Taíno

The Taíno are pre-Colombian indigenous Amerindian inhabitants of the Greater Antilles islands, which include Cuba, Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic), Puerto Rico, Jamaica and the Bahamas. The seafaring Taíno are relatives of the Arawakan peoples of South America. Taíno of the Bahamas were known as Lucayan. Their language is a member of the Arawakan linguistic family, also found in South America.

Related Topics:
Colombian - Indigenous - Amerindian - Greater Antilles - Cuba - Hispaniola - Haiti - Dominican Republic - Puerto Rico - Jamaica - Bahamas - Arawakan - South America - Lucayan - Arawakan

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Indigenous peoples of Cuba. Rumors of Atlantean civilizations during ice ages in Cuba, although supported by logical interpretations of Ancient Greek and Egyptian records and much touted by the present government http://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/lostcity.htm, are not supported by archeological evidence. A case can be made for an exploratory visit by a Chinese fleet in 1441 . What we do know for sure, from the archeological record and mitochondrial DNA studies is that indigenous pre-Taíno and the Taíno peoples discovered the Antilles many thousands of years ago, apparently exterminating major megafauna, including condors , giant owls and eventually groundsloths .

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At the time of Columbus's arrival in 1492, there were five Taíno "kingdoms" or territories on Hispaniola, each led by a principal Cacique (chieftain), to whom tribute was paid. Another indigenous group called the Carib lived in the islands. This group is said to be another Arawakan related people originally from South America. The Tainos and the Carib would sometimes battle each other.

Related Topics:
1492 - Cacique - Carib

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At the time of the Spanish Conquest, the largest Taíno population centers may have contained around 3,000 people or more.

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Cuba was first visited by Europeans when Christopher Columbus arrived on October 28, 1492 e.g. . In 1511 Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar conquered the Island and became the first Spaniard to govern Cuba. These warlike invaders, thought of themselves not as Spanish but as subjects of the diverse Iberian kingdoms, and inherited the strategies, warrior skills and horsemanship from the ancient Romanized Iberians, Celts and Goths, and especially from 900 years of fighting successful wars against the North African Muslim Moors.

Related Topics:
October 28 - 1492 - 1511

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By the time the Spanish arrived, the indigenous peoples were semi-unified by the culture and assimilating language of the widespread seafaring polygamous, sexually open, commonly pacific and assimilating Taíno (Island Arawak) culture . Yet each island and often local areas within the larger islands maintained different social characters and their vocabulary varied due to inputs of the original settlers.

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Our knowledge of the Cuban indigenous cultures which are often, but less precisely lumped into a category called Taíno (Caribbean Island Arawak) comes from these invaders? written language we know as Spanish, oral traditions and considerable archeological evidence. The Spanish found that most Cuban peoples for the part living peacefully in tidy towns and villages grouped into numerous principalities called Cacigazgos with an almost feudal social structure. They were ruled by leaders or princes, called Caciques. Cuba was then divided into Guanahatabey, Ciboney-Taíno, and Classical Taíno . Then some of Western Cuba was Guanahatabey. and some Siboney (see below). Taíno-like cultures controlled most of Cuba dividing it into the Cacigazgos of Baracoa (Classical Taíno), Bayaquitiri, Macaca, Bayamo, Camagüey, Jagua, Habana y Haniguanica . These principalities are considered to have various affinities to the contemporary Taíno cultures from what is now known as Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic and Haiti, but are generally believed somewhat different [].

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Before 1492 Cuba had been long settled by many once distinct peoples such as the Guanahatabeys , or the Ciboney (pronounced with a soft C and also written Siboney)) http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1415-47571999000300001&script=sci_arttext&tlng=en, (Lalueza-Fox et al. Am. J. Phys. Anthro. 121(2) 97-108)). These indigenous cultures which were advanced enough to have calendars , and originally spoke different languages in each island or region of the larger island . Although they wove cloth from cotton and other fibers, they commonly went naked or almost nude, and bathed often, frequently twice a day which horrified the Spanish who thinking this would weaken them tried to forbid the practice. The Taíno made elaborately worked gold (caona) ornaments and also used dark violet copper containing alloys they called guanín hammered out from the abundant metallic deposits of Cuba. The Taíno, who were trading with the Maya , and having metals were clearly transitioning out of the neolithic age. The Taíno in Cuba are even said by some to have used some copper or even bronze tools ?, possibly but not certainly of Mayan origins. And except for cave symbols not yet understood were preliterate much the same way as were the classical period Celts . The Taíno dug out enormous tree trunks hollowed with the help of fire (guatú) controlled by mud ?dams? to built great canoes, a word derived in English from a Spanish transliteration. They used many kinds of ceramic (e.g. múcara) and woven containers (e.g. java), shell and stone (ciba) tools, such as hand daggers (manaya). The Taíno had a settled and very diverse agriculture; but also fished and hunted with inventive devices notably using harpoons (arpón is a Taíno word) and tethered remora sucker fish , and made adroit use of natural products. Complex beliefs included great mysticism and a complicated and variable pantheon of diverse gods and belief in an almost Ancient Greek style afterlife as ghost hupía. They held complicated, but not lethal, batu ball games held in plazas called bateys, and in sacred ritual smoked tobacco said mixed with mild doses of dangerous hallucinogens (cohoba) . Their swords macanas were stone tipped wood; and their atlatl launched, yaya hefted, azagaya spears, and weakly poisoned arrows tipped with ciba stone or manta ray stingers so lethal against bare flesh, were useless against steel armor.

Related Topics:
Neolithic - Preliterate

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The Taínos (Island Arawak) are part of a cultural group commonly called the Arawak , which extends far into South America. The wide diffusion of this culture is witnessed even today by names of places in the New World; for example localities or rivers called Guamá (the Taíno name for Lonchocarpus domingensis a leguminous tree wide spread in the Caribbean , the designation of a chief , Guamá was also the name of famous Taíno who fought the Spanish) are found in Cuba, Venezuela and Brazil. The Arawaks incorporated readily into the successive invading groups and are now acculturated almost to the point of disappearance. Residues of Taíno poetry, songs, sculpture, and art are found today throughout the Antilles , . The Arawak and other such cultural groups are responsible for the development of perhaps 60% of crops in common use today and some major industrial materials such as rubber. Taínos taught the Spanish to grow tobacco and make cigars.

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Approximately 16 to 60 thousand or more, for some estimates are far higher, Taínos inhabited Cuba before colonization. During the Spanish subjugation the indigenous populations of Cuba were forced from their minor princedoms or Cazigazgos into encomiendas, where they were used for lethal gold mining forced labor. The daughters of the Caciques were considered nobility and became wives of Spanish leaders; other women were incorporated into hareems of the conquerors. Vasco de Porcaya, who married Taína Princess Taníma of Sagua, is reputed to also have three hundred such women for his pleasure; until after surviving the failure of the Ponce de Leon expedition to Florida he became a priest. Encomiendas included Guanabacoa, today a city near Havana, Jiguaní and Guisa in the east. Many Native Cubans died due to the brutality of Spanish conquistadores and the measles and smallpox etc that they brought with them, diseases previously unknown to Indians. On the other hand the introduction of smoking and most probably syphilis into Europe as a result of this contact caused uncounted deaths in Europe.

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Shakespeare's character Caliban is taken by many to represent a Caribbean Shaman. Sir Walter Raleigh's execution is said witnessed by his Caribbean servant. A number of Taíno words, transliterated into Spanish, have found English usage; such words include canoe, savanna, and tobacco. By 1550, most indigenous civil organization had disappeared. Many Conquistadors intermarried with Indigenous women. Their children were called mestizo, but the Native Cubans called them Güajiro, which translates as "one of us". Yet today, some descendants maintain their heritage. Population recovery, albeit mixed of the Taíno indicates that they in the Caribbean, as other Native Americans, are a vital part of today's human biological landscape in the western hemisphere (Larsen, C.S. 1994 Am. J. Physical Anthro. 37 (S19) 109-154).

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The Taíno culture was nearly destroyed in the 16th century, decimated by genocide, introduced disease, and forced assimilation into the plantation economy that Spain imposed in its Caribbean colonies, with its subsequent importation of African slave workers. There was substantial mestizage as well as several Indian pueblos that survived into the 19th Century (Cuba). The Spaniards who first arrived in the Bahamas, Cuba and Hispaniola in 1492, and later in Puerto Rico in 1508, did not bring women. They took Taino wives in civil marriages, and had mestizo children.

Related Topics:
16th century - Spain - Mestizage - 1492 - Puerto Rico - 1508

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