HISTORY PAGE 2 In our planet's history it has been the unfortunate legacy of men to always want to subjugate and control other men. Abuses committed by mankind against mankind date to back to the earliest recorded history. Yet through all of the pain suffered by millions upon millions of unfortunate inhabitants of our planet, perhaps only one race has ever had the terrible distinction of having nearly all traces of their rich and ancient culture; their heritage, customs and language, erased from this planet as we know it today . Though traces of this heritage still exists in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean today, for the most part, their lore, handed down through their ceremonial dances, the Areyto, as well their religious practices, and all those other things that make an eons old culture robust and alive -- have melted away into 500 years of history. Aside from this, the peoples themselves; through enslavement and harsh treatment, by diseases brought to the New World by the Spanish, and through intermarriage with Europeans and African slaves, were "absorbed", so that no pure bloodlines remain today. (From early on Spanish men took Taino women for themselves. At one point, according to Fray Bartoloméde Las Casas, the most profilic chronicler of the time, there existed the horrible practice of the capture and sale of young Taino girls under 13 years-of-age). Today, vestiges of this beautiful race can be seen in many Puerto Ricans as well as people of other Caribbean nations. In the proceeding 500 years after the start of Spanish colonialization, other Europeans; the Irish, French, Dutch and German, also melted into the rich cauldron of ethnicity that comprises today's Puerto Rican. Not until recently have archeologists begun to thread together bits and pieces of the Taino's past. Recent revelations show that the Taino maintained a viable farming system able to sustain their population without destroying their farmland as is done by the slash and burn system often used today in the tropics. The Taino had their own lore, their own music, their own dances and games. They practiced religion, had ceremonies and prayed to deities. They were fine architects whose thatched homes were so well made and pleasing to the eye that Christopher Columbus was most impressed by them. In an log entry from his first voyage he writes of homes in Cuba: "They are constructed like pavilions, very large, and look like royal tents in a campsite without streets. One is here and another, there. Inside they are very well swept and clean, and the furnishings are arranged in good order. All are built of very beautiful palm branches." The Taino were an attractive people, again Columbus writes: "All those that I saw were young people, with handsome bodies and very fine faces...Their eyes are large and very pretty, and their skin is of the color of Canary islanders or of sunburned peasants...These are all tall people and their legs, with no exceptions are quite straight, and none of them has a paunch. They are, in fact, well proportioned." The Spanish were stunned by Taino hospitality and could not understand how a people could be so giving and uncovetous. By weighing Taino culture against their own culture, which was aggressive and warlike, the Spanish could never quite comprehend the gentleness and naiveté of these people. In any case the Spaniards who did venture the often perilous trip over an open ocean did so strictly for personal gain. In a system where the oldest male child was the only inheritor, younger siblings raced across the Atlantic in order to amass their own fame and more importantly, fortune. Also there were the poor, eager to break the endless suffocating cycle of poverty suffered by their families. This was the prevailing atmosphere during the Conquest period, and so, a peaceful race of people, whose culture had no point of reference for amassing wealth possessions and power, had their world ripped apart under the unmerciful hand of the lust for Greed and Power. It must be said, for the sake of clarity, that life for the Taino was not one endless rainbow. They faced all of the problems any society faces. The lived through the passions and pains that all people face through life. They lived in communal homes and so shared in the work of farming and fishing, their two food mainstays. With very little in the way of tools, they built homes big enough to house 5 or more families. Like everyone else, they also faced diseases, yet at the time of Columbus's arrival they were a flourishing people. Scholars have placed the population between half-a-million and 6 million, while this disparity is huge, more recent studies point to the latter figure being a truer estimate. Also at the time of Spanish contact, a protracted war seemed to be going on between the Taino and Caribs, a race similar in physical characteristic and language, but also radically different. Unlike the passive Taino, the Caribs were warlike and like all warlike nations must have had conquest and absorption in mind as they attacked, enslaved, and cannibalized the Taino. According to Columbus and other chroniclers of the time, the Taino were terrified of the Caribs, who raided Taino islands carrying away men, women and children. Women would be ravished and used to produce more offspring. Men and boys were castrated, fattened, and eaten. Eventually the Spanish would absorb and destroy these people too...but it didn't happen without a fight! THE TAINO, an overview The name Taino is currently used to umbrella all of the Indians of the Caribbean islands at the time of the arrival of Christopher Columbus. Though all of the Indians living in these islands at the time contact may have been similar in appearance and shared a like language, they did not all share the same culture. The Tainos can be split in two major cultures, the Taino and Caribs. Irving Rouse explains in his book The Tainos, Rise and Decline of the People Who Greeted Us, that the name Taino umbrellas all of the Indians living in the Caribbean at the time of Columbus's arrival. Rouse breaks up the Caribbean into three culturally distinct geographical areas. The Western Taino whom inhabited mid to near eastern Cuba and Jamaica; the Classic Taino whom inhabited eastern Cuba, Hispanionla and Puerto Rico; the Eastern Taino whom inhabited the northern Lesser Antilles starting at the Virgin Islands extending south. There were also the Island Caribs who inhabited the southern Lesser Antilles starting at Guadeloupe and extending south to near Trinidad. There is another group, the Guanahatabey. They inhabited western Cuba. Unfortunately little is known of them because they became exctinct before their culture could be studied. The Tainos told the Spanish that they (Guanahatabey) were "savages having neither houses nor farms, subsisting on game captured in the mountains." According to Rouse "Keegan (1989) has questioned the validity of this evidence because it is hearesay." Current archeological evidence finds the remains of a prehistoric people who lived in caves and in the open and subsisted on shellfish, fish, and game. The Guanahatabey are believed to have spoken a different language because Columbus's Taino interpreter could not communicate with them. Rouse states of the divisions that the Classic Taino of Puerto Rico and Hispaniola was the most advanced. Cultural characteristics listed below are more specific to the Classic Taino, but as there was cultural interchange between all Taino, many of the characteristics listed in the TAINO CULTURE section are cross-cultural. Taino Culture Classic Tainos lived in large permanent villages in Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. Each village was governed by a cacique (chief). Villages contained one to two thousand people and ranged in size from a single structure to 50 or so houses. All houses were made of wood and thatch and several families lived together in one house. Houses were arranged around a central plaza and the cacique's house, always the largest and best made, was situated on the plaza itself. Houses were called bohíos. Bohíos were either conically or square shaped with the predominant form being conical. This because only caciques lived in the square ones (caney). Bohíos had dirt floors and no inside walls separating the families. Goods were stored in baskets which were hung on walls. Villages were loosely organized into district chiefdoms. Each village was ruled by one of the village caciques in the district. There was a class structure. The upper class was called the nitaino (also nitayno) and the lower class, the commoner, was the naborií. Slavery was nonexistent. Each village had local artisans, woodworkers, potters, weavers of cotton and wood, stone, bone and shell carvers. Tainos used fire and started it with a wooden drill. That is to say, by holding a pointed stick vertically and spinning it back and forth between the palms of their hands against two bound sticks. Taino went naked though married women covered their genitalia with a cloth skirt called a nagua (enagua, still used in Puerto Rico today to mean a woman's slip, is a derivation of the the word). It's length indicated their rank. Unmarried women wore headbands. Flattening the forehead was fashionable. This was done by binding a hard object against a child's forehead during childhood. Feathers, plugs and other ornaments were worn through the nose septum and earlobe. Classic Tainos used a sophisticated farming method whereby they heaped up mounds (conuco) of earth in permanent fields to cultivate root. They planted Cassava (casabe) , also known as yuca, and sweet potato (batata). They also planted corn but it was not an important staple. Bread made from cassava was one of the chief foods eaten by the Taino. The Taino caught fish in nets, speared them and used hooks and lines. They also ate turtle and a type of barkless dog that is now extinct. The Taino worshipped deities known as Zemis. (A stone Zemi is shown at the top of this page). Of these the two most important deities were Yucahu, the lord of cassava and Atabey, his mother, goddess of fresh water and fertility. The term Zemi applied not only to deities but also to idols of which some were made from the remains of ancestors or from natural objects believed to be inhabited by powerful spirits. Parts of the body might be preserved as zemis. Shamans (bohití) , (Bohique) cured the sick on demand. They worked in the presence of chiefs and received gifts of cassava in return for their services. Puerto Rican historian Cayetano Coll y Toste relates: (translated from Spanish by me) "The bohique, or shaman, preserved rituals and religious ceremonies; and as doctor, the health of the tribe. He also attended to teaching the younger tribal members the areyto, or romantic histories, so that history and past exploits would not be forgotten. Helping him in this labor was music, something that always seems to attract the natural and simple man. A chant touched by a discordant note and the obligatory chorus, was the the song of the borinqueño. The rythmic beating of a small wooden drum, called magüey, accompanied the maraca, an instrument made with an small higüera filled with pebbles. The maraca still remains with us today, carried down by tradition by the campensino (peasant farmer). At the recitation of the areyto, they joined for the dance, or araguaco. The dance was not only important in the sense of its preservation of history, it was also performed as a religous ceremony and in times of battle." The casique's house faced on the central plaza where dances, bateys (see below) and ceremonies were held. Areytos, which were performed there, were held before and after battles, upon the marriage and death of a chief, as well as for reasons sighted previously. Both men and women could serve as caciques. The cacique organized the daily activity for the village, was responsible for the storage of surplus commodities and acted as host when the village received visitors. Caciques owned the most powerful zemis and supervised their worship. They organized the public feasts and dances and directed the singing. Classic Tainos played a ball game termed batey. This name was given to both the game and the ball which was used in the game. Concerning the ball; Puerto Rican historian Dr. Cayeton Coll y Toste states that the ball was made of cotton, palmera fiber and the resin or tar of the cupey tree. This would have made it hard and rubbery. Concerning the game, the participants -- two teams of ten or so would bat the ball back and forth across the playing field in tennis-like fashion. Description of the Game by Bartoloméde Las Casas: (translated from Spanish by me) "The Indians had a plaza located outside the door of the señor (cacique), well swept, three times as long as it was wide, and fenced in with stones. The fence was about one or two palm lengths high. They were penalized if they crossed this boundary. There were 20 or 30 Indians on each team and one team gathered at each end of the plaza. Each one bet what he had, it making no difference if what he had was of more value than that of another; this is how it was, after the Spanish arrived, that one Cacique would bet a red robe, and another an old rag, this was as if he had bet a hundred castellanos. A player hit the ball and it was returned by the nearest opponent. If the ball came high, it was struck with the shoulder, if it came low, with the right hand. In the same manner they continued until someone erred. It was joy to see their heated play, and much more so when the women played against each other, striking the ball with their knees and closed fists." There were no coed games. Men played with men, and women with women. The Spaniards, who had never seen rubber, were amazed by it. The Taino traveled by sea whenever possible. They used canoes (canoa); hollowed out logs so large that Columbus reported some to have held up to 150 men. On land the chiefs traveled in litters. The general population traveled on foot. Classic Tainos traced their descent matriarchal lines (through their mothers rather than their fathers). Class status and the office of cacique were inherited matrilineally. Polygyny was prevalent, but only a cacique could afford to have many wives. Classic Tainos fought among themselves to avenge murders, to resolve disputes over hunting and fishing rights, or to force a chief who had a received a bride price, to deliver the woman purchased. Only caciques and nobles attended meetings at which war was declared. A cacique was elected to lead the attack; the noble served as his or her bodyguard. Before going into battle they painted their bodies red, hung small images of zemis on their foreheads, and danced. They fought with clubs (macana), with spears propelled by throwing sticks, and in the eastern part of the territory with bows and arrows. Note: Today, the word macana is used to mean a Walking Cane.

The Taino Indians are Still living throughtout the World today. They are a peacefull Tribe and their descendants are still carrying the Tradition of the Culture today. Please Visit the Following pages to learn more of the Culture and what they are about and their Past, Present and Future.

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