ONEOFMANYFEATHERS'
The Taíno
One People One Nation One Destiny
The Taíno were the dominant culture in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, Jamaica and the Bahamas from about 1200 AD to the arrival of Columbus in 1492.
Taíno culture was the most highly developed in the Caribbean when Columbus reached Hispaniola in 1492. Islands throughout the Greater Antilles were dotted with Taíno communities nestled in valleys and along the rivers and coastlines, some of which were inhabited by thousands of people. The first New World society that Columbus encountered was one of tremendous creativity and energy. The Taíno had an extraordinary repertoire of expressive forms in sculpture, ceramics, jewelry, weaving, dance, music, and poetry. Their inventiveness and dynamism were also reflected in their social hierarchies and political organization.
Our knowledge of the Taíno comes from several sources. Sixteenth-century Spanish chronicles provide incomplete but crucial information about Taíno society. Intensive archaeological excavation of Taíno sites, which began about 1950, has unearthed many types of pottery and artifacts, confirmed Taíno burial customs, and revealed what their ancient communities looked like. Ethnologists have shed further light on Taíno daily life, myths, and ceremonies by gathering comparative data from contemporary societies with similar cultures in Venezuela and the Guianas. The Taíno legacy survives today not only in the ethnic heritage of the Caribbean people, but also in words borrowed from their language, such as barbecue, canoe, hammock, and hurricane; in customs related to ancient traditions of weaving, hunting and fishing, and song and dance; and in a cuisine based on yuca, beans, and barbecued meats and fish.
It is believed that the seafaring Taínos were relatives of the Arawakan people of South America. Their language is a member of the Maipurean linguistic family, which ranges from South America across the Caribbean.
Until recently, the Taíno have been peripheral to the study of pre-Columbian societies. Scholars focused on the high cultures of the mainland, such as the Inka, the Aztec, and the Maya because they were organized into political states. The chiefdoms (cacicazgos) and chiefs (caciques) of the Taíno seemed less worthy of attention. Archaeologists now realize, however, that by the time of the conquest these chiefdoms had evolved into complex political entities that resembled true states. Art historians recognize that objects made by the Taíno - ceremonial seats (duhos), ball game belts, scepters, sculptures of spirits and ancestors, zemis, pottery, ritual objects used in cohoba ceremonies, and ornaments of semiprecious stones, gold, shell, and bone - had parallels in Mesoamerica and South America. Most important, it has become clear that the Taíno worldview was distinctly pre-Columbian in its conception of the universe and its profound spirituality.
At the time of Columbus's arrival in 1492, there were five Taíno kingdoms and territories on Hispaniola (modern day Haiti and Dominican Republic). At the time of the Spanish conquest, the largest Taíno population centers may have contained over 3,000 people each. By the 18th century, Taíno society had been devastated by introduced diseases such as smallpox, as well as other problems like intermarriages and forced assimilation into the plantation economy that Spain imposed in its Caribbean colonies, with its subsequent importation of African slave workers.
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