The Taino
world Taíno
culture was the most highly developed in the Caribbean when Columbus
reached Hispaniola in 1492. Islands throughout the Greater Antilles were
dotted with Taíno communities nestled in valleys and along the rivers and
coastlines, some of which were inhabited by thousands of people. The first
New World society that Columbus encountered was one of tremendous
creativity and energy. The Taíno had an extraordinary repertoire of
expressive forms in sculpture, ceramics, jewelry, weaving, dance, music,
and poetry. Their inventiveness and dynamism were also reflected in their
social hierarchies and political organization.
Our knowledge of the Taíno
comes from several sources. Sixteenth-century Spanish chronicles provide
incomplete but crucial information about Taíno society. Intensive
archaeological excavation of Taíno sites, which began about 1950, has
unearthed many types of pottery and artifacts, confirmed Taíno burial
customs, and revealed what their ancient communities looked like.
Ethnologists have shed further light on Taíno daily
life, myths, and ceremonies by gathering comparative data from
contemporary societies with similar cultures in Venezuela and the Guianas.
The Taíno legacy survives today not only in the ethnic heritage of the
Caribbean people, but also in words borrowed from their language, such as
barbecue, canoe, hammock, and hurricane; in customs related to ancient
traditions of weaving, hunting and fishing, and song and dance; and in a
cuisine based on yuca, beans, and barbecued meats and fish.
Until recently, the Taíno
have been peripheral to the study of pre-Columbian societies. Scholars
focused on the high cultures of the mainland, such as the Inka, the Aztec,
and the Maya because they were organized into political states. The
chiefdoms (cacicazgos) and chiefs (caciques)
of the Taíno seemed less worthy of attention. Archaeologists now realize,
however, that by the time of the conquest these chiefdoms had evolved into
complex political entities that resembled true states. Art historians
recognize that objects made by the Taíno - ceremonial seats (duhos),ball
game belts, scepters, sculptures of spirits and ancestors, zemis,
pottery, ritual objects used in cohoba
ceremonies, and ornaments of semiprecious stones, gold, shell, and bone -
had parallels in Mesoamerica and South America. Most important, it has
become clear that the Taíno worldview was distinctly pre-Co lumbian in
its conception of the universe and its profound spirituality.
El Museo del Barrio -
New York
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Archeologia e Storia dei Caraibi
Caraibi:
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