The erec­tion of a stat­ue de­pict­ing one of T&T’s In­dige­nous peo­ple at King’s Wharf, San Fer­nan­do, has sparked con­tro­ver­sy, with Grand Chief of the First Na­tives Sov­er­eign Na­tion, Er­ic Lewis, call­ing for mod­i­fi­ca­tions or its re­place­ment. But the ROAC Warao Com­mu­ni­ty Foun­da­tion said it in­tends to meet with the city’s may­or to ad­dress the is­sue and doesn’t want Lewis’ help.

As one of the lead­ers of T&T’s in­dige­nous groups, Lewis ex­pressed grat­i­tude for in­clud­ing First Peo­ples’ rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the re­de­vel­op­ment of the San Fer­nan­do Wa­ter­front. How­ev­er, while he ap­pre­ci­ates its place­ment, he be­lieves the stat­ue fails to do jus­tice to the First Peo­ples—some­thing he at­trib­ut­es to a lack of re­search and con­sul­ta­tion be­fore its cre­ation and in­stal­la­tion.

Lewis, who in­spect­ed the stat­ue along­side Chief Camil­lus Se­bala, said nei­ther he nor any In­dige­nous group he knows of was in­volved in the dis­cus­sions. As a re­sult, he can­not de­ter­mine whether the stat­ue rep­re­sents the Warao, Taíno, Kali­na­go, Carib, or Arawak peo­ples. He not­ed that there are sev­en In­dige­nous lead­ers across the coun­try, each as­so­ci­at­ed with their re­spec­tive com­mu­ni­ties, and to­geth­er they could have sculpt­ed and do­nat­ed a more au­then­tic rep­re­sen­ta­tion. While this over­sight did not oc­cur un­der the cur­rent may­or’s tenure, he said it is some­thing he pro­posed.

“It is a pity that the artis­tic de­pic­tion does not ad­e­quate­ly por­tray the im­age and fea­tures of an In­dige­nous per­son,” Lewis said, em­pha­sis­ing that cer­tain char­ac­ter­is­tics—such as the eyes, head­piece, and body fea­tures—should be rep­re­sent­ed in a spe­cif­ic way.

“I am not con­demn­ing the artist. An artist has a cer­tain amount of lib­er­ty when cre­at­ing or in­ter­pret­ing a piece. Per­haps the artist ex­er­cised cre­ative free­dom in ful­fill­ing their com­mis­sion. How­ev­er, we are still here, and we can take the nec­es­sary steps to en­sure that the im­age of our an­ces­tors is cor­rect­ly de­pict­ed and pre­sent­ed to the coun­try.”

Lewis al­so raised con­cerns about the ma­te­ri­als used in the stat­ue, which he be­lieves to be foam and a light­weight resin—un­suit­able for out­door dis­play and un­like­ly to with­stand the el­e­ments over time. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he not­ed that the pro­por­tions of the hands and chest ap­pear in­cor­rect, and some fea­tures, such as the hair­style re­sem­bling that of a Rasta­far­i­an and the squared eye­brows, do not re­flect In­dige­nous char­ac­ter­is­tics.

Giv­en that sev­er­al In­dige­nous groups once in­hab­it­ed San Fer­nan­do, Lewis be­lieves the First Peo­ples should take the lead in pro­duc­ing stat­ues of their an­ces­tors.

But yes­ter­day, the ROAC Warao Com­mu­ni­ty Foun­da­tion is­sued a re­sponse to Lewis’ con­cerns say­ing the tribe will meet with the May­or of San Fer­nan­do, Coun­cil­lor Robert Par­ris, to dis­cuss re­design­ing the mon­u­ment in a man­ner that tru­ly re­flects and ho­n­ours their in­dige­nous cul­ture/di­verse com­mu­ni­ty.

“There is no need to rush to place an­oth­er rough or rushed mon­u­ment in its place,” a state­ment said.

The group said while it is aware of Lewis’ of­fer re­gard­ing the mat­ter, it will pro­ceed with it own plans.