Indigenous peoples of the Caribbean

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At the time of first contact between Europe and the Americas, the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean included the

Bahamas, the Kalinago of the Lesser Antilles, the Ciguayo and Macorix of parts of Hispaniola, and the Guanahatabey of western Cuba. The Kalinago have maintained an identity as an indigenous people, with a reserved territory in Dominica
.

Introduction

Burning of Hatuey, a Taíno chieftain. From a bas-relief of the portal of El Capitolio of Havana

Some scholars consider it important to distinguish the

Bahamas and Jamaica. Linguistically or culturally these differences extended from various cognates or types of canoe: canoa, piragua, cayuco[1] to distinct languages. Languages diverged even over short distances.[2] Previously these groups often had distinctly non-Taíno deities such as the goddess Jagua.[3] Strangely enough the god Teju Jagua is a major demon of indigenous Paraguayan mythology.[4][5] Still these groups plus the high Taíno are considered Island Arawak, part of a widely diffused assimilating culture, a circumstance witnessed even today by names of places in the New World; for example localities or rivers called Guamá are found in Cuba, Venezuela and Brazil. Guamá was the name of famous Taíno who fought the Spanish.[6]

Thus, since the neo-Taíno had far more diverse cultural input and a greater societal and ethnic heterogeneity than the true high Taíno (Rouse, 1992).

Boriquen (Puerto Rico) is presented in a separate section. A broader language group is Arawakan languages
. The term Arawak (Aruaco) is said to be derived from an insulting term meaning "eaters of meal" given to them by mainland Caribs. In turn the Arawak legend explains the origin of the Caribs as offspring of a putrid serpent.

The social classes of the neo-Taíno, generalized from

healers), and the cacique
(chieftains, or princes). However, the neo-Taíno seem to have been more relaxed in this respect.

Administrative and national units

The Spanish found that most Cuban peoples for the part living peacefully in tidy towns and villages grouped into numerous principalities called cacicazgos or principalities with an almost feudal social structure. They were ruled by leaders or princes, called Caciques. Cuba was then divided into Guanahatabey, Ciboney, and Classical Taíno.[7] Then some of Western Cuba was Guanahatabey.[8] and some Ciboney. Taíno-like cultures controlled most of Cuba dividing it into the cacicazgos. Granberry and Vescelius (2004) and other contemporary authors only consider the cazicazgo of Baracoa as classical or high Taíno. Cuban cacicazgos including Bayaquitiri, Macaca, Bayamo, Camagüey, Jagua, Habana y Haniguanica are treated here as "neo-Taíno". Hispaniolan principalities at about 1500 included Maguá (Cacique Guarionex); Xaraguá (Behecchio); Maguana (Caonabo); Higüey also called Iguayagua[9] (Higüayo); Cigüayo (Mayobanex), and unnamed region under Cacique Guanacagarí (Wilson, 1990). These principalities are considered to have various affinities to the contemporary Taíno and neo-Taíno cultures from what is now known as Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic and Haiti, but are generally believed somewhat different.[7]

Farming and fishing

The adroit farming and fishing skills of the neo-Taíno nations should not be underestimated; the names of fauna and flora that survive today are testimony of their continued use. Neo-Taíno fishing technologies were most inventive, including

Manihot esculenta)[10] a crop with perhaps 10,000 years of development in the Americas; boniato (the "sweet potato" — Ipomoea batatas),[11] and malanga (Xanthosoma sp.)[12]

Taíno pharmacopoeia

As with all Arawak (Schultes, Raffault. 1990) and similar cultures there was considerable use of natural pharmacopoeia (Robineau, 1991).

Taíno studies

Taíno studies are in a state of both vigorous revival and conflict (Haslip-Viera, 2001). In this conflict deeply embedded cultural mores, senses of nationality and ethnicity struggle with each other. The Syboneistas undertook studies and wrote of neo-Taínos as part and cover for independence struggles against Spain (Fajardo, 1829 - c. 1862; Gautier Benítez, 1873).

Neo-Taíno and Taíno art

Taíno and related art has been celebrated in several significant exhibitions (Alegria, and Arrom 1998; Bercht, et al. 1997; Bullen,[13] Dacal et al.; Kerchache, 1994,[14] most notably in Paris.[15]

Neo-Taíno music (areíto) survives as echoes in the rich traditions of the popular music of the Caribbean, but is believed to continue to exist in its purest form and associated spirituality among the Warao of Venezuela.[16]

Metallurgy

The art of the neo-Taínos demonstrates that these nations had metallurgical skills, and it has been postulated by some e.g. Paul Sidney Martin,[17] that the inhabitants of these islands mined and exported metals such as copper (Martin et al. 1947). The Cuban town of (San Ramón de) Guaninao means the place of copper and is surmised to have been a site of pre-Columbian mining.[18]

Peoples of the Caribbean

Archaic Age people

Peoples of the Caribbean at the time of European contact. Chartreuse, green and purple are Awawakan; orange and yellow Cariban. Brown, pink and red were the remaining archaic peoples.

DNA studies changed some of the traditional beliefs about pre-Columbian indigenous history. According to National Geographic, "studies confirm that a wave of pottery-making farmers—known as Ceramic Age people—set out in canoes from the northeastern coast of South America starting some 2,500 years ago and island-hopped across the Caribbean. They were not, however, the first colonizers. On many islands they encountered a foraging people who arrived some 6,000 or 7,000 years ago...The ceramicists, who are related to today's Arawak-speaking peoples, supplanted the earlier foraging inhabitants—presumably through disease or violence—as they settled new islands."[19]

Taíno

Main article: Taíno
Taino reenactment in Puerto Rico

The Taíno, an Arawak people, were the major population group throughout most of the Caribbean. Their culture was divided into three main groups, the Western Taíno, the Classic Taíno, and the Eastern Taíno, with other variations within the islands.

Classic Taíno

The Classic Taíno lived in eastern

Cuban Taíno. The Cuban Taíno gained power over some of Cuba's earlier Western Taíno inhabitants, the Ciboney, but no regional or island-wide political structure had developed on the island at the time of Spanish colonization of the Americas.[20]

Eastern Taíno

The Eastern Taíno inhabited the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles, from the Virgin Islands to Montserrat. They had less sophisticated societies than the Classic Taíno.[21]

Western Taíno

Main articles: Ciboney and Lucayan people

The Western Taíno lived in

Lucayans, they were wiped out by Spanish slave raids by 1520. Western Taíno living in Cuba were known as the Ciboney. They had no chiefdoms or organized political structure beyond individual villages, but by the time of Spanish conquest many were under the control of the Cuban Taíno in eastern Cuba.[22]

Igneri

Main article: Igneri

According to oral history, the

Cariban. Irving Rouse suggests that small numbers of Caribs may have conquered the Igneri without displacing them, and could have gradually adopted their language while retaining the Carib identity, but there is no evidence to prove this. Though they were Arawaks, the Igneri language appears to be as distinct from the Taíno language as it was from the mainland Arawak language of South America.[23]

Kalinago

Main article: Kalinago
Kalinago man

By the contact period, the Kalinago, also known as Island Caribs, inhabited the

St. Vincent in the Lesser Antilles.[23]

Guanahatabey

Main article: Guanahatabey

A separate ethnic identity from far western Cuba. They were an

archaic hunter-gatherer people who spoke a language distinct from Taíno, and appear to have predated the agricultural, Taíno-speaking Ciboney.[24][25]

Ciguayo

Main article: Ciguayos

A separate ethnic people that inhabited the Peninsula of Samaná and part of the northern coast toward Nagua in what today is the Dominican Republic, and, by most contemporary accounts, differed in language and customs from the classical or high Taíno who lived on the eastern part of the island of Hispaniola then known. According to Eustaquio Fernandez de Navarrete, they were "warriors and spirited people," ("gente animosa y guerrera").[26] The Cronista de Indias, Pedro Martir accused them of cannibalism: "when they descend from the mountains to wage war on their neighbors, they kill and eat some of them" ("trae[n] origen de los caníbales, pues cuando de las montañas bajan a lo llano para hacer guerra á sus vecinos, si matan á algunos se los comen").[27] Fray Ramón Pané, often dubbed as the first anthropologist of the Caribbean, distinguished the Ciguayo language from the rest of those spoken on Hispaniola.[28] Bartolomé de las Casas, who studied them and was one of the few who read Ramón Pané's original work in Spanish, provided most of the documentation about this group.[29] Linguists Granberry and Gary Vescelius believe that the Cigüayos emigrated from Central America.[30] Wilson (1990) states that c. 1500 this was the kingdom Cacicazgo of Cacique Guacangarí.

Macorix

Another separate ethnic group that lived on the eastern side of the island of Hispaniola. Their region today is in the Dominican Republic. According to las Casas, their language was unintelligible for the Taínos, but may have been similar to the Ciguayo language.(Wilson, 1990)

"There were three distinct languages in this island, unintelligible to each other; one was the people we called of lower Macorix, and the other were the neighbors from upper Macorix" (Tres lenguas habia en esta Isla distintas, que la una á la otra no se entendia; la una era de la gente que llamábamos del Macoríx de abajo, y la otra de los vecinos del Macoríx de arriba).[31]

— Bartolomé de las Casas

Recent studies show that the Macorix people coexisted with the Tainos on Hispaniola. The names San Francisco de Macorix and San Pedro de Macorix in the Dominican Republic are indirect references to the political divisions of the cacicazgo.[32] The Spaniards wrongly assumed that the names given to the different territories were a reference "to what they called a Cacicazgo:

a region dominated by a cacique. Cacique comes from the Taíno word kassiquan, meaning 'to keep house,' or meaning: 'a lord, dominating a great territory.' The different names given by the five regions in reality was given by the indigenous people based on the various Indigenous groups living on those areas.

— Federico djs Amador[citation needed]

Florida tribes

Main articles: Indigenous peoples of Florida and Indigenous people of the Everglades region

The

Florida Straits "one of the most strongly marked cultural boundaries in the New World", noting that the Straits were also a boundary between agricultural systems, with Florida Indians growing seed crops that originated in Mexico, while the Lucayans of the Bahamas grew root crops that originated in South America.[35]

It is possible that a few Lucayas reached Florida shortly before the first European contacts in the area, but the northwestern Bahamas had remained uninhabited until approximately 1200, and the long established presence of the existing tribes in Florida would have likely prevented any pioneering settlements by people who had only just reached the neighboring islands. Analysis of ocean currents and weather patterns indicates that people traveling by canoe from the Bahamas to Florida were likely to land in northern Florida rather than closer to the Bahamas. A single 'Antillean axe head' found near Gainesville, Florida may support some limited contacts. Due to the same ocean currents, direct travel in canoes from southern Florida to the Bahamas was unlikely.[36]

The term and context of the Ciboney (Siboney)

Ciboney (also Siboney) is a term preferred in Cuban historic contexts for the neo-Taíno nations of Cuba.

Our knowledge of the Cuban indigenous cultures which are often, but less precisely, lumped into a category called Taíno (Caribbean Island Arawak) comes from early Spanish sources, oral traditions and considerable archeological evidence. The Spanish found that most Cuban peoples were, for the most part, living peacefully in tidy towns and villages grouped into numerous principalities called

Caciques. Cuba was divided into Guanahatabey, Ciboney-Taíno (here neo-Taíno), and Classical (High) Taíno. Some of western Cuba was Guanahatabey[8]
and some Siboney (see below).

Taíno-like cultures controlled most of Cuba, dividing it into cacicazgos or principalities. Granberry, Vescelius (2004), and other contemporary authors only consider the cacicazgo of Baracoa as Classical or High Taíno. Cuban cacicazgos including Bayaquitiri, Macaca, Bayamo, Camagüey, Jagua, Habana y Haniguanica are considered neo-Taíno. These principalities are considered to have various affinities to contemporary Taíno and neo-Taíno cultures from Puerto Rico and Hispaniola, but are generally believed to have been somewhat different.[37]

Ethnic/cultural derivatives

Guajiros and Jibaros

The common name given to the rural inhabitants of Cuba is guajiros. Del Campo implies that quajiros are "native-born whites" and states that in Puerto Rico "the influence of the indigenous population is more marked than that of the native populations in Cuba".[38]

In Puerto Rico, the rural inhabitants are called Jibaros. The term jíbaro, according to the Catholic online encyclopedia, is also the name of a tribal group in South America, it meant "mountain men." Jíbaro means "People of the Forest" in the Taíno language. So the term obviously came with them as they immigrated from South America. However "jíbaro" – as is used in Puerto Rico, is not used the same in Cuba or the Dominican Republic, which were populated with the very same Taíno people. In Cuba the word jibaro is used to denote something wild or untamed, such as "perros jibaros" or wild dogs.[citation needed]

Guajiro nation

The term

Arawak nation of the Guajira Peninsula
between Venezuela and Colombia. For a small compendium of myths of this Nation please see: de Cora, Maria Manuela 1972. Kuai-Mare. Mitos Aborígenes de Venezuela. Monte Avila Editores Caracas.

Later nations in this general area

The Arawak, Carib, other Mesoamerican coast, and Amazonian cultures can be considered as part of a tenuous continuum of nations, linked by some shared vocabulary, ethnic links, agricultural practices, reinforced by bride abduction, and continuous exogamy. After the violence of the Spanish conquest, and subsequent events of African slavery and rebellion, nations and cultures with diverse amounts of Arawak ethnicity, culture, and/or traditions transmuted and arose. Some of these nations had mixed or even predominantly African roots, which include the Cimarrón of Cuba and the Maroons of Jamaica and Guyana.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ e.g. Zayas, 1914
  2. ^ Wilson, 1990
  3. ^ "Aycayia". Cienfuegoscuba.galeon.com. Retrieved 2012-11-20.
  4. ^ "Libro I". Redparaguaya.com. 1999-02-22. Archived from the original on 2013-02-04. Retrieved 2012-11-20.
  5. ^ [1] Archived October 24, 2005, at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ "José Barreiro, Indians in Cuba". Hartford-hwp.com. 1989-06-18. Retrieved 2012-11-20.
  7. ^
    ISBN 978-0-8173-5123-6
    .
  8. ^ a b "Myths and Dreams: Exploring the Cultural Legacies of Florida and the Caribbean". Kislakfoundation.org. Retrieved 2012-11-20.
  9. ^ "Dictionary of the Taino Language". Members.dandy.net. Archived from the original on 2008-04-30. Retrieved 2012-11-20.
  10. ^ "Cassava, Manihot esculenta Crantz genetic resources: VI. Anatomy of a diversity center". Funpecrp.com.br. Retrieved 2012-11-20.
  11. ^ "Sweet potato". Dict.die.net. Retrieved 2012-11-20.
  12. ^ "Malanga". Archived from the original on August 30, 2005. Retrieved November 5, 2005.
  13. ^ "Resources". Flmnh.ufl.edu. Retrieved 2012-11-20.
  14. ^ [2] Archived March 8, 2005, at the Wayback Machine
  15. ^ Maciques, 2004
  16. ^ Olsen, 1996
  17. ^ "Paul S. Martin Collections". Archived from the original on November 23, 2005. Retrieved January 10, 2006.
  18. ^ Zayas, 1914
  19. ^ Lawler, Andrew (December 23, 2020). "Invaders nearly wiped out Caribbean's first people long before Spanish came, DNA reveals". National Geographic. Archived from the original on December 23, 2020.
  20. ^ Granberry and Vescelius, p. 9.
  21. ^ Rouse, p. 7, 18.
  22. ^ Granberry and Vescelius, p. 9, 15, 21.
  23. ^ a b Rouse, pp. 21–22.
  24. ISBN 978-0817351236
    .
  25. ISBN 978-0300051810
    . Retrieved June 18, 2014.
  26. ^ Eustaquio Fernandez de Navarrete [in Spanish] (1850). "Noticias de D. Bartolomé Colón, Hermano del Almirante," in Colección de Documentos Inéditos Para La Historia de España, V. 16. Madrid: Vidua de Calero. p. 516.
  27. ^ Martire d’Anghiera, Pietro (1892). Joaquin Asencio Torres (ed.). Fuentes históricas sobre Colón y América. Libros rarísimos que sacó del olvido, traduciéndolos y dándolos á luz en 1892. Madrid: San Francisco de Sales. p. 253.
  28. ISBN 978-0977494057
    .
  29. ^ de las Casas, Bartolomé (1877). José Vigil (ed.). Historia de las Indias, V. 2. Mexico City: Ireneo Paz. pp. 426–30.
  30. ISBN 978-0817314163
    .
  31. ^ de las Casas, Bartolomé (1876). D. José Sancho Rayon (ed.). Historia de las Indias escrita, Volume 5. Madrid: Ginesta. p. 486.
  32. ^ None given (November 14, 2008). "Macorís". Newsgroup: http://www.listindiario.com/. Retrieved November 16, 2015. {{cite newsgroup}}: Check |newsgroup= value (help); External link in |newsgroup= (help)
  33. ^ "The Miami Circle The Internal Alignments of the pre-Tequesta Circle". Earthmatrix.com. Retrieved 2012-11-20.
  34. ^ "Miami Florida Real Estate 305-936-2489". Search4miamihomes.com. Retrieved 2012-11-20.
  35. ^ Sauer:51
  36. ^ Seidemann, Ryan M. (2001) "The Bahamian Problem in Florida Archaeology: Oceanographic Perspectives on the Issue of Pre-Columbian Contact". The Florida Anthropologist, 54(1):4-23. Found at The Bahamian Problem in Florida Archaeology: Oceanographic Perspectives on the Issue of Pre-Columbian Contact Archived June 30, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  37. Taínos, Havanna, 27 July 2016.[full citation needed
    ]
  38. JSTOR 43799144
    . The quajiro is a rustic, peasant dweller of the Cuban countryside...(page 79; page 88, note 6; page 87, note 3)

References

"He therefore went to the island of Guadalupe, anchored there and sent boats ashore well armed. But, before they arrived, a number of women came out of the woods carrying bows and arrows, and with feathers on their heads, apparently resolved to defend the island … to northern islands … When the ships came very close to shore, they saw many Indian men coming out on to the beach with bows and arrows, which they shot at our men with great daring and great shouts. But they shot in vain, for their arrows fell short … The houses were square not round like on the islands, and in one of them a human arm was found cooking in a stew pot." (pp. 195–196)

http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1993/2/93.02.12.x.html#top

https://web.archive.org/web/20040818183442/http://www.banrep.gov.co/blaavirtual/credencial/hamerica.htm translated '.. the women go naked and are libidinous, lewd, and lustful but despite this their bodies are beautiful and clean...."

External links
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