Bankie Bankx -- Big Chief

[Maximilian Forte]

Quite by accident (I had never heard of Bankie Banx before today), I found this video titled "Big Chief." The story line that accompanies it reads:

In the lands, where the Arawaks roamed... A Visually stunning music video, recounting the story of the Arawak people who once inhabited the islands of the Caribbean. The 'Big Chief' story centers on a modern day island boy, who discovers an ancient scroll that reveals the true roots of his people.

I'm not sure if that is the "official" plot line, or the one created by the person who uploaded the video. Looking at the video, it is hard for me to decipher, visually, what it intends to convey.

I would love to hear your thoughts. Here is the video:

[Zeeska Lee]

The story is being told from the perspective of one cut off from his roots. It's a journey of self discovery through shaman type experiences, surrounded by the prevailing attitudes mocking and taunting "You could never be the big chief now!"

[Maximilian Forte]

Sorry to be so thick...I see two boys at the start of the video, I think it is the same boy, who becomes Amerindian. Later on, a young man, like an explorer, who finds himself bathing under a conch shell in his home--is that man the grown up version of the little boy? I am totally lost.

[Zeeska Lee]

When the boy's father died, he handed him a jade. He discovered his father left instructions in the form of a scroll directing him to go to the sacred cave. There he left the jade. He returns several years latter as the explorer. A new awakening begins when he returns to the sacred cave...he sees visions and apparitions of his past. He reacted to the conch shell in his home because his father poured water from it and it was another apparition.

Please do not think I am suggesting that the quality or accuracy of the depiction is any good. But the symbolism is easier to understand if you're not too familiar with the culture.

It says what the ancestors passed on (the jade) is hidden in a sacred place (the cave).

[Maximilian Forte]

Thanks Zeeska. In some cases I really need to view something in someone else's company to be able to get a better sense of what is going on, and your comments were a good "substitute" for in-person company.

[Zeeska Lee]

[Zeeska Lee]

Perhaps, you could teach me something about this one. It's the Taino Tribe from Puerto Rico.

[Maximilian Forte]

That was a challenging video, because those images can be understood and interpreted on many different levels, and the discussion won't be a finite one. On the one hand, I see a familiar pattern, one that echoes images of North American Indians taken by Edward S. Curtis, who is usually accused of exoticism and primitivism, showing people as if they had not been ravaged by the expansion of white America and by Westernization, creating false images of continuity to satisfy white nostalgia for the societies they demolished. On another level, these individuals seem to be trying to bring artefacts back to life, showing how they were used. The video might also have been meant as an artistic statement. On yet another level, some might have a problem with the kind of fossilization of indigenous identity shown in the video--people must dress and live in this manner to be 'true' and 'real,' and I noted also the light colour shade of the individuals which raises some really serious problems and opens the door wider to the kinds of accusations of racial bias that have already been made. I don't think there is any one thing going on here, but without contextualization and without anything beyond the images themselves, the producers of this video might be causing themselves some problems.

[oronde ash]

big chief video says... know yourself through your history. hundreds of years after the slaughter of the original inhabitants, the jade stone symbolizing their history is found my a present day explorer. he has an archealogical, scholarly look about him with the indiana jones glasses and cave motif from the opening scene of raiders of the lost ark. we assume the man to be an intelligent, cultured man of science. he's got the backpack and torch. light shines on knowledge. the backpack will bring back elements of the truth. but like plato's allegory of the cave, the truth inside and outside are vastly different.

yet the truth of history frightens our hero. the truth is what it was. gunshots, spanish explorers, big chiefs perpetrating on big chiefs. those stories exist n history as they are. they will never change. everyone the man encounters along his route back home know the truth and have made peace with it. they serve their beer, drink their coconut, play their games because the truth has been dealt with on some level. and this... this educated, history buff, like jack nicholson says in a few good men: "... can't handle the truth."

like water from a cleansing conch, the truth should wash him in a baptismal spring. but the man has to make that choice. like the young boy we see in the beginning, running away from the explorer, this modern man must make a choice if he wishes to run or deal with the reality fast approaching in ships, on the island, in time... or what legacy will the man leave? what history? what will be his big chief story?

maybe i'm taking this video too far...