience of the random violence that was known to take place during the steelband clashes of the recent past, forms of labour unrest, and the collective historical fear of Black people assembled en masse and organised as a riotous mob.

The sense of surprise and disappointment was founded mostly on the belief that with Independence in 1962, a new status quo had been achieved in which the intellectual and the professional Blacks would run the government, but the society and business would continue as before. There was as well the feeling that Trinidad, “Sweet, sweet, Trinidad” was gone forever.

Independence had come following the elections of 1961, in which an intense racial outburst by Dr Eric Williams, in his “Massa day done” speeches (1960-61) shocked the minorities in the population. In these discourses he deconstructed the European mythology of their racial superiority and attacked the European-descended population at large and the French Creoles in particular, wherein they were characterised as having inherited the guilt of 18^th century slave masters.

In these discourses, the East Indians on the whole were portrayed by Dr. Williams as being at the beck and call (the shoe shine boys) of the European-descended members of the DLP and (nincompoops) marginal to the PNM’s revolution. Williams had in effect broken the taboo that had surrounded open and public discourse on race, in which derogatory views would be aired with regard to Europeans. In so doing, he had inaugurated “the Williams narrative.”

Taken aback by the impetus of the election campaign, the originality and the pertinence of some of the presentations and the extent to which the European leaders of the non-Black vote, i.e. Albert Gomes, Gerald Wight et al, had apparently been disgraced and put to flight, all the minorities appeared cowed and went along with the Williams interpretation of history and how it was applied to politics. Trust was invested and power achieved by this mostly Black party, the PNM, 

In effect, it was understood that all segments in the population would have to be subordinate to the “National culture” of the “true inheritors”— Williams’ words, that is, of the Afro-Trinidadians. As such, it was generally believed that with the PNM in power, there was no need for a Black Power movement at all. Hence, the Black Power disturbances came as a surprise to many.

Perhaps mostly so to Black and coloured Trinidadians who could not involve themselves with the Black Power movement for a variety of reasons: amongst these because they felt it did not involve them at all, that it was a low-class movement for people who were thought of by them as “the niggers”, that it was of little or no concern to them in terms of advancement of their own personal Black awareness, that it may spoil relationships between them and Whites, that it was a youth movement involving the undisciplined and lawless elements, that is was against the Law, that it was disruptive of social and racial harmony, that it was against Christian religious principles, that it was against the PNM and Dr. Williams personally, or that it was just foolish and misguided and imported from America, that it would not achieve anything for Black people that education, self-sacrifice and hard work could not achieve, that the pursuit of ambitions and taking the opportunity to live abroad was an obvious and better choice.  Many Blacks felt that that it was Black people fooling other Black people in their pursuit of power and self-aggrandizement, which was in itself dangerous, in that the Government may be overthrown and the communists would take over—bearing in mind that it was the middle of the Cold War, and communist regimes had taken control in other former colonies.

Moderate Blacks and coloureds were often intimidated, some felt fear, and that they were betraying their brothers and sisters. Many did not have it in them to participate, but realised that in not doing so, they were placed in a particular category and were described as Uncle Toms, stooges of the White people, the honkeys, and were called names like house niggers, cowards, fools, and as backward colonials, Afro Saxons.

There was outrage and a growing dissonance between Black youth on the whole and some of the Black middle class, as well as other Blacks who had pursued European mores, speech, dress, hair styles and cultural values, who had notions of respectability, that could not identify with the type of behaviour associated with youth movements expressed as Black Power. This behaviour had to do with overt racialism against Europeans in general and local Whites in particular, anger against White and foreign-owned businesses, radical attitudes to sexual conduct, dress, Afro hair styles, use of marijuana, adulation of revolutionary heroes like Ché Guevara, Stokeley Carmichael, Malcolm X, Angela Davis, Fidel Castro, etc.

There was also an awkward dissonance being created between mainstream Blacks and the Whites, off-Whites and French Creoles. They were committed to the Afro/French Creole, British colonial way of life, which included Catholicism and Christianity on the whole, language (patois), the lifestyle of agriculture and stock-rearing, boating and fishing, work in various professions, and the retained memory of the previous century with its cultural mores that were mostly French-Antillean dominated. Despite their support for the PNM and Dr. Williams and the nationalist independence movement, they were hesitant to repudiate these cultural mores in exchange for Black Power, whose values threatened theirs so absolutely.

In the Chinese community, which twelve years earlier had numbered about eight thousand and included mixed-race people who identified themselves as Chinese and not as Black, many were restaurant, steam laundry, shop and parlor proprietors and other owner-operated concerns, some of whom dealt with the Black public “over the counter.” Several were professionals or worked in the banks, private enterprise or for other Chinese. They experienced Black Power in terms of fear, harassment, violent threats, intimidation and in a few cases physical violence.  This community suffered financial losses during the period as business slowed and in some cases closed permanently. Several business places that were owned by Chinese families remained abandoned for years; others were reopened part time. Chinese families moved away from predominantly Black neighbourhoods where they had lived at times for more than one generation. After 1970 there ensued a steady emigration of Trinidad Chinese to Canada and other places.

With regards to the Portuguese, those who were still in the retail trade, shops, groceries and rum shops, also experienced financial loss, thuggery and verbal abuse, violent behaviour and threats that were similar to those levelled at the Chinese. Both these segments of the population had been in the retail trade running shops and rum shops for generations, trading in mostly in poor Black depressed areas, and were in the front line so to speak, of Black Power intimidation.

There had also been a large degree of miscegenation between the Chinese and Portuguese and their Black neighbours/customers. To what extent this played a role in the attacks against them is well worth exploring. It may be said that Black Power, 1970, reduced the involvement of both these sectors in the sale of food and alcohol, in the traditional sense, as there are few if any still engaged in trade. Indians seemed to have filled the gap.

Both these groups felt unjustly attacked as they were, in a manner, not unlike Blacks: excluded from White dominance of the society. When asked about the charge of exploitation by them of Blacks in terms of property loss because of extending credit, or sexual favours exchanged for money or kind, the feeling was that these were arrangements made freely and without force, and served the purpose at the time. There was a distinct move away from Black neighborhoods after Black Power. The Portuguese became increasingly socially White.

The Syrian/Lebanese community was severely affected financially by the disturbances. Their businesses were mostly located in the urban centres, downtown Port-of-Spain and San Fernando, in that there was a high degree of damage to property, intimidation of customers and staff and an almost complete collapse of sales during the months of January to May 1970 and afterwards. 

Several of the downtown establishments owned by this community had benefited by the steady growth and development of the middle class of all sectors and had made substantial investments in clothing shops and manufacturing plants and modern merchandising and advertisement for their stores. This had involved large outlays of cash and loans from the banks, whose repayments required a steady cash flow. When this cash flow was disrupted, pressure was applied to the owners and layoffs were experienced by the employees.

There was a degree of harassment, intimidation and extortion experienced by the Syrians. Several properties were burnt in the urban areas; arson was a threat and often a reality. This segment continued in business notwithstanding the large-scale street protest and the ongoing damage to property, and in some cases was able to form accommodations with elements of the Black Power. There was a feeling of resentment against the Black population because of the perceived kindnesses and acts of generosity given to poor and needy Blacks. When asked about exploitation, low wages, racial discrimination, sexual harassment and exploitation, they agreed that these existed, but maintained that these were human failures and any race could be found guilty of these placed in the right circumstances and that this was not peculiar to them.  There was not any marked emigration in this community, but there was a distinct hardening of racial animosity towards Blacks that it is claimed was not there before Black Power. Charity given to poor Blacks and others was maintained, in fact increased, by the Syrian-Lebanese Women’s Association.

The Indians from India who formed a small merchant community in the business district were adversely affected financially in much the same way as the above. Both communities, being in the dry goods trade, experienced a collapse in business in the several months of disturbances. There was fear of violence, business failure and of sexual assault.

The European-descended, mainly English and Scottish merchants who owned and operated the big firms, i.e. Geo F. Huggins, Alstons, T. Geddes Grant, Gordon Grant and a dozen others, including the large department stores Stephens, Fogarty’s, Millers, Glendinning’s, Woolworth, were like the Syrians immediately affected financially by a collapse of sales. In the case of the retailers the effect was immediate, in the case of the wholesalers this was accumulative. As wholesale suppliers to small outlets, they were increasingly unable to deliver/supply their customers.

The fear of violence directed against them and their families had begun in the anti-White diatribes of the “Massa day done” politics of Dr. Williams, when it was remembered that he had “given them (his supporters) permission to cut their throats” and when he had said that “history used as the murderous weapon it can be”. Connected to Britain’s international markets, this segment was acutely aware of what was taking place in other parts of the Commonwealth with regard to racial/political upheavals and the threat of communist takeover, the Cold War being on everybody’s mind.  There was a sense of guilt for past wrongs, and an admittance of racism, but it was explained that it was the times and that times were changing worldwide.

There was a feeling of confidence in the White Acting Police Commissioner, Peter May, and a police force that was perceived as loyal to the Government. With a justice system that was known to work, things would work out.

There was also the feeling that because of the oil fields, the Americans or British Governments would not let things go from bad to worse. There was a surprising amount of confidence in Dr. Williams who was thought of as not communist, but as a supporter of business interest, and also as a very clever and resourceful man. A large number of the White business community as well as French Creole families were supporters of the PNM. Party Group 13 was situated in Goodwood Park, an upscale, predominantly White area.

Several of the directors/owners of these businesses took the precaution of sending their wives children and relatives to Barbados or to the offshore islands during the disturbances.

The French Creole families, which numbered some 1500 persons, several of whom worked in the banks, in Government officers, in private firms, the cane estates and in the oil companies, or as professionals and as managers in the large companies, experienced fear and believed that their time in Trinidad may be over this time for good. As with the British merchants, they saw the Black Power uprising as an extension of the postcolonial experience of Nationalism that had replaced the legitimacy of Crown Colony Rule in the British Empire, which had safeguarded them as a remnant community in the colonies, a leftover from another time.

It was felt that between the Williams independence movement, the PNM, and now the Black Power movement, a profound breakdown of the Afro/French Creole culture had occurred, and that they were caught in the middle of the loss of this century and a half old culture. The start of a new Nationalist movement that would not include them, which was destroying all that was good and what they knew and trusted as real, had taken root and would grow menacingly.

The eight years between Independence in 1962 and the Black Power uprising in 1970 was a relatively short period in which a chasm, producing a deep dissonance, was created between themselves and what they had considered to be “their people”: the Black and coloured Trinidadians who operated/functioned in stereotyped roles in their daily lives and with whom there existed complicated relationships of kinship, dependence, paternalism, friendship, sport, camaraderie, exploitation and a myriad of relationships.

There was by no means a total breakdown between these groups, the Black and coloured and the French Creoles and other Whites, during and after the disturbances. Some say that it was only after a generational change that this was brought about, and very gradually in fact. There was, however, a certain amount of damage done, which was experienced in a collapse of trust and confidence on both sides during this period and after. Black Power to many marked the end of the Creole era in Trinidad, and the beginning of Trinidad and Tobago acquiring a more Caribbean reality.

The French Creole group as well as the English Creoles tended to start making plans to move away from Trinidad and Tobago. A great many of the owners of the big firms moved out of the country, several of them who had owned homes in which they lived when visiting, sold out, and in some cases never returned. The French Creoles with less resources per se made plans to start to send their children abroad and pay more attention to their education, preparing them to live abroad in various ways, trips visits to relatives, etc.

Black Power generated resentments with new nuances towards Blacks in general that were felt and displayed by all the minority groups. All felt that it was unnecessary, an unwelcome display of anger, intolerance, racism, societal discord and violence that achieved little or nothing that would not have come about over time.

Summary

The ethnic minorities of Trinidad felt that Black Power was about jealousy, and getting jobs in banks and in the trading houses and in other places. The minorities felt that it was largely imported from abroad, the USA, and was a dangerous juvenile fad that had caught on in Trinidad. Many felt that it would be relatively easy for them to go away and be successful where ever they went, and only those left behind would suffer as in Guyana and in other former colonies that had lost its entrepreneurial/business class.

Some minorities told stories of anger and defiance to intimidation, taking great pride in “putting people in their places” and facing down would-be attackers. Others remember only the great curfew parties. Some felt that some Black people benefited from the Black Power uprising personally, and that it was really an extension of the Independence movement that was good for the country on the whole.  Some remarked that it was good for the marginal people, the pass-for-Whites/coloureds who could now say with pride that had Black ancestors.

Some believed that Black pride had been defined for a generation of Blacks at the expense of national harmony. Some supposed that what was gained by Black Power was lost in the oil booms that followed. Most felt that that Black youth had not benefited in the long run, because it was the start of law-breaking with a sense of righteousness, a sense of entitlement unearned or undeserved, and an even greater collapse of the work ethic. Justice was not served as so many of the perpetrators of arson and violence walked free of what was seen as treason.  All groups mentioned that there had been an increase of drug use and the start of serious police corruption in the wake of Black Power.  It was also mentioned that in the aftermath of Black Power, the Police Welfare Association of the Second Division was able to negotiate a forty-hour work-week, and that this changed how the Police functioned in terms of duty, professionalism and being seen as corruption-free.

Chinese Immigration

On the 12 October, 1806, the Ship ‘Fortitude’ brought the first Chinese to Trinidad. Thus, they were amongst the first settlers here.

This date of the commencement of Chinese immigration to Trinidad is given by historian Edward Lanza Joseph. He also gives information that the men were Tartars and not accustomed to work in the canefields. He further says that they were 193 in number, with one woman in their midst. Women, because of their small feet, could not work long hours. Foot binding was a common practice in China in those days, meaning that from early childhood the toes were bent towards the heel and tightly wrapped. This torture was supposed to give the girl, as she grew older, a hobbling walk and ‘attractive’ small feet.

Of this early group of immigrants, only 23 stayed on in Trinidad. The others returned to China aboard the ‘Fortitude’. Of those who stayed, several lived on at Cocorite under quite miserable circumstances, selling charcoal, oysters and crabs.

Between 1853 and 1866, about 2,500 Chinese - mostly men - came to Trinidad as indentured workers. They arrived under the same terms as the Indians. Intentureship for the Chinese did not last long, however, and came to an end in 1866.

What followed was voluntary free immigration, mostly to British Guiana in the first instance and then, attracted to a brighter way of life, in Trinidad. Over the next 100 years, Trinidad’s Chinese population was to increase by almost 9,000 immigrants. These people from the furthest east emerged from intentureship and the displacement of immigration to become small traders, shop owners, laundry proprietors and of course restaurant owners and cooks. Dr. Robert Lee commented in a lecture published in ‘Book of Trinidad’:

“Chinese immigrants came to Trinidad in different ways: some came under contract, many were ‘shanghaied’, abducted into virtual slavery by European traders, either to the West Indies or South America. Hakka prisoners were also sought by Punti traders for the infamous ‘pig trade’, whereby these prisoners were described as pigs on bills of lading and were shipped off to the New World.”

The businesses established by the Chinese in these early years served to facilitate new arrivals. They provided temporary accommodation to their countrymen and -women, they imported brides and even shipped back bones of deceased Chinese to bury them in their native villages.

The Chinese also brought with them a game of chance, a numbers game known as ‘Whe Whe’ or ‘Rakka Piu’. Described as an ancient pastime, it was called Chinapoo and played by persons who were influenced by intuition, superstition, dreams and caprice. This game was assimilated into Creole life in Trinidad, with many of its terms of reference changed. The symbol of ‘Whe Whe’ is a drawing of a Chinaman ‘jumbie’. His anatomy is divided into some 36 segments, each marked with a number that denotes the mark itself, its spirit and its partner. Illegal to this day, Whe Whe, the Chinese jumbie, has impacted upon Trinidad’s society, imparting its own magic and contributing in a small way to the turnover of money in many neighbourhoods.

Chinese cooks, particularly from Canton, made an impact on the cuisine of Trinidad. ‘Educating the palate’, so to speak, they introduced ghingee, caraillie, christophene, snow peas, narchoi, patchoi, mustard bush, white radish and white lemon, all of which entered the market gardens of Trinidad.

Charles Kingsley’s impression of the Chinese immigrants

(from his book ‘At Last - a Christmas in the West Indies’, published in 1889)

“Why do the Chinese never smile? Once, and once only, in Port of Spain, we saw a Chinese woman, nursing her baby, burst into an audible laugh: and we looked at each other, as much astonished as if our horses had begun to talk.”