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Taino Indians Still Thrive in Cuba

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Bianca
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« Reply #15 on: February 27, 2008, 01:28:59 pm »



Huts have been reconstructed near the site as a heritage center.










                     Humble Brass Was Even Better Than Gold to a 16th-Century Tribe in Cuba





 Institute of Archaeology,
University College
London


By JENNIFER PINKOWSKI
Published: January 16, 2007

Because of its otherworldly brilliance, the 16th-century Taíno Indians of Cuba called it turey,
their word for the most luminous part of the sky.







Top:

One of only two gold pieces found in two dozen burial sites in the
Taíno village of El Chorro de Maíta, Cuba.

Bottom:

Lace tags found in Cuba.



They adored its sweet smell, its reddish hue, its exotic origins and its dazzling iridescence,
qualities that elevated it to the category of sacred materials known as guanín.

Local chieftains wore it in pendants and medallions to show their wealth, influence and
connection to the supernatural realm. Elite women and children were buried with it.

What was this treasured stuff? Humble brass — specifically, the lace tags and fasteners
from Spanish explorers’ shoes and clothes, for which the Taíno eagerly traded their local
gold.

A team of archaeologists from University College London and the Cuban Ministry of Science,
Technology and Environment came to these conclusions by analyzing small brass tubes
found in two dozen burial sites in the Taíno village of El Chorro de Maíta in northeastern
Cuba, according to a recent paper in The Journal of Archaeological Science.

The graves mostly date to the late 15th and early 16th centuries, when waves of gold-
hungry conquistadors landed on Caribbean shores. Within decades, the Taíno, like their
neighbors the Carib and the Arawak, were largely wiped out by genocide, slavery and
disease.

But the archaeologists say this is not the whole picture. Their research — the first syste-
matic study of metals from a Cuban archaeological site — focuses on one of the few indi-
genous settlements ever found that date from the period after the arrival of Europeans.
The scientists say the finds add important detail and nuance to a history of the Caribbean
long dominated by the first-person reportage of the Europeans themselves.

“It’s certainly true that the arrival of the Europeans was in the short term devastating,”
said Marcos Martinón-Torres of University College London, the project’s lead researcher.
“But instead of lumping the Taíno in all together as ‘the Indians of Cuba, who were elimi-
nated by the Spaniards,’ we’re trying to show they were people who made choices.

They had their own lives.

They decided to incorporate European goods into their value system.”



Brass first came to the Americas with Europeans.

While a few brass artifacts have been found elsewhere in the Caribbean, no one knows
when and how they were acquired. In contrast, El Chorro, first excavated in the
mid-1980s, is one of the best-preserved sites in Cuba, and its artifacts have a clear
archaeological context.

Training X-rays and microscopes on a half-dozen pendants, Dr. Martinón-Torres and
a Cuban archaeologist, Roberto Valcárcel Rojas, determined the metals’ bulk chemical
composition. It was a mixture of zinc and copper — the elements of brass.

They then used a scanning electron microscope to find the pendants’ unique geoche-
mical signature. All came from Nuremberg, Germany, a center of brass production since
the Middle Ages.

The few other metal artifacts from the cemetery — pendants made from a gold-copper
-silver alloy — probably came from Colombia, where the Taíno are thought to have origi-
nated. Only two tiny gold nuggets, of local origin, were found.

Sixteenth-century portraits in places like the Tate Gallery held further clues. Many sub-
jects wear bootlaces and bodices fastened with objects strikingly like those found in the
graves. Similar objects have been excavated from early colonial settlements, including
Havana and Jamestown, Va.

European accounts said the Taíno traded 200 pieces of gold for a single piece of guanín,
of which brass was the highest form. Yet the residents of El Chorro may not have con-
sidered the trade unfair, said Jago Cooper, a field director for the project. In fact, access
to European brass may have increased the power of local chieftains, hastening the trans-
ition from an egalitarian society to a hierarchical one.

The finds from El Chorro suggest that interaction between the Taíno and the Europeans
may have been more varied than once thought.

“Large European materials being incorporated into their culture, and exotic materials being
used to reflect Taíno beliefs — it’s new, important evidence for what was happening during
contact,” said William F. Keegan, an archaeologist at the University of Florida and the co-
editor of The Journal of Caribbean Archaeology, who was not involved in the research.
“There’s been a tendency to assume the Taínos quickly disappeared due to European dis-
eases and harsh treatment by the Spanish, but there’s increasing evidence that the culture
continued to be vibrant until the middle of the 16th century.”
« Last Edit: February 27, 2008, 02:08:01 pm by Bianca » Report Spam   Logged

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« Reply #16 on: February 27, 2008, 01:51:39 pm »









Some of that evidence comes from another site in Cuba:

Los Buchillones, a coastal settlement about 200 miles west of El Chorro de Maíta.

First excavated in 1998 by a Cuban-Canadian team, Los Buchillones is the site of the
only known intact Taíno house. In the last decade, continuing study of the site and
the surrounding region by Mr. Valcárcel Rojas and Mr. Cooper has revealed a commu-
nity with trade networks all over the Greater Antilles that survived into the Spanish
colonial period in the early 17th century.

Clearly, they would have known about Europeans’ presence, but chose to avoid con-
tact, unlike El Chorro’s chieftains. It may have kept them alive longer.



Tate Images

A 17th-century portrait of William Style
of Langley, England, shows him wearing
lace tags, above, and other accouter-
ments like those found in Cuba.


Together, the sites hint at an array of tactics not documented by the Europeans.
 “Most accounts seem to be based on the idea that Europeans ‘acted’ and Taíno
‘reacted,’ ” said Elizabeth Graham of University College London, who with her hus-
band, David Pendergast, first excavated Los Buchillones. “In the case of El Chorro
de Maíta, the Taíno were clearly being proactive.”

The finds at El Chorro also help to fill a hole in the study of the Caribbean past created
by Cuba’s political isolation. Archaeology of the island has been little known outside
of its borders since the 1959 revolution. Very few foreign archaeologists have dug
there, and the few field reports published by Cuban archaeologists, mostly trained
by Soviet scholars, are difficult to get outside the country.

In recent years, there have been efforts to bring Cuban archaeology out of the long
shadow cast by the 45-year-old United States sanctions. In 2005, the scholarly vo-
lume Dialogues in Cuban Archaeology assembled a dozen English-language reports in
one place. (In it is a paper Mr. Valcárcel Rojas co-wrote about El Chorro de Maíta.)
The relatively new Journal of Caribbean Archaeology currently has its first Cuban paper
in peer review.

For most American archaeologists, papers published by their international colleagues
are about as close as they are going to get to Cuba these days.

Since 2004, the Bush administration has greatly tightened restrictions on educational
travel to Cuba; programs under 10 weeks are now prohibited.

Last summer, Florida went a step further, banning public universities from spending
money on research in countries the State Department considers state sponsors of
terrorism, including Cuba. Both sets of regulations are being challenged in court.

Last spring, Mr. Valcárcel Rojas was denied a visa to attend the annual Society for
American Archaeology conference in Puerto Rico. Dr. Martinón-Torres and Mr. Cooper
presented the research — which received Cuba’s highest academic prize — without him.

Still, the British-Cuban team is seeking a three-year grant in hopes of uncovering the
trade and social networks that connected El Chorro’s inhabitants — in particular, the
effects of the brass-gold trade on those connections. And there is European behavior
to puzzle out, too.

“We would expect the Europeans to load up with brass in their cargos, but we haven’t
found that brass in Cuba,” Dr. Martinón-Torres said. “It’s possible it hasn’t been reco-
gnized by archaeologists. We expect if both sides were happy with this exchange, there
must be more evidence of it.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/16/science/16cuba.html
« Last Edit: February 27, 2008, 01:55:39 pm by Bianca » Report Spam   Logged

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« Reply #17 on: February 27, 2008, 02:01:47 pm »










                                                  Cuban Indians, Tau Natiaos






by Umfufu - last update: Mar 5, 2003
 
History


                                                       
Indian History





Near Guardelavaca is a place in the mountains where you can visit an Indian Village.

Story goes that a farmer digging for water to gives to his cows, came across some
bones. He burried it again and started to digg a few meter further. Again there were
a lot of bones. The confernement came and saw this was special. And is it. Some of
the bones of the Indian people are still left like they were found, other buried again
and some were taken for more information. From the things they found they made an
 Indian village like it must have been, and the graveyard is still there. The skeletons
were dug up, but left like they were found, so there is no damage been done to the
skeletons found in the aeria.

This picture shows you the possibility of how this Indians came in Cuba.
« Last Edit: February 27, 2008, 02:05:46 pm by Bianca » Report Spam   Logged

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« Reply #18 on: February 27, 2008, 02:09:26 pm »



Indian Chief







Let's smoke



The first site, a Taino village on the northern coast of Cuba now known as Los Buchillones,
has been protected from decay in a layer of clay at the bottom of a shallow lagoon.

Last May a Canadian-Cuban team discovered the nearly intact remains of a Taino dwelling
buried in the muck. It has since located the foundation of as many as 40 structures, most
likely a combination of communal buildings, outbuildings and single-family houses.



The site is so extensive, says David Pendergast of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, that

"There's no doubt that a regional chief would have been based there. It may have been one
of the Taino's major centers."
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« Reply #19 on: February 27, 2008, 02:14:25 pm »









Dad of the village



In the 16th century, Hatuey was a powerful Taino Cacique or chieftain, who has since
been considered by many as Cuba's first national hero, although he was originally from
the island of Quisqueya (Domincian Republic).

As a witness to the atrocities by the Spanish Conquistadors against his people and other
Taino communities throughout the island, Cacique Hatuey and his remaining followers fled
to Cuba to escape persecution and a death sentence imposed on them by the Spanish
Crown. After some success assisting in the Taino resistance in Cuba, Cacique Hatuey was
finally captured and sentenced to death.

His execution sentence: being burnt alive at the stake.
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« Reply #20 on: February 27, 2008, 02:17:42 pm »









Sick?



As a witness to the atrocities by the Spanish Conquistadors against his people and
other Taino communities throughout the island, Cacique Hatuey and his remaining
followers fled to Cuba to escape persecution and a death sentence imposed on
them by the Spanish Crown.

After some success assisting in the Taino resistance in Cuba, Cacique Hatuey was
finally captured and sentenced to death. His execution sentence: being burnt alive
at the stake.


How this story ended can be read

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/41/093.html
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« Reply #21 on: February 27, 2008, 02:21:27 pm »









The doctor



It may surprise many social scientists that, nestled in the mountains of the
Oriente region, (eastern Cuba), from Baracoa on the southern coast all the
way to the Pico Turquino, the highest mountain in Cuba, there are numerous
caserios, several barrios, and at least one community of more than a thousand
Indian people.

They were called Cubeños by Father Bartolome de Las Casas, who helped
some of their communities to survive, and are descendants of the original
Tainos who met Columbus.
« Last Edit: February 27, 2008, 02:24:06 pm by Bianca » Report Spam   Logged

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« Reply #22 on: February 27, 2008, 02:25:18 pm »









Good god



The existence of an Indian population and identity in Cuba was vehemently denied
for most of the twentieth century, primarily by the Cuban scholar Fernando Ortiz.

A liberal professor of Hispanic ancestry, Ortiz saw the question of Indian identity as
a ploy by the right wing to obfuscate black issues. Deeply conversant in all the social
sciences, Ortiz was limited by a Havana base and by a purist, "bell jar" anthropological
perspective of Indian-ness. This perspective maintains that American Indians cease
to be "real" Indians as they adapt Western tools and methods. Indian "cultures" are
assumed frozen at the moment of contact with "the West." Although he framed the
theme of "transculturation" in Cuban letters. Ortiz provided the tree of Cuban multi-
ethnicity with a strictly Ibero-African trunk.

The assertion became that all Cuban Indians, purportedly a weak and timid people,
were exterminated by 1550.
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« Reply #23 on: February 27, 2008, 02:31:11 pm »









Bad god

(doesnt like to be with his pic on site)



Oral history of Yateras Indians corroborates court records indicating that the Indian
caserios at Tiguabos and Palenque and Indian settlements in the San Andres valley
were dispossessed, farm by farm, during the nineteenth century.

Those Indian populations, many with the family names of Rojas and Ramirez, re-
settled in the more remote valley of Yateras and formed a community called Caridad
de los Indios. All along that valley of the Rio Toa and down to Baracoa and Yumuri,
and along the coast to Los Arados, in Punta Maisi, the families of Rojas and Ramirez,
as well as the Romeros, the Cobas, the Riveros, many of the Jimenez, Hernandez,
Veloz, and Cabrera, retain history, identity, and customs rooted in the Cuban Arawak
traditions, the old Taino homeland.


If you like to know more about the indians in the Cuba please have a look at this site:

www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/41/014.html
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« Reply #24 on: February 27, 2008, 02:32:56 pm »









Thinking



The word Taino meant "men of the good," and from most indications the Tainos were
good. The Taino's culture has been designated as "primitive" by western scholarship,
yet it prescribed a lifeway that strove to feed all the people, and a spirituality that
respected, in ceremony, most of their main animal and food sources, as well as the
natural forces like climate, season and weather.

The Taino lived respectfully in a bountiful place.
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« Reply #25 on: February 27, 2008, 02:36:08 pm »









Little baby



In 1511, Diego Velásquez sailed from Hispaniola (now the Dominican Republic) to
conquer and colonize Cuba.

Among his soldiers in that expedition was Hernán Cortés, who later conquered Mexico.

When he arrived in Cuba, Velásquez founded the island’s first Spanish settlement at Baracoa.


Meanwhile, reports from the Indians of Hispaniola reached Cuba. Hatuey, a Taíno chief,
had escaped in canoes with about four-hundred men, women and children, to warn the
Cubans about what to expect from the Spaniards. He explained the need to join against
their common enemy, the white men who had inflicted so much suffering on his people.


Go to this page to read more about the heroisme of <a href="http://www.historyofcuba.com/history/sidebar3.htm"target=new window">Hatuey</a>
and when you click on the year 1511 on the bottum of the page, you wil go to a timetable
where you can read the history of Cuba.
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« Reply #26 on: February 27, 2008, 02:41:02 pm »









Patatoes and veggies



The Timucuans and Apalachees were divided into numerous independent villages,
each with a leader.

An inter tribal dialect developed by traders united the tribes.

In the summer, the planting of maize, squash, and beans dominated village life,
while in the lean months of winter, hunting deer, turkey, and small game in the
forests became important.

Meat was smoked on open grills and stored in pine needle baskets or clay con-
tainers in tribal warehouses.
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« Reply #27 on: February 27, 2008, 02:46:35 pm »









Farmer

Ku Karey Spiritual Circle, Inc. is dedicated to maintaining Taino culture, its spirituality, and
language, as we connect with all indigenous people of the world.</>


<center><img src="http://www.kukarey.com/images/40_logokukarey.jpg">

<center><font color=darkorange size=-1><b>

The official logo of Ku Karey Spiritual Circle, Inc. is the symbol of the turtle signifying
spiritual food for thought, sustenance and strength.

The six circles representing the waters that purify the Sacred Turtle as it moves through
different oceans.

The waters signifying the six directions.

The outer triangles represent the ancestors of our culture.

The multiple colors represent the cultural diversity of the indigenous people of the world.

The center circle represents the Taino beliefs for an after life.

The large circle signifies Atabey (Mother Earth).

For more information about the real Taino culture go to their page just

http://www.kukarey.com/
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« Reply #28 on: February 27, 2008, 02:55:51 pm »



Ancient Pictures







Florida



It seems that the Arawak or Taino or Ciboney (three names for the same indian) Indian
were living in Cuba.

The first settlements were found in Florida (USA) and in Mexico.

You better enlarge this picture to see what this indian was looking like and where
he lived in Florida.

All on this page I have found on the internet, except the pictures most of them are
taken by me personally, if not then there is no name on the picture.

When possible I link to pages on the internet.
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« Reply #29 on: February 27, 2008, 03:05:10 pm »










What shall we do



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 ex-
perienced 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!)

Remeber the good and bad god I have showed you, well its call a Zemi.
Its a god in one piece, one site represent the good the other half the bad.



More stories about the Zemi and the life still of the Taino can be read at


http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/history/precolumbian/tainover.htm
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