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Taino – Caribbean Art Guide
LIFESTYLE
The Arawak/Taino society was basically a very gentle culture. It was characterized by happiness, friendliness and a highly organized hierarchical, paternal society, and a lack of guile.
Each society was a small kingdom and the leader was called a cacique. The cacique’s function was to keep the welfare of the village by assigning daily work and making sure everyone got an equal share. The relatives of the caciques lived together in large houses in the center of the village. This was a hierarchical society, and while there was only one cacique that was paid a tribute (tax) to oversee the village, there were other levels of sub-caciques, who were not paid, but did hold positions of honor. They were liable for various services to the village and cacique
At the time of Columbus there were five different kingdoms on the island of Hispaniola. The Indians practiced polygamy. Most men had 2 or 3 wives, but the caciques had as many as 30.
It was a great honor for a woman to be married to a cacique. Not only did she enjoy a materially superior lifestyle, but her children were held in high esteem.
HOUSING AND DRESS
The Arawak/Taino used two primary architectural styles for their homes:
- The caciques were singled out for unique housing. Their houses were rectangular and even featured a small porch. Despite the difference in shape, and the considerably larger buildings, the same materials were used. The house of the cacique contained only his family. However, given the number of wives he might have, this constituted a huge family.
- The general population lived in large circular buildings called bohios, constructed with wooden poles, woven straw, and palm leaves. Each one had about 10-15 men and their whole families. Thus any Arawak/Taino home might house a hundred people.
The houses did not contain much furniture. People slept in cotton hammocks or simply on mats of banana leaves.
They also made wooden chairs with woven seats, couches and built cradles for their children.
In addition to houses the typical Arawak/Taino village contained a flat court in the center of the village which was used for ball games and various festivals, both religious and secular. Houses were around this court.
Stone making was especially developed among the Arawak/Tainos, but they seem not to have used it at all in building houses. It was primarily used for tools and especially religious artifacts.
The men were generally naked, but the women sometimes wore short skirts. Men and women alike adorned their bodies with paint and shells and other decorations.
FOOD AND AGRICULTURE
The Arawak/Taino diet, centered around meat or fish as the primary source of protein. They also ate snakes, various rodents, bats, worms, birds, in general any living things they could find with the exception of humans. They were able to hunt ducks and turtles in the lakes and sea.
The costal natives relied heavily on fishing, and tended to eat their fish either raw or only partially cooked. Since they did grow cotton on the island, the natives had fishing nets made of cotton. The natives of the interior relied more on agriculture and de-emphasized meat or fish in their diet.
The Taino had a developed system of agriculture which was environmentally friendly and almost maintenance free. They raised their crops in a conuco, a large mound which was devised especially for farming. They packed the conuco with leaves which improved drainage and protected it from soil erosion. One of the primary crops cultivated by the Taino was cassava or yuca, which they ate as a flat bread. They also grew corn, squash, beans, peppers, sweet potatoes, yams, peanuts as well as tobacco.
They not only had cotton, but they raised tobacco and enjoyed smoking very much. It was not only a part of their social life, but was used in religious ceremonies too.
TRANSPORTATION
They used dugout canoes which were cut from a single tree trunk and used with paddles.
They could take 70-80 people in a single canoe and even used them for long travels on the sea.
DEFENSE
They used the bow and arrow, and had developed some poisons for their arrow tips. They had cotton ropes for defensive purposes and some spears with fish hooks on the end. Since there were hardwoods on the island, they did have a war club made of macana which was about 1″ thick.
RELIGION AND MYTH
The Arawak/Taino were polytheists and their gods were called zemi. The zemi controlled various functions of the universe.
There were three primary religious practices:
- Religious worship and obeisance to the zemi themselves
- Dancing in the village court during special festivals of thanksgiving or petition
- Medicine men, or priests, consulting the zemi for advice and healing. This was done in public ceremonies with song and dance
People had special dress for the ceremonies which included paint and feathers.
From their knees on down they would be covered in shells. The shaman (medicine man or priests) presented the carved figures of the zemi. The cacique sat on wooden stool, a place of honor. (There are many surviving stone carvings of the cacique on his stool.) There was a ceremonial beating of drums.
People induced vomiting with a swallowing stick. This was to purge the body of impurities, both a literal physical purging and a symbolic spiritual purging. This ceremonial purging and other rites were a symbolic changing before zemi.
Women served bread (a communion rite), first to zemi, then to the cacique followed by the other people. The sacred bread was a powerful protector.Finally came an oral history lesson — the singing of the village epic in honor of the cacique and his ancestors. As the poet recited he was accompanied by a maraca, a piece of hardwood which was beaten with pebbles.
There was an afterlife where the good would be rewarded. They would meet up with dead relatives and friends.
Since most of the people they would meet in this paradise were women, it is curious to speculate if it was mainly women who were considered good, or if some other reason accounted for this division of the sexes in the afterlife.
The zemi take on strange forms like toads, turtles, snakes, alligators and various distorted and human faces.
The zemi, as well as dead caciques, have certain powers over the natural world and must be dealt with. Thus these various services are ways of acknowledging their power (worship and thanksgiving) and at the same time seeking their aid. Because of these powers there are many Arawak/Tanio stories which account for the origins of some experienced phenomena in myth and or magic. Several myths had to do with caves. The sun and moon, for example, came out of caves. Another story tells that the people lived in caves and only came out at night. One guard was supposed to watch carefully over people to be sure they were well divided in the land. However, one day he was late in returning and the sun caught him and turned him into a stone pillar.
Another Indian became angry at the sun for its various tricks and decided to leave. He convinced all the women to abandon their men and come with him along with their children. But, the children were deserted, and in their hunger they turned into frogs. The women simply disappeared. This left the men without women. But, they did find some sexless creatures roaming around and eventually captured them. (Actually they used people with a disease like mange since they had rough hands and could hold on to these elusive creatures.) However, they tied these creatures up and put woodpeckers on them. The birds, thinking these were trees started pecking on them and carved out the sex organs of women, thus re-establishing the possibility of survival.
A different myth simply tells that once there were no women. Man brought woman from an island where there were only women.
The origin of the oceans was in a huge flood which occurred when a father murdered his son (who was about to murder the father), and then put his bones in a calabash.
The bones turned to fish and then the gourd broke and all the water of the world flowed from the broken gourd.
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