Talking Taino: Caribbean Natural History from a Native Perspective

17. Caves (2006)

17 Caves THE ISLAND [Hispaniola] has a section called Caonao in which there is a mountain called Cauta and it has two caves, Cacibajagua, CAVE OF THE JAGUA, and Amayaúna, CAVE WITHOUT IMPORTANCE. From Cacibajagua came most of the people who inhabit the island. —Ramón Pané, 1496; translated by Antonio Stevens-Arroyo (1988) The first physical evidence for the native peoples who inhabited the Bahama archipelago was discovered in caves. When Julian Granberry wrote the first summary of Lucayan archaeology in 1956, he noted that 45 of the known sites were in caves and only 16 were in open-air settings. All but one of those 16 open-air sites was in the Caicos Islands. Today, there are about 111 cave sites and almost 400 open-air sites recorded for the Bahama archipelago. The early discovery of cave sites resulted not only from the Taínos fascination with caves, but also from the extensive excavations of cave earth (bat guano) for use as fertilizer in the nineteenth century. During these excavations, pottery, exotic stone cemís, human burials, wooden objects (including fishhooks, bowls, and carved chiefs’ chairs or stools called duhos) were recovered and petroglyphs (engraved images) and pictographs (painted images) have been observed throughout the Caribbean.TheTaíno word for cave was xaweye. Although they may have used them as shelter from severe storms, the Taínos did not live in caves. The materials observed and recovered from caves indicate a far more spiritual association; one that is reflected in part in the epigraph concerning their mythology. Caves are common in the karst (limestone) landforms found throughout the Caribbean . They occur in two forms. Sea caves have formed where wave action has undercut rocky cliffs and bluffs along the shore. Due to their proximity to the sea theTaínos used very few of these caves. Of greater importance were caves in the interior ridges of the islands formed through the dissolution of the bedrock, usually beginning along fault lines in the rock where acidic rainwater easily dissolves the Caves / 95 limestone. These caves typically have two components: vertical sections created by the downward flow of rainwater, and horizontal sections created by the flow of underground streams.The highest rate of dissolution occurs on the margins where underlying salt water mixes with the overlying freshwater lens, creating what geologists call “flank margin caves.” In these caves, rounded tunnels are spaces that once were completely filled with water, while triangular and rectangular tunnels result from streams running across the floor. Caverns are large openings where several tunnels meet. They often have very high ceilings with substantial amounts of collapsed rock from the roof lying on the floor and multiple openings in the ceiling. Lakes (xara) can occur where the depth of the cave reaches the water table.The longest explored underwater cave system in The Bahamas is Lucayan Cavern on Grand Bahama Island with passages extending for more than five miles. In the Turks & Caicos Islands, the most spectacular cavern is Conch Bar Cave on Middle Caicos. There is nothing quite like being deep in a cave and turning off your flashlight to be surrounded by complete and utter darkness, duck-walking through a low and narrow chamber as thousands of bats rush past you to escape your approaching light, or entering an interior chamber with the floor alive with scurrying cockroaches and cave crickets. The Taínos used caves as sanctuaries for ritual purposes. Taíno cosmology recognizes three main divisions: a sky world, the land world of living people, and the world of subterranean waters. Caves were the portals to the subterranean world. As the myth at the beginning of this chapter tells us, the Taínos believed that all humans shared a common origin. However, only the origin of the Taínos was considered important.They had emerged from Cacibajagua (Cave of the Jagua), a reference to the jagua tree, whose edible fruit produces a black vegetable dye used for body painting. In contrast, the Cave of Amayaúna is translated as the “cave without TAÍNO WORD TRANSLATION Duho Chief’s chair/stool Xaweye Cave Xara Lake Xawei Sinkhole Potiza Ceramic water bottle Haba Basket Makuto Deep basket Macana War club 96 / Chapter 17 importance.” Apparently, theTaínos are the one true people who emerged from the sacred cave, while the rest of humanity came from some place of no importance! The importance...