Talking Taino: Caribbean Natural History from a Native Perspective

1. The Spanish Translation (2003)

1 The Spanish Translation The real voyage of discovery consists not in finding new lands but in seeing with new eyes. —Marcel Proust Christopher Columbus is a provocative character. His is not the biography of an ordinary man; his is the story of a symbol whose fortunes have crested and fallen over the past five centuries. He went from the first successful transatlantic voyage, to a penniless death in 1506, to heroic status as a symbol for the United States as it emerged on the world stage with the Columbian Exposition in Chicago (1893), to the murderer of all native peoples during the Columbus Quincentenary. Who says history is dead? Columbus achieved legendary status thanks to a largely fictional biography published by Washington Irving in 1892. Washington Irving is best known for his stories of Rip Van Winkle and the headless horseman (“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow ”). Contrary to Irving’s assertions, Queen Isabel didn’t hock her jewels, there were not two logs of the voyage, the crew did not threaten mutiny, and “landfall” was not made on October 12(it was made on the eleventh). Just about everything else Irving wrote about the first voyage are half-truths and postures. When you’re creating a hero, you can’t let the truth get in your way. Another aspect of this story that is equally inaccurate is the portrayal of the native people who met Columbus. Much of the history of these peoples is based on what Columbus wrote about them. Imagine if someone who didn’t understand your language or culture (and who never met “you,” but knew his ways were far superior to yours) wrote about you—and five hundred years later everyone still believed him! Remember also that in describing this New World, Columbus was try- 10 / Chapter 1 ing to convince his king and queen that these lands were of such abundance that the sovereigns should underwrite the cost of their exploitation and colonization. Columbus gave new names to many of the places he landed. For example, the Lucayan Islanders called the island where Columbus first landed Guanahaní, but Columbus called it San Salvador (which translates as “Holy Savior”).To make matters worse, Columbus asserted that the native peoples owed allegiance to the Spanish monarchs. Imagine how we would react today if a foreign power from across the ocean landed on our shores, gave our country a new name, and demanded that we change our system of government! All forms of communication must be interpreted in context. How do people who do not understand one another’s language communicate? How much credibility should be given to the written language in which such encounters were recorded ? Can we recognize the biases of the people who wrote the story and juxtapose these to the biases of the people they encountered? Can we read between the lines? So, what do we know about the native peoples of the West Indies that we learned from the early Spanish explorers? We do know that in some places they used the TAÍNO WORD TRANSLATION Taíno Noble or good person NiTaíno Elites or noble class Lucairi Island people Cayo Cay (or small island) Caico Outer or faraway island Ciboney Peoples of central Cuba Ciba Stone or stony Guanahatabey Peoples of western Cuba Guanahacabibe Small land of caves Cacicazgo Chiefdom Cacique Chief Caribe Strong or brave person Canoa Canoe Huracan Hurricane Hamaca Hammock Cemí Deity Barbacoa Barbecue The Spanish Translation / 11 word Taíno when greeting the Spanish.The word is translated as “noble” or “good,” and is the root of the word niTaíno, which was used in reference to the noble or elite class of Taíno society.Taíno has replaced the earlier term “Arawak” as the most commonly used name to identify the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the central Caribbean islands just before and at the time of European contact. In 1871, the American ethnologist Daniel Brinton suggested that we call these people “Island Arawaks.” After researching native West Indian words recorded by the Spanish, Brinton recognized that the Taíno spoke a language that belonged to the Arawakan family of languages common in South America. Because he understood that these people were different from the mainland Arawaks, Brinton included the prefix “Island” in his designation. Yet, over the years the prefix was dropped for simplicity. By the mid-1980s, archaeologists had realized that...