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18. The Circulation of Chiefs’ Names, Women, and Cemís: Between the Greater and Lesser Antilles
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18 The Circulation of Chiefs’ Names, Women, and Cemís Between the Greater and Lesser Antilles One of the motivations for the circulation of cemí idols and other valuables, including guaízas, was to strengthen and reaffirm political-economic support among caciques in the Greater Antilles. Funerary feasts of deceased caciques provided one context in which cemí idols cycled from generation to generation and from chiefdom to chiefdom. Establishing political alliances also involved other parallel or complementary exchanges, of which three others (besides cemí idols) are important . First is the gift of guaízas; second is the exchange of women as brides.The last one involved pacts cemented through the exchange of names, or guaitiao, and where women could also, but not always, be exchanged. The four together—cemí idols, guaízas, chief names, and brides—form complementary exchange systems in a network of chiefly alliances. As Jalil Sued Badillo (1978:58–64; 2003:261) has aptly discussed, caciques in Hispaniola and Puerto Rico—at least at the time of the initial Spanish contact— were the only members of society identified by the Spanish chroniclers to be polygamous . Besides being a status marker, polygamy indeed was a useful political tool to extract and extend political alliances with neighboring foreign as well as subordinated caciques. Behechio, who in 1492 was arguably the most powerful cacique of Hispaniola, leading the Bainoa (Jaraguá) chiefdom, had thirty wives. He was already mentioned in connection with his funeral, involving the sacrificial interment of two of his wives. His rival and competitor, cacique Guacanagarí, ruler of the much smaller chiefdom around Marién, at one time had twenty wives (Sued Badillo 2003:261). Such polygamous households must have been potent units of social and economic production. Among other things, the chief’s household commanded large areas of agricultural production that generated staple wealth (see Moscoso 1989), which is the one thing the Spanish relied upon to literally feed the conquerors and hence supported the whole colonial enterprise in the Greater Antilles. Another mechanism to extend the network of political (and social) relations among caciques was through the ceremony of guaitiao, which, as noted earlier, includes the ritualized exchange of names between two parties. Sued Badillo (2003: 261) defined it as a “pact of eternal friendship between the caciques and those visitors that the caciques consider their equals.” Caciques also did more than decide on their own marriages. In extending their sphere of political alliances, the 158 Chapter 18 caciques also determined whom their female kindred (sisters, nieces, and daughters ) should marry. As Sued Badillo (2003:261) noted, it is not known with total certainty whether guaitiao automatically entailed marital exchanges, but I concur with him that there are strong indications that such exchanges were implemented, albeit probably not on every occasion. Guaitiao was no doubt an effective mechanism for widening the kinship network “when consanguinity did not offer enough resources to meet the demands of production” of the extended chiefly household, or activated when “political commitment or commitments of other kinds” required it (Sued Badillo 2003:261–262). A guaitiao pact, along with the offering of one of the cacique’s female kin, was precisely what cacique Agüeybana I did with Juan Ponce de León—whom he identified as his equal in rank and status—when he set foot in Boriquén, as we shall see later. If bridal exchanges were a means to extend political influence and alliances, these women were also the targets of political competition and a source for (or symptom of ) political tension that could lead to rupture and to war. According to Sued Badillo: Cacicazgos . . . held units of various social types in vassalage under them with ideological effects that were terribly confusing to the Spaniards. Intergroup discrimination such as that which occurred in the province of Guacayarima [southwestern Haiti, Figure 26] or with the Macorises [Macorix], the Cigüayos and Lucayos [natives of Bahamas], etc. were simply a reflection of the forced coexistence of groups that had historically been autonomous . It is possible that institutionalized violence represented in wars, or the raids carried out by caciques in order to kidnap women or steal other caciques ’ [cemí] idols, was resorted to in pursuance of these distinctions [Sued Badillo 2003:265]. Indeed, Sued Badillo (2003:265) cites the well-known example of kidnapping or killing women reported by Las Casas, Hernando Colón, and others in Hispaniola . The enmity and rivalry that existed between Guacanagarí, chief of the Marién chiefdom...