He was born where the forest gives way to the savanna, in the South Rupununi of Guyana, among horses, rivers, and the songs of the Wapichan people. From that landscape, Tony Rodney James—known to many as Chief Kokoi—drew the convictions that would guide his life: that land is not a commodity, that language carries memory, and that leadership means service. When he died at his home in Aishalton Village on October 12th, his community lost a defender of Indigenous rights and a voice that, for half a century, spoke with clarity and defiance for Guyana’s first peoples.

James’s childhood was steeped in both tradition and transition. His father was Wapichan, his mother Lokono (Arawak), and he moved between their worlds—one foot in the savannah, the other in the colonial classroom. He left school early, more interested in riding horses than reciting lessons, and tried the priesthood before realizing his true calling was closer to the ground. He joined politics briefly in the 1970s, working as a district coordinator under President Forbes Burnham, but soon quit, disillusioned. “Politicians are polished liars,” he said in a 2021 Stabroek News profile. “I could not lie to the people all the time.”

Instead, he turned to the slower, more demanding work of community leadership. In 1982 he was elected toshāo—village chief—of Aishalton, a position he would hold for six terms. He was, by all accounts, a listener first and a speaker second, a man who carried the authority of patience. Under his leadership, Aishalton became a model for participatory village governance, and his influence spread beyond it. He helped found the Region Nine Toshaos Council (RNTC), a coalition of Indigenous leaders that predated the National Toshaos Council and for a time served as an effective force for land rights and cultural preservation.

As Chief of Chiefs, he believed unity among Amerindian nations was both possible and essential. But unity, he warned, was fragile. Politics, in his view, had “destroyed” the independence of village institutions, turning collective purpose into partisan loyalty. “Politics are destroying our villages,” he lamented late in life. He refused to align with any political faction, insisting that Indigenous autonomy depended on staying above such divisions.

For decades, his central cause was land. The 1969 Amerindian Lands Commission Report, which mapped traditional territories long before independence, became his touchstone. Successive governments ignored it; he never did. As president and later vice president of the Amerindian Peoples Association (APA), he pressed the case that legal recognition of ancestral territories was not just a cultural issue but an environmental one. “The forest and everything else is our education system, our health system, our supermarket, and our playground,” he said. “If we don’t plant a stem in the ground, we will go hungry.”

That vision placed him squarely in the path of economic interests. He campaigned against illegal gold mining at Marudi Mountain, which he said poisoned rivers and violated the constitution’s promise of a healthy environment. The stance earned him admiration abroad and death threats at home. In 2010, forty NGOs—including Amazon Watch and the Rainforest Foundation—appealed to the president of Guyana to guarantee his safety. He went on undeterred. “I consider myself a fighter,” he once said. “I will throw the last punch before I leave this earth.”

Recognition came late. The state that had often treated him as a nuisance eventually decorated him with the Golden Arrow of Achievement, one of Guyana’s highest honors. By then his hair had greyed and his health had faltered, but his message had not softened. He saw the loss of language, the lure of mining money, and the erosion of traditional knowledge as symptoms of a deeper forgetting. To younger leaders, he offered reminders rather than instructions: every creek has a name, every name a story, every story a lesson in belonging.

Three of his four children followed him into activism, extending his legacy through their own work on Indigenous and women’s rights. In his later years, he trained new toshāos, teaching them the history of Wapichan Wiizi—the homeland he had spent his life defending. He died as he had lived, on his ancestral land, surrounded by family and the people he served.

In Aishalton they say his spirit still walks the savannas. For them, Chief Kokoi has not departed; he has only ridden ahead.

Credits

Rhett Butler Editor

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EnvironmentGreenIndigenous CommunitiesIndigenous PeoplesIndigenous RightsObituaryGuyanaSouth America

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