Around 50 people from across the Island converged on the Fairmont Hamilton Princess hotel yesterday to define the characteristics of Bermudian culture.

It marked the start of the Bermuda Cultural Conference 2007, which is being hosted by the Department of Community and Cultural Affairs throughout the weekend, with the aim of bolstering Bermudian culture and identity.

The conference is to resume at 9 a.m. today and again from 4 p.m. on Sunday.

Yesterday's discussions were opened by Heather Whalen, Senior Community and Cultural Affairs Officer with a poem titled, "I am Bermuda" read by Dr. Kim Dismont Robinson, Folklife Officer.

Educators as well as business men and women were among those that participated in a series of group deliberations and work shops on the interpretation of Bermudian culture.

Keynote speaker Sydney Bartley, Jamaican Director of Culture, Ministry of Tourism, Entertainment and Culture, encouraged participants to embrace the Island's core traditions no matter where they originated from.

"North American life, Caribbean life, no matter what we call it, there are persons over the years, perhaps without knowing it, who contributed to its solidification," Mr. Bartley said.

"As well as its concretisation and what we now boast about as being Bermudian — somebody was able to transfer and translate a kind of being that the rest of us have at this point that we're able to sustain and be proud of.

"Some of those persons gave their lives to do it and some in situations of great brutality, hostility, inequality."

For example, the widespread belief that Jamaica is a place where anyone can come to smoke cannabis and that a person wearing dreadlocks is automatically Jamaican are the results of "cultural construction", Mr. Bartley said.

"A lot of people think that Jamaicans are all Rasta and all walk around smoking marijuana... so they come to Jamaica and get locked up because marijuana is illegal," he pointed out to a laughing crowd.

"But there's an identity that's being constructed. It is interesting to know that there's a distinction of Bermuda's understanding of its own identity and other's understandings."

One participant, community activist Dr. Eva Hodgson said the conference was a step in the right direction and bolstered suggestions on how Bermudian culture can be nurtured among youth, where it's most lacking.

She explained: "Recently, former PLP Senator Calvin Smith wrote about the concept of having elected parish counsels to re-create neighbourhoods. This idea appealed to me because apart of the problem with young black males is they do not feel valued.

"If we had elected parish counsels that reached out to others in the parish, there would be perhaps a sense of neighbourhood being rebuilt. This might upgrade education more viably instead of simply worrying about overall structures."

Minister of Community and Cultural Affairs Wayne Perinchief was also present and reminded attendees about Government's efforts to promote a variety of aspects of Bermudian traditions.