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.