Dear Editor,
I think that I may be in a position to make a significant contribution to the character behind the saying “Bear yuh chafe like Banwahri”.
During the early 80’s while residing periodically at Barabina in the North West area I began to write a story that eventually became the comic book trilogy ‘Shadow of the Jaguar.’ By the late 80’s when I was preparing to self publish the series, I began looking for sponsors through advertising. One of the sponsors was a senior friend who had a serious interest in the film arts and in animation, the late Len Beharry.
For the trilogy he took the back page. The contents of his ads in the final two issues were all based on local folk lore characters, in issue #2 we presented a record of the real Banwahri (see copy attached).
Mr Beharry as a young man knew someone who had known the real man somewhere in the 1920’s early30’s, his story was quite fresh at that time. Banwahri was a popular hand truck porter in the Thomas lands area, where in that period farmers deposited their produce. Banwahri’s hand truck was padded with jute bags, he was said to sleep under a tree on his truck and ignored the ginger beer sellers and their delicacies who frequented this makeshift market area.
Banwahri was considered to be very mean to himself, in the context of not eating or buying anything. One day he was found dead on his padded truck; when they tore off the bags from the truck, there before them were rolls of bills, amounting to thousands. It is believed that the money went into the Colony treasury. Thus was born the legendary reference “Bear yuh chafe like Banwahri”.
Yours faithfully,
Barrington Braithwaite
