One of the things attracting tourists has taught us is to value the habit of preservation. We have to depend on devoted scholars and archeology diggers and always, tenacious individuals like Dr. Walter Roth. He was a medical man of German stock who moved to Guyana by way of Australia and was the moving spirit in the rise of Georgetown's museum of natural history. As a youth I made many trips to this museum and was fascinated by its presentation and displays; for instance the diorama of gold-digging operations in the far interior, the lighted fish tanks with fish such as the blood-thirsty pirai, a lifelike representation on the wall of the world's biggest freshwater fish, the arapaima, caught in Guyana. A huge live anaconda pans have all but vanished.
Ottawa, Ontario: Library and Archives Canada = Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
Reprint of the author's 2010 M.A. thesis (Carleton University, 2010), 252 p., 3 microfiches + 1 CD-ROM., In 1970s Bahamas, a radio serial cum soap opera called The Fergusons of Farm Road that ran for almost 190 episodes over a five year period became a cultural phenomenon. Ironically, it was originally a part of a courtesy campaign designed to teach Bahamians the importance of being friendly to tourists. This thesis is the first significant study of the Fergusons , basing its insights on original episode scripts, interviews and recently discovered archival audio recordings. It situates the show within the historical and cultural context of the ongoing Bahamian tourism courtesy campaigns to better understand how it transcended the limitations of its pedagogical role into the realm of abiding popular culture.
186 p., Preacher's Cave, an archaeological site in North Eleuthera, Bahamas, is arguably one of the most important historical places in that country. This large cave, isolated in a natural setting, has long been associated in the popular imagination with the first English colonists who shipwrecked in the Bahamas in 1648 and laid the foundation for the modern nation. Before the present work, no systematic scientific archaeological work had ever been conducted at this site. These excavations, in conjunction with the written record, also suggest that the area surrounding the site is the location of the first free black community in the country.