Talking Taino: Caribbean Natural History from a Native Perspective

3. Sharks and Rays (2003)

3 Sharks and Rays When the Spanish invaded the Americas, they quite literally landed in a New World. Like Dorothy in Oz, exotic and unknown peoples, plants, and animals surrounded them, and they struggled to find the words to describe them. One can imagine the Spanish pointing at various things and asking, “¿Como se dice? (What is it called?).” As with all languages, when an object or idea is new, the native term is frequently adopted. Granberry and Vescelius’s studies have shown that the people in the Lucayan Islands spoke the Taíno language. As the Lucayan Taínos were related to the Taínos of the Greater Antilles, Taíno outposts or colonies occurred in the southernmost Lucayan Islands. Outposts have been identified in the Turks & Caicos Islands on Grand Turk (occupied from the eighth through the thirteenth centuries) and on Middle Caicos (occupied during the fifteenth century). Luis Hernández Aquino scoured more than 150 sources dealing with the initial contact period in the West Indies to compile a dictionary of Taíno words. The second edition of his dictionary of indigenous, mostlyTaíno, words was published in 1977.The book is a fascinating portal to the world of theTaínos. As might be expected, most of the words are names for people and places or for plants and animals. Clearly, the dictionary is biased toward people and things the Spanish deemed worthy of mention, and although the dictionary focuses on Puerto Rico, many of the words can be applied to plants and animals across the Caribbean. Each of these essays discusses a different aspect of theTaíno’s natural world. We 22 / Chapter 3 incorporate as much of the Taíno language as possible in describing these landscapes . Along the way, you might also learn to speak a little Taíno. TheTaínos, and especially the LucayanTaínos, were maritime peoples. Not only were their villages located on the coast, they also consumed large quantities of fish and shellfish. In fact, one way to read the Taíno origin myth is: “In the beginning, God created fish” (see chapter 9). With all of the time they spent in and on the water , it is not surprising that the most dangerous and most exotic animals attracted their attention. The Taínos had at least four words for sharks, and they recognized both the bottom-dwelling southern stingray (libuza) and the elegant spotted eagle ray (chucho). The remains of sharks and rays are found in virtually every archaeological site in the region. Many of the bones of sharks and rays are made of cartilage , which do not preserve in archaeological sites. However, the vertebrae and teeth of sharks are commonly preserved, as are the vertebrae and barbed spine located at the base of a stingray’s tail and the grinding plates in the mouth of a spotted eagle ray (see plate 4). Southern stingrays played an important role in theTaíno economy by providing the source material for speartips used both in hunting and fishing and in warfare. Columbus reported that the Taíno tipped their spears with “the tooth of a fish.” It is likely that what Columbus was describing was the spine that tips the stingray’s tail. These barbed spines have been recovered in archaeological deposits and some show evidence for use, including shaped bases for hafting and dulled ends of the points. Stingray-spine tipped spears and arrows also were used as weapons. At the Maisabel site on the north coast of Puerto Rico, Dr. Peter Siegel (1992) excavated a human burial in which the individual had a stingray spine lodged in his rib cage, a wound that apparently caused his death. A final, and quite remarkable, use of the southern stingray involved its skin. The Spanish reported “a large saltwater fish whose dark skin used to be used by the Indians over a rock, due to its roughness, in order to scratch cassava and to TAÍNO WORD TRANSLATION Libuza Southern stingray Chucho Spotted eagle ray Hagueta Small shark Carite Tiger shark Cajaya Bull shark Caconeta Shark Cacona Reward Sharks and Rays / 23 produce a very fine farina with which they used to make the best round cakes of cassava”(Oviedo 1526). Some stingray species have a row of placoid scales running along the midline of the back, which could be used to “scratch” the manioc to a fine pulp. Sharks...