ABSTRACT
All post-colonial countries once had or still have ‘native’ cultures of some kind. These range from the widespread indigenous literary cultures of India and Pakistan, through the extensive and highly developed oral cultures of Black sub-Saharan Africa, to the Aboriginal cultures of Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. To some extent this is also true of the West Indies, where the Caribs and Arawaks were almost completely annihilated by colonial settlement, but still remain as a ghostly trace on the consciousness of the modern Creolized inhabitants. The creative development of post-colonial societies is often determined by the influence of this pre-colonial, indigenous culture and the degree to which it is still active.
