Arawaks/Tainos

Without having to go into prehistoric time, we can safely say that the first inhabitants of the Antilles were The Arawaks. Just prior to 1,000 AD they were expelled from the Lesser Antilles by the Caribs, a people originating, like them, from the lower Orinoco region. Short, copper colored, having black and straight hair, the Arawaks, due to their early arrival in the region, were by the time of Columbus' arrival, peaceful and sedentary. Living from agriculture, hunting and fishing, they grew a soft variety of corn and sweet potatoes. They also knew how to make casava bread using an elaborate process to leach out the poisonous juice of this root. LIFESTYLE The Arawak/Taino society was basically a very gentle culture. It was characterized by happiness, friendliness and a highly organized hierarchical, paternal society, and a lack of guile. Each society was a small kingdom and the leader was called a cacique. At the time of Columbus there were five different kingdoms on the island of Hispaniola. The Indians practiced polygamy. Most men had 2 or 3 wives, but the caciques had as many as 30. It was a great honor for a woman to be married to a cacique. Not only did she enjoy a materially superior lifestyle, but her children were held in high esteem. HOUSING AND DRESS The Arawak/Taino used two primary architectural styles for their homes. The general population lived in circular buildings with poles providing the primary support and these were covered with woven straw and palm leaves. They were somewhat like North American teepees except rather than being covered with skins they needed to reflect the warmth of the climate and simply used straw and palm leaves.The caciques were singled out for unique housing. Their houses were rectangular and even featured a small porch. Despite the difference in shape, and the considerably larger buildings, the same materials were used. When the Africans came beginning in 1507 they introduced mud and wattle as primary building materials. However, there is no record of the Arawak/Tainos having used these materials.The house of the cacique contained only his own family. However, given the number of wives he might have, this constituted a huge family. The round houses of the common people were also large. Each one had about 10-15 men and their whole families. Thus any Arawak/Taino home might house a hundred people.The houses did not contain much furniture. People slept in cotton hammocks or simply on mats of banana leaves. They also made wooden chairs with woven seats, couches and built cradles for their children.In addition to houses the typical Arawak/Taino village contained a flat court in the center of the village which was used for ball games and various festivals, both religious and secular. Houses were around this court. This was a hierarchical society, and while there was only one cacique who was paid a tribute (tax) to oversee the village, there were other levels of sub-caciques, who were not paid, but did hold positions of honor. They were liable for various services to the village and cacique.Stone making was especially developed among the Arawak/Tainos, but they seem not to have used it at all in building houses. It was primarily used for tools and especially religious artifacts.The men were generally naked, but the women sometimes wore short skirts. Men and women alike adorned their bodies with paint and shells and other decorations. FOOD AND AGRICULTURE The Arawak/Taino diet, like ours, centered around meat or fish as the primary source of protein. There never were many wild animals to hunt on Hispaniola, but there were some small mammals that were hunted and enjoyed. They also ate snakes, various rodents, bats, worms, birds, in general any living things they could find with the exception of humans. They were able to hunt ducks and turtles in the lakes and sea. The coastal natives relied heavily on fishing, and tended to eat their fish either raw or only partially cooked. Since they did grow cotton on the island, the natives had fishing nets made of cotton. The natives of the interior relied more on agriculture and de-emphasized meat or fish in their diet.The

Arawak/Taino had a developed system of agriculture which was virtually maintenance free. They raised their crops in a conuco, a large mound which was devised especially for farming. They packed the conuco with leaves to protect from soil erosion and fixed a large variety of crops to assure that something would grow, no matter what weather conditions prevailed.One of the Arawak/Taino's primary crops was cassava. This is a root crop from which a poisonous juice must be squeezed. Then it is baked into a bread like slab. The current method of doing this in Haiti produces a flat bread, sort of like a stale burrito or pizza shell. The Arawak/Taino grew corn (maize), squash, beans, peppers, sweet potatoes, yams and peanuts.They not only had cotton, but they raised tobacco and enjoyed smoking very much. It was not only a part of their social life, but was used in religious ceremonies too. TRANSPORTATION The Arawak/Taino had no large animals like horses, oxen or mules to ride or use for work. But they did have river and sea transportation. They used dugout canoes which were cut from a single tree trunk and used with paddles. They could take 70-80 people in a single canoe and even used them for long travels on the sea. These dugouts allowed fishing the few lakes of Hispaniola as well as fishing out a bit off the coast. DEFENSE The Arawak/Taino themselves were quite peaceful people, but they did have to defend themselves from the Caribs who were cannibals. The Caribs of this area were centered at what is today Puerto Rico, but some did live in northeast Hispaniola, an area that today is the Dominican Republic. The Caribs were war-like cannibals. They often raided the more peaceful Arawak/Tainos, killing off the men, stealing and holding the women for breeding, and fattening the children to eat.Thus the Arawak/Taino had some weapons which they used in defense. They used the bow and arrow, and had developed some poisons for their arrow tips. They had cotton ropes for defensive purposes and some spears with fish hooks on the end. Since there were hardwoods on the island, they did have a war club made of macana. This was about 1" thick and reminds one very much of the cocomaque stick used in later Haitian days. They did not develop any armor or specifically defensive weapons (shields, etc.) RELIGION AND MYTH The Arawak/Taino were polytheists and their gods were called ZEMI. The zemi controlled various functions of the universe, very much like Greek gods did, or like later Haitian Voodoo lwa. However, they do not seem to have had particular personalities like the Greek and Haitian gods/spirits do.There were three primary religious practices: Religious worship and obeisance to the zemi themselves. Dancing in the village court during special festivals of thanksgiving or petition. Medicine men, or priests, consulting the zemi for advice and healing. This was done in public ceremonies with song and dance.

There was an afterlife where the good would be rewarded. They would meet up with dead relatives and friends. Since most of the people they would meet in this paradise were women, it is curious to speculate if it was mainly women who were considered good, or if some other reason accounted for this division of the sexes in the afterlife.There are many stone religious artifacts which have been found in Haiti. The zemi take on strange forms like toads, turtles, snakes, alligators and various distorted and hideous human faces.The zemi, as well as dead caciques, have certain powers over the natural world and must be dealt with. Thus these various services are ways of acknowledging their power (worship and thanksgiving) and at the same time seeking their aid. Because of these powers there are many Arawak/Taino stories which account for the origins of some experienced phenomena in myth and or magic. Several myths had to do with caves. The sun and moon, for example, came out of caves. Another story tells that the people lived

in caves and only came out at night. One guard was supposed to watch carefully over people to be sure that they were well divided in the land. However, one day he was late in returning and the sun caught him and turned him into a stone pillar. (Shades of Lot's wife!)Another Indian became angry at the sun for its various tricks and decided to leave. He convinced all the women to abandon their men and come with him along with their children. But, the children were deserted, and in their hunger they turned into frogs. The women simply disappeared. This left the men without women. But, they did find some sexless creatures roaming around and eventually captured them. (Actually they used people with a disease like mange since they had rough hands and could hold on to these elusive creatures.) However, they tied these creatures up and put woodpeckers on them. The birds, thinking these were trees started pecking on them and carved out the sex organs of women, thus re-establishing the possibility of survival.A different myth simply tells that once there were no women. Man brought woman from an island where there were only women.The origin of the oceans was in a huge flood which occurred when a father murdered his son (who was about to murder the father), and then put his bones in a calabash. The bones turned to fish and then the gourd broke and all the water of the world flowed from the broken gourd. THE GENOCIDAL END OF THE ARAWAKS/TAINOS The quiet and peaceful Arawaks have totally disappeared from the surface of the Earth. This was accomplished in a very short time after the arrival of the Europeans. Aside from the animals imported by the Europeans (in particular the pigs) which left free to roam devastated the tuberous crop of the Arawaks, many were killed in the defensive wars they undertook to preserve their freedom. Others, after being ruthlessly enslaved and submitted to a meager diet of cassava and sweet potatoes, died from malnutrition and overwork in the mines or plantations. Finally, the rest of them died after contracting European diseases from which they were not immune. Their disappearance was so swift and the need for cheap and able labor was so great that 30 years after Columbus' landing the massive deportation of Africans had

Caribs/Kalinagos
Next to the Arawaks, probably the most numerous Indian stock, of more or less nomadic habits, in South America. They cannot, however, compare in numbers with the sedentary aborigines of Peru and Bolivia. The Caribs were the second group of Indians met by Columbus on the Antilles, and even at that time the name was a synonym for "cannibals". At the time of Columbus they held the whole of the Lesser Antilles, whence they made constant and cruel inroads upon the Arawaks of the larger northern islands, killing the men and capturing the women, whom they carried to their homes on Guadalupe, Martinique, etc. as slaves. The Arawaks were in great dread of them and of their weapons, which were superior to the primitive fire-hardened javelins and wooden war-clubs in use on the Greater Antilles, although some of the natives had also acquired the bow and arrows, probably from contact with their hereditary foes, the Caribs. The latter were also hardy and daring sailors, paddling fearlessly from island to island comparatively long distances. In costume, mode of living, dwellings, etc., the Caribs differed but little from the Arawaks. Their language is totally different. The Caribs had olive skin, long straight hair and were a handsome people of great stature. Their foreheads and noses were flat , because, much like the Arawaks, they flattened the heads of their children, believing it to be a sign of "beauty and perfection." They wore no clothes most of the time. On special occasions the women wore pearls and the men wore head dresses made of bird feathers and necklaces made from human or coral bones. The Caribs did imitate the Arawaks in certain aspects such as in house building and the making of pottery. They were not farmers however, but were great seamen and fishermen. Strange religious beliefs such as the abstaining from pigs, salt and turtles were practiced. Human

sacrifices were part of these rituals. Like the Arawaks they had a head chief who was selected because of strength and skill. Their manner though was quite opposite to that of the peace loving Arawaks. They were a fierce, warlike people who conquered the Arawaks in order to steal their possessions. Those who were killed during the "battles" were eaten. The remaining males were taken for future meals and the females were taken as concubines.

Mayans
By far the greatest civilization in Central America before the Spanish Conquest was the Maya. They were outstanding in many different ways. For example, they built magnificent cities with huge stone temples and pyramids. Yet they had no knowledge of the wheel or metal tools. The great Mayans developed an advanced system of writing,mathematics and astronomy, which they used to calculate an accurate calendar. The ancient Maya lived in a society where religion was part of their daily life. The cosmological beliefs of the Maya are not fully known, for the only direct source of knowledge comes from the sculptured, and painted representations from their ceremonie sites. However, it is known that they worshipped hundreds of different gods. According to Benson, the Maya people can be described as short and sturdily built, with broad heads and receding jaws. The ancient Mayans can be long remembered for their remarkable advances of the arts, science, and religion (The Mayan World). LOCATION The ancient Maya civilization occupied the eastern third of Mesoamerica, primarily the Yucatan Peninsula. The topography of the area greatly varied from volcanic mountains, which comprised the highlands in the South, to a porous limestone shelf, known as the Lowlands, in the central and northern regions. The southern portion of the Lowlands were covered by a rain forest with an average height of about 150 feet. Scattered savannas and swamps, or bajos, appeared sporadically, interrupting the dense forests. The northern Lowlands were also comprised of forests but they were drier than their southern counterparts, mainly growing small thorny trees. February to May was the dry season characterized by air that was intensely hot and uncomfortable. At this time of year, the fields had recently been cut and had to be burned in accordance with their slash and burn form of agriculture. The skies filled with a smoky grit, making the air even more unbearable until the rains came in late May to clear the murky atmosphere.

THE MAYAN CULTURE Contrary to popular beleif, the Mayan civilization was not one unified empire, but rather a multitude of separate entities with a common cultural background. Similar to the Greeks, they were religiously and artistically a nation, but politically sovereign states. As many as twenty such states existed on the Yucatan Peninsula, but although a woman has, on rare occasions, ascended to the ruling position, she has never acquired the title of 'mah kina'. MAYAN WRITING An elaborate system of writing was developed to record the transition of power through the generations. Maya writing was composed of recorded inscriptions on stone and wood and used within architecture. Folding tree books were made from fig tree bark and placed in royal tombs. Unfortunately, many of these books did not survive the humidity of the tropics or the invasion of the Spanish, who regarded the symbolic writing as the work of the devil. The priests followed the ruling class in importance and were instrumental in the recordings of history through the heiroglyphs. The two classes were closely linked and held a monopoly on learning, including

writing. The heiroglyphs were formed through a combination of different signs which represented either whole words or single syllables. The information could be conveyed through inscriptions alone, but it was usually combined with pictures showing action to facilitate comprehension. POLITICAL ORGANISATION In both the priesthood and the ruling class, nepotism was apparently the prevailing system under which new members were chosen. Primogeniture was the form under which new kings were chosen as the king passed down his position to his son. After the birth of a heir, the kings performed a blood sacrifice by drawing blood from his own body as an offering to his ancestors. A human sacrifice was then offered at the time of a new king's installation in office. To be a king, one must have taken a captive in a war and that person is then used as the victim in his accession ceremony. This ritual is the most important of a king's life as it is the point at which he inherits the position as head of the lineage and leader of the city. The religious explanation that upheld the institution of kingship asserted that Maya rulers were necessary for continuance of the Universe. MAYAN ART The art of the Maya, as with every civilization, is a reflection of their lifestyle and culture. The art was composed of delineation and painting upon paper and plaster, carvings in wood and stone, clay and stucco models, and terra cotta figurines from molds. The technical process of metal working was also highly developed but as the resources were scarce, they only created ornaments in this media. Many of the great programs of Maya art, inscriptions, and architecture were commissioned by Mayan kings to memorialize themselves and ensure their place in history. The prevailing subject of their art is not anonymous priests and unnamed gods but rather men and women of power that serve to recreate the history of the people. The works are a reflection of the society and its interaction with surrounding people. One of the greatest shows of Mayan artistic ability and culture is the hieroglyphic stairway located at Copan. The stairway is an iconographical complex composed of statues, figures, and ramps in addition to the central stairway which together port ray many elements of Mayan society. An alter is present as well as many pictorial references of sacrifice and their gods. More importantly than all the imagery captured with in this monument, however, is the history of the royal descent depicted in the heiroglyphs and various statues. The figurine of a seated captive is also representative of Mayan society as it depicts someone in the process of a bloodletting ceremony, which included the accession to kingship. This figure is of high rank as depicted by his expensive earrings and intricately woven hip cloth. The rope collar which would usually mark this man as a captive, reveals that he is involved in a bloodletting rite. His genitals are exposed as he is just about to draw blood for the ceremony. In the Indian communities, as it was with their Mayan ancestors, the basic staple diet is corn. The clothing worn is as it was in the past. It is relatively easy to determine the village in which the clothing was made by the the type of embroidery, color, design and shape. Mayan dialects of Qhuche, Cakchiquel, Kekchi, and Mam are still spoken today, although the majority of Indians also speak Spanish. MAYAN ADVANCES IN SCIENCE The Mayans were an advanced group of people who made many advancements in math and astronomy, which they used to calculate an accurate calendar. The Maya came up with an advanced calendric system. First, they came up with a calendar that consisted of 260 days each with a specific name and symbol. The days were numbered 1 to 13 and since there are 20 day names, after the 13 day count the next day is numbered 1 again. Secondly, the Maya also had a calendar that tracked a solar year of 365 days. This calendar contained months that are given names, and these names also had symbols. There were 18 months that were given names, and these months were composed of 20 days as their previous calendar. In each year was a special five day month called Wayet. These five days had no names and

were considered unlucky. The Maya used special glyphs to indicate time periods. MAYAN NUMERIC SYSTEM Ancient Maya discovered two fundamental ideas in mathematics: positional value and the concept of zero. This feat was accomplished by only one other great culture of antiquity, the Hindu. But they did it 300 years or so after the Maya. These two elements, positional value and zero, might be considered simple and basic concepts nowadays. In fact, they are, and that is precisely what set them apart as a distinct stroke of genius. Greek and Romans, with all the force of their spirit and all the strength of their institutions, did not manage to find these principles. Just try to write down a large number using the Roman notation to see how important are the notions of positional value and zero. The Maya system is based on the number 20, not on the number 10 as our own. This means that the Maya counted from zero to nineteen before they had to move to the next order, instead of using 10 digits, from zero to nine, as we do. Perhaps they employed fingers and toes to keep the count. In a decimal system the positional value is met as soon as we reach beyond number nine. A one followed by a zero is a ten. In the Maya system, a one followed by a zero equals twenty. Our numeric system employs ten symbols to represent each one of the digits. Maya numerals were written with only three symbols: a dot for one; a line, which is a five, and the glyph of a sea shell to represent zero. In that way,