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This emigration from a vast country, with varying geographical and climatic conditions, to a small South American country near the equator meant the uprooting of an old culture and its transplantation in a strange environment.
Those who were aware of the fallacy of calling British Guiana and the neighbouring Caribbean islands the ‘West Indies’ would perhaps have been gratified to know that a real Indian element had come to stay in this ‘new’ part of the world.
The vast majority of these Indian emigrants came from northern India. Those who came through the port of Kolkata (Calcutta) were known as ‘Kalkatiyas’ to distinguished them from those who emigrated through the port of Chennai (Madras) and were called ‘Madrasiis’ in British Guiana. Those who came from the tribal areas of Bihar and Bengal were known as ‘Jangaliis’ or ‘hill coolies’.