Indigenous Survival Day: Forgetting Myths of Extinction

The Lucayan: The Indigenous people Christopher Columbus could not annihilate

October 14, 2019

The Lucayan did not know it was Oct. 12, 1492. They did not know that their island, in what would become the Bahamas, had been spotted by Spanish explorers led by a Genoese man named Christopher Columbus. And they did not know that in less than 30 years, their island would be empty from the coming genocide. As Columbus and his men approached, the Lucayans greeted them warmly, offering food and water, and “we understood that they had asked us if we had come from heaven,” he wrote in his journal. Then he added, “With 50 men they can all be subjugated and made to do what is required of them.”

As the article progresses, it makes the observation that the previously dominant histories of Indigenous extinction in the Caribbean have now completely fallen apart, citing some of the latest research on the prevalence of Indigenous DNA in the contemporary Caribbean. The article takes us to the following reports:

TAÍNO: 'EXTINCT' INDIGENOUS AMERICANS NEVER ACTUALLY DISAPPEARED, ANCIENT TOOTH REVEALS
February 20, 2019

The tooth-derived genome is the first concrete genetic evidence that Taíno ancestry survives to this day. Scientists compared the ancient Bahamian genome to those of contemporary Puerto Ricans and discovered they were more closely related to the Taíno than to any other indigenous group in the Americas. This is likely to also be true of other Caribbean communities, the researchers said. 

Lead author Eske Willerslev, who has posts at both the University of Cambridge, U.K., and the University of Copenhagen, said in a statement: "It has always been clear that people in the Caribbean have Native American ancestry, but because the region has such a complex history of migration, it was difficult to prove whether this was specifically indigenous to the Caribbean, until now."

The study's other lead author, Hannes Schroeder from the University of Copenhagen, called the finding fascinating. 

"Many history books will tell you that the indigenous population of the Caribbean was all but wiped out, but people who self-identify as Taíno have always argued for continuity," he said in a statement. "Now we know they were right all along: there has been some form of genetic continuity in the Caribbean." 

Jorge Estevez, a Taíno descendent working at the National Museum of the American Indian in New York, assisted the project team. "I wish my grandmother were alive today so that I could confirm to her what she already knew," he said. "It shows that the true story is one of assimilation, certainly, but not total extinction."

Study identifies traces of indigenous 'Taino' in present-day Caribbean populations
February 19, 2018

A thousand-year-old tooth has provided genetic evidence that the so-called "Taíno", the first indigenous Americans to feel the full impact of European colonisation after Columbus arrived in the New World, still have living descendants in the Caribbean today. 

Researchers were able to use the tooth of a woman found in a cave on the island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas to sequence the first complete ancient human genome from the Caribbean. The woman lived at some point between the 8th and 10th centuries, at least 500 years before Columbus made landfall in the Bahamas. 

The results provide unprecedented insights into the genetic makeup of the Taíno - a label commonly used to describe the indigenous people of that region. This includes the first clear evidence that there has been some degree of continuity between the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean and contemporary communities living in the region today. 

Such a link had previously been suggested by other studies based on modern DNA. None of these, however, was able to draw on an ancient genome. The new research finally provides concrete proof that indigenous ancestry in the region has survived to the present day.

Origins and genetic legacies of the Caribbean Taino
March 6, 2018

The Caribbean was one of the last parts of the Americas to be settled by humans, but how and when the islands were first occupied remains a matter of debate. Ancient DNA can help answering these questions, but the work has been hampered by poor DNA preservation. We report the genome sequence of a 1,000-year-old Lucayan Taino individual recovered from the site of Preacher’s Cave in the Bahamas. We sequenced her genome to 12.4-fold coverage and show that she is genetically most closely related to present-day Arawakan speakers from northern South America, suggesting that the ancestors of the Lucayans originated there. Further, we find no evidence for recent inbreeding or isolation in the ancient genome, suggesting that the Lucayans had a relatively large effective population size. Finally, we show that the native American components in some present-day Caribbean genomes are closely related to the ancient Taino, demonstrating an element of continuity between precontact populations and present-day Latino populations in the Caribbean.

Educating Gabriel Haslip-Viera

We are publishing this response, in part to counter the unprofessional reviews to which Gabriel Haslip-Viera has taken to writing (with the now usual distortions on his part, a signature of what emerges as a a pattern of sloppy thinking, overweening prejudice and poor scholarship that must embarrass his colleagues and students), and in order to feature an exciting and important new book by Tony Castanha that helps to clean up some of the damage done to Caribbean studies by the perpetuation of colonial dogmas of "Indigenous extinction":

The Myth of Indigenous Caribbean Extinction

Continuity and Reclamation in Borikén (Puerto Rico)

My Response to Gabriel Haslip-Viera’s Review of 

The Myth of Indigenous Caribbean Extinction: Continuity and Reclamation in Borikén (Puerto Rico) 

Tony Castanha 

Dear Editor: Guatiao.

I am writing to express my concern regarding a review published in your journal last year (CENTRO Journal 24(1): 192–7, 2012). The reviewer’s name is Gabriel Haslip-Viera, and the book reviewed is titled, The Myth of Indigenous Caribbean Extinction: Continuity and Reclamation in Borikén (Puerto Rico) (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). I would not normally comment on a book review, but because this one directly targets my own work and is unprofessionally done, I feel compelled to.

I am choosing to reply back, not so much because of the content, arguments, and opinions of the reviewer, which are mainly spurious as touched on below, but because Haslip-Viera misquotes, misrepresents, and thus takes my work out of context throughout the review. When it comes to contemporary material on the indigenous Caribbean, the reviewer is well known by some as a scholar who belittles and degrades any mention of native survival and continuity. He has contempt for descendants who rightfully chose to self-identify with their indigenous past and ancestors. When writing the book I was well aware of the controversial nature of the subject matter, the possible scrutiny it could invoke, and polemic neocolonial scholars like Haslip-Viera, or those who continue to uphold colonial ideologies within a supposed post-colonial era. What I did not expect was that my work and interviewees would be continually misquoted, misrepresented, and taken out of context. This is unacceptable.

For instance, on the bottom of page 196, he misquotes an interviewee by deleting the word “indio” and inserting in its place the name “Taíno.” He misrepresents her because this is not a term she used or meant to say. Her family and others throughout mountain and rural regions of Puerto Rico have little conception of this name because it was introduced from outside of their communities and is not a part of family histories. The name “Taíno” is also not an accurate word to describe indigenous Caribbean peoples of the northern Antilles as it was never used by inhabitants as a term of self-ascription, at least prior to its nineteenth-century anthropological invention. 

Haslip-Viera misquotes another interviewee by again inserting the same word where it was not said or meant to be said: “We (the Taíno) were a great empire” (p. 194). Is this scholarship? That sentence is not written anywhere in the book. He further should have known to use brackets instead of parenthesis when inserting words within quotations. In the Preface of my book, I provide an in-depth explanation of the terms used and how I arrived at using them. I personally do not use the word at all in the book except when it is cited or quoted by someone else. Haslip-Viera chooses to ignore this, thus misrepresenting the intent of my work in the process. (See other misquoted or incorrectly quoted sentences in the review on page 193 [second and fourth paragraphs and at the bottom of the page], page 194 [number 3 in the middle], page 197 [at the top], and use of incorrect page numbers on the bottom of page 193).

The reviewer also inserts whenever possible the fanciful name “Taíno revivalists,” basically placing myself and my interviewees into a misguided stereotype. He is enamored to using this term because he is apparently the one who coined it in order to be able to conveniently mock the subject. His edited book, Taíno Revival (1999), elevates the name and concept in a largely demeaning way. This is demonstrated by titles such as “Making Indians Out of Blacks: The Revitalization of Taíno Identity in Contemporary Puerto Rico” and “The Indians are coming! The Indians are coming!: The Taíno and Puerto Rican Identity.” Most of the material in the book essentially minimizes a modern-day indigenous presence and continues to perpetuate the extinction of “real” indigenous Caribbean peoples. This falls right in line with an almost five hundred year precedence of writing the original peoples of the region out of the history books. Much of the content of this work can only be seen as an orientalist neocolonial roasting.

My book has nothing to do with “revivalists.” Many of the sources used came out before the creation of such a term and a so-called “Taíno revival movement” popularized by Haslip-Viera and others. As I note, addressing past and present issues related to Western imperialism in Borikén are vital to the book. “As the oldest colony in the hemisphere, Puerto Rico fits this description and model quite well. Therefore, this is a very serious matter. It is not a depiction of a ‘romanticized’ past but of a people struggling right now under Puerto Rican criollo [elite] and American ‘gringo’ domination and control” (Castanha, p. xii). Many of my interviewees are hard-working, respected members of their communities. A number of them are elders. So when Haslip-Viera trivially puts the name in quotations (“elders”), he displays an utter disdain for those who are most knowledgeable about the past and shows how far removed he is from understanding the subject matter of my book. Should such a reviewer be taken seriously?

Another way he misrepresents my work is by mentioning how I rely on “journalistic sources,” in addition to academic ones. This is ridiculous. I cite three or four newspaper sources in the entire book. His real argument is with Stan Steiner’s book, The Islands: The Worlds of the Puerto Ricans, which is a scholarly narrative that is sufficiently cited with an assay of sources used. Haslip-Viera conveniently labels him a “journalist,” assuming one cannot engage in different forms of writing. This would logically make María Teresa Babín, who co-edited a book with Steiner, a petty journalist too. Steiner actually wore many hats. He was a historian, journalist, consultant, and taught extensively at the university level. He authored many books over the course of his career. The comment the reviewer makes about whether or not Steiner “actually believed” there were still indigenous peoples on the island when writing the book is beside the point. The abundance of evidence he provides for a contemporary Indian presence is clear and supports my thesis. This is a good reason evidencing how and why scholarship is done—to arrive at an understanding or dialectic of important and controversial issues through a variety of sources.

What is interesting about the arguments and opinions Haslip-Viera brings out is how most of them are addressed in the book, often in detail, despite his assertions to the contrary. For instance, since I don’t quote to his satisfaction a passage from Steiner about African slavery and influences in Puerto Rico, a “major claim” is “undermined” (p. 195). In fact, I go to considerable lengths to explain and discuss these issues in numerous places, including ethnic intermarriage and integration, but one would have to read the book to really know this. As examples, I write, “Accordingly, this book is not meant to disparage the African element of our heritage, which has been influential and strong . . .”; “African slaves also often fled, alone or in groups, into the forests and mountainous interior.”; and “The African presence and influence in Borikén has been significant ever since” [the late 1520s and 1530s] (p. 6, pp. 69–70). I acknowledge African, Spanish, and other influences, but Haslip-Viera’s review blankets this and gives the impression that history is frozen in time and that only so-called “pure blooded” Indian people really count. This is, not surprisingly, his central argument for upholding the entrenched notion of Caribbean Indian extinction.

The reviewer writes that the title of my book is inappropriate “because pure-blooded Taínos (100 percent Amerindian mix) became extinct probably by the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century as survivors mixed biologically and culturally with Spaniards, Africans, and others who came to Puerto Rico in the succeeding decades and centuries” (p. 193). Firstly, the time frame for this “extinction” is conjecture based on self-serving colonial Spanish accounts. Moreover, it is an anachronistic statement based on the discredited social Darwinian concept of “survival of the fittest” as applied to humans, where “pure” identities were thought to have the best chance of survival. As Richard Grounds explains, “Rather than being a statement of fact or representing a scholarly analysis, the language of extinction is an expression of a social idea. This is the language of social Darwinism” (in Grounds, Tinker and Wilkins, eds., 2003: 302). Haslip-Viera’s statement infers that any human being on the face of the earth who is not “100 percent” pure is extinct, which is of course absurd. “Racial purity” has long been biologically proven to be a scientific abstraction. I go in-depth in examining issues and processes of active and passive resistance, cultural survival, adaptation, absorption and continuity, and convoluted notions of “purity” to show how indigenous Caribbean peoples, particularly the Jíbaro of Puerto Rico, are present today. This process has been similar to the survival and continuity of many recognized indigenous groups around the world.

In closing, maintaining theories of extinction and the issue of identity go hand-in-hand. Using “racial purity” and “blood quantum” to determine “extinction” is reductionist, racist, and a denial of one’s human right to self-identification. Continuing to erase the presence of a people invariably denies them this right. It is thus hard to believe that any scholar in the twenty-first century would be taken seriously for rationalizing such a thesis that denies a people’s existence and has been so damaging to countless numbers of peoples throughout history. Therefore all that is left to do now is to publish this rebuttal letter in your journal so your readers can judge for themselves the accuracy of the review and merits of all the arguments presented.

I Am Taíno: Exploring the Indigenous Roots Throughout the Caribbean.

I Am Taíno: Exploring the Indigenous Roots Throughout the Caribbean.
Michelle Tirado | Indian Country | April 04, 2013

Extinguished. Vanished. Wiped out. These are just some of the words historians have used to describe the fate of the Taíno, the indigenous group that greeted the Spanish when they first set foot in the Americas in 1492. Even dictionaries define them as an “extinct Arawakan Indian tribe of the West Indies.” But try telling the growing number of people living in the Caribbean—Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Puerto Rico and other islands—as well as the United States mainland who identify themselves as Taíno that they no longer exist.

Frank Bosch Jr., identifies himself as Taíno. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York—with the accent to prove it—he is outraged over what he believes are lies in most mainstream history textbooks. “My ancestors are being labeled as dinosaurs—[the] museums and texts are wrong,” he says.

For most of his childhood, Bosch had no real awareness of his indigenous roots. All he knew was that he was Puerto Rican. But there were other traditions that were always present in his household, like the Santería that his grandmother practiced. A mixture of African, Indian and Spanish religious beliefs and practices, Santería is, he says, a form of voodoo. “She had little figurines, rocks with chalk written on it and stuff like that in the closets. There are two sides. They say one is good, and one is bad,” he says. A devout Catholic, Bosch says he was frightened by what his grandmother was doing.

When he was 16, after being asked “Where you from?” one too many times, Bosch decided to learn more about his Puerto Rican heritage, and he discovered it was a blend of three groups: African, Spanish and Taíno. He read every book, article or study he could get his hands on. One of the most significant works was a mitochondrial DNA study conducted in the early 2000s by Juan Martínez Cruzado, a genetics professor at the University of Puerto Rico, which found that nearly 62 percent of Puerto Ricans are Amerindian. Now 30, Bosch, a UPS worker, photographer and competitive bodybuilder, continues his quest, which will soon have him taking a sample of his DNA to be tested. He says he just wants confirmation and to pinpoint where the bloodlines are.

“You know about the Puerto Rican Parade in New York? It’s a tremendous parade—almost 100 blocks long—and a ton of Puerto Ricans come out, millions,” Bosch says. “They don’t even know their history.”

That history has been told by Irving Rouse in his book, The Taínos: Rise and Decline of the People Who Greeted Columbus. He says the Taíno people—whose ancestral origins have been traced back to the Guianas, the Orinoco Valley and Amazonia in South America—emerged in the West Indies in the latter part of the first millennium a.d. and reached their heyday at around 1200 A.D. Those who welcomed the Spaniards used the word Taíno, which translates to good or noble. This was not to identify the name of their race but to explain who they were not—their neighbors inhabiting the Windward Islands, the fierce Island-Caribs. They had different names for themselves: in Puerto Rico, for example, they were the Borinquen (also Boriken), and in the Bahamas, the Lucaya. Theirs was a society of villages ruled by a cacique (chief) and regional chiefdoms and that thrived on an economy based primarily on agriculture—growing such crops as cassava, sweet potato, beans and peppers—along with fishing.

The Taíno population and way of life deteriorated rapidly following the arrival of the Europeans. The men were forced away from their farms and into the gold mines, where, brutally overworked, many perished. There was starvation, and the lethal diseases the Spanish brought with them, including a small pox outbreak in 1519, and rebellions against the colonizers. The Taíno were further diminished by suicide, interbreeding with Spanish people and slaves brought in from Africa and other Caribbean islands, and by flight. When Columbus arrived, chroniclers of the day estimated they numbered more than 1 million on Hispaniola and Puerto Rico alone. “By 1524 they had ceased to exist as a separate population group,” writes Rouse.

Roberto Borrero identifies himself as Taíno. Named by Taíno community members Mukaro (translates to “Owl”), he grew up in New York City’s Spanish Harlem. He says he was more fortunate than most other inner-city kids in that his parents—who were born in Puerto Rico—started bringing him to the island and exposing him to his indigenous heritage at a young age. However, he stresses, there was never a focus on being Taíno. It wasn’t denied, but it wasn’t explored. “When my mother mentioned our Native heritage,’ he says, “for me, as a young kid in the city, it didn’t feel real because the only images I was getting of indigenous identity were from TV, and that was cowboys and Indians, and we didn’t look like that. We didn’t live in tipis. We didn’t ride horses. Who really wanted to be associated with that—they always seemed to be losing on TV.”

As Mukaro matured, he began to appreciate his Indian ancestry, the agricultural heritage of his father’s family, who lived on the island’s southwestern coast; the Native creation stories his uncle recited; his mother’s traditional cooking style, like the pasteles made from yucca; and the fermented drink made from tree bark that sat in the window sill of his family’s apartment when his grandfather visited them.

Mukaro’s interest in his Taíno background blossomed in high school. He recalls a history class that covered Columbus, the Aztecs and Mayans, without as much as a footnote on the Taíno. “I’m like, Wait a minute! Don’t we have a part in this story? Didn’t he meet our people first? At least that’s what I heard in my family. When I approached teachers on this, they said, ‘Oh, no. These people were wiped out.’ ” [I wondered], How could they be wiped out when I am here?”

Mukaro blames the disparity in the way history is taught in school—how the Taíno people have been dismissed—on who has, for the most part, told that history: the victors or the conquerors. There are not many books on Taíno history written from the Indian perspective, which he believes has added to the confusion in its own communities.

For Mukaro, now president of the United Confederation of Taíno People, a group devoted to promoting and protecting the human rights, cultural heritage and spiritual traditions of Taíno and other Caribbean Indigenous Peoples, there is no confusion. There is nothing to debate. The Taíno, he says, “never ceased to exist.”

Evidence of their survival can be found in the West Indies, where a few communities have held onto their Taíno heritage. Mukaro says they are located in undeveloped, mountainous areas in Cuba and the Dominican Republic. The same can be said of Puerto Rico before all of the development and industrialization. “Operation Bootstrap in the 1940s kind of pushed people out of these rural areas so it could be developed,” Mukaro explains. “Many of these folks were coming from this rural heritage, from this heritage that retained many of the Taíno traditions. So, they brought a lot of that with them to the urban areas.”

There is also proof in the movement of people reclaiming their Taíno identity. José Barreiro, assistant director for research and director of the Office of Latin America at the National Museum of the American Indian, identifies himself as Taíno. He was born and raised in Cuba, and moved with his parents to the United States in his teen years. He says the movement started in force in the early to mid 1980s and exploded with the birth of the Internet. His Taíno, a novel that recounts the life of a historical character, Guaikán, a Taíno, who as a boy is taken to Spain and adopted by Columbus after his first voyage and returns to the islands to serve as the navigator’s interpreter, was scooped up by the Taíno rediscovery wave when it was released in hardcover in 1993 (it was published in paperback in 2012).

“The identity itself has picked up a lot of strength,” Barreiro says. “Among our people, we are seeing families reuniting around these ideas.”

Just as exciting is a recent thrust by scholars to explore the survival of the Taíno. The national museum, for instance, has a project under way in conjunction with other museums and institutions in the contiguous United States and the Caribbean to explore Caribbean indigenous cultures, with a focus on the Taíno. Over the past two years, it hosted two workshops to explore sustaining cultural elements, such as language, tools, the construction of homes, medicine, identity and the various enclaves of Taínos in the Caribbean. Barreiro said the research will culminate in an exhibition at some point in 2015 or 2016.

"TAINO" a Novel by Jose Barreiro.

Uploaded by Alex Zacarias on Mar 26, 2013

"Writer José Barreiro shares insights and his personal journey in the making of "TAINO" a novel. This novel, based on a true story, penetrates the historical veil that still enshrines the "discovery."

"Written" by Guaikán, the elderly Taino man who, in his youth, was adopted by Christopher Columbus and saw history unfold, "TAINO" is the Indian chronicle of the American encounter, the Native view on Columbus and what happened in the Caribbean.

"Presently a senior fellow at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, José Barreiro is a novelist, essayist, and an activist of nearly four decades on American indigenous hemispheric themes. Barreiro is a member of the Taino Nation of the Antilles.

"Smithsonian Forums on the Living Indigenous Legacies of the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico."

Introduction to the Smithsonian Taino Symposium, August 2011

  Uploaded by eliudbonilla on Dec 29, 2011

"José Barreiro, director of the Office of Latin America at the National Museum of the American Indian, introduces the participants of the Smithsonian Latino Center's "Beyond Extinction: Consciousness of Taíno & Caribbean Indigeneity" symposium on August 26, 2011.

"Text from the invitation: This symposium features scholars on Taíno and Caribbean indigenous themes who will discuss the survival of Taíno language, identity, and material culture in contemporary Caribbean consciousness.

"Participants include archaeologist Osvaldo García Goyco, historian Alejandro Hartmann Matos, and biologist Juan Carlos Martínez Cruzado. Roberto Borrero, president, United Confederation of Taíno People, will serve as respondent. Moderated by José Barreiro, director of the Office of Latin America at the National Museum of the American Indian.

"This program is organized by the National Museum of the American Indian and the Smithsonian Latino Center and is supported by the Consortium for World Cultures, Smithsonian Institution."

Lost Taíno Tribe: Movie Trailer

Alex Zacarias has been working over the course of the last few years in documenting the Taíno resurgence on video, producing numerous important videos along the way, and even launching a large and bustling Taíno social network around the broader film project. It is a massive, collaborative project, and what follows is the latest trailer.

Especially poignant are the words of Roberto Mucaro Borrero, of the United Confederation of Taíno People (UCTP), who explains that in a context of erasure, of a formalized genocide where governments and academics have written the Taíno out of existence, simply announcing oneself as Taíno is itself as a political act.

Beyond Extinction: Consciousness of Taíno and Caribbean Indigeneity

Symposium - Beyond Extinction: Consciousness of Taíno and Caribbean Indigeneity

Friday, August 26, 2011, 2:30 – 4:30 PM

American Indian Museum

Event Location 4018, 4th level
Washington DC

Webcast: http://americanindian.si.edu/webcasts/

Cost: Free

Moderated by the museum's assistant director for research José Barreiro, this symposium features scholars Sergio Bernal, Juan Martínez-Cruzado, Cristián Martínez Villanueva, and Lynne Guitar, who discuss the survival of the Taíno language, identity, and material culture in contemporary Caribbean consciousness.

Solidarity between the Kalinago of Dominica and the Taíno of Puerto Rico

The video below, from Alex Zacarias, features the Chief of the Dominica Carib/Kalinago Territory meeting with members of the United Confederation of Taíno People, and speaking about international indigenous solidarity, activism, organization, and unity.

Taino Awards

New York, New York (UCTP Taino News) http://uctp.blogspot.com/ - A diverse group of Taino community members gathered on Saturday, 24 April to support the second annual “Taino Awards.” The event was held at the Nuyorican Poets Café and it was presented by the KuKarey Spiritual Circle and Yamocuno Tanama Yucayeke Taino organizations.

Hosted by Caridad "Kachianao" de la Luz, the awards celebrated individuals “who unselfishly give of themselves everyday to the Taino community.” The awards recognized educators, artists, humanitarians, youth, elders and other community members.

The 2010 award recipients included Vanessa Inarunikia Pastrana, Roman Perez, Carlos Rivera, Jose Munoz Vazquez, Mildred Cruz, Miguel Sobaoko Koromo Sague, Enrique Correa, Casa Atabex Ache, Edwin Cedeno, Taino Almestica, Francisco Baerga, Luis Ramos, Joe Kaonabo Garcia, Dalia Viera, and Roberto Mukaro Agueibana Borrero.

http://uctp.blogspot.com/

Indigenous Day of Remembrance

Indigenous Day of Remembrance

Sunday, October 11 2009, 1:00pm - 5:00pm

Memorial Service

Host: NYC Indigenous Community and beyond

Sunday, October 11, 2009
1:00pm - 5:00pm

Merchants Gate in Central Park
(across from Columbus Circle- 60st. & Broadway)

Manhattan, NY

*This event is endorsed by;
The United Confederation of Taino People
and
The Bohio Atabei Caribbean Indigenous Women's Circle

Location: Merchants Gate in Central Park (across from Columbus Circle- 60st. & Broadway) Manhattan, NY

Contact: 6464065916 or iukibuel@yahoo. com

From the Offices of the UCTP

Should the US continue to honor Columbus Day?

Takahi (Greetings):

It is my hope that you are all well and in good spirit. I was recently alerted to a website that has a online poll entitled "Should the US continue to honor Columbus Day?"

Currently, the YES column is winning by about a hundred votes. As some of you may be aware, the United Confederation of Taino People (UCTP) has long protested this U.S. federal holiday. With this in mind, and on behalf of the UCTP, I encourage you to take part in this online poll and record your opinion.

You can find the poll at: http://www.helium. com/debates/ 102346-should- the-us-continue- to-honor- columbus- day

I am also providing a link to an article I wrote on this subject in 2007. It deals with this subject from a Taino perspective.

You can find the article at:
http://uctp. blogspot. com/2007/ 10/opinion- columbus- day-celebrates. html

I look forward to your thoughts.

Oma bahari, nabori'daka
(With respect, I am at your service),
Mukaro Agueibana (Roberto Borrero),
President, UCTP-OIRRC

Archeologists, Environmentalists, & Indigenous Taino Oppose Law

San Juan, Boriken (UCTP Taino News) - The Puerto Rican Senate and House of Representatives are deliberating on the approval of revised Permit Law Projects that opponents state would endanger the Caribbean island's environmental and archeological patrimony. Local archeologists, environmentalists, and indigenous Taino groups are calling on the government to abandon this process involving Permit Law Projects No. 880 in the Senate and No. 1649 in the House of Representatives.

The Permit Law Projects are being touted as much needed initiatives that would to re-structure and expedite construction permits on the island. As noted by several public statements made by those opposed to the projects, the proposed legislation would nullify current legalprotections for environmental and archaeological resources while favoring development with little oversight.

"This proposed policy would also regulate `public' participation in these processes to an informal position" stated Naniki Reyes Ocasio, a local Taino community leader. Reyes Ocasio continued stating "This permit law proposal is a violation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, an international human rights law standard that calls for prior and informed consent."

A demonstration calling on the government to abandon the current Permit Law
Projects will be held tomorrow, Friday June 5 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The event will begin at 11am at "Puente Dos Hermanos" in the Condado area where Ashford Avenue ends and leads into Old San Juan. For more information on the demonstration contact "Coalición Todo Puerto Rico Por Puerto Rico" at 787-274-8087, 787-502-0194 or bsantiago@alianzase iu.org.UCTPTN 06.04.2009Source: http://www.uctp. org/

First Taino-Jibaro Festival and First Artisan-Cultural Fair of Guayaney

This news, kindly sent to me by Dr. Carlalynne Melendez of the Liga Guakia Taina-ke, a not-for-profit cultural conservation and ecological protection organization. The first news, with blogs marking the event, involves the first Taino-Jibaro Festival of Guayaney, held this past May. See:

http://primerfestivalguayaney.blogspot.com/
and
http://masfotosfestival.blogspot.com/

The main objective of that Festival was to unite the communities of that region and to create community networks.

The second news concerns an important and exciting upcoming event, with an interest in expanding its participation to indigenous peoples from across the Caribbean. The Liga is currently organizing the First Artisan-Cultural Fair of Guayaney (December 5,6,7 2008). Those interested should contact Dr. Melendez at lynemelendez@yahoo.com.

Finally, the Liga also has a radio program: Guakia Inkayeke Ahiyaka (Our Community Speaks), transmitted by Radio Walo in Humacao. You can listen to the program online at: http://www.waloradio.com/portal/ or at http://ahiyaka.blogspot.com/. The program airs each Sunday at 9:30am (Puerto Rico Time).

I AM REVOLUTION...TAINO SOY! by Axel Garcia

From a poetic exchange on the Indigenous Caribbean Network, reproduced with the permission of the author, Axel Garcia

•••••••

I am revolution.....Being born "Spic" in an alabaster complexion.

My Grandfather couldn't see beyond my green eyes, so it was my skin I grew to despise. But "Papi", hold me, speak to me, tell me about "La Isla" with its swaying palm trees. Tell me bout Don Pedro, sing to me Ramito, dime de los esclavos.

Cause I, Papa, have been searching an eternity of years it seems, to understand the visions in my dreams; of a Taino reaching out his arms, trying to warn me of the harms....That Amerikkka and its democracy, will blind us with its glorious "Land of the free" ....

What price did you pay, Papa, if at my hue, the whiteness of my being, tu rechasa?

I am the victim of "O beautiful with gracious skies", while another of my kind dies! But don't put that on the radio or the TV, there is no room between the weather forecast, the Mets and the Yankees....

You see I am the revolution, as each day I fight, when in the mirror my enemy stares back with might. And yes Papa, I've scarred my skin with my flag tattooed again and again, so when the day comes of the concrete revolution, my "pale" body will lie next to all my fellow Puerto Ricans!!!

And Abuelo, when you see me again, I will be covered in the souls of my Indians....

POR QUE TAINO SOY!!!!

Mami & Papi: This is Not a Puerto Rican Obituary, by tainoray

From a poetic exchange on the Indigenous Caribbean Network, reproduced with the permission of the author, tainoray:

MAMI & PAPI

For many of us Puerto Ricans our parents' childhood was very poor.

Boriken to them was hunger.

Access to a proper education was difficult.

They didn't come to America for a vacation, they came for a better way of life.

When they came here a lot of cheap jobs were waiting for them.

They worked the kitchens, swept the floors, served the food

Sound familiar???

They worked 40 hours for 20 hours pay if they were lucky

"Mucho trabajo, poco dinero," they said

They lived in rat and roach infested buildings but at least they had a roof over their head

Food in their bellies

They played the numbers looking for that pie in the sky

When they came hear nobody ever heard of Puerto Rico

They called them Spics, Wetbacks

They whistled at our mothers they new they were fine

They tried to beat up our fathers until they learned they could fight

They never complained

They never went anywhere

They told us to go to school and become somebody

They took us to the Villas and the Puerto Rican Day Parade

They kicked the St. Patricks Parade to the curb

They fed us rice and beans, pasteles & lechon on Holidays

All that good stuff

And to La Iglesia on sundays

They taught us their culture

They came home tired

We inherited the slums, many paid the price

But we are still here

I'm just trying to tell their story with this soliloquy

God bless them

This is not a Puerto Rican Obituary

Caribbean Artist Roy Lawaetz at the Florence Biennale: Taino Inspiration

Roy Lawaetz, whose Modular Trinagular System was featured in The CAC Review in 2002, recently exhibited his work at the Florence Biennale.

Featured in Florence, his “Global Warming Series” assimilates pre-Columbian tribal beliefs to highlight a modern day topic. As presented in his brochure for the exhibition, his work is inspired by the Taino zemi or “spirit stone” and in this series his works refer to indigenous Caribbean people who were not polluters but rather worshippers of nature. The Taino Indians practiced a belief model recognizing Nature Deities such as weather gods.

In his interactive piece “Atabey, Fertility Goddess”, this artwork dramatically presents global temperature shifts in innovative display. The melting phenomenon posed by climate crisis is shown in uncompromising terms with virtual dripping water from ice inside a cone. As in Eugene Ionesco’s absurd play where mushrooms spring up all over, it is as if global warming with a melting ice pack has drifted so far as to affect the artist’s own canvas. The artist technically demonstrates how the triangle motif of the zemi stone can be removed from its archaeological categories for re-emphasis on modern day environmental concerns. By focusing on the fertility beliefs of the Taino he reconstructs and re-invents to provide a pictorial modern day narrative that draws from their old cultural heritage practices. The Taino’s own belief that certain zemies could provide adequate water and the good things in life is combined in Atabey, Fertility Goddess. This interactive presentation succeeds in blending modern day technology and ancient tribal belief with the artist’s
own environmental irony.

For more, please see his lavishly beautiful brochure at:

http://www.centrelink.org/lawaetz.pdf

See also:

http://www.manhattanarts.com:80/Gallery/RoyLawaetz.htm

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The Lost Fort of Columbus...and the Tainos of Today

From an article appearing in the History & Archaeology section of The Smithsonian Magazine for January 2008, by France Maclean:

And then there's Clark Moore, a 65-year-old construction contractor from Washington State. Moore has spent the winter months of the past 27 years in Haiti and has located more than 980 former Indian sites. "Clark is the most important thing to have happened to Haitian archaeology in the last two decades," says [archaeologist Kathleen] Deagan. "He researches, publishes, goes places no one has ever been before. He's nothing short of miraculous."

(...)

In 1980, Moore showed some of his artifacts to the foremost archaeologist of the Caribbean, Irving Rouse, a professor at Yale. "It was clear Clark was very focused, and once he had an idea, he could follow through," Rouse recalled to me. "Plus he was able to do certain things, such as getting around Haiti, speaking Creole to the locals and dealing with the bureaucracy, better than anyone else." Moore became Rouse's man in Haiti, and Rouse became Moore's most distinguished mentor.

(...)

One night, when Moore was entertaining friends at his harborside cinder-block house in Cap-HaÔtien—he lives there with his wife, Pat, a nurse from Nebraska with 16 years' service in Haiti's rural clinics—the conversation turned to the fate of the Taino. "The Taino really weren't all wiped out," Moore said. "There are groups in New York, Puerto Rico and Cuba who call themselves the descendants. They're reviving the language and ceremonies and want the world to know 'Hey, we're still here.'"

"The descendants in Haiti are secretive," a visiting archaeologist chimed in.

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Taíno Curricula: A World of Opportunity

To satisfy NYS core curriculum standards for Social Studies in The Western Hemisphere: Latin America, the 5th grade classes I am working with discuss Taíno culture as a way to chronologically kick off their year-long investigation of Hispaniola. But the cultures, geographies, and histories of the Taino people are so strong and varied that it's easy to imagine a Taíno investigation as part of a Global Communities curriculum, or a point of comparison for studying other indigenous "American" cultures in an early American history unit.

The more I talk with Taíno cultural experts around the city, the more I hear echoes of the same sentiment: it's awfully exciting to find out that Taíno culture is increasingly becoming a part of the curriculum in New York City public schools! The people I've worked with so far - from museum educators to performing artists - have all been warm and genuinely enthusiastic about introducing students to the richness of pre-Columbian Taíno culture. The Taíno Indians, before Columbus, inhabited much of the Caribbean including the Bahamas, present-day Puerto Rico, and Hispaniola. I get the sense that the community in New York is close-knit - people sharing similar interests and a passion for shining light on notoriously underrepresented indigenous peoples. Connecting with that community is an educator's dream. One person refers you to another, and soon enough a bevy of cultural resources seem to appear. The Voice of the Taino People blog is a vibrant living document that compiles news and cultural events relating to Taíno peoples in the Caribbean and the Diaspora.

And the Taíno legacy is so alive in New York City today! To so many students of Caribbean descent (and there are many in New York's schools), a Taíno artifact is not just a dusty museum relic but something with familial, personal significance. Maybe a student recognizes that wooden device from his grandmother's kitchen. Another realizes that the music she grew up listening to in 21st century Brooklyn actually pre-dates Columbus, and the instruments are, miraculously, the same. On a recent trip to the National Museum of the American Indian (also raved about by my co-blogger Margot), I was tickled to see so many students recognizing traditional Taíno artifacts as household goods. This surprising bridge, between contemporary life in Brooklyn and indigenous daily life on Hispaniola, would not have come nearly as alive without our full investigation of Taíno culture.

Posted by Evan O'Connell on November 28, 2007 at 08:24 PM
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/2309096/23756390

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INDIGENOUS POLITICS: FROM NATIVE NEW ENGLAND AND BEYOND

TUESDAYS from 4-5pm (EST)

"INDIGENOUS POLITICS: FROM NATIVE NEW ENGLAND AND BEYOND"
WESU (88.1 FM), Middletown, CT

LISTEN ONLINE LIVE from WESU website:
www.wesufm.org

~~
On Tuesday, October 23rd, join your host, Dr. J. Kehaulani Kauanui for a look at the politics of Taino identity. The Tainos are the indigenous inhabitants of the Caribbean Islands. When Columbus landed at Hispaniola while trying to find an alternative route to India, he named the inhabitants "Indians." Today, many Taino-identified Caribbean people are challenging the official doctrine that has declared the Tainos extinct.

Listen to Dr. Marianela Medrano-Marra's lecture, "The Divine Feminine in the Taino Tradition," which was delivered at the Yale Peabody Museum on Indigenous Peoples Day, October 8, 2007. This program also features an interview with Jorge Estevez, Taino from Kiskeya (also known as the Dominican Republic), and Valerie Nana Ture Vargas, Taino from Boriken (also known as Puerto Rico) on the politics of Columbus Day and indigenous identities.

___________

Vodou Child

Vodou Child
Haitian religious rites in the unlikeliest of places: a Long Island suburb
by Tamara Lush
September 4th, 2007

Chantal Louis is a 42-year-old Haitian immigrant who lives in suburban Hempstead in Nassau County. She's a mother of three, a computer technician, and flashes a megawatt smile. She lives in a white, two-story, colonial home graced by dainty lace curtains in the windows and a white wicker chair on the porch. The home, which is worth $420,000, sits on a tidy, oak-tree-lined street.

Lately, she's been a bit depressed—her eldest daughter is heading off to college, and Chantal is wondering what her own future holds. Most women at her age and station in life would pop a Prozac or take a yoga class. Instead, she turned to a 36-year-old vodou priest named Erol Josué.

So one night in July, Josué traveled from his home in Miami to New York, where he gathered a half-dozen or so other vodou practitioners—including a paralegal, an accountant, and a hospital worker. All were well-heeled Haitian- Americans—the kind of people who might work next to you in an office or perhaps coach your kid in a baseball league. Their mission: appeal to the spirits to remedy Louis's ennui.

For seven hours, starting at about 10 p.m., they spoke in tongues, danced, spilled high-octane rum onto a machete, lit the blade on fire, and held it aloft. The next day, they would bless a chicken, kill it, then eat the flesh as thanksgiving to the spirits.

Though vodou got its start in West Africa, then spread into the mountains of Haiti, and later to the slums of Miami and New York, it has increasingly made its way into well-appointed homes like Chantal's. And who better to bring it than Josué, a world traveler, choreographer, and artist who released his first CD of vodou-tinged global-beat tunes, Régléman, to critical acclaim this summer.

"Wherever I go, I go with Haiti, because my way of life is vodou—my music, my dance, I go with that because it is in my heart," he says. "My heart is Haiti. I live the Haitian life every day."

Erol's stepfather was a well-known vodou priest (called a houngan), and so were his mother and grandmother. "When you come from a vodou family, you're a very different child," says Carol d'Lynch, a Miami priestess originally from Haiti. She knew Erol during his boyhood. "As a vodou child, you know your responsibility, you know what is important, you know the things coming in life."

For Haitians, vodou is not just the stuff of dolls with pins stuck in their eyes or zombies wandering in the forest. The centuries-old religion has permeated Haiti for generations, after it was carried by slaves from West Africa to the Caribbean starting in the 1700s. On the island of Hispaniola, which includes Haiti and the Dominican Republic, those transplanted Africans mingled with the Taino Indians, who were also persecuted by European occupiers. Vodou evolved from the three cultures and played a huge role in Haiti's liberation from France. In 1751, a houngan named François Mackandal organized other slaves to raid sugar and coffee plantations. The French burned him at the stake. Another former slave and vodou practitioner replaced him at the helm of the liberation movement: Toussaint L'Ouverture , whose efforts helped Haiti win its independence in 1804.

In the years that followed, vodou became a mystical, powerful tool of the government and a cultural touchstone for the masses. Haitian immigrants brought it with them to the United States. For the young Erol, vodou meant family, nature, and love. "It was the best thing in my life," he recalls.

Though a large percentage of Haitians, like Erol's family, practiced vodou in the '70s and '80s, it was still officially discouraged by the government and the Catholic Church. Because Erol's family wanted him to receive a decent education, they sent him to Frére Justin L'Herisson, a Catholic school in Haiti named after the man who wrote the country's national anthem—but his mom and dad forbade him from talking about the vodou practiced at home. "I would have gotten kicked out had they known," he says.

Like Erol, Chantal grew up in Haiti. Unlike Erol, she didn't discover her vodou roots until she had emigrated to the United States in her twenties, had children, and began to question her existence. "I needed something to hold onto," she says. She met Erol in New York at a friend's ceremony and felt a connection to him. Chantal rarely hosts ceremonies; this is only her second since she began practicing vodou.

By 10 p.m., the small group is ready. There are six women in their forties, all dressed in white, including Florence Jean-Joseph, a paralegal at a law firm and a voudou priestess herself. There's also Huguette, who works in a hospital, and one man other than Erol: 39-year-old Ernest Jourdain, an accountant from Fort Lauderdale. He's a friend of Erol's who happened to be visiting the New York area on the night of the ceremony. Jourdain is the only person not dressed in white; he's wearing a lime-green Izod shirt and jeans.

Josué, who is tired after a delayed plane flight from Miami, is dressed in a silky white shirt and white pants. He steadies himself and begins the liturgy. He closes his eyes and sings, his voice rising into a rhythmic chant. The sound is directed to the people in the room, but the lyrics are meant for the spirits. Huguette shakes a brightly painted gourd and Florence sings and the women clap and sway in time with Erol's voice. Ernest sits on a white plastic chair in the back of the room, following the music and praying softly to himself.

One by one, Erol and the others greet the spirits. Each supernatural being receives a similar ritual: a song, an offering (usually of rum or some other liquid), a lit candle. Everyone kneels on the floor at least once during the greeting.

Occasionally, Erol dances with one or two of the women—he dances the most with Florence, whom he calls his "spiritual sister." It's a sensual dance, but not sexy. The rituals are nothing like Hollywood's version of vodou—no pentagrams, animal sacrifices, skeletons, or zombies in sight. There's actually a lot of laughter and easygoing banter during the ceremony; it's a loose atmosphere, with people getting up, walking out, using the bathroom, or sipping water throughout.

Chantal is the most moved by the ceremony and the prayer. At around midnight, she cries as she sings. Her tears and words turn to high-pitched babble—she is speaking in tongues. She faints into the arms of Florence Jean-Joseph and Huguette. Erol gently, yet quickly, walks over to help ease Chantal onto the floor and then covers her with a white sheet. Florence sprays perfume into the air. The room now smells like roses, sweat, and fried fish. Chantal rises, then staggers into a small room off the main basement area, where she flops down on a bed for 15 minutes, exhausted. At around 1 a.m., Chantal is back before the altar. Another spirit possesses her—it's Damballah, the snake god. At first, Chantal careens around the room, as if drunk, out of control. Then she falls to the floor, writhing, belly down, contorting her body and rolling her eyes back into her skull. She hisses in time with Erol's chanting. After a few minutes, Chantal rolls over on her back and faints. Erol again covers her, tenderly. When she comes to about a minute later, she gets up and walks out of the room, groggy, as if rising from a deep sleep. When Chantal walks in a few moments later, she asks if anyone wants coffee, and if so, would they like cream or sugar.

At 4:30 a.m., Erol ties a red scarf on his head, a striking contrast to his all-white outfit and caramel-colored skin. He is singing loud, summoning Ogou, the warrior god who also represents politics and magic. It is believed that he gave power to the slaves in Haiti when they rebelled against the French government in 1804, and bestowed power again when Aristide took over in 1994. Ogou likes weapons and chaos.

In front of the altar, the woman named Huguette sits on the floor, her arms floppy and her legs stretched out in front of her like a Raggedy Ann doll. She's dressed all in white, her satiny skirt billowing around her ample hips, with a white scarf tied around her head. Her face is soaked with sweat and her eyes are half-closed, in a trance. She holds an avocado in her hands. She takes a giant, sloppy bite of the fruit, skin and all.

Chantal, her eyes round and unfocused, slowly steps to the altar. She takes hold of the machete that has been sitting on the offering table. Erol removes the red scarf from his head and ties it around the knife's handle. He sways and sings, his voice rising above the low hum of the others who are having their own private conversations with the spirit. Erol summons Ogou in Creole and Chantal steps to the altar. Still clutching the machete, she takes a bottle of Barbancourt rum with the other hand and pours half of it over her head, then carefully kneels down. Setting the machete on the floor over two rocks, she pours the rum on the two-inch-wide blade and reaches toward the altar for a pack of matches. Chantal strikes one, then ignites the alcohol-soaked blade; there's a soft blue flicker. She chants, and the words get louder as she jumps up and tries to stamp out the flame with her bare feet. In one motion, Chantal stands up, grabbing the machete by the handle and brandishing it above her head. She screams, angry, her eyes wide and clear.

Chantal's 18-year-old daughter, a slip of a girl with her mother's wide smile who is soon going to college in upstate New York, appears at the doorway to watch. She had been sitting in front of the widescreen upstairs in the family room but heard the noise and wandered down. Dressed like a typical teenager—she's in a pink Baby Phat tank top and tiny shorts—the girl looks like a time traveler, strangely modern compared to the women in long, billowing skirts. Chantal screams, loud, and the room suddenly feels uncomfortably small and crowded. The other five women stand before the altar, swaying in unison and singing. They don't pay attention to Chantal or the machete that she's clutching in both hands.

The other women in the room push the daughter forward, in front of her mother holding the machete. Chantal takes the blade and touches her daughter, gently, on each shoulder, almost as if she's knighting the girl. Chantal looks deep into her daughter's eyes while chanting in Creole.

It's almost 5 a.m., and Erol has also been seized by Ogou, but Ogou the dealmaker, the politician, the organizer. His face is confident, masculine, hard—so different from the tender, almost maternal look that he had when he was helping Chantal a few hours earlier. Then he slips out of the spell.

He gulps a mouthful of rum and blows it around the room in a large, misty spray. He walks over to Chantal, swigs some rum, and sprays some on her. She is holding the machete in front of her, its blade inches from her face. Without a word, Erol calmly takes the machete from her hand and passes it to a woman standing nearby. He embraces Chantal, and she, too, slips out of the trance. The room is quiet. There is more singing—in soft voices now—and a few candles are lit. The ceremony is over. Erol is physically drained. The spirits have come and gone.

It is 5:30 a.m. The oak-tree-lined street in Hempstead is beginning to stir; lights illuminate windows and people in suits walk to the cars parked in their driveways to begin their commute to work.

Erol and the others from the basement go outside and stand on the lawn. Erol jokes and chats softly with Florence, while Huguette and the other women shake the fabric of their skirts and cool off in the