Haiti Histoire: Tainos Origins and Culture

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The Archaeological findings suggest that human beings have migrated to the American continent between 6000 and 10.000 BC. These dates are different from those suggested by the findings in the Caribbean region.

Apparently the migration to the Caribbean Island was not done primarily but secondarily after settling on the main land in North America, Central America and the Northern region of South America..

Archaeological carbon dating placed the arrival of the first human in the Caribbean region between 3.500 and 4000 BC. Caribe/Taino believed they evolved from caves or from the earth.

The Earth Mother or goddess of fertility, Atabei, is mother of Yucahu Bagua Marocoti, the Caribe/Taino

"supreme" or absolute being who has no father and no beginning.

Arawak/Tainos were the most predominant group of Native Americans originally inhabiting an area that stretched from present-day Florida down through the islands of the West Indies and the coastal area of South America as far as southern Brazil.

The Arawaks were the first natives of the Americas encountered by Columbus
It is traditionally believed that most of the Arawak tribes have been extinct for several hundred years.

This broad picture of extinction seems to fit mainly the history of the Tainos of Hispagnola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic) and Cuba but not necessarily of Boriken (Puerto Rico) and of the southern Caribbean islands that are near South America.

In Puerto Rico, the Tainos have apparently survived and are organized today in a tribal nation called the Jatibonicu Tribal Nation of Boriken.

This nation is governed by a council headed by a chief.

Some 30,000 Arawak live in Guyana.

A smaller numbers is found in Surinam and in French Guiana.

Even in the two islands/countries(Cuba and Haiti/Domican Rep.) that one can take as models for the Tainos extinction picture, the persistence of certain key eléments of the Tainos culture has stimulated some recent attempts to find some living Tainos groups.

In Haiti, the existence of one Tainos group could be traced to Cacique Henri who fought a victorious guerilla war against the Spaniards, gained his freedom and the right to live with his followers in the Bahoruco mountains which are now part of the South East Department of Haiti.

The name of the town associated with this piece of Tainos history is Anse à Pitres.

It is near Jacmel.

In Cuba, some groups of people of Taino descent.have been identified through antropologic research.

However, those pockets of survivors do not make the broader picture of the near extinction obsolete because one cannot negate the fact that there was a very rapid decline of the Arawak population of the West Indies.

It fell from a probable 2 to 3 million to a few thousands by the early 16th century.

By the end of that century, island Arawak were in fact nearly extinct.

The main element governing this catastrophic mortality rate was the arrival of Columbus and the Spaniards.

For the Arawak/Tainos, the Spanish conquest was an ecological, political and sociological disaster.

Aside of the pressure exerted on them by the destruction of social structures, the disruption of their food supply, slavery, Spanish brutality and massacres that followed each revolt, the Arawaks had to face the European diseases for whom they were not immunologically prepared.

The Arawaks were part of the global native American population and as every native American they had no previous contact with the pathogens that came from Europe with the Spanish.

They lost the biological and political war against the European.

By comparison, the Blacks slaves that came from the west coast of Africa have been in contact with most of the European disease and even came with new one, such as yellow fever, that killed lots of European in the Caribbean.

Before the Spanish conquest, the large-island ecosystems, offering bountiful harvests and abundant fish, combined with the compact and stable island populations, permitted the development of an elaborate political and social structure.

A class of hereditary chiefs ruled three other classes, the lowest of which was composed of slaves.

Conflict between classes was apparently minimal.

In this matrilineal society, rulers were succeeded by their eldest sister's eldest son. Religion offered a hierarchy of deities parallel to the social structure.

The Tainos worship God named ZEMI. Taino Arawakan-speaking groups are widespread in lots of parts of South America.

The Spanish massacred and burned the Tainos in Ayiti in groups of 13 to honor Jesus and the 12 Apostles.

They massacred entire Taino villages while looking for gold. One massacre claimed the lives of 9,000 thousand Tainos one day. The reported gift of a Gold crown from the Cacique Guacanagaric brought about the demise of the Tainos, for gold became the Spaniards God.
Taino struggles part 1 /La cultura taína /Christophe Colomb à genoux


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1p7O2UUG0Y

Lionne, March 19 2008, 4:55 PM

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