Talking Taino: Lizards & Snakes
By William F. Keegan and Betsy Carlson
When Columbus first landed on the islands of the Bahamian archipelago, he described the animal life as follows: "On land I saw no animal of any kind except parrots and lizards." There have been no (natural) parrots in the Turks & Caicos Islands for perhaps hundreds of years, but there still are lizards.
The name iguana or "higuana" is a Taino word. The syllable "gua" begins the Taino words for gold, parrots, fire, and the names of many chiefs (caciques). It is possible that "gua" was a designation for a favored thing. Indeed, iguanas were one of the favored foods of the Tainos, but by the time the Spanish arrived, iguanas were so rare they were reserved only for the caciques.
This situation suited the Spanish just fine. The Spanish considered iguanas to be extremely ugly beasts that were not suited for human consumption. While sailing along the south coast of Cuba on his second voyage to the Americas, Columbus entered the harbor at Guantanamo Bay and met a group of fishermen who were smoking (barbecuing -- another Taino word) fish and iguanas in preparation for a feast that their cacique was planning to host. The Spanish helped themselves to the smoked fish, but left the iguanas. The Tainos expressed great satisfaction that the iguanas were not eaten because they were a highly prized food that was difficult to find.
By the time Gonzalo F. de Oviedo wrote his natural history of the Caribbean islands (first published in 1526), at least a few of the Spanish had come around to the delicacies of these islands for he reports "the animal is better to eat than to see" and describes the flesh "as good or better than rabbit." He further describes the Indians keeping the iguanas tied or penned up in their villages, stating that they could survive for up to 20 days without food or water, or longer if they were fed cassava bread, which they apparently appreciated.
Another distinction given the iguana was in the special way they were prepared before cooking. Peter Martyr D'Anghera, another of the early Spanish chroniclers, reported that "as a distinction from other game, they removed the entrails from iguanas." He described the preferred Taino method of cooking the animal as boiling it in a large pot heavily seasoned with hot pepper ("aji") until, after a time, "from the interior of the iguana exuded a savoury stew."
There are several genera and a number of species of iguanas that were once common in the West Indies. The rock iguanas of the Turks & Caicos are known to scientists as Cyclura carinata. They are the smallest of all the rock iguanas and today reach a maximum length of 80 cm. However, they were not always so small. When the first Tainos reached Grand Turk about 1,300 years ago, they found themselves in something of a Jurassic Park.
Approaching the beach in their canoes, they came upon the tracks of large green turtles who had just laid their eggs there, saw large iguanas sunning themselves on the sand, and must have been curious about the massive tortoises (now extinct) plodding slowly through the bush.
This was Grand Turks' Age of Reptiles. No humans, and for that matter, no mammals (and therefore no predators), were present on the island and these creatures grew large. Iguana bones from the Coralie site (GT-3; A.D. 700) reveal that Grand Turk iguanas were once more than three feet long! This is the size of iguanas found on Hispaniola and Cuba.
Yet within 400 years, the nesting turtles, tortoises and iguanas had been driven to extinction. They were meat for the hungry humans who were spreading through the Islands. We are fortunate that iguanas still live on several cays in the Turks & Caicos, and that they are now protected in their refuge on Little Water Cay. Green turtles no longer nest in these islands and the tortoises have been gone so long that there is no collective memory of them ever having been in the West Indies at all.
In the Turks & Caicos Islands, there are four species of lizards in addition to the iguana: one species each of anole, gecko, skink and curly-tail lizard. The Taino had a general term for lizards, "Caguaya." Embedded in this word is the Taino term for sun ("guey") and perhaps this common term for all lizards describes the action of sunning themselves that is peculiar to these reptiles.
"Anolis" and "ameiva" are not in common use today, but they are the scientific genus names for the primary lizard specie in the West Indies. In the Turks & Caicos, we have an anole (Anolis scriptus scriptus), but no ameiva lizards (whiptails or tegus are their common names), which are found in the Antilles. These may have been regionally specific names, since there were many mutually unintelligible languages spoken in the West Indies when the Europeans arrived.
Curly tail lizards, "Bayoya," (Leiocephalus psammodromus), still inhabit the bush on many Islands. Their bones are found in numerous archaeological sites where they may represent a small package of meat added to the pepper pot, natural inclusions, or the pets of children. The capture of lizards for pets by children is worth considering because these small creatures would contribute little to the food supply. A modern game involves capturing anoles, allowing them to bite one's ear, and wearing them as living lizard earrings!
Lizards held a special place in the belief system of the Tainos. According to their origin myth, an individual named Macoel was the ever vigilant, nocturnal guardian of the cave from which the first Tainos emerged. He was a reptile who sat motionless and camouflaged against the cave rock walls. The name Macoel means "he of the eyes that do not blink," and indeed, lizards have eyes that do not appear to close.
In addition, there is a set of scales on the forehead of the lizard that appears to be an eye, a third all-seeing eye. This "saurian pineal" is viewed by some as the origin of the Cyclops, the mythical being with one unblinking eye in the middle of its forehead. Macoel, as the story goes, was turned to stone by the sun for one evening shirking his duties. Occasionally, the Taino Indians drew pictographs of lizards on the entrances of caves to symbolize Macoel.
The only other terrestrial reptiles in the Turks & Caicos are snakes. There are three species in these islands: one small worm snake (Typhlops richardi) and two pygmy boas (Tropidophis greenwayi and Epicrates chrysogaster).
Columbus and the Spanish chroniclers did not say much about the snakes of the New World except to point out that they are not poisonous. This fact is one of the many great things about doing archaeological research in the Caribbean. In Florida where there are many deadly snakes, snake boots and snake bite kits are common field gear. For explorers like Columbus coming into new territory, this was one less thing to worry about.
The Spanish described some very large snakes on the island of Hispaniola -- "20 feet long and thicker than a man's fist." The Dwarf Boa (Tropidophis greenwayi) found in the Turks & Caicos reaches a maximum length of about 12 inches, while the Cat Boa (Epicrates chrysogaster) gets to about 5 feet or so.
The Spanish recorded three Taino names for snakes: "maja," "boba" and "jujo." The term "maja" may have been used in reference to the large boa constrictors found in the Greater Antilles. "Ma" is an adjective that means "big." "Ja" was the sound the Taino made in awe or admiration of something. (In our language, something akin to the word "wow!") So the Taino word for boa constrictors roughly translates as "Big-wow." As far as we now know, there never were any snakes worthy of the term "maja" on the islands of the Bahamian chain.
In the Turks & Caicos, only bobas and jujos are found.
One of the basic principals of island biogeography is that islands tend to support animals that are either unusually large or unusually small -- basically giants or dwarfs. This is because of the co-existing factors of a lack of predators and a limited amount of space and food.
The Turks & Caicos Islands' Dwarf Boa is unique in that it is among the smallest boas in the world. Unfortunately, unscrupulous collectors have captured these harmless snakes for sale in pet shops. Several years ago we heard of a collector who paid local children on Middle and North Caicos 50 cents per snake, and then sold them in the U.S. for hundreds of dollars each. These snakes are not in any way dangerous to people and need to be protected as a unique creature of the Turks & Caicos Islands.
Like all people, the Tainos were keen observers of the natural world that surrounded them. Although they exploited many of these species for food, they also recognized the unique creatures who shared their world. Many things have changed in the Turks & Caicos since the arrival of humans, and much of it has been to the detriment of the local fauna. Yet by recognizing the uniqueness of these islands, we may be able to save many of the species that the Tainos and we have come to know and love.
Dr. Bill Keegan is Curator of Caribbean Archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History.
Dr. Betsy Carlson is an Archaeologist with Southeastern Archaeological Research, Inc.
Music Playing is 'Unicorn Dream' by Elan Michaels
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