thumb|right|238px|Example of punta music
Punta is an Afro-indigenous dance and cultural music of the Belizean, Guatemalan, Honduran and Nicaraguan Garífuna people, originating from the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (also known as Yurumei). It has African and Arawak elements which are also the characteristics of the Garífuna language. It is also known as banguity or bunda.
The diaspora of Garífuna people, commonly called the "Garifuna Nation", traces its ancestry back to those West Africans who escaped slavery and the Indigenous Arawak and Kalinago peoples. Punta is used to reaffirm and express the struggle felt by the indigenous population's common heritage through cultural artforms such as dance and music; to highlight their strong sense of endurance; and reconnect to their ancestors. Most songs are performed in the indigenous Arawakan languages of the Garinagu and are often simply contemporary adaptations of traditional Garífuna songs. Punta is danced specifically at Garífuna funerals, on beaches, and in parks. Punta is iconic of Garífuna ethnicity and modernity and can be seen as poetic folk art that connects older cultures and rhythms with new sounds. They begin facing each other and the figure varies with the ingenuity of the dancers, but always represents the evolution of a courtship in which first the man pursues, and then the woman, while the other retreats; and ends only when one of them, from exhaustion or from lack of further initiative, admits defeat by retiring from the ring, to have his or her place immediately taken by another. More commonly were the religious or ancestral rituals, as those seen on the ninth-night wakes by anthropologist Nancie Gonzales during her fieldwork in Central America. If a death occurred at night, then the wake would begin early the next morning and continue all day, ending with a burial in the late afternoon. However, if the death were during the day, an all-night wake would ensue with people coming and going throughout, with prayers and drinking being a familiar sight.
Role of women
During her field study in southern Belize from 1974 to 1976, Virginia Kerns witnessed the women's roles and participation in punta first hand. She recalls: "During the course of the singing, one woman distributes rum to the others present. Later, feeling the full effects of several drinks, the women begin to dance punta and the atmosphere grows increasingly festive. Outside, the inevitable crowd of spectators gathers, mainly young adults and children, who hover on the periphery at such ritual events." She also notes that the length of the dancing can go on as long as the next afternoon, depending on the supply of rum and the enthusiasm of the dancers. Idiophones are instruments that produce sound through the vibrating of a solid material that is free of tension, commonly found in shakers, scrapers, and xylophones.
The punta ritual for a wake is sung in Garifuna, with a soloist and a chorus. Although punta music may sound happy, the words can often be sad. One song can be translated as, "Yesterday you were well. Last night you caught a fever. Now in the morning you are dead." Another change that has been developing in the past century has come in the increasing role of women as singers and drummers, which were thought to be solely male roles and women were only allowed to play if there were no men available. Andy Palacio, a homegrown Belizean artist, believes that punta rock is "a mix of Garifuna rhythms with a little bit of reggae, a little bit of R&B, and a little bit of rock and roll". Cayetano's style caught on quickly in Belize and from there spread to Garifuna communities in Honduras and Guatemala.
Young progressive Garifuna men and women who looked to American style and did not carry on traditions experienced a resurgence of their culture.