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 What was the most interesting aspect of the Taíno civilization?  

University of Illinois Press

Chapter Title: Taínos
Chapter Author(s): Lynne Guitar, Lynne Guitar and Jorge Estevez

Book Title: The Encyclopedia of Caribbean Religions
Book Subtitle: Volume 1: A-L; Volume 2: M-Z
Book Editor(s): PATRICK TAYLOR, FREDERICK I. CASE, SEAN MEIGHOO
Published by: University of Illinois Press. (2013)
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/j.ctt2tt9kw.113

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1014

T
Taínos
cl assic taíno sPiritual BelieFs and Pr actices
For the Classic Taínos, every living thing in creation, not
just people and animals, but also trees, rivers, and rocks,
had a goeiz, a soul, that sought to live in reciprocal balance
with all the other beings. When a living being of this world
died, it became an opia (or hupia), a living being of the spirit
realm, the realm of the night. Some opias became cemís (or
zemis)— special spirit helpers, spirit doubles. The opias in-
habited caves by day, while the Taínos stayed in their bohios
(homes) by night. The Taínos and the spirits, then, each in-
habited their own realm—night and day—sharing one world,
one vision, and interacting with each other through a com-
plex series of rituals and artistic reminders of their need for
each other—rituals and reminders that were an integral part
of nearly every moment of each Taíno’s life from birth to the
moment he or she passed on to the spirit realm.
The Taínos are the “Indians” who were living on Kiskeya
(Hispaniola, which is shared today by the Dominican Repub-
lic and Republic of Haiti), Borinquen (Puerto Rico), Cuba,
Jamaica, the Turks and Caicos, the Lucayos (the Bahamas),
and the Virgin Islands when Christopher Columbus and
his three small ships full of Europeans first arrived in the
Caribbean in 1492. (The Taínos used to be called Island Ara-
waks until archaeologist Irving Rouse pointed out what a
misnomer it was, for the Taínos and mainland Arawaks are
only very distantly related kin [see Arawak and Carib Reli-
gions; Indigenous Religions].) Although there were once
several million Taínos on the core island of Hispaniola
alone— demographers have argued for five hundred years
over numbers that range from less than a million to twenty
million for the Taíno population on Hispaniola in 1492 (see
Cook 1993; Deagan 1990)—a myth arose that the Taínos were
wiped out within a few generations of the Europeans’ ar-
rival. It’s true that traditional Taíno society was dismantled
by the Spanish conquest and colonization, with their atten-
dant battles, plagues, and abuses, but significant numbers
of Taínos survived in the peripheral regions of the islands.
They survived even in the very midst of the Spanish ranches,
plantations, towns, and cities, where they and their children
“passed” as Spaniards. Although no one in the modern Carib-
bean speaks Taíno or lives exactly like the Classic Taínos did,
Taínos have made a strong mark on the faces and cultures of
the modern- day peoples of the Dominican Republic, Puerto

Rico, and southern Cuba, where the original Taíno popu-
lation was most dense. There is a Taíno revival movement
based out of New York/New Jersey and Puerto Rico that is
growing stronger every year. Multifaceted, the principal
goals of those connected to the movement are to research,
compile, and recover Taíno language and culture and to re-
kindle Nativist pride in all those of Taíno background.
The word taíno appears to be a shortened version of ni-
taíno, which is what the indigenous people of the region
called out when European ships approached. Perhaps they
meant to imply by this that they were “nobles,” for that is the
word’s most frequently accepted meaning. It is more likely,
however, that they meant they were “not cannibals,” which is
another of the meanings for the word “nitaíno,” and it is the
way in which most Spaniards who followed Columbus to the
region used the term in the extant histories and documents.
One thing we know for certain is that Taíno was not a collec-
tive name that these indigenous people had for themselves.
Rather, they appear to have identified themselves by indi-
vidual yukayeke (population centers or villages) and by kaci-
kazgo, the extent of the region under the control of a particu-
lar kacike (cacique, chief ). Most archaeologists and linguists
today concur that there were six to eight different indigenous
groups just on the island of Hispaniola alone in 1492, each
with its own language and slightly different customs, but
that they used the language of the most populous and ad-
vanced group, the Taíno, as a lingua franca. Taíno spiritual
beliefs and practices appear to have been relatively uniform
and widespread, too.

Caribbean Indigenous Peopling Sequence
Archaeologists have identified a series of migratory move-
ments that brought different indigenous peoples to the
Caribbean over many millennia. (The most recent and com-
plete detailed analysis of the Caribbean Indigenous Peopling
Sequence can be found in Oliver [2009, 6–30].)

1. Guanahatabeys, called Ciboney, were a hunting-
and- gathering people whose food base was fish and
shellfish (though some also say they hunted the
giant sloth and were the cause of its extinction in
the Greater Antilles). They migrated by canoe from
Central America to Cuba, then to Kiskeya, beginning
around 5000–4000 bce.

2. At the same time (5000–4000 bce) another hunting-
and- gathering people (Ortoiroid culture) migrated
from the Orinoco River region of South America,
canoeing north and northwest up the chain of the
Antillean Islands to Puerto Rico. They reached the
Mona Passage between Puerto Rico and Hispaniola
around 1000 bce but do not appear to have crossed
the passage for nearly two thousand years, though

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Ta í n o s | 1015

structure. The people and the culture that we call Taíno did
not reach the Greater Antilles by canoe; their ancestors did.
The Taíno culture developed in situ, characterized archaeo-
logically by recognizable agricultural technologies and artis-
tic features.
The most advanced agricultural features of the Classic
Taíno culture appear to have arisen in the northern valleys
of Hispaniola’s Cibao, where the people developed a truly
sedentary style of agriculture based not on the tropical forest
technique of shifting plots cleared by slash- and- burn but on
a type of prepared mound agriculture. Their specially con-
structed agricultural fields were called konukos, which con-
sisted of a number of knee- high mounds about eight to nine
feet in circumference. Just as their ancestors had done in the
island’s earlier slash- and- burn gardens, Taínos grew multiple
crops on their konukos. Multiple cropping provides ground
cover, which helps reduce weed growth, moisture loss, and
soil erosion. The Taínos’ konukos were more productive and
fertile for longer periods than slash- and- burn gardens, but
constructing the mounded fields required a considerable in-
vestment in time and labor. For both of these reasons, the
Taínos were basically stable. Another thing that stabilized
the Taínos was that once crops of bitter yucca, their pri-
mary crop, were established (about one year from the time
pieces of root were planted), harvesting was continuous over
a period of several years. And the konukos required only
occasional weeding and pest removal. There was no need to
build storage barns, either, for the yucca could be left in the
ground until needed.
Having a stable food base allowed the populations in cen-
tral Hispaniola to expand exponentially. Archaeologists have
found evidence of their expansion and increasing intensifi-
cation of sedentary food production, which are reflected in
the Taínos’ increased use of burenes (the griddles on which
they cooked casabe, the bread they made of bitter yucca) and
in the remains of larger, more densely populated sedentary
villages. Meanwhile, a cultural subgroup called Chican (after
archaeological finds in the Boca Chica region just east of
today’s capital of Santo Domingo) brought pottery making
to its height. Chican styles have elaborately incised designs
that appear to symbolize cemís. By 950 ce, the agricultural
and artistic advancements had spread, culminating in the
culture known today as Classic Taíno.
Classic Taíno peoples are characterized not only by their
advanced forms of agriculture and art but also by large seden-
tary villages averaging five hundred to one thousand inhabi-
tants—some with as many as five thousand to ten thousand
inhabitants (see Las Casas 1995b; Martyr 1970; among other
chroniclers). The bohios (standard houses) encircled a batey
(plaza and playing field) in a manner that the Spaniards de-
scribed as “disorganized” but was probably based on close-
ness of kin relationship to the kacike. Facing the batey was

they probably established trade relations with the
Guanahatabeys on Hispaniola.

3. Around 2000 bce, archaeological evidence suggests
that another wave of hunting- and- gathering people
from the Orinoco River region swept up the Lesser
Antilles.

4. Approximately 1000–500 bce, the Caribbean’s first
agriculturalists, the pre- Igneris, began migrating
up the Antillean chain. They were also from the
Orinoco River region. They reached Borinquen
around 400–300 bce, conquering, pushing out, and/
or intermarrying with the previous nonagricultural
settlers.

5. Another wave of agricultural peoples from the
Orinoco River region (Saladoid culture) began to
move into the Lesser Antilles around 500 bce.
By 400–500 ce, they had begun to move into the
Greater Antilles, fighting with, pushing out, and/or
intermarrying with the earlier settlers, whose culture
and language were very similar. The merged peoples
are known as Igneri.

6. By 950 ce, the Igneris had crossed the formerly stable
frontier at the Mona Passage and had begun to settle
Hispaniola and eastern Cuba, no doubt conquering
and/or intermarrying with the Guanahatabeys, who
had inhabited Hispaniola by then for approximately
five thousand years. The agricultural techniques,
artistic traditions, and other rituals and beliefs
developed that today are identified as Classic
Taíno. Taíno people and culture evolved in situ on
Hispaniola—they were a mixture of the genes and
cultures of at least four distinct peoples.

7. The Taíno population grew rapidly, because of their
improved and very efficient agricultural and fishing
techniques. With their agricultural and cultural
traditions, they then spread back to Puerto Rico and
the Virgin Islands, for the Mona Passage had become
an open channel, not a barrier. They also began
settling Cuba, the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos,
and Jamaica.

8. Around 1200 ce, the last wave of indigenous peoples
to sweep up the Antillean chain from the Orinoco
River region was a people whom the Taínos called
Caribs (they called themselves Kalinagos). By 1492, the
Caribs had reached today’s Virgin Islands, which was
the frontier between the two groups of indigenous
peoples. They were bitter enemies, fighting for the
islands’ resources, when Europeans arrived in 1492.

Lifestyle and Social Structure
In order to understand Taíno spiritual beliefs and practices,
it is necessary to first understand their lifestyle and social

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1016 | Ta í n o s

the Taíno kacikes. Some were more like principales or “head-
men,” holding authority only in a particular yukayeke. Other
kacikes held authority over several politically connected yu-
kayekes—which together was called their kacikazgo. The
most important kacikes, whom anthropologists call para-
mount kacikes, held authority over kacikazgos that encom-
passed large territories in which there were many yukayekes
and many subsidiary kacikes.
The kacikes used marriage alliances to expand their kaci-
kazgos. The preferred successor was the son of the kacike’s
eldest sister. If none of his sisters’ sons were available, a sis-
ter herself could rule (a kacika) or the kacike’s own biologi-
cal son. In ascending order, the Taíno terms for the various
levels of kacikes were guaoxerí, baharí, and matunherí.
When a potential successor to a kacikazgo was born,
neighboring kacikes welcomed the baby with gifts at a spe-
cial areito in his honor. The gifts included not only high-
status material goods but also gifts of songs and names.
Each name had religious and political significance. Samuel
Wilson (1990, 117) has suggested that the kacike’s numer-
ous names each contained elements of his “pedigree.” The
most prominent, most politically and socially active kacikes,
therefore, would have had the longest string of names. The
chronicler Pedro Martyr wrote that Behecchio, the kacike
of Jaraguá at the time of the Spaniards’ arrival (Behecchio
was the most powerful of the paramount kacikes), had more
than forty names, all of which were to be recited by heralds
whenever he proclaimed an order. Among these names were
Tareigua Hobin, which meant “prince resplendent as cop-
per”; Starei, which meant “shining”; Huibo, “haughtiness”;
and Duyheiniquem, “rich river.” If even one of the forty- plus
names were omitted by the herald “through carelessness
or neglect . . . the kacike would feel himself grievously out-
raged” (1970, 1:386–87).
There appear to have been five or perhaps six paramount
kacikes on Hispaniola when Columbus arrived in 1492. The
questionable one, Guacanagaríx, was a kacike living near
where Columbus’s flagship, the Santa María, wrecked itself
on a reef on Christmas Eve 1492—and where Fort La Navidad
was built out of the ship’s wreckage. Guacanagaríx may have
gained a status approximating that of a paramount kacike
due to his association with the exotic strangers from a dis-
tant land, strangers who might even have been considered
gods, at least at first. It is difficult to gauge what his status
may have been before “the encounter” in late 1492 (Helms
1980, 728).
Elite collusion, then, was another strategy used by the
Taíno elite to attain and expand on their privileged status.
Succession to leadership was not simply a matter of heredity:
“He who would be a successful chief may overtly have had
to express the inherent energies and capabilities by which
(along with genealogical legitimacy) he was presumed fit for

the kacike’s special house, which was also a kind of temple,
called a kaney. The kacikes wielded a considerable amount
of both political and spiritual power. At the time of the Span-
iards’ arrival, the principal kacikes of Hispaniola apparently
were consolidating and expanding their power. Had they not
been interrupted, the individual kacikazgos would no doubt
have soon been merged into a state- level society like that of
the Aztecs or Incas.
While not as intricately stratified or as rigidly organized
as the Aztecs and Incas, the Taínos had at least two distinct
social classes, nitaínos and naborías. These were relatively
equivalent to the “noble” and “commoner” classes with
which Europeans were familiar. Unfortunately, we know next
to nothing about the naboría class. Naborías may have been
descendants of “less pure” kinship lines, that is, descendants
of Guanahatabey or the unnamed indigenous peoples of the
third wave, or of kinship lines not as crafty in statesmanship
as others. Naborías were described as the workers among the
Taínos, less privileged than the nitaíno class. For example,
they ate bread made of corn, while the nitaínos ate casabe,
and they slept on the ground, while nitaínos slept in cot-
ton hammocks. We do not know, however, if naboría houses
were relegated to the periphery of the village, if naborías
participated in the “communal” areitos (dances/songs), or
what kind of work, exactly, was designated as too lowly for
nitaínos to do—manatee hunting, for example, might have
been seen as a prestige activity, not as “work.” Scholars such
as Puerto Rico’s Jalil Sued- Badillo maintain that all the Taí-
nos’ food production—including planting, hunting, fishing,
and gathering/collecting—was done communally, but that
the kacikes and their families reserved all the best for them-
selves.
Spanish chroniclers recorded far more information about
the nitaínos than about naborías. They were particularly
fascinated by the kacikes and behikes (closest English equiva-
lent to the latter is “shaman”) whose families appear to have
comprised the nitaíno class. There is no clear indication that
merchants or artisans were included in the nitaíno class or
that there was a permanent priesthood, although greater
levels of specialization and stratification may have been de-
veloping in the core regions by 1492.

The Kacikes
Kacikes were political as well as spiritual leaders. It is
clear, however, that kacikes did not rule alone. Not only did
they share religious leadership with behikes, but both kinds
of leaders ruled with the assistance of their cemís, their
powerful spiritual guides. It is unclear whether a kacike be-
came high ranking and successful because of the power of
his cemís or if his cemís were considered powerful because
he was a high- ranking, successful kacike—perhaps it was
a combination of both. There was a clear hierarchy among

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Ta í n o s | 1017

the cotton skirts called naguas that the elite Taíno women
wore after they were married (1970, 1:125). The kacikes’ sym-
bolic role as distributor of casabe, which was celebrated with
an elaborate annual areito wherein he received the first bread
made from a new harvest and then redistributed it, is indica-
tive that they were, in fact, controlling food tribute and re-
distributing the surplus. Or it may be that the tribute was not
accorded to the kacikes, per se, but to their spiritual doubles,
their powerful cemís.

The Behikes
The myth of Guaguyona reveals significant information
about behikes (also written as bohutis, buhuitus, buhitihus, or
similar spellings). Behikes were healers—which they accom-
plished with the help of their spirit guides—and they shared
spiritual leadership with the kacikes. Fray Ramón Pané,
under orders from Christopher Columbus, recorded the
myth of Guaguyona, among other observations about Taíno
creation legends and spiritual beliefs. Guaguyona was a cul-
ture hero who became the Taínos’ first behike when he was
reborn on the island of Guanín after an illness, from whence
he brought the first gold and other objects to his people. Gua-
guyona was also known as the “unifier of the East with the
West,” which may be why behikes, not kacikes, were the of-
ficiators at the Taínos’ ballgames. Spaniards denigrated the
behikes in their chronicles, representing their religious func-
tions as demon inspired and their cures as hoaxes. Martyr
wrote, “These men, who are persistent liars, act as doctors
for the ignorant people, which gives them great prestige, for
it is believed that the cemís converse with them and reveal
the future to them” (1970, 1:172).
Working hand in hand, then, with their spiritual advisers,
behikes most frequently healed with herbs and potions
ground up using special ritual mortars and pestles, with
massages, with the music of sacred maracas, special songs
and incantations, tobacco smoke, and “by adoration,” as his-
torian Carlos Esteban Deive phrases it. That is, they spoke
with the spirit that was causing an illness, after first fasting,
purging, and inhaling cohoba to induce a trance state, dur-
ing which they asked the spirit what it wanted. The spirits
most frequently responded that they were angry because
they had not received their share of the food, had not been
treated with the proper respect, or had not had a shrine con-
structed in their honor and remembrance. Once the spirit
was appeased by doing what it requested, the patient’s illness
would disappear (1989, 83). Behikes also healed by removing
polluting objects from a patient’s body that had been “sent”
by spirits or by rival behikes. It was these healings, in which
the object was “magically” sucked or massaged out of the
patient’s body, that the Spaniards perceived to be outright
shams, for they frequently caught the behikes palming the
objects beforehand. Perhaps the Taínos, like anthropologist

office,” writes Mary W. Helms (1980, 728). Chroniclers made
reference to Taíno kacikes, at various times, using all of the
common tools of diplomatic maneuvering that European
elites used, including gift exchange, marriage strategies, war
alliances, and another form of fictive kinship that is uniquely
Taíno, the exchange of names called guatiao. The reciprocal
responsibilities of those who exchanged names, who became
guatiao, were similar to those of the blood brother relation-
ships among North American indigenous peoples or the re-
lationships among baptismal compadres in Latin America.
Successful kacikes were accorded many privileges of rank,
with the more powerful kacikes garnering more privileges.
The chroniclers all recorded that, instead of living in a com-
mon round bohío, kacikes lived in caneys, special rectangu-
lar houses/temples facing the village’s central batey. And ka-
cikes had multiple wives—Behecchio of Jaraguá had thirty.
Select foods, such as the meat of the iguana and manatee,
were reserved for the exclusive use of kacikes. They had spe-
cial clothes and accessories that set them apart from others—
capes embroidered with parrot feathers; medallions called
guanín made of metal imported from the Yucatán; carved
gold- and- pearl- embellished masks, elaborate crowns and
belts. While all the other Taínos sat on the ground, kacikes
sat elevated above them on intricately carved and polished
wooden dujos (low seats or benches). Kacikes had elaborately
decorated canoes, too, some of which could hold hundreds
of people; when on land, some kacikes were carried about on
litters. Kacikes were buried in caves, which were frequently
decorated with petroglyphs and pictographs, or at other
prestige burial sites, and their corpses were accompanied by
elaborate grave goods. Sometimes a kacikes’s favorite wife
was buried with him—alive.
All of the kacikes’ special privileges and accoutrements
were symbols of their awesome spiritual and political power.
The kacikes who were able to communicate with the most
powerful cemís were those who held the most political
power. The cemís were the kacikes’ supernatural advisers,
their supernatural allies. With the help of his cemís, a ka-
cike decided what was appropriate propitiation to the spirits
and when it was the proper time to hold a ritual or celebra-
tion. In addition to being the Taínos’ spiritual leader, the ka-
cike made the day- to- day decisions about labor: he decided
who was to be a hunter, a fisherman, or cultivator; when new
fields were to be cleared, planted, cared for, or harvested;
when to build a new canoe or go on a turtle hunt. The kacikes
also received tribute from the people under them, which the
chronicler Bartolomé de las Casas wrote was called cacoma
(1995a, 2:113). Martyr noted that the kacika Anacaona (she in-
herited the kacikazgo in Jaraguá from her brother, the para-
mount Kacike Behecchio) had a “treasure,” a collection of
prestige goods that she had received as tribute that included
dujos, carved wooden bowls, large balls of spun cotton, and

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1018 | Ta í n o s

appear to illustrate the spiritual interpretation of how pro-
creation results from the combination of male and female.
For the Taínos, the profusion of symbols and representa-
tions that surrounded them was both a constant reminder of
the society’s values and beliefs and a basic explanation of the
complex magico- religious world that was all around them
but with which only the kacikes and behikes could commu-
nicate on a regular basis. The behike, in his sacred role of
mediator, could communicate with both the living and the
dead. He made sense out of the confusion, brought order to
the Taínos’ world. Successful behikes were venerated and
were granted privileges nearly equal to those of the kacikes,
including prestige foods, distinguishing clothes, and adorn-
ments. They dressed in black cloth, painted their faces black,
and covered their bodies with black paintings and tattoos of
their cemís.

Gender Roles
Jalil Sued- Badillo has been criticized for exaggerating
and romanticizing gender equality among the Classic Taí-
nos; among other things, he and other academics point
out that Taíno women could even inherit the role of kacika,
leader of a kacikazgo. On the opposing side, academics such
as Ricardo E. Alegría argue that Taíno women did not suc-
ceed to the position of kacika until after the arrival of Euro-
peans, which disrupted normal indigenous patterns of suc-
cession. Nonetheless, Taíno society was quite likely far more
gender equal than, for example, Spanish society at the turn
of the sixteenth century, as it is in many societies without a
state level of sociopolitical organization. This is indicated by
the importance of matrilineal inheritance patterns and the
prominence given female images among the Taínos’ myths
and socioreligious symbols.
The importance of the female for her reproductive capacity
in association with the land and fertility was celebrated by the
Taínos since antiquity, as evidenced throughout their myths.
“The trinity of woman- land- moon,” Sued- Badillo writes, “has
a wide diffusion in Prehispanic America,” as it does in most
agricultural societies (1989, 21). The Taínos reckoned the pas-
sage of time by the phases of the moon and planted crops at
the time of the new moon, which strengthens the principles
cementing the triad of symbols, for not only is timekeeping
a wondrous, “magical” thing in most societies, but women’s
menses are also in tempo with the phases of the moon.
Women figure prominently in the ancient myths, but the
majority of the symbolic images representing the various
Taíno cemís are male, perhaps a reflection of a growing cult
of male ancestor/cemí worship that Irving Rouse has seen
evidenced in the material record from about 1200 ce. None-
theless, figurines of gravid women are prevalent among the
Taíno artifacts collected by archaeologists over the years,

Dale A. Olsen found among the modern- day Warao of Vene-
zuela, did not consider the behike to be a charlatan at all be-
cause the object, which they knew he had beforehand, “is
not the complete object until its spiritual essence [or posi-
tive balance] has been restored to it” by the healer—which is
what effects the cure (1996, 226–28).
The Taínos held the behike in awe because of his heal-
ing abilities, but healing was also the most dangerous of the
behikes’ many roles. If a noble patient died, the behike who
couldn’t cure him was put to death. Pané (1988, 52) describes
in gruesome detail how breaking his legs, arms, and head
with sticks was not enough to kill a behike, for spirits in the
form of snakes would take possession and heal his body. To
make sure he was dead, after beating him, you had to tear out
his eyes and crush his testicles.
Behikes were far more than just healers. As spiritual
leaders, they may have been as important to the success of a
kacikazgo as the kacike. Robiou Lamarche (1992, 58–59) sug-
gests that the kacike and behike were complementary pairs,
with the kacike representing the powers of the sun, and the
behike the powers of the moon. Behikes were renowned for
their ability to communicate with nature spirits and the souls
of the recently dead, in much the same way that kacikes were
renowned for communicating with the Taínos’ legendary
hero and creator cemís. (The two kinds of spiritual entities
were not quite the same, although both were venerated.) The
behike acted as a spiritual adviser to the kacike, as mediator
during the Taínos’ ballgames, and as the “court diviner,” in
addition to his many other roles. His most secret and power-
ful rituals appear to have been conducted in caves, where the
spirits of the dead were believed to reside. The pictographs
and petroglyphs in the caves throughout Hispaniola are
dominated by vivid images of bats and owls, the creatures of
the caves that were associated with the spirits of the ances-
tors; with birds and insects, representing terrestrial life; and
with faces/heads of all shapes and sizes, suggesting that the
spiritual essence of the human is in the head. The behike me-
diated among them all.
In addition to being the Taínos’ liturgical experts, di-
viners, teachers, pharmacists, herbal healers, and surgeons,
behikes most likely also directed the craftsmanship of cemís
and other sacred art. They may have been the artists who cre-
ated the pictographs and petroglyphs found in caves and on
exposed rocks all around the island. The behikes’ art would
have reinforced their position as both teacher and liturgical
expert. Some caves appear to have been devoted to ensur-
ing successful hunts, others to childbirth and courtship, and
others may have been devoted to specific ceremonies and/or
to specific cemís. Some rocks with deeply etched pictographs
appear to be teaching tools. For example, there is one on the
surface in the Bocu Yuma region with life- size figures that

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Ta í n o s | 1019

tiles for ceremonial use or for commercial trade, the clearing
of fields for konukos (a laborious task), the sowing, weed-
ing, and harvesting of crops, building houses, constructing
canoes, and so on. Several of the chroniclers mention both
men and women working together to gather fish, but this
might have been only at particular times of the year, when
fish were spawning, for example, and the labor of the entire
village was needed to reap the harvest. The kacika Anacaona
told Bartolomé Colón that women were the expert sculptors
of the wooden objects that were prized for trade and as pres-
tige gifts (Martyr 1970, 1:125). Were there special ceramics,
textiles, and straw art that were made only by women? Or
only by men? Were there “men’s gardens” where ritual herbs
like tobacco and those used in the cohoba ritual were grown?
Did women have their own secret gardens for medicinal
plants that only they knew how to grow, prepare, and use?
One thing that is particularly striking is that most scholars
(overwhelmingly male) who study the Taínos have attributed
the “rise” of the Taínos to “the ease” with which they could
harvest an abundant crop of yucca once they had mastered
the konuko technique. Antonio M. Stevens- Arroyo, for ex-
ample, says that the vast amounts of yucca grown by the Taí-
nos “liberated” them “from the sporadic foraging of hunters
and gatherers, permitting them to develop newly specialized
forms of economic and social organization” (1988, 45). Sued-
Badillo agrees, adding that “the progressive liberation of the
work force from the chores” of food production permitted
the Taínos to develop artisanal specialization, which he says
was primarily in the female domain. He points out that the
province of Jaraguá, which Las Casas called “the court of this
island,” was so advanced that it innovated new technologies,
such as methods of irrigation, which provided a substantial
increase in food production (Sued- Badillo 1989, 14–15).
There is a major problem with this rosy view of the bene-
fits the Taínos reaped by an increasingly large supply of bit-
ter yucca. Anthropologists who have studied living peoples
dependent on casabe have found that the women describe
themselves as drudges, saying that they are “enslaved” to the
complicated, time- consuming process of washing, peeling,
grating, and extracting the poisonous juices from the yucca
root (a cyanic acid known as manihotoxina) and the other
procedures to make casabe bread. After the grated pulp has
been squeezed in an ingenious contraption called a cibucán,
the women must spread it out to dry into flour, then gather
it, store it, and, when ready to cook the casabe, they prepare
the fire and the buren (“griddle”), cook the cakes, then set
them out to dry before serving them. And do not forget all the
work required to make the scrapers, graters, filters, bottles,
jars, bowls, baskets, knives, cibucanes, and burenes needed
to prepare and store not only yucca flour, but all the other
foodstuffs as well.

and petroglyphs of Atabeyra, mother of the Taínos’ most im-
portant cemí, Yúcahu (the god of yucca), are prominent at
the largest and most complex of the batey sites so far dis-
covered in the Caribbean, a site near Utuado on Puerto Rico
called the Caguana Ceremonial Indian Park. According to
Pané, both Atabeyra and her son, Yúcahu, were known by
multiple names—she was Atabey, Iermao, Guacar, Apito,
and Zuímaco; he was Yúcahu, Vagua, and Maórocoti. Since
multiple names among the Taínos were indications of high
rank and accomplishments, scholars such as Sued- Badillo
and Eugenio Fernández Méndez have speculated that the
mother’s having more names than the son is indicative of the
importance attached to the female line by the Taínos. Fer-
nández Méndez also suggests that the “primordial pair” rep-
resented by Atabeyra and her son (Pané wrote that Yúcahu
had no father) represented “both the duality and the unity”
inherent not only in gender but in all things among the Taí-
nos (1993, 29).
The prominence of Atabeyra’s images at Caguana Cere-
monial Indian Park may even indicate a rising symbolic im-
portance granted to high- ranking females, both those living
and dead but revered as cemís, much like what happened in
Europe with the elevation of heroic queen figures and the
Virgin Mary in the 1400s. We know that by the time Euro-
peans arrived, or shortly thereafter, Taíno ballgames were
frequently played with teams of married women versus
single women, or women versus men—but women hit the
balls with their knees and clenched fists, while men used
their hips and buttocks. There were female warriors, female
artisans, female leaders of areitos, and female behikes and
kacikas among the Taínos.
Some of the Taínos’ activities, however, appear to have
been restricted to males, such as the gathering of gold and
the cohoba ritual. Sued- Badillo (1989) points out, however,
that both activities included women in the preparations. The
Taíno men who went to gather gold, for example, first had to
abstain from sex for twenty days, perhaps as a sacrifice to or
symbolic union with Guabonito, the mythological “goddess”
who created gold. In the cohoba ritual, women were in atten-
dance on the male kacike and his senior counselors.
But what about gender roles in the day- to- day activities
of the Taínos? We know that Taíno women were responsible
for the usual domestic activities that women are responsible
for worldwide—childbearing, child care, food conservation
and preparation. Sued- Badillo’s (1989, 33–36) research indi-
cates that they were also responsible for the preparation of
medicines and poisons, as well for domestic pottery, textiles,
and basketry—but we do not know to what extent the nitaíno
women shared these daily roles with naboría women. Nor do
we know to what extent men and women may have shared
responsibilities such as the production of pottery and tex-

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1020 | Ta í n o s

Real. In 1496, Columbus sent him to the heart of the gold
mining region, where he lived for two years in the principal
town ruled by Kacike Guarionex. It was there that he wrote
his Relación acerca de la antigüedades de los Indios (Account
of the Indians’ ancient times). (An English translation is con-
tained in Ferdinand Colón’s Life of the Admiral.) Pané was
handicapped by a chronic shortage of paper and ink, because
the language spoken in Guarionex’s kacikazgo was signifi-
cantly different than the language he’d learned in Macorix,
and because he was confused by the dizzying pantheon of
mythic beings and culture heroes whose stories he tried to
capture on paper. Nonetheless, much of what we know about
Taíno creation myths and Taíno spirituality comes from his
brief work.
Pané wrote that the Taínos emerged from two of His-
paniola’s caves, which were called Cacibayagua and Ama-
yauba, on a mountain called Canta (Pané 1988, chap. 1). The
same Guaguyona who was hailed as the first behike carried
away all of the island’s women and deposited them on the
island of Matinino (chap. 4). (When Europeans heard this
myth, they began an excited search for what came to be
called “the Island of the Amazons.”) The mass kidnapping
forced the Taíno men to get creative. One day, while bathing
by the river, the men spotted some gender- neutral creatures.
They got the help of an inriri, a woodpecker, to carve out the
necessary female apertures in the creatures (chaps. 7 and 8).
Thus they once again had women.
The sea and all of its fishes came from a gourd in which
a culture hero named Yaya put the bones of his dead son,
Yayael, recorded Pané. Yaya himself had killed the boy be-
cause Yayael was plotting to kill him (1988, chaps. 9 and 10).
The sun and the moon came from a cave called Yobovava in a
region of the island ruled by Kacike Maucia Tivuel. Pané him-
self may have seen the cave, for he corroborates what other
Spaniards wrote about the two stone cemís that the Taínos
kept inside, two cemís that “sweated.” The cemís’ names
were Boiyanel and Marohú, and the Taínos believed they
were responsible for bringing the rains (chap. 11). A female
cemí named Guabancex, however, was responsible for bring-
ing on the heavy rains and winds of the hurricanes, which
happened when she was angry. Guabancex had two assis-
tants, cemís named Guatauva and Coatrisquie, who were re-
sponsible for announcing her arrival and gathering together
the waters (chap. 23).
Such essentials of Taíno life as casabe and cohoba came
from an encounter between a man named Ayamanaco and
Demivan Caracaracol, who was one of a set of quadruplets
that were taken by Caesarian out of the belly of a dead woman
named Itibe Yauvava (Pané 1988, chap. 10). Demivan Caraca-
racol’s brothers took a stone hatchet to the huge hump that
he developed on his back and removed from it a live female
land turtle (chap. 11). The story appears to be connected to

If it is true that the Taínos were in the process of switch-
ing from a varied diet to one that relied predominantly on ca-
sabe made from bitter yucca, as so many investigators have
theorized, then perhaps the ritual or symbolic elevation of
women seen in the Taínos’ material artifacts was to com-
pensate for a devolution of women’s day- to- day equality with
males, who alone were becoming more liberated than pre-
viously. In fact, equality between the sexes may have been
less and less pronounced among the Taínos as they evolved
toward a state- level political structure. Live interment of the
wives of deceased kacikes, for example, appears to have been
a new practice in the fifteenth century, part of the Taínos’ “in-
creasing trajectory toward stratification” (Sued- Badillo 1989,
44). And while polygamous practices inspired artisanal spe-
cialization among the nitaíno women, they also represented
justification for the exploitation of those women.
There is much work still to be done on gender and the
Taínos. If the status of women was devolving as the Taínos
approached state level, it may not have affected all women.
Taíno patterns might have followed those that the Mexi-
can or Incan societies did as they evolved—nitaíno women
among the Taínos might have enjoyed “parallel” or “com-
plementary” roles to those of the high- ranking males. At the
very least, however, the lives of the naboría females must
have been getting progressively worse as more and more of
their waking hours and energy were devoted to the onerous
tasks involved in the production of casabe.

Taíno Religious and Artistic Expression
Creation Myths
As difficult as it is to separate religion and spirituality from
the sociopolitical aspects of the Classic Taíno way of life, it is
nearly impossible to separate Taíno spiritual concepts from
their art. Father Ramón Pané, sent to live among them in
1493 in order to record their religious beliefs, encountered
what he described as a confusing profusion of spirits that
walked in the night, along with legendary and mythological
“gods,” anthropomorphic beings, “living” trees and stones,
and ancestral remains—skulls or other bones or body parts,
desiccated bodies, and so on—that the Taínos adored. Nearly
all of the Spanish chroniclers refer to Father Ramón Pané as
a “humble” Jeronymite monk (Order of Saint Jerome) (see
Roman Catholic Church). Yet Pané is the first recorded Euro-
pean to have learned an indigenous language and is remem-
bered today not only as the first of the “New World” mis-
sionaries but also as the first anthropologist in the Americas
because of the special assignment Christopher Columbus
gave him to record the legends, rituals, celebrations, and
spiritual beliefs of the Taínos.
Pané sailed from Spain with Columbus’s second fleet in
late 1493. He began his missionary work among the Taínos
in the kacikazgo of Macorix, in the fertile valley of the Vega

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Ta í n o s | 1021

are elaborately carved with human, animal, or anthropomor-
phic features. Were the more elaborate cemís considered to
be more powerful? That is quite likely. Francisco José Ar-
náiz suggests that it was not only the artisanry of the design
that indicated a cemí’s power, but that “its power was in re-
lation to the type of material of which it was made” (1989,
141). Based on our own values, we might imagine that gold
was the most precious and therefore the most powerful ma-
terial from which to make or decorate cemís, and the Taí-
nos did use gold to embellish religious and ceremonial ob-
jects; however, guanín, a copper- gold alloy that shines more
brilliantly than gold and that was probably imported from
the mainland (and hence was more rare on Hispaniola than
gold), was valued more highly by the Taínos. Also, cotton
cloth, brilliantly colored feathers, rare colored stones (espe-
cially green), and marble (which was said to be “of the femi-
nine sex”) were highly valued materials among the Taínos.
Even “lowly” materials were used, however, in the making
of cemís, for material value was not the only determinant.
Martyr wrote, “Some are made of wood, because it is amongst
the trees and in the darkness of night they have received
the message of the gods. Others, who have heard the voice
amongst the rocks, make their cemís of stone; while others,

other indigenous American creation legends about turtles.
To this day, people of Taíno descent respect the land turtle as
a sacred animal and use its shell in the preparation of casabe.

Cemís
Although Pané and most of the other chroniclers wrote
that the Taínos “worshipped” and “adored” cemís, “cele-
brated” or “prized” might be better verb choices. Consider
how Christians celebrate and prize the cross and crucifix
symbols but do not adore them or worship them, per se.
Understanding how the Classic Taínos conceptualized cemís
is complicated by the fact that when the Taínos spoke of
cemís, the term appears to have encompassed two separate
but linked concepts: (1) a spiritual being, a complementary
counterpart or double, who acted as adviser to and protector
of an earthly being and (2) the physical manifestation or sym-
bol of that spiritual being on Earth. Las Casas wrote in his
Apologética, “I asked the Indians several times: ‘Who is this
cemí that you call upon?’ And they responded: ‘It is the one
who makes it rain and makes the sunshine and gives us chil-
dren and other good things that we want’ ” (1995b, 8:1152).
The earthly manifestation of the cemí who was Yúcahu,
the spirit of the yucca, for example, was embodied in the
numerous three- pointed stones the Spaniards call trigono-
litos that the Taínos made of clay, stone, bone, shell, and,
perhaps, other less durable materials. At least some of these
were buried in the konukos when the yucca was planted,
in a ritual no doubt intended to increase and/or protect
the crop. But not all stone cemís were representations of
Yúcahu. Columbus himself noted that there were three dif-
ferent kinds of stone cemís, each used for a different pur-
pose: “Most of the kacikes have each three stones, for which
they and their people feel great devotion. According to them,
one of these stones helps the grains and vegetables grow, the
second helps women give birth without pain, and the third
secures rain or fair weather when they are in need of either”
(Colón 1959, 152).
Stone images of cemís have been recovered that are not
three- pointed. Predominant among them are heads in vari-
ous shapes and sizes, for the Taínos appear to have believed
that the essence of a human being was in the head. There is
even one surviving example of a cotton cemí in the form of
a “doll,” inside of which is a human skull, no doubt that of a
revered ancestor. The eyes of cemí images are particularly
detailed and embellished, frequently with gold foil. Cemí
images did not just adorn objects. It was frequently recorded
that Taínos wore cemí symbols as painted and/or tattooed
personal adornments. Cemí symbols no doubt adorned
many other objects for personal, ritual, and general use that
have not survived the passage of time.
Some of the trigonolitos and other cemí figures that have
been recovered are small, simple, unadorned, while others

Taíno trigonolito or three- pointed stone representing a cemí,
Domincan Republic, 2000. Photo by P. Taylor.

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1022 | Ta í n o s

dujos. The traditional sling- back, low- profile shape of the
dujo was designed “to facilitate” the kacike’s important func-
tion as an “interpreter” of the cemís’ messages when he was
in a cohoba- induced trance (1992, 63).
No doubt personal items, as well as domestic and practi-
cal objects owned by the other nitaínos, and perhaps even
the naborías, were embellished with symbols of the cemís to
remind the people of their reliance on them for everything
from daily health and subsistence to fruitful childbearing
and the successful outcome of wars. Few items made of per-
ishable materials have survived the passage of time, but both
Martyr (1970) and Las Casas (1995b) recorded that even the
insides of Taíno huts were decorated with intricate designs
woven in dyed straw, wood, and bark. The profusion of cemí
symbols was decorative and, simultaneously, a constant re-
minder of the peoples’ sacred obligations. Those obligations,
of course, were not just to the cemís, who were otherworldly
spirits, but to the kacikes and behikes because of their inti-
mate connections to the most powerful of those spirits.

Fasting, Purging, and the Cohoba Ritual
One of the most written about Taíno spiritual rituals was
the kacikes’ taking of cohoba, a drug that induced a trance
state and hallucinations that facilitated the Taínos’ commu-
nications with their cemís. (Behikes are also said to have
taken cohoba, but their rituals were most likely done in
secret, for the chroniclers did not describe them.) The ka-
cike, and sometimes the entire Taíno community, went on
long ritual fasts as a sacrifice to the cemís before the kacike
partook of the cohoba. Fasting is a nearly universal method
for achieving a trance state and would have enhanced both
the depth of the trance and speed with which it took effect.
After the proscribed fasting period, and after a ritual com-
munity bath, probably with special flowers and herbs, the ka-
cike (and sometimes the whole community along with him)
purged his stomach using both herbs and a vomiting stick.

who heard the revelation while they were cultivating their
ages—that kind of cereal I have already mentioned—make
theirs of roots” (1970, 1:173).
Each of the nitaínos had his or her own personal cemís,
perhaps as many as ten or more. It is not known whether
naborías had cemís, or only nitaínos. Cemís—and their
powers—could be passed down to successors, given as gifts,
traded, or even stolen or acquired as war trophies. Kacikes
and other nitaínos boasted about their cemís, bragging that
theirs were more glorious than the cemís of others. The en-
tire village or kacikazgo paid tribute to the kacike’s cemís,
which protected and helped all the people. It is unclear, how-
ever, whether a high- ranking kacike became paramount be-
cause of the power of his cemís or if his cemís were consid-
ered powerful because he was a high- ranking, successful
kacike—perhaps it was a combination of both.
It was probably the most powerful of a kacike’s cemís
whose miniature image he wore on a pendant tied with string
on his forehead. Archaeologists have found small figurines
with holes for suspending them from a cord that may have
been used for this purpose, but no other scholars have con-
nected them to the Taínos’ ritual greeting of touching one
another’s foreheads. Perhaps the ritual greeting was a way of
paying obeisance to one another’s “spiritual double.”

Other Religious Art
Sued- Badillo (1989) has suggested that the kacikes took
advantage of the captive artisanry of their multiple wives to
enhance the quantity and beauty of their possessions, hence
also to enhance their power. These beautiful objects with
spiritual power included all manner of practical things, from
food and beverage containers to hammocks and canoes, as
well as a wide array of ceremonial and religious items, such
as figurines and trigonolitos, large sculptures for placement
on what the Spaniards described as altars, effigy vases, dujos,
vomiting spatulas, inhalers, and elaborate feather- and- gold
headdresses, belts, capes, masks, collars, and bracelets. All
were decorated with the symbolic representations of cemís,
for cemís “had power, gave power and reflected power” (Ar-
náiz 1989, 141).
One of the most prized possessions of the kacikes was the
dujo, a type of short- legged stool or chair. Dujos were skill-
fully carved (probably by the kacike’s wives) out of a single
piece of guayacán (lignum vitae) or mahogany that was then
polished to a high gloss. Most dujos took the four- legged
shape of anthropomorphic beings. Oviedo says this was “to
signify that the one seated there is not alone” but is accom-
panied by his cemís ([1535] 1959, Bk. 61, chap. 1). The ka-
cikes also sat on dujos to elevate themselves above all the
rest of their people, who sat on mats on the ground. Kacikes
were even buried sitting on their dujos. Sebastián Robiou
Lamarche suggests yet another reason the kacikes valued

Taíno dujo or ritual stool. Courtesy of the Museo del Indio,
San Juan, Puerto Rico, 2001. Photo by P. Taylor.

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Ta í n o s | 1023

enemy. Areitos may also have been held for no other purpose
than to entertain or appease the people of the kacikazgo and/
or to bond them more closely to each other, to their kacike,
and to his cemís. Areitos were also held to propitiate a par-
ticular cemí or for educational purposes, for it was through
song that the Taínos transmitted their histories and legends.
The Taínos had no form of writing, so they kept their his-
tory alive in their art and in songs, both of which are proven
mnemonic techniques. Martyr writes that the Taínos learned
about their history and legendary heroes (which he calls a
“mass of ridiculous beliefs”) directly “from their ancestors
. . . preserved from time immemorial in poems which only
the sons of chiefs are allowed to learn” (1970, 1:172). He ex-
plains later that “these poems are called arreytos. As with
us the guitar player, so with them the drummers accom-
pany these arreytos and lead singing choirs. . . . Some of the
arreytos are love songs, other are elegies, and others are war
songs; and each is sung to an appropriate air” (1:361).
Many aspects of the areitos were ritualistic. For example,
the participants (usually described as the entire village, but
perhaps only the nitaínos) fasted, taking only “the juice of
certain herbs,” for six to seven days. Just before the areito
began, they cleansed their bodies in the river using the
same herbs (Las Casas 1995b, 8:1155). The ritual bathing
may have been obeisance to Atabeyra—in one of her mul-
tiple guises, the mother of Yúcahu was the “goddess” of the
water. Then they painted their bodies “in divers colors with
vegetable dyes” and, to complete the purification, they vom-
ited together as a sacrifice to the cemís. Martyr describes this
part of the ritual in vivid detail: “They thrust a stick, which
each carries on feast days, down their throats to the epiglottis
or even to the uvula, vomiting and vigorously cleansing the
body” (1970, 2:316).
Next the kacike, seated on his dujo, partook of the cohoba
and, hands on his knees in the ritual position, consulted the
cemís. Afterward, he revealed the prophecies to the people.
From that point, each areito, depending on its purpose (and
whether the prophecy was favorable or not), followed a differ-
ent sequence of celebration—but a focal point of each was a
series of songs and dances in which participants alternated
as leaders.
Drums were not the only instrumental accompaniment,
as Martyr believed. The Taínos had a wide variety of instru-
ments that included drums, maracas (rattles—these were
also sacred instruments that the behikes used for healing),
güiros (scrapers), flutes, and other wind instruments. The
rhythmic tinkling of strings of snail shells with which “both
sexes weighted their arms, hips, calves, and heels,” added to
the beat. Martyr wrote, “Loaded with these shells they struck
the ground with their feet, dancing, leaping, respectfully
saluting the kacike who [sat] at his door . . . beating on a
drum with a stick” (1970, 2:316). As many as three hundred to

Again, this would have enhanced both the depth and speed
with which he entered a trance state. Then the community’s
women served him the cohoba—a finely ground dried pow-
der that was probably a mixture of hallucinogenic drugs that
included Piptadenia peregrina, Anadenanthera peregrina, and
tobacco. In the Apologética, Las Casas described how the co-
hoba mixture was mounded in a “round bowl . . . made of
wood, very handsome” (1995b, 8:1152). The round wooden
bowl that Las Casas described formed the headpiece of very
elaborately carved statues, no doubt representations of a
cemí. The kacike inhaled the trance- inducing powder using a
special tube shaped like the letter Y and made of bone, wood,
or fired clay—the tube was called a tabaco, a Taíno word that
was mistakenly attributed to the smoking/inhaling herb.
Some of the inhalers were elaborately crafted, others un-
adorned. Among those collected by archaeologists is one de-
picting a figure that is clearly male (remember that women
did not partake of the cohoba, at least publicly); its genitals
would have been set into the cohoba mixture and the feet of
its uplifted legs inserted in the user’s nostrils. “Almost im-
mediately” after inhaling the cohoba, wrote Martyr, “they be-
lieve they see the room turn upside down, and men walking
with their heads downwards” (1970, 1:174). They would lose
consciousness, wake slightly, act “drunk,” and speak incoher-
ently. It was in this state that kacikes and behikes communi-
cated with their cemís, learning “the secrets” of future events
(Las Casas 1995b, 81152–53).
Pané was the first of the Spaniards to record that “purging”
was not only part of a religious rite among the Taíno but
a panacean method of healing as well. The many purga-
tive “medicines” used by the Taínos and the proliferation
of vomiting spatulas among their material remains—both
unadorned and elaborately engraved—testify to the promi-
nence of ritual fasting and purging among them. José Juan
Arrom notes that the importance associated with vomiting
makes sense “to a people who could die if they ingested bit-
ter yucca without first extracting all of the poisonous juices.”
He suggests that ritual vomiting was a sacrifice of “total puri-
fication” aimed at appeasing “the fearsome cemí” who con-
trolled the process of turning poisonous yucca into nourish-
ing bread (1975, 113–14).

Areitos
Areitos are another of the Taínos’ well- known rituals, for
nearly all of the chroniclers went to great lengths to describe
their fondness for these celebrations with songs and dances.
There were different kinds of areitos that took place in the
batey. There were areitos to celebrate annual events such as
solstices, first plantings, and first harvests and to celebrate
special events such as the marriage of a kacike, the birth of
an important nitaíno, the coming of age of an important
female, a visit from a neighboring kacike, or victory over an

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1024 | Ta í n o s

dropped abruptly to the ground and raced from one side to
the other of the playing court, sending balls flying “as fast as
the wind,” trying to score goals for their team while prevent-
ing the opposing team from scoring (Bk. 7, chap. 2).
The bateyes were fun sport but were also sacred rituals.
Standing stones, frequently with pictographs and petro-
glyphs of cemís, formed the boundary walls of the Taínos’
bateyes, which appear to have been situated so as to be in
alignment with the sun during the four solstices. Robiou La-
marche suggests that the batey’s rectangular shape was sym-
bolic of the four cardinal directions (1992, 46–47). The most
important of the batey sites found so far (Caguana Ceremo-
nial Indian Park in Puerto Rico, near Utuado) was located in a
valley among high mountain peaks, near the source of a great
river—the same kind of location celebrated in so many of
the Taínos’ sacred myths. The games of ball, then, may have
served as vivid symbolic re- creations of the great difficulties
the original culture heroes went through in order to bring the
gifts of earthly life—water, fire, and yucca—to the Taínos.
The Taínos cherished life and their islands so much that
they believed the spirits of the dead continued to live in the
caves that are so abundant, walking about at night to enjoy
any and all of the things that a living human being might
want to do at night. The Taínos did not consider these opia
to be evil, as some Spanish chroniclers have suggested, and
they certainly did not fear either opia or cemís. Just as life
and death were in fragile balance, day and night also needed
to be kept in balance—and the night belonged to the opia.
The opia were so similar to humans, that the only way to tell
an opia from a living Taíno was to check if he or she had a
belly button. The Classic Taínos’ positive outlook on death as
well as on life is a reflection of the healthiness of their entire
society and belief system. It was a society where everyone—
male and female, young and old, alive and dead, humans and
spirits—lived in reciprocal harmony.

Lynne Guitar

BiBliogr aPhy
Alegría, Ricardo E. 1983. Ball Courts and Ceremonial Plazas in the

West Indies. New Haven, ct: Yale University Publications in
Anthropology.

———. 1989. “Aspectos de la cultura de los indios taínos de las
Antillas Mayores en la documentación etno- histórica.” In La
cultura taína, edited by Sociedad Estatal Quinto Centenario, 117–
36. Madrid: Turner Libros.

Arnáiz, Francisco José. 1989. “El mundo religioso taíno visto por la fe
católica española.” In La cultura taína, edited by Sociedad Estatal
Quinto Centenario, 137–52. Madrid: Turner Libros.

Arrom, José Juan. 1975. Mitología y artes prehispánicas de las Antillas.
Mexico City: Siglo XXi.

Atkinson, Lesley- Gail, ed. 2006. The Earliest Inhabitants: The
Dynamics of the Jamaican Taíno. Kingston, Jamaica: University of
the West Indies Press.

Cassá, Roberto. 1974. Los Taínos de la Española. Santo Domingo:
Editora de la Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo.

four hundred dancers participated at a time, weaving around
the batey “with their arms around each others’ shoulders”
(Las Casas 1995b, 8:1317).
The Taínos celebrated all that was good, beautiful, and
positive in the world with song and dance. Songs and dances
were a way to thank the cemís for helping them to live happy
and healthy on Earth. Sacred songs were among the most
valued of the prestige gifts exchanged among Taíno nobles.
The exchange of songs created strong bonds of fictive kin-
ship and reciprocal responsibility. Martyr noted this several
times when explaining why one kacike or another would not
turn traitor against another “Indian” or Spaniard, that is,
when he wrote about how the kacike Mayobanex defended
Guarionex, who had taught him and his principal wife “to
sing and dance, a thing not to be held in mediocre consider-
ation” (1970, 1:146).

Bateyes
Most of the Taíno rituals that we know about were offici-
ated by the kacikes, but the ballgame played in the batey was
officiated by a behike. The term batey, like many of the Taínos’
terms, encompassed two linked concepts: the multipurpose
ballgame that they played and the usually rectangular plaza
where they played it and celebrated their areitos. (This sug-
gests that the batey’s use as a site for celebrating areitos was
secondary, for its principal use appears to have been for the
ballgame.) Many scholars, basing their hypotheses on knowl-
edge of the ballgame among the indigenous peoples of Meso-
america, have suggested that the batey was a form of ritual
warfare. Bateyes were probably played in lieu of battles and/or
to bond together neighboring villages or kacikazgos or groups
of Taínos within a kacikazgo. Fernández Méndez suggests
that “each game was an invocation to the gods” (1993, 18–19).
The outcome of the game was considered to be divinely pro-
phetic, which must have added a thrilling component both for
the players and for the spectators who surrounded the court
to cheer the game on—the kacikes and their families sat in
places of honor at the head of the playing field.
The game of batey was played in a manner similar to mod-
ern soccer, with two competing teams of twenty to thirty
players each. The balls “were made of the roots of trees and
herbs and juices and a mixture of [other] things . . . like a
black pitch,” wrote Oviedo ([1535] 1959, Bk. 7, chap. 2)—it
was the first time Europeans had encountered rubber. The
players wore hoops about their hips and elbows, probably for
protection as well as to send the ball back across the court
at high velocity—many museums boast examples of circu-
lar stone “belts” and elbow rings, but these were most likely
molds for the actual hoops worn by the players, which were
probably made of rubber stuffed with straw and with cotton
woven around them. Oviedo described how exciting it was to
see the agility of the players as they leaped high in the air or

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Ta í n o s | 1025

Sued- Badillo, Jalil. 1989. La mujer indígena y su sociedad. Río Piedras,
Puerto Rico: Editorial Cultural.

Thomas, David Hurst, ed. 1989. Columbian Consequences, Vol. 1,
Archaeological and Historical Perspectives on the Spanish
Borderlands West. Washington, Dc: Smithsonian Institution Press.

———, ed. 1990. Columbian Consequences, Vol. 2, Archaeological
and Historical Perspectives on the Spanish Borderlands East.
Washington, Dc: Smithsonian Institution Press.

———, ed. 1991. Columbian Consequences, Vol. 3, The Spanish
Borderlands in Pan American Perspective. Washington, Dc:
Smithsonian Institution Press.

Vega de Boyrie, Bernardo, Carlos Dobal, Carlos Esteban Deive, Ruben
Silie, José de Castillo, and Frank Moya Pons. (1981) 1988. Ensayos
sobre la cultura dominicana. Santo Domingo: Fundación Cultura
Dominicana.

Veloz Maggiolo, Marcio. 1989. “Para una definición de la cultura
taína.” In La cultura taína, edited by Sociedad Estatal Quinto
Centenario, 17–26. Madrid: Sociedad Estatal Quinto Centenario y
Turner Libros.

Wilson, Samuel M. 1990. Hispaniola: Caribbean Chiefdoms in the Age
of Columbus. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.

———, ed. 1997. The Indigenous People of the Caribbean. Gainesville:
University Press of Florida.

taíno sPiritualit y today
The Spaniards who, beginning in the last decade of the
1400s, took over the islands of the Greater Antilles (today’s
Hispaniola, shared by the Dominican Republic and the Re-
public of Haiti, and Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Jamaica), Turks
and Caicos, the Bahamas, and the Virgin Islands tried their
best to turn the “pagan” indigenous peoples—those who sur-
vived the conquest, that is—into proper Christian subjects
(see Christianity; Roman Catholic Church). They only par-
tially succeeded. Today we call all those indigenous peoples
“Taíno,” although there were actually more than half a dozen
different indigenous groups sharing these islands. We know
now that there were far more indigenous peoples when the
Spaniards arrived than their estimate of two hundred thou-
sand—in fact, there appear to have been two million to four
million on Hispaniola alone (Cook 1993; Deagan 1990)—and
we know that they were not wiped out, as the Spanish chroni-
clers reported. By running away to peripheral parts of the
islands or to the mainland, some Taínos avoided not only
the Spaniards but many of the Europeans’ “invisible allies,”
the bacteria and viruses that killed off 80–90 percent of the
islands’ indigenous peoples (Cook 1993). They formed cima-
rrón (runaway) communities along with runaway African
slaves, thereby keeping many aspects of their cultures alive.
Many Taíno women survived by marrying Spaniards and
adopting the Castilian language, clothing, and culture—in
public; within their homes, they raised their mestizo chil-
dren (who had built- in immunities to the Europeans’ dis-
eases) in mostly traditional indigenous ways.
Throughout the ensuing centuries, on the larger Carib-

———. 1992. Historia social y económica de la República Dominicana.
2nd ed. 2 vols. Santo Domingo: Editora Alfa y Omega.

Colón, Ferdinand. 1959. The Life of the Admiral, by his Son Ferdinand.
Translated by Benjamin Keen. New Brunswick, nJ: Rutgers
University Press.

Cook, Noble David. 1993. “Disease and the Depopulation of

Hispaniola, 1492–1518.” Colonial Latin American Review 2(1–2):
213–45.

Deagan, Kathleen. 1990. “Sixteenth- Century Spanish- American
Colonization in the Southeast U.s. and the Caribbean.” In
Columbian Consequences, edited by David Hurst Thomas, 225–50.
Washington, Dc: Smithsonian Institution Press.

Deive, Carlos Esteban. 1989. “Chamanismo.” In La cultura taína,
edited by Sociedad Estatal Quinto Centenario, 81–89. Madrid:
Turner Libros.

Fernández Méndez, Eugenio. 1993. Art and Mythology of the Taíno
Indians of the Greater West Indies. San Juan: Ediciones El Cemí.
Originally published as Arte y Mitología de los Indios Taínos de
las Antillas Mayores. San Juan, Puerto Rico: Ediciones El Cemí,
1979.

Guitar, Lynne, Pedro Ferbel- Azcarate, and Jorge Estevez. 2006.
“Ocama Daca Taíno (Hear Me, I Am Taíno): Taíno Survival on
Hispaniola, Focusing on the Dominican Republic.” In Indigenous
Resurgence in the Contemporary Caribbean: Amerindian Survival
and Revival, edited by Maximilian C. Forte, 41–67. New York:
Peter Lang.

Helms, Mary. 1980. Ulysses’ Sail: An Ethnographic Odyssey of Power,
Knowledge, and Geographical Distance. Princeton, nJ: Princeton
University Press.

Keegan, William F. 2007. Taíno Indian Myth and Practice: The Arrival
of the Stranger King. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.

Las Casas, Bartolomé de. 1995a. Obras completas, Vols. 1–3, Historia
de las Indias. Compiled by Paulino Castañeda, Carlos de Rueda,
and Carmen Godínez e Inmaculada de la Corte. Madrid: Alianza
Editorial.

———. 1995b. Obras completas, Vols. 6–8, Apologética historia
sumaria. Compiled by Paulino Castañeda, Carlos de Rueda, and
Carmen Godínez e Inmaculada de la Corte. Madrid: Alianza
Editorial.

Martyr d’Anghiera, Peter. 1970. De Orbe Novo: The Eight Decades of
Peter Martyr D’Anghiera. Translated by Francis Augustus MacNutt.
2 Vols. New York: Burt Franklin.

Oliver, José R. 2009. Caciques and Cemí Idols: The Web Spun by Taíno
Rulers between Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. Tuscaloosa: University
of Alabama Press.

Olsen, Dale A. 1996. Music of the Warao of Venezuela, Song People of
the Rain Forest. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.

Oviedo y Valdés, Gonzalo Fernández de. (1535) 1959. Historia general
y natural de las Indias. Madrid: Gráficas Orbe.

Pané, Ramón. 1988. Relación acerca de la antigüedades de los Indios.
Santo Domingo: Ediciones de la Fundación Corripio.

Robiou Lamarche, Sebastián. 1992. Encuentro con la mitología Taína.
San Juan, Puerto Rico: Editorial Punto y Coma.

Rouse, Irving. 1992. The Tainos: Rise and Decline of the People Who
Greeted Columbus. New Haven, ct: New Haven University Press.

Sauer, Carl Ortwin. (1966) 1992. The Early Spanish Main. Berkeley:
University of California Press.

Stevens- Arroyo, Antonio M. 1988. Cave of the Jaguar: The Mythological
World of the Taínos. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

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1026 | Ta í n o s

My family comes from a village called Jaibón in the moun-
tainous Cibao region of the Dominican Republic. We immi-
grated to the United States about thirty- five years ago, bring-
ing many of our indigenous Taíno beliefs and rituals with
us (see Indigenous Religions). Throughout my life I have
listened intently to my mother, Doña Luz Patria Estevez,
and to my grandmother, Doña Olympia. I have asked them
questions and observed them, and carefully recorded in my
head all that I saw and heard from them as well as from all
the women I saw and heard during family get- togethers,
when they cook and speak of the customs of our campo, the
countryside. Why have I paid so much attention to them? Be-
cause they make me feel proud of where we come from and
who we are. All that I know about Taíno spirituality comes
from those cherished women, and now from other people
whom I have met from my homeland and the other Carib-
bean islands in the course of my work for the Smithsonian
National Museum of the American Indian.
It seems that the more I look for Taíno spirituality, the
more I find. The examples are everywhere, from the country-
side and the mountain communities of our islands to the
streets of Santo Domingo, Old San Juan, and New York City.
Taíno spirituality is especially revealed in nature. For ex-
ample, my mother told me that owls are bad omens—to hear
them at night is a bad sign, and if an owl rests on your bohio
(home) at night, it is a sign that death will soon follow. In
most Native American traditions, the owl is seen as a crea-
ture that delivers bad omens, whereas Europeans usually
see the owl as a sign of wisdom. Mother also talks about the
spirits that roam the mountains at night, and the lights of the
cocuyos (fireflies) that are their eyes. If you encounter these
beings, you have to yell and curse at them so they will leave
you alone. I can’t remember how many times I awoke to the
sound of my mother loudly telling some spirit where it would
end up if it did not leave our house! She told us about the
good animals, too. For example, if you encounter a yaguasa
(a type of duck) on the road in the middle of the night, you
have to change directions because the yaguasa warns you of
bad things ahead. Then there are the stories of family mem-
bers who could change into any animal they wanted to, like
my mother’s uncle Choro who could conjure up this power
by singing certain songs. Singing was important in most of
the Classic Taíno rituals. Samuel Wilson, in his study of His-
paniola: Caribbean Chiefdoms in the Age of Columbus, notes
that a song was one of the most valued of all Taíno gifts. My
mother tells me that chewing on the bones of a certain ani-
mal at a specific time of the night can make you invisible, and
at one time people would put guamos (conch shells) in a circle
around the grave of a deceased person, although she doesn’t
remember why this was done. My mother insists, though
she doesn’t know the reason behind this belief either, that
the shell of the hicotea (freshwater turtle) brings bad luck if

bean islands, many of the people who became Dominicans,
Haitians, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, and Jamaicans have kept
alive their original indigenous bloodlines as well as many ele-
ments of their original indigenous cultures, including indige-
nous concepts of spirituality.
The Caribbean diaspora has taken many of these Taíno
descendants to the United States, Canada, South America,
and all across the world. There some have discovered the
value of being “Indian” and, along with many Puerto Ricans
and now a few Dominicans, began a Taíno revival movement.
In the mid- 1990s, while conducting research on the Taíno for
my doctoral degree in history at Vanderbilt University, I had
the great good luck of befriending Jorge Estevez, a Taíno
from the Dominican Republic who works at the Smithsonian
Museum of the American Indian in New York City and is one
of the leaders of the Taíno revival movement. Jorge Estevez
has not acquired his vast knowledge just from archaeological
finds, documentary and linguistic analyses, and other aca-
demic studies. In addition to these sources, he has learned
much of what it means to be Taíno from other indigenous
peoples, including his own mother and grandmother, knowl-
edge that has been passed from generation to generation in
the traditional indigenous way. The following entry is his ex-
planation of Taíno spirituality today.

Lynne Guitar

A Practitioner’s Perspective
I remember standing on a New York City street corner with
my friends, hanging out way past midnight just like all the
other teenagers, when suddenly I got that strange familiar
feeling and I knew I had to rush home. As I ran up the stairs
to our sixth- floor apartment, I could feel it getting stronger,
that nagging sensation of needing to be home. This upset me
because I knew why I felt this way, why I always felt this way
around this time, and that my mother, with her Taíno ways,
was the cause. As I opened the door of our apartment, I could
see that the house was dark except for a flickering light in the
center of our kitchen table. That light is my mother’s way of
summoning us. Since I was a small child, I have watched her
do the summoning ritual many times. She makes a wick out
of cotton and ties it onto two small sticks in the shape of a
cross or an X and floats it on top of a glass or cup full of water
and oil. She lights the wick and raises it to the north, south,
east, and west while saying a prayer in her head. Then she
places the light in the center of the table, knowing that, once
this is done, the person the prayer is intended for will want to
rush home. There is, however, something else—wherever the
wick of the candle falls, it indicates the direction the person
has headed in. If it falls to the east, the person has headed
in that direction or is still there, and so on. The four cardi-
nal directions are very important in Taíno rituals, no matter
where we are.

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Ta í n o s | 1027

people back home still leave offerings of casabe in caves that
they believe are inhabited by “Indian” spirits. Furthermore,
yucca is always planted during a waning moon, which appears
to have had a spiritual basis for the Classic Taínos, though we
no longer know the associated beliefs. Many of the medicinal
plants that we use today that are indigenous to the islands are
also planted during specific lunar cycles and picked at spe-
cific times of the day, according to ancient custom.
In Puerto Rico, people say they can hear ancestral voices
in the Yunque rainforest. People from mountain communi-
ties in Cuba and the Dominican Republic hear the voices of
our Taíno ancestors at night, especially by the rivers—ritual
bathing preceded most Classic Taíno ceremonies—or in-
side certain caves, where spiritual rituals and trainings took
place long ago. Many go into the caves and touch the an-
cient petroglyphs and pictographs in the hope that our an-
cestors will cure them of illness. And people in the campo of
the Dominican Republic and Haiti insist that there are “wild
Indians” living in caves, who they call bien- bien. Interestingly,
my Taíno ancestors believed that “the people” originally
emerged from caves on our island. In some places, today’s
Taínos keep cemís (sacred objects made by the ancient Taí-
nos) on their home altars along with clay pots full of water.
They find the cemís in caves or buried underground through-
out the islands. The invading Spaniards recorded that Clas-
sic Taínos used these cemís to represent either ancestors or
deities. Although we do not clearly remember the meanings
of these objects, we still feel a sense of kinship toward them.
On all three of the Spanish- speaking Caribbean islands, neo-
Taíno art, which includes the making of cemís, is very popu-
lar today, mostly due to the tourist trade, but a sense that this
is “ours” is also taking place. I believe it’s a spiritual connec-
tion.
Our most guarded Taíno traditions have been passed
down only from mother to daughter, sister to sister, etc.,
through the maternal line, although I have heard that there
are certain branches of power that only men possess. My
mother explained that a person only shares their special
knowledge when they are on their deathbed—this helps ex-
plain why so much traditional knowledge has been lost! I
have spoken with curanderos (healers) from the Dominican
Republic and Puerto Rico, most of who happen to be women
(see Dominican Republic—Curanderos/as). Few curanderos
will readily share their knowledge of how they heal, but when
they occasionally do speak up, an immense new world is re-
vealed, for they have retained a whole “library” of traditional
medicine and spirituality in their memories that scholars are
only now beginning to tap into.
My mother believes that any healers who are willing to
speak about their knowledge of spiritual healing, or a per-
son who brags about having certain powers, probably doesn’t
know anything at all. My friends Doña Angélica Vargas and

kept in the house but is quick to point out that the bottom
of the shell was traditionally used to spread the yucca flour
when making casabe (cassava) bread. The conflicting good/
bad beliefs about the hicotea baffled me. It wasn’t until I was
much older and read the Taíno creation stories preserved by
Fray Ramón Pané that I understood, for the stories make it
clear that my ancestors had taboos against eating the flesh of
freshwater turtles because it was believed they were a mater-
nal ancestor. Although my mother did not know the hicotea
creation story, she unknowingly perpetuated the taboo while
remembering that the turtle had nurturing qualities.
Among the other Taíno women who have added im-
mensely to my spiritual knowledge is Magda Martas, a friend
from Puerto Rico. Magda reminded me that ananás (pine-
apples), which are native to Puerto Rico, are sometimes left
out to absorb malevolent spirits that might otherwise enter
the home at night. Auyamas (squashes) and higueros (gourds)
are used in this same fashion and then disposed of in rivers
in the morning. Doña Angélica Vargas, who comes from
Canóbanas, Puerto Rico, explained that when four or more
guaraguao (hawks) fly together, it means that a baguada is
coming—bagua is the Taíno word for the sea, and a baguada
is a storm that originates out at sea. Doña Angélica’s daugh-
ter, Valerie Nanaturey, says that certain people can “peel their
skins” to achieve invisibility. She was taught that people who
did this could also fly. Valerie told me a story about a sorcer-
ess named Doña Sisa who spent her time feuding with her
grandmother, Doña Juana. The grandmother, having powers
of her own, could ward off Doña Sisa, but had to contend
with her flying over her house at night and making quite a
racket.
Among my favorite stories as a child were those of cigua-
pas, creatures with long hair down to their ankles, who live
deep in the forest or under the rivers. They have inverted feet,
which is why even the best hunters can’t track them. Some
scholars believe that tales of these legendary creatures arose
because of the Taíno runaways who so successfully avoided
the Spanish patrols. The same creature exists in El Salvador,
where it is known as ciguanamá, and in Venezuala, where it
is known as currupia. Other fantastic creatures whose tales
still fascinate Dominican children include galipotes, dogs
with huge, long ears that drag behind them when they walk,
and duendes, little people who tie your hair in knots while you
sleep if you are bad or braid them if you are good.
Many of our stories have been passed down orally and not
only have different meanings today than they did to the Clas-
sic Taínos but have changed in substance. Customary tradi-
tions have undergone the same evolutionary processes. For
example, yucca and the casabe bread made from it were very
important to our Taíno ancestors. Casabe bread, their pre-
ferred carbohydrate staple, was sacred and played an impor-
tant role in many spiritual ceremonies. Perhaps that is why

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1028 | Ta í n o s

divisions. Botijas (visions), however, always involve “Indian”
spirits, and they can show you where hidden gold is.
Another Taíno practice that has survived in numerous
forms is the tobacco ceremony. Disciples of Cuban and
Puerto Rican Santería, of Dominican Misterios, and Vodou
oungan (“priests”) in Haiti all use tobacco in their ceremonies
for spiritual cleansing. Also, the smoke from tobacco can be
blown over the body of a sick person to expel whatever is
causing the illness. These practices come directly from our
Taíno ancestors and are virtually identical to the way South
American indigenous peoples use tobacco in their healing
ceremonies. And dreams are very real for Taíno people, as
they are for many other indigenous peoples. My mother tells
me that if I have a bad dream or nightmare, I have to share
this dream with as many people as possible in order to break
its power. If I have a good dream, however, I must keep it to
myself so that it may blossom.
One very good dream I have—but it’s a waking, conscious
dream—is to teach people all over the world the truth about
my people, the Taínos. Most history books teach that Taí-
nos became extinct about thirty to fifty years after contact
with the Europeans. No two historians, however, can agree
exactly when this occurred. Upon closer inspection of the
historical record, one finds that there is evidence of Taínos
in every century since 1492 and on all three of the Spanish-
speaking islands. The Taíno influence—biological, cultural,
linguistic, and spiritual—is felt everywhere today in the
Spanish Caribbean and everywhere that Spanish Caribbean
people have immigrated to. It is horribly wrong to say that
the Taíno culture is extinct simply because it is not the same
as it was in 1492. By that measure, the Spanish and African
cultures would also be extinct, since people of Spanish and
African descent do not live and speak the same way today
as they did in 1492. Additionally, many people dismiss our
beliefs because they are mixed with Christian and African
beliefs. True, our modern beliefs are of mixed extraction—
my mother, for example, considers herself a devout Catholic,
yet practices curious things at night that would highly offend
the average priest of the Roman Catholic Church—but that
does not mean they are no longer Taíno beliefs. What would
be strange, indeed, would be if Taíno culture and spirituality
had not changed in more than five hundred years.
Change and mixture are a natural part of cultural evo-
lution everywhere, but especially in the Americas, where
peoples of so many different continents came together.
Sometimes errors of attribution are made because of the
intermixture. For example, “zombies” and the practice of
making them are not of African origin. The ingredients used
for inducing a zombie- like state, such as the datura plant and
the puffer fish that live off the coast of Haiti, are native to the
Americas, not to Africa. In Maya Deren’s book Divine Horse-
men: The Living Gods of Haiti there are many references to

Valerie Nanaturey have told me the same thing, but some
information leaks out, little by little, to those of us who in-
sistently seek it out. My mother explained to me that you
can sobar (rub) a sickness away, and Doña Angélica says her
mother used sobos (rubs) to heal as well. In fact, indigenous
peoples throughout South America use this method of heal-
ing. There is a bejuco (vine) that can be used to mend broken
bones, but Valerie tells me that this vine can only be picked
after the healer recites a specific chant. Doña Angélica has
told me fascinating stories about the special powers of her
family in Puerto Rico. Her mother, Doña Juana Medina, spe-
cialized in healing children. She had the ability to blow in the
ears of sick children and blast out the “bad wind” that inhab-
ited the child. It was not a spirit her mother was casting out,
just a bad wind, notes Doña Angélica, and she always chewed
tobacco before beginning her healing. Doña Angélica says
that her mother’s power derived from her eyes, and this
helped her know the truth about all things. The eyes held a
special magic for the Classic Taínos, too. They gilded the eyes
of their sacred and decorative objects with gold or guanín, an
alloy that shone more brilliantly than gold, and they forced
the eyes of noble children to bulge out by compressing the in-
fants’ foreheads. These prominent eyes were both physically
and spiritually beautiful to the Taínos, though the Spaniards
thought they were very peculiar.
When the Spaniards arrived in the Caribbean more than
five hundred years ago, they noticed that my ancestors had
another peculiar habit—they bathed three and four times a
day. To the Spaniards this was barbaric! They made laws pro-
hibiting the Taínos from bathing, for they believed that it was
harmful, that it washed away protective body oils and caused
lustful thoughts. My Taíno ancestors, however, preceded
most of their known ceremonies with ritual community
bathing. They also believed that during the night bad spirits
would brush up against a person and leave the recipient of
these visitations with a bad body odor. The love of bathing—
and an abhorrence of body odors—is still very much a part
of our ways today. My friend Magda Martas reminded me of
the various forms and intricacies of baños (baths). For us, ba-
ños are not only for hygiene but also for spiritual cleansing,
and they are often prepared with water mixed with colorful
flowers and/or fruits.
Do you know about the Misterios? They are a diverse but
interrelated series of Taíno spiritual practices in the Domi-
nican Republic. Practicing the Misterios requires in- depth
knowledge of medicinal plants and involves divination, so
many people see the Misterios as a kind of sorcery. Recently
my friend Pedro Ferbel- Azcarate, an anthropologist who has
done extensive studies on Taínos in the Dominican Repub-
lic, told me he learned that in the teachings of the Misterios
there are seven African powers that are prayed to (see Afri-
can Caribbean Religions), along with twenty- one “Indian”

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Ta í n o s | 1029

Make no mistake. Our Taíno customs are still very much
alive. As a people and as a cultural group we have changed,
and continue to change, but change does not equal extinc-
tion. Just the opposite is true. It means our people and our
culture not only survived the arrival of the Spaniards but also
continued to evolve, as only a living people and living culture
can do.
Today’s Taíno revival movement is growing rapidly. Taíno
groups and organizations are flourishing all over the Ameri-
cas. We are well aware that non- Taíno peoples have been neg-
ligent in the telling of our story and in their investigations of
our customs, traditions, language, and, above all, our spiri-
tuality. Until recently we were not actively involved in the
process of recording our history, but now we are. Too many
questions have gone unanswered for too long. We have now
taken it upon ourselves to investigate and to explain—in our
own ways and with our own words—our own stories, beliefs,
traditions, and language. We must pass our Taíno culture on
to our children. It is up to us to challenge all the myths that
have been written about us by others, to investigate our cus-
toms and traditions, our culture, and language. Most impor-
tant, it is our responsibility to explore our spirituality. This
is the vehicle that we must use to reunite with our ancestors
who now reside on that other plane, in that other existence. It
is from there that they send us glimpses of who we once were.
They send us songs that echo in the caves and mountains,
rivers and valleys of our islands, reminding us to be proud of
who we are, and above all, of who we can become.

Jorge Estevez
BiBliogr aPhy
Cook, Noble David. 1993. “Disease and the Depopulation of

Hispaniola, 1492–1518.” Colonial Latin American Review 2(1–2):
213–45.
Deagan, Kathleen. 1990. “Sixteenth- Century Spanish- American
Colonization in the Southeast U.s. and the Caribbean.” In
Columbian Consequences, edited by David Hurst Thomas, 225–50.
Washington, Dc: Smithsonian Institution Press.

Deren, Maya. 1972. Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti. New
York: Delta.

Guitar, Lynne, Pedro Ferbel- Azcarate, and Jorge Estevez. 2006.
“Ocama Daca Taíno (Hear Me, I Am Taíno): Taíno Survival on
Hispaniola, Focusing on the Dominican Republic.” In Indigenous
Resurgence in the Contemporary Caribbean: Amerindian Survival
and Revival, edited by Maximilian C. Forte, 41–67. New York:
Peter Lang.
Pané, Ramón. 1988. Relación acerca de la antigüedades de los Indios.
Santo Domingo: Ediciones de la Fundación Corripio.
Stevens- Arroyo, Antonio M. 1988. Cave of the Jaguar: The Mythological
World of the Taínos. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

Wilson, Samuel. 1990. Hispaniola: Caribbean Chiefdoms in the Age of
Columbus. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press.

———, ed. 1997. The Indigenous People of the Caribbean. Gainesville:
University Press of Florida.

Taíno practices found in Vodou. Vodou traditions are gener-
ally considered to be African but are really a mixture of Taíno
and African spiritual traditions. Recently I had the good for-
tune to be invited by Maitreyi Villaman, a Taíno friend from
the Dominican Republic, to a Festival of the Cross. It comes
from a mixture of Taíno, African, and Christian traditions.
When I entered the hall where the celebration was taking
place, I saw a Christian cross on the stage with many colorful
flowers around it. A band of palo (African Dominican) musi-
cians were playing a song with a heavy African beat but with
an “Indian” theme, and Maitreyi, her sister, and the rest of
the guests were dancing with Taíno cemís in their hands.
Slowly but surely, Taíno peoples, their traditions, and be-
liefs are changing again. Here in the United States, there is
another fusion of customs going on. For longer than most
people realize, and especially since the early 1970s, Taíno
peoples from the Caribbean have been involved with our
Native American brothers and sisters of the North. During
the takeover of Alcatraz Island, for example, Marie Helen La-
raque, a Taíno woman from the Republic of Haiti (she passed
away a few years ago, but was a great friend of mine), was
involved in the relief effort, assisting the North American
natives who took over the island. She often described to me
how she learned the way indigenous people in North America
do their tobacco ceremony, and how she showed the people
she met about our similar ceremonies in Haiti. As more and
more people from the Caribbean learn of our indigenous tra-
ditions, they find they have a strong connection with both
North and South American indigenous peoples.
Just as our Taíno ancestors learned and accepted Span-
ish and African customs, integrating them with their own,
a similar thing is happening in North America, where the
Caribbean diaspora has been the largest. In the United
States, Taínos have had the opportunity to meet and share
with other indigenous people. Many of us gradually began
going to powwows and other gatherings. We noticed that
many of our customs were similar to those of the indige-
nous people here, especially our spirituality. Tobacco cere-
monies, growing plants according to the cycles of the moon,
herbal medicines, and a deep- rooted love for the land are
just a few of the things we have in common with the North
American natives. Today, Taínos go to Sun Dances and sweat
lodges; some have become pipe carriers; others explore all
forms of indigenous spirituality. This began in part because
many of our people had not been back home for years, and
many more were born here—both have felt the need to con-
nect with other indigenous people. Another important factor
is that, for many of us, classifications such as “Hispanic” or
“Latino” never made sense. They don’t accurately describe
who we are. We are Native Americans, we are Taínos. More
and more our cultural and spiritual affinity lies with other
Native Americans as we become more “Americanized.”

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