In 2014, the Inter‐American Court of Human Rights heard two cases concerning the alleged complicity of Honduran state institutions in the violation of Garifuna communal property rights. Garifuna, a people of mixed Arawak, Carib, and African descent, are one of nine officially recognized “ethnic groups” in Honduras. Yet the state has repeatedly denied their status as a pueblo originario—a people native to Honduras—thus calling into question the lawfulness of their claims to national territory. I draw on my experience serving as an expert witness to analyze the role of cultural evidence in the legitimization of Garifuna rights claims, and how specifically ethnographic treatments of Indigenous cultural practices are circumscribed within dominant juridical interpretive frameworks and modes of recognition. The judgment, issued in October 2015, repeatedly deployed anthropological concepts and insights to bind Indigenous subjectivity to the land, thereby deepening essentialized notions of Garifuna ethnic and racial difference. This article probes the challenges of presenting cultural evidence in a court of law and the limited political potential of witnessing, which, I argue, stem from the ways in which anthropological and legal ways of knowing coarticulate.

中文翻译：

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裁定土著：美洲人权法院的人类学证词

2014年，美洲人权法院审理了两起有关洪都拉斯国家机构涉嫌共谋侵犯加里富纳公共财产权的案件。加里富纳人是阿拉瓦克人，加勒比人和非洲人后裔，是洪都拉斯九个官方认可的“民族”之一。然而，国家一再否认其作为普韦布洛血统的地位洪都拉斯的原住民，因此质疑其对国家领土主张的合法性。我将利用自己作为专家证人的经验来分析文化证据在加里富纳权利主张合法化中的作用，以及在占主导地位的司法解释框架和承认模式下如何具体界定民族志对土著文化习俗的对待。该判决于2015年10月发布，反复运用人类学概念和见解将土著主观性与土地联系起来，从而加深了加里富纳族裔和种族差异的本质化概念。本文探讨了在法院提供文化证据的挑战以及见证的有限政治潜力，我认为，