Chief Charles Williams has asked legislators to pass a law requiring that ethnic Kalinagos marry only each other for self-preservation. He also requested that foreigners be barred from living on the 3,800-acre (1,500-hectare) reserve in the island’s northeast.

The impoverished Kalinago tribe relies mostly on banana and citrus farming for income.

“We would like as many Kalinago people to respond and pair off so that we can multiply and protect the race,” Williams said during a recent news conference.

An estimated 1,000 Kalinagos of the roughly 4,000 who live on the reserve are considered full-blooded Indians.

By custom, Carib women who marry non-Indians leave the reserve, while men who do the same are allowed to stay.

Several legislators said Friday that they refuse to entertain such proposals.

Racial purification can be governed only by consciousness, not law, Sen. Claduous Stanford told The Associated Press.

Enacting such a measure would be “legislating who a person can marry, and this cannot be so,” said Stanford, who is half-Kalinago and half-Caucasian.

Kent Auguiste, a member of the Carib Indian council that oversees the reserve, said the culture should be preserved but not at the expense of personal freedom.

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