The New Old World

http://www.nmai.si.edu/exhibitions/the_new_old_world/

This is an online exhibit featuring Marisol Villanueva's photographic work titled "The New Old World" which was installed at the National Museum of the American Indian in New York City in 2003. This site is a new release of a previous site featuring the exhibition.

Venezuela Indigenous News: Barí Disenfranchisement, and a new Yanomami Language Manual

Barí People Left Without Land by Oil, Cattle, Coal
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41953
By Humberto Márquez

KUMANDA, Venezuela, Apr 11 (IPS) - For 900 years, Barí indigenous hunters roamed freely throughout a vast region in western Venezuela. "Now they want to sentence us to die by locking us up in this corral, watching the white man get rich by destroying the land that used to be ours," says schoolteacher Conrado Akambio.

The huts and multi-family dwellings of the 150 inhabitants of the community of Kumanda are scattered over a hectare of heat-drenched grassland along the banks of the Aricuizá River.

The walls of their homes are made from tree trunks, the floors are packed dirt or a few wooden planks, the roofs thatched palm leaves. Everything is bleached a pale dry grey by the blazing sun. Children run and play among a handful of chickens as the adults seek a shady spot to sit and talk about their plight.

"Our grandparents fought to defend our land, but they lost their fight to the oil companies, who sent in men with rifles. Our people took refuge in the mountains, and then the cattle farmers came in and grabbed this," said Ignacio Akambio, another member of the community.

"We can’t hunt anymore, because all the animals have disappeared, and we have nowhere to grow crops," he continued. "And so we eat corn flour bread or spaghetti, and we don’t live to be old-timers like before; instead we are sick all the time and only live to about 60." It is a harsh fate for the people that Sabaseba, the creator, plucked from the inside of pineapples, according to legend.

Anthropologist Lusbi Portillo, from the non-governmental organisation Homo et Natura, told IPS that "the crux of the Barí people’s problem is that between 1910 and 1960, they lost their land and were decimated by the advance of oil exploration, first, and then by the cattle farmers who occupied and cut down their forests in the flatlands and pushed them towards the unproductive land in the mountains."...continue reading

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New Compendium on Yanomami Language
http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=26404

By Humberto Márquez

CARACAS, Nov 23 (IPS) - When a Yanomami Indian dies, his or her name is not to be pronounced for some time, so as not to soil the memory of the deceased.

This may be a problem if, for example, someone is called Shoco, which is also the term for Tamanduá, an anteater that is common in the jungles of southern Venezuela and northern Brazil, where the Yanomami live.

However, the difficulty can easily be resolved thanks to the linguistic wealth of this indigenous group that has existed for over 25,000 years, a living testimony to the Neolithic era, the most recent period of the Stone Age.

There are several synonyms for the names of animals, and also of some plants. Therefore, ”aroto” means exactly the same as ”shoco”, and the community can use that word without violating the tradition that protects the deceased.

This explanation is provided by one of the 10,000 entries in the ”Compendio ilustrado de lengua y cultura yanomami” (”Illustrated Compendium of the Yanomami Language and Culture”), a book by French anthropologist and linguist Marie-Claude Mattéi that has just gone to print.

It is more than a mere dictionary, instead serving as an encyclopaedic manual that can be used in Yanomami schools and for outsiders studying the Yanomami language and culture.

After 15 years of research, ”we have concentrated our efforts on producing something more useful and rich in information than a simple dictionary -- a book that can support the didactic measures that the Venezuelan society and state have the obligation to undertake with respect to the indigenous communities,” Mattéi told IPS.

Venezuela's new constitution, which was approved by voters in 1999, dedicates an entire chapter to the rights of indigenous peoples, including ”the right to an intercultural and bilingual educational system that takes into account their special social and cultural characteristics, values and traditions.”...continue reading

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Facebook group on Indigenous Peoples of the Caribbean

For those who have an account in Facebook, you may be interested in viewing and joining this group:

YES, THERE ARE STILL INDIGENOUS PEOPLE IN THE CARIBBEAN
(http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2300195447)

The officer is Damon Gerard Corrie (President of the Pan Tribal Confederacy and Lokono Chief), and the Admin is Leilani Steuart at York University.

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BREAKING NEWS: LAKOTA NATION DECLARES INDEPENDENCE

It is rare that we have good news to offer readers, but this is potentially momentous, and we should all be vigilant that government authorities restrain themselves from using violence as a means of suppression as in the past. Also, it is to be hoped that as many indigenous organizations and nations as possible lend the weight of their recognition to Lakota nationhood. The news below is somewhat disjointed, cobbled together from a variety of sources.

We are a Sovereign Nation
A Declaration of Independence from the USA

By LAKOTA FREEDOM DELEGATION
Lakota Sioux Indian representatives declared sovereign nation status today in Washington D.C. following Monday's withdrawal from all previously signed treaties with the United States Government.

The withdrawal, hand delivered to Daniel Turner, Deputy Director of Public Liaison at the State Department, immediately and irrevocably ends all agreements between the Lakota Sioux Nation of Indians and the United States Government outlined in the 1851 and 1868 Treaties at Fort Laramie Wyoming.

"This is an historic day for our Lakota people," declared Russell Means, Itacan of Lakota. "United States colonial rule is at its end!" "Today is a historic day and our forefathers speak through us. Our Forefathers made the treaties in good faith with the sacred Canupa and with the knowledge of the Great Spirit," shared Garry Rowland from Wounded Knee. "They never honored the treaties, that's the reason we are here today."

The four member Lakota delegation traveled to Washington D.C. culminating years of internal discussion among treaty representatives of the various Lakota communities. Delegation members included well known activist and actor Russell Means, Women of All Red Nations (WARN) founder Phyllis Young, Oglala Lakota Strong Heart Society leader Duane Martin Sr., and Garry Rowland, Leader Chief Big Foot Riders. Means, Rowland, Martin Sr. were all members of the 1973 Wounded Knee takeover.

"In order to stop the continuous taking of our resources ñ people, land, water and children- we have no choice but to claim our own destiny," said Phyllis Young, a former Indigenous representative to the United Nations and representative from Standing Rock. Property ownership in thefive state area of Lakota now takes center stage. Parts of North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana have been illegally homesteaded for years despite knowledge of Lakota as predecessor sovereign [historic owner]. Lakota representatives say if the United States does not enter into immediate diplomatic negotiations, liens will be filed on real estate transactions in the five state region, clouding title over literally thousands of square miles of land and property. Young added, "The actions of Lakota are not intended to embarrass the United States but to simply save the lives of our people".

Following Monday's withdrawal at the State Department, the four Lakota Itacan representatives have been meeting with foreign embassy officials in order to hasten their official return to the Family of Nations. Lakota's efforts are gaining traction as Bolivia, home to Indigenous President Evo Morales, shared they are "very, very interested in the Lakota case" while Venezuela received the Lakota delegation with "respect and solidarity." "Our meetings have been fruitful and we hope to work with these countries for better relations," explained Garry Rowland. "As a nation, we have equal status within the national community."

Education, energy and justice now take top priority in emerging Lakota. "Cultural immersion education is crucial as a next step to protect our language, culture and sovereignty," said Means. "Energy independence using solar, wind, geothermal, and sugar beets enables Lakota to protect our freedom and provide electricity and heating to our people."

The Lakota reservations are among the most impoverished areas in North America, a shameful legacy of broken treaties and apartheid policies. Lakota has the highest death rate in the United States and Lakota men have the lowest life expectancy of any nation on earth, excluding AIDS, at approximately 44 years. Lakota infant mortality rate is five times the United States average and teen suicide rates 150% more than national average. 97% of Lakota people live below the poverty line and unemployment hovers near 85%.

"After 150 years of colonial enforcement, when you back people into a corner there is only one alternative," emphasized Duane Martin Sr. "The only alternative is to bring freedom into its existence by taking it back to the love of freedom, to our lifeway."

We are the freedom loving Lakota from the Sioux Indian reservations of Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana who have traveled to Washington DC to withdraw from the constitutionally mandated treaties to become a free and independent country. We are alerting the Family of Nations we have now reassumed our freedom and independence with the backing of Natural, International, and United States law.

For more information, please visit our new website at
http://www.lakotafreedom.com/
Lakota
444 Crazy Horse Drive, P.O. Box 99;
Porcupine, SD 57772

FROM THE LAKOTA FREEDOM WEBSITE:

We are the freedom loving Lakota from the Sioux Indian reservations of Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana who have suffered from cultural and physical genocide in the colonial apartheid system we have been forced to live under.

We are continuing the work that we were asked to do by the traditional chiefs and treaty councils, and 98 Indian Nations at the first Indian Treaty Council meeting at Standing Rock Sioux Indian Country in 1974.

During the week of December 17-19, 2007, we traveled to Washington DC and withdrew from the constitutionally mandated treaties to become a free and independent country. We are alerting the Family of Nations we have now reassumed our freedom and independence with the backing of Natural, International, and United States law.

In the face of the colonial apartheid conditions imposed on Lakota people, the withdrawal from the U.S. Treaties is necessary. These conditions have been devastating:

MORTALITY
--Lakota men have a life expectancy of less than 44 years, lowest of any country in the World (excluding AIDS) including Haiti.
--Lakota death rate is the highest in the United States.
--The Lakota infant mortality rate is 300% more than the U.S. Average.
--Teenage suicide rate is 150% higher than the U.S national average for this group.

DRUGS AND ALCOHOL
--More than half the Reservation's adults battle addiction and disease.
--Alcoholism affects 8 in 10 families.

INCARCERATION
--Indian children incarceration rate 40% higher than whites.
--In South Dakota, 21 percent of state prisoners were Native.
--Indians have the second largest state prison incarceration rate in the nation.

DISEASE
--The Tuberculosis rate on Lakota reservations is approx 800% higher than the U.S national average.
--Cervical cancer is 500% higher than the U.S national average.
--The rate of diabetes is 800% higher than the U.S national average.
--Federal Commodity Food Program provides high sugar foods that kill Native people through diabetes and heart disease.

POVERTY
--Median income is approximately $2,600 to $3,500 per year.
--97% of our Lakota people live below the poverty line.
--Many families cannot afford heating oil, wood or propane and many residents use ovens to heat their homes.

HOUSING
--Elderly die each winter from hypothermia (freezing).
--1/3 of the homes lack basic clean water and sewage while 40% lack electricty.
--60% of Reservation families have no telephone.
--60% of housing is infected with potentially fatal black molds.
--There is an estimated average of 17 people living in each family home (may only have two to three rooms). Some homes, built for 6 to 8 people, have up to 30 people living in them.

UNEMPLOYMENT
--Unemployment rates on our reservations is 85% or higher.

THREATENED CULTURE
--Only 14% of the Lakota population can speak Lakota language.
--The language is not being shared inter-generationally, today, the average Lakota speaker is 65 years old.
--Our Lakota language is an Endangered Language, on the verge of extinction.

We do not represent those BIA or IRA governments beholden to the colonial apartheid system, or those "stay by the fort" Indians who are unwilling claim their freedom.

FOR MORE, PLEASE READ THE LAKOTA DECLARATION OF CONTINUING INDEPENDENCE AT:
http://www.lakotafreedom.com/declarationofcontinuingindependence.pdf

___________________

The “Gua” Prefix: Working Hypotheses on the Resilience of the Taíno Language

The “Gua” Prefix: Working Hypotheses on the Resilience of the Taíno Language

Antonio Yaguarix de Moya [i]
Guabancex Wind & Water Taíno Society [ii]

Summary

Objective: To start “excavating” some of the hidden secrets about the present use of Taíno, a supposedly extinct polysynthetic Caribbean Arawak language, through the analysis of the frequently used “gua” prefix. The analysis purports to show how much of original Taíno “became” Spanish, is still in use, or has fallen into disuse.
Methods: One-hundred and seventy-one Taíno morphemes that start with “gua” were found and analyzed. Controversial hybrid or obviously misspelled words were excluded from the analysis. The syllabic composition of the morphemes, their presence or absence from Spanish dictionaries, and their presence in today’s Dominican speech were explored.
Results: Out of the 171 documented Taíno morphemes, 44 (26 percent of the total) were adopted by the Spanish language. Thirty-two (73 percent) of those adopted are presently used in Dominican speech; only 27 percent are in disuse. One-hundred and twenty-seven Taíno words were never adopted by Spanish (76 percent of the total). Forty-four of such Taíno morphemes (26 percent of all; 35 percent of those non-adopted), are used today in the D.R. Eighty-three non-adopted Taíno morphemes (49 percent of the total; 65 percent of those non-adopted) are probably extinct. Only one monosyllabic word starting with “gua”; 31 two-syllabic words (18 percent of the total); 71 three-syllabic words (42 percent); and 68 tetra-syllabic words (40 percent) were found.
Conclusions: These findings provide evidence that around half of the original Taíno lexicon related to the important “gua” prefix survived the notion of extinction. The polysynthetic nature of Taíno morphemes is demonstrated by the fact that around four-fifths of them are either three-syllabic or tetra-syllabic. These characteristics suggest that Spanish adopted the simplest Taíno lexicon, while Taíno descendants have kept the more complex lexical parts. The resilience of words may be associated with older age, higher education and social class, and individuals’ regional origin.

Key words: Taíno, lexicon, polysynthesis, resilience, Dominican Republic


In 1993, for the first time, an internationally authorized English-language dictionary, the Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, asserted that the Taíno were an ancient people of the Greater Antilles, eliminating the eroded cliché about the old myth of their extinction. Ever since, for this and other dictionaries, the term “extinction” has continued to be applied to the language, but not to the population.

In the following exercise, which has no intentions other than opening an urgent debate among linguistic scholars and students, as well as inciting rigorous research on our language and culture, we ask ourselves whether it has any sense, thinking it over, that a population such as the Dominican Republic’s (D.R.), could survive, while its language vanishes. This could be no more than a childish historical misnomer.

According to Emilio Tejera (1988), [1] at the beginning of the European conquest of America, the Spanish chronicler Pedro Mártir de Anglería wrote that the “gua“ syllable was the most frequent word particle used by the Taíno people. He and other authors in the 16th and 17th centuries, also quoted by Tejera, say that “gua” was the “equivalent of a determinative article… which could be translated as ‘he/she who is,’ ‘this who is’” (Zayas, pp. 21, 24). The priest Velasco (1562-1613) also states that “some people say that it denotes ownership of something signified by the name to whom it is attached, some others say that it is a particle of respect…. [2] Four centuries later, Febres Cordero (p. 162), quoted by Tejera, wrote that in 1892 he published “a list of 500 [Amerindian] geographical words in which gua appears as a radical, and more than 200 words where it is a suffix.”

Taking into account the apparent resilience of this grammar particle and its frequent use in present–day Dominican speech, it was decided to make a brief incursion into a handful of documents, with the objective of starting to “excavate” some of the possibly hidden secrets about the use of our speech. In this way, it was possible to inductively explore both Tejera’s quoted text and the List of Places in the D.R. that start with the prefix “gua” (http://ww.fallingrain.co/world/DR/a/G/u/a), [3] in order to unveil this language’s vitality as we examine it more closely.

Methods

One-hundred and seventy-one morphemes [4] with obvious Taíno, Arawak, or possibly Guarani origins, which start with “gua” were found and analyzed Those words whose linguistic origin could be controversial (because of likely hybridization with Spanish or with African languages) or that are obviously misspelled were excluded from the analysis. The syllabic composition of the morphemes vis-à-vis their likely polysynthetic characteristic, [5] their presence or absence from the Windows Modern-Spanish Dictionary, [6] and their presence in today’s Dominican speech were explored. It is important to recognize that the truth of this last assertion could be highly variable and controversial, due to its likely association to variables such as age, education, social class, and individual regional origin.

Results

The analysis unveiled the following findings:

Forty-four (26 percent of the total) Taíno words entered the Spanish lexicon; 127 words (74 percent) were not incorporated into Spanish. Only one monosyllabic morpheme with the prefix “gua” was found that had not been adopted by the European Spanish-language that is still used in the D.R.: “guay,” a heavily loaded emotional interjection that seems to be a death cry.

Eighteen disyllabic morphemes that entered the Spanish lexicon were detected. Twelve of them are still used today in the D.R., namely: guaba, guaca, guacal, guagua, guaicán, guama, guanín, guao, guaro, guasa, guate, and guayo. Six have tended to fall into disuse: guaco, guama, guamo, guana, guaní, and guara. Thirteen disyllabic Taíno morphemes were not incorporated into Spanish; of them, 8 morphemes are still used in the D.R.: guací, guaicí, guaigüey, guaigüí, guaiza, guano, guatiao, and guaucí. Five words not adopted by Spanish apparently have fallen into disuse in the country: guabá, guacón, guaibá, guamí, and guarey.

Eighteen three-syllabic morphemes entered the Spanish lexicon. Thirteen are used nowadays in the D.R.: guabina, guácima, guajaca, guajiro, guanaja, guaraná, guaraní, guarapo, guásima, guataca, guayaba, guayacán, and guayana. Five are not used anymore: guaniquí, guaruma, guayaco, guaguanche, and guaguaza. Fifty-three words were not incorporated by Spanish; 18 of them are presently used in the D.R.: Guabancex, Guabate, guácara, guanima, Guanuma, guárana, guararé, Guarionex, Guaroa, guarúa, Guayama, guáyiga, guaymama, Guaymate, Guaynabo, Guayubín, guayuyo, and guázuma. Thirty five words are not presently used: guacaica, guacana, guacaox, guacayo, guagaica, guaguací, guaguari, guaiquía, guajaba, guajagua, guajayán, gualete, guamira, guanabax, guanabo, guanabrei, guanaguax, guanama, guanara, guanía, guanibán, guaoxerí, guaquía, guaragüey, guaraiba, guaraje, guarianón, guaurabo, guavanaán, guayagan, guayagua, guayaro, guaybana, guaymosa, and guázara.

Eight tetra-syllabic morphemes entered the Spanish lexicon; 7 are still in use in the D.R.: guacamayo, guachupita, guanábana, guaraguao, guatemala, guayacanes, and guazábara. One has fallen into disuse: guanabina. Sixty tetrasyllabic words were not incorporated into Spanish; of these, 17 are used today in the D.R.: guaconejo, guagugiona, guajimía, guanahaní, guananico, guaraguanó, guaranate, guaricano, guariquitén, guarocuya, guatapanal, guataúba, guatíbere, guacanagarí, guacarapita, guacayarima, and guayajayuco. Forty-four words not adopted by Spanish are extinct: guabanimo, guabarete guabonito guacacuba guacamarí guacaniquín guacaraica, guacaraca, guacuamarex, guainamoca, guajabona, guamacaje, guamaonocon, guamiquina, guamorete, guanabites, guanaguana, guanahibo, guanajuma, guananagax, guanatuví, guanavate, guanayvico, guaniabano, guaragüey, guaraiba, guaramatex, guarianón, guarizaca, guasabacoa, guasábalo, guaticavá, guatiguaná, guayabacón, guayamico, and guayaronel (four syllables); and guabaniquinax, guanahatabey, guanaoconel, guaninicabón, guaragüeibana, guavaenechin, and guavavoconel (five syllables).

In sum, the existence of 44 Taíno morphemes starting with “gua” that have been adopted by the European Spanish socio-lexicon (26 percent of the total; 18 two-syllabic, 18 three-syllabic, and 8 tetra-syllabic) is documented. Thirty-two (73 percent) of them are presently used in Dominican speech. Twelve (27 percent) are extinct. One-hundred and twenty-seven Taíno words were never adopted by Spanish (76 percent of the total). Forty-four of such Taíno morphemes (26 percent of all, 35% of those non-adopted; 1 monosyllabic, 8 two-syllabic, 18 three-syllabic, and 17 tetra-syllabic), are used today in the D.R. Eighty-three non-adopted Taíno morphemes (49 percent of the total, 65 percent of those non-adopted; 5 two-syllabic, 35 three-syllabic, and 43 tetra-syllabic) are probably extinct. Only one monosyllabic word; 31 two-syllabic words (18 percent of the total); 71 three-syllabic words (42 percent); and 68 tetra-syllabic words (40 percent) were found.





Discussion

The polysynthetic nature of 171 Taíno morphemes that start with the prefix “gua” documented in this analysis is demonstrated by the fact that only one of them is monosyllabic, 18 percent are two-syllabic, 42 percent are three-syllabic, and 40 percent are tetra-syllabic. One fourth (26 percent) of those Taíno morphemes were adopted by the European Spanish socio-lexicon. Almost three-fourths (73 percent of those adopted; 19 percent of the total) of these “Spanish” morphemes are still in use in present-day Dominican speech. Only a minority has experienced extinction (7 percent of the total). Three-fourths (74 percent) of the Taíno lexicon were not incorporated into the Spanish language. One-fourth of all morphemes not adopted by Spanish (26 percent of the total; one-third of those non-adopted), continue to be used by the Dominican population, not knowing their Taíno origin. Two-thirds of those morphemes not adopted by Spanish (half of the words) have become extinct in the D.R.

On the basis of these findings, the following hypotheses [7] are advanced:

1. The more complex the syllabic structure of a morpheme is (higher contraction of prefixes or higher polysynthetic agglutination), the lower is the trend to adopt the morpheme to Spanish.

2. The more complex the syllabic structure of a morpheme is, the higher is the trend to know and to continue using this morpheme in Dominican speech today, despite its absence from Spanish dictionaries.

3. The more complex the syllabic structure of a morpheme not adopted by Spanish is, the higher the trend of extinction is of this morpheme in Dominican speech today.

In conclusion, in contrast with the received view, these findings provide evidence that Taíno language lexicon related to the important “gua” prefix survived the notion of extinction. This exercise suggests that about one-fourth of the Taíno vocabulary was adopted by Spanish, and another fourth is used today in Dominican speech. The loss in the Taíno lexicon, five centuries after the encounter among the cultures and languages of America, Europe, and Africa, seems to amount to half of the original vocabulary. Agglutinative polysynthetic characteristics of this language, such as contraction and incorporation, suggest that the Spanish language was able to adopt the simplest and more closely related Taíno lexicon, while Taíno descendants have tended to keep the more complex and elaborate lexical parts. Lost and found opportunities of linguistic development in these 500 years must be studied seriously by the national and international scientific community.
_______

Notes

[1] Tejera, Emilio (ed.). Indigenismos. Santo Domingo, Sociedad Dominicana de Bibliófilos, 1988.
[2] We realize that the present-day meaning or meanings of the prefix may have experienced changes throughout time. Only empirical research could answer this question.
[3] In no way should this search be regarded as exhaustive of polysynthetic Amerindian languages.
[4] In human language, a phoneme is the smallest unit of speech that distinguishes meaning. Phonemes are not the physical segments themselves, but abstractions of them. In morpheme-based morphology, a morpheme is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantic meaning. In spoken language, morphemes are composed of phonemes, the smallest linguistically distinctive units of sound. The concept morpheme differs from the concept word, as many morphemes cannot stand as words on their own. A morpheme is free if it can stand alone, or bound if it is used exclusively alongside a free morpheme. A lexeme is an abstract unit of morphological analysis in linguistics that roughly corresponds to a set of words that are different forms of the same word (Wikipedia 2007).
[5] Polysynthetic languages are highly synthetic languages, i.e. languages in which words are composed of many morphemes. The degree of synthesis refers to the morpheme-to-word ratio. Languages with more than one morpheme per word are synthetic. Polysynthetic languages lie at the extreme end of the synthesis continuum, with a very high number of morphemes per word (at the other extreme are isolating or analytic languages with only one morpheme per word). These highly synthetic languages often have very long words that correspond to complete sentences in less synthetic languages (Wikipedia 2007).
[6] More sophisticated and inclusive dictionaries could reveal a slightly larger percentage of Taíno morphemes adopted by the Spanish language.
[7] The inductive approach does not try to make generalizations, but to advance hypotheses that could guide further research.

About the authors

[1] Dominican social psychologist (M.A.) and epidemiologist (M.P.H.). Professor at the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo (UASD) from 1976. Since 1987 he has been studying the polysynthetic parameter of Taino language and mythology.
[2] Guabancex Wind & Water Taino Society was founded the 9th of August, 2006, by Lynne Guitar, Fátima Portorreal, Irka Mateo, Geo Ripley and the author of this article in Santo Domingo, and by Jorge Baracutei Estévez , Valerie Nanaturey Vargas, Taino Almestica and José Barreiro in the United States of America.

Taino Festival in the Dominican Republic

JUEVES, AGOSTO 09, 2007

Noticias del Frente Ancestral 028

DIA INTERNACIONAL DE LOS PUEBLOS INDIGENAS DEL MUNDO 2007

1er. Encuentro Taíno de Kiskeya - 2008: Primer Anuncio

Sol Taino

Museo del Hombre y la Mujer Dominicanos & Cinemateca Nacional
Plaza de la Cultura
Avenida Máximo Gómez
Santo Domingo, Kiskeya

Lunes 21 de enero, 2008; 4:00 – 10:30 pm

Programa Tentativo

Ponencias magistrales a cargo de: Bernardo Vega, Carlos Andújar y Domingo Abreu; Lynne Guitar y Antonio de Moya (Consejo de Ancianos/as, Guabancex Viento y Agua). Museo del Hombre y la Mujer Dominicanos.

Conversatorio con Martín Veguilla - Director del Festival Taíno de Jayuya y líder del Concilio Guatumacúa de Puerto Rico – Invitado Especial. Museo del Hombre y la Mujer Dominicanos.

Estreno nacional de la película puertorriqueña: “Taínos, la última tribu.” Cinemateca Dominicana.

Visita de Benjamín López, director de la película puertorriqueña: “Taínos, la última tribu” y venta de las ediciones en DVD originales de la misma. Museo del Hombre y la Mujer Dominicanos.

Exhibición de la película infantil “Ogú y Mampato en Rapa Nui”, con una historia acorde al tema aborigen. Cinemateca Dominicana.

Exhibición de videos acerca de la Cultura Taína de Soraya Aracena. Cinemateca Dominicana

Instalación-ofrenda a los ancestros por Pascal Meccariello. Museo del Hombre y la Mujer Dominicanos.

Exposiciones fotográficas de arte rupestre de Alfredo Roldán y Daniel Dubai. Museo del Hombre y la Mujer Dominicanos.

Degustación de casabe y video del proceso de preparación actual del mismo. Museo del Hombre y la Mujer Dominicanos.

Exhibición y venta de artesanía y cerámica de inspiración aborigen. Museo del Hombre y la Mujer Dominicanos.

Degustación y venta de productos relacionados y venta de diversos platos que muestran la influencia taína en nuestra gastronomía. Alrededores del Museo del Hombre y la Mujer Dominicanos.

Show de títeres sobre mitología taína por Ernesto López. Museo del Hombre y la Mujer Dominicanos.

Narraciones de leyendas y cuentos de nuestros campos por Guaroa Ubiñas. Alrededores del Museo del Hombre y la Mujer Dominicanos.

Partido de pelota Taína con los jugadores de Batey de Azua. Alrededores del Museo del Hombre y la Mujer Dominicanos.

Performance de Geo Ripley (Consejo de Ancianos/as, Guabancex Viento y Agua) . Museo del Hombre y la Mujer Dominicanos

Concierto de música neo-taína y ritmos folclóricos de nuestra cultura, con Irka Mateo (Consejo de Ancianos/as, Guabancex Viento y Agua) y su grupo Boutí. Museo del Hombre y la Mujer Dominicanos

******
Microcuentos tainos para niños

Por: Fátima Portorreal
Consejo de Ancianos/as, Guabancex Viento y Agua

Especial para epistheme

Así es, así dicen: ¡Se llamaba Opiyel!

Opiyelguobiran

Para mi sobrina Kiara

Santo Domingo, Enero 2007

Según cuentan, en una nubosa noche, cantaban los toricos y a lo lejos, muy allá de la espesura de la fronda de doña Francisca, el chirrido del pitanguá se mezclaba con los grillos saltarines. Mientras tanto, en el charco de Itabo, croaban y croaban las verdes ranas, desafinando a los cucús y agriando a las lechuzas.

De repente, tras un leve movimiento, de la rama del laurel de Fifito, salta el pegapalo, la birijita, y por supuesto los jilguerillos que adormecidos por la penumbra, no acababan de entender tal alboroto… “¡Oye!” -- le gritó el pegapalo – “Deja de moverte y abre los oídos, ¿qué me dices, rayado pajarito?, escucha por favor…”. Del real camino de Acacia y no lejos del charco de Itabo, unas voces raras y una cuadrilla de raros humanos se dirigen a la fronda… “Escucha… Por favor, escucha…”.

“Camina, camina más deprisa” -- decía Macocael – “¿Acaso no conoces a las opias? Se comerán las guayabas, antes de que las guayzas tiren de un jalón, las sogas de Opiyelguobirán. No habrá para nadie. Correrá y correrá tan deprisa, que hasta el dulzor se perderá en sus dos grandes fosas. Dicen que no hay nadie como él, sus largas patas y dientes afilados desbarrigan corceles, descascaran el samo, la semilla de higuereta y hasta el duro caparazón de la hermana hicotea.”

“Camina, camina… que despertarán las avecillas y si no se dan cuenta, llegaremos primero al guayabal. Yo comeré las más amarillas; tú recogerás las que el hermano Inrirí tumbó por la prisa, antes del anochecer. Ellos, los amigos toatoa cargarán el resto… deprisa, deprisa, que se oyen los pasos de Opiyel…”.

Pero las imprudentes birijitas, asustadas con la corredera, silbaron y silbaron tan fuertemente que los toatoa se cayeron, los pequeños humanos se dispersaron, y el terrible Opiyel asustado y enredado con tal algarabía, creyó que las opias anunciaban el alba. Corrió y corrió tan deprisa entre las charcas de Itabo, que sin percatarse, un humano tiró de su cuerda y lo arrojó al charco. Así cuentan y así supe que de cualquier charco durante lunas oscuras y para siempre, Opiyelguobiran, el dios perro, sale a buscar guayabas.

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Entre Lágrimas, Encontrando a una Ciguapa

Bonao, Diciembre 2006

Lo cierto no la invoco, más si fuera él, adosaría su nombre, rotulando círculo tras círculo en las umbrías estercoleras de la isla… huir de la sombra, no podría. ¿Aceptar su mirada…? Si fuera él… créanme… no la invoco. Denunciaría su nombre en la plaza de los hombres y la colgarían por impúdica y atrevida. Créanme… si fuera él, no le quedaran palabras. Las atrevidas Lauras trocearían su lengua y al amanecer de cualquier día o de cualquier noche, correrían a vomitarla en otras tierras. Si fuera él, no la enterraría… por si fuese a nacer, le pincharía los ojos… removería afanosamente los iris, la arrojaría a los riscos y ocultaría su sonrisa al oeste, porque allí muere la luz. Si fuera él, la dejaría agonizar y dormiría tranquilo, porque el silencio de sus labios no podrá amarrar el amor. Créanme… si fuera él, andaría tranquilo, porque sus torcidos pies, jamás se inclinaran a la luz.


Simbolo Taino

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Así Nació el Mar

Santo Domingo, Diciembre 2006

Oye, algunas cuentan que en sus ojos llorosos y en su inmenso vientre había cicatrices y que día tras día, las danzarinas ranitas croaban y croaban, hasta que el apenado abuelo expandía y expandía el verano. Y mientras tanto y poco a poco, ella se estiraba y estiraba hasta que dos sonidos, al compás de la tierra, seguían al sol… pero de pronto y de un tirón, el centro se expandió tanto que de la abierta boca de Itiba salió el agua cristalina y gemimos las caracolas. Así me cuenta mi hermana luna que se formó el mar, y de ella nosotras.

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La de Cinco Nombres

Santo Domingo, Noviembre 2006

Sentada sobre sus fuertes piernas para nada se adormecía. Parecía sobrecogedora aquella postura, pues su robustez exuberante mostraba aquellos contornos femeninos que sus extremidades hídricas sostenían ágilmente. ¿Qué mujer es Atabey?, y ¿Qué memoria se perdió en mi cuerpo, que alejó la fuerza primigenia de la madre? ¿En qué lugar se quedó la vitalidad de la abuela, aquella que tiene Cinco Nombres? ¿Adónde se fue la ligereza? ¿Es acaso la inexactitud de lo masculino, lo que no me permitió confrontar la amplitud del poder femenino y sus habilidades marinas? Acaso recodar es lo preciso, si al desmemoriado cuerpo pregunto: ¿Adónde está la abuela, la de la esencia, la que no tiene principio, la de las Cinco Memorias? Aquella, la de la metamorfosis, semejante a todas las ranas, a las cuales les he temido considerablemente.

¿Adónde está la fuerza femenina que me nombra, aquella abuela que en los charcos, arroyos y océanos nunca se asemejó a la serpiente occidental, ni cristiana, pero que irremediablemente se intentó borrar de nuestros cuerpos y sueños? ¿Adónde están los conciliábulos que te marginaron a los cuentos populares en las noches borrascosas de la ruralía isleña, sin pensar que algunos/as te encontrarían en las aguas cristalinas, en los bosques, cuevas y aguas termales de la isla? ¿Te ocultaste? No lo creo. ¿Permaneciste en silencio? No lo creo. Mas intuyo que te confabulaste con los pedigüeños, con los senderistas, con los cimarrones, con los desvencijados de la ruralía. Mas sin ellos saber, allí estabas, en las aguas cristalinas, entre la bruma de la fronda, esperando a que desvelen los sueños y te invoque en los altares, multiplicando diversas identidades, tras el atardecer o en las noches de luna llena.

¡Aquí esta! Ya te veo. Ahora puedo tocar mi cuerpo, sentirte multiplicada con mis manos, aceptando lo que tus Cinco Memorias conocen.


Tony Yaguarix de Moya

Reprinted by Jorge Baracuteu Estevez

Good Company

Thank you for the warm welcome and the invitation to join the CAC Review. I am grateful for your work. I thank all our ancestors for guiding us to each other.

I almost am not sure where to begin. But I guess as good a place to start as any is in my own back yard. I live on the island known as The Land of the Hummingbird. And there are many hummingbirds indeed. My island is beautiful but unfortunately much of its beauty remains undiscovered by many of the people who live here. For some the forest remains a place of mystery and danger, while it has been a place of reawakening for others.

Discovery. Now there’s a word that has caused trouble for us all. But perhaps the bigger problem lies in the question of who discovered what. And when.

On this Land of the Hummingbird, while the frogs and crickets sing a warm welcome to the rain and praises to the full moon, we are re-finding, redefining and refining our space. My people of the Santa Rosa Carib community who grew together as one tribe, have just about lost their young. Our grandmothers and great grandmothers, a few grandfathers, are the only ones bothered to come to gatherings.

My own great aunt is the Carib Queen. I decided against writing "reigning" there. I could not write it because it feels like she has no power at all. Her people sometimes don’t bother turning up. Sometimes her people have other appointments. Sometimes her people are surviving.

More in the days to come on survival.

Wade Davis: Cultural Conservation Rights

Anthropologist Wade Davis has made the argument that cultural conservation should be a right, and that rapid cultural change, and accompanying feelings of loss and alienation, are partly the cause for some of the more violent forms of "instability" in the world at present. Davis made the case specifically for maintaining indigenous cultures, adding a little twist to the notion of cultural extinction, as in the following passage from an article in the Taipei Times titled "Vanishing Cultures":

Davis says that in every case, indigenous people are being driven to extinction by identifiable forces. "And that's actually a very optimistic observation because it suggests that if human beings are the agents of cultural destruction, we can be the facilitators of cultural survival."

The article adds, "Davis fears that the continued reluctance of governments to make culture a fundamental part of their policy is leading to a less stable world":

"When people lose the comfort of tradition and feel these kinds of pressures of intense change that can provoke a sense of disappointment, disaffection, alienation, you get very strange movements emerging that can be very dangerous. Al-Qaeda is one of these kinds of fantasy movements that invoke a world of Islam that never existed but has to be presumed to have existed for those who are trying to rationalize the humiliation of all these years of chaos in the Middle East. Maintaining the integrity of culture is not an act of sentimentality; it's not an act of nostalgia, its much more than an act of human rights. It's about maintaining the integrity of civilization itself," he said.

Davis was also critical of the failure of academic anthropologists to engage the wider public on issues of vital contemporary importance.

He cites, for example, in the immediate wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the US, a meeting of 4,000 anthropologists from the American Anthropological Association was held in Washington DC where the primary topic of discussion was the attack on the Twin Towers.

"The entire gathering earned a single line in the Washington Post, in the gossip section, that basically said 'the nut cases are in town,'" he said. "And who is more remiss: the government for not having the ability to listen to the one profession that could have explained what was going on or the profession for not having the ability to communicate effectively with the world at large?"

He made these comments while on a visit to Taipei, Taiwan, to promote his televised series for National Geographic. You can read more by visiting the original article at:

http://www.taipeitimes.com:80/News/feat
/archives/2007/04/29/2003358821

Archaeology of the Cuban Taino: Turey and Survival

Gradual, perhaps grudging and incremental acceptance of the fact that the classic European tale of Taino tragedy (total extinction) is not something that can be supported with evidence.

Humble Brass Was Even Better Than Gold to a 16th-Century Tribe in Cuba

January 16, 2007, Tuesday
By JENNIFER PINKOWSKI (NYT); Science Desk
Late Edition - Final, Section F, Page 3, Column 1, 1245 words

Because of its otherworldly brilliance, the 16th-century Taíno Indians of Cuba called it turey, their word for the most luminous part of the sky.

They adored its sweet smell, its reddish hue, its exotic origins and its dazzling iridescence, qualities that elevated it to the category of sacred materials known as guanín. Local chieftains wore it in pendants and medallions to show their wealth, influence and connection to the supernatural realm. Elite women and children were buried with it.

What was this treasured stuff? Humble brass — specifically, the lace tags and fasteners from Spanish explorers’ shoes and clothes, for which the Taíno eagerly traded their local gold.

A team of archaeologists from University College London and the Cuban Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment came to these conclusions by analyzing small brass tubes found in two dozen burial sites in the Taíno village of El Chorro de Maíta in northeastern Cuba, according to a recent paper in The Journal of Archaeological Science.

Huts have been reconstructed near the site as a heritage center. (photo credit: Institute of Archaeology, University College London)

The graves mostly date to the late 15th and early 16th centuries, when waves of gold-hungry conquistadors landed on Caribbean shores. Within decades, the Taíno, like their neighbors the Carib and the Arawak, were largely wiped out by genocide, slavery and disease.

But the archaeologists say this is not the whole picture. Their research — the first systematic study of metals from a Cuban archaeological site — focuses on one of the few indigenous settlements ever found that date from the period after the arrival of Europeans. The scientists say the finds add important detail and nuance to a history of the Caribbean long dominated by the first-person reportage of the Europeans themselves.

“It’s certainly true that the arrival of the Europeans was in the short term devastating,” said Marcos Martinón-Torres of University College London, the project’s lead researcher. “But instead of lumping the Taíno in all together as ‘the Indians of Cuba who were eliminated by the Spaniards,’ we’re trying to show they were people who made choices. They had their own lives. They decided to incorporate European goods into their value system.”

Brass first came to the Americas with Europeans. While a few brass artifacts have been found elsewhere in the Caribbean, no one knows when and how they were acquired. In contrast, El Chorro, first excavated in the mid-1980s, is one of the best-preserved sites in Cuba, and its artifacts have a clear archaeological context.

Training X-rays and microscopes on a half-dozen pendants, Dr. Martinón-Torres and a Cuban archaeologist, Roberto Valcárcel Rojas, determined the metals’ bulk chemical composition. It was a mixture of zinc and copper — the elements of brass.

They then used a scanning electron microscope to find the pendants’ unique geochemical signature. All came from Nuremberg, Germany, a center of brass production since the Middle Ages.

The few other metal artifacts from the cemetery — pendants made from a gold-copper-silver alloy — probably came from Colombia, where the Taíno are thought to have originated. Only two tiny gold nuggets, of local origin, were found.

Sixteenth-century portraits in places like the Tate Gallery held further clues. Many subjects wear bootlaces and bodices fastened with objects strikingly like those found in the graves. Similar objects have been excavated from early colonial settlements, including Havana and Jamestown, Va.

European accounts said the Taíno traded 200 pieces of gold for a single piece of guanín, of which brass was the highest form. Yet the residents of El Chorro may not have considered the trade unfair, said Jago Cooper, a field director for the project. In fact, access to European brass may have increased the power of local chieftains, hastening the transition from an egalitarian society to a hierarchical one.

The finds from El Chorro suggest that interaction between the Taíno and the Europeans may have been more varied than once thought.

“Large European materials being incorporated into their culture, and exotic materials being used to reflect Taíno beliefs — it’s new, important evidence for what was happening during contact,” said William F. Keegan, an archaeologist at the University of Florida and the co-editor of The Journal of Caribbean Archaeology, who was not involved in the research. “There’s been a tendency to assume the Taínos quickly disappeared due to European diseases and harsh treatment by the Spanish, but there’s increasing evidence that the culture continued to be vibrant until the middle of the 16th century.”

Some of that evidence comes from another site in Cuba: Los Buchillones, a coastal settlement about 200 miles west of El Chorro de Maíta. First excavated in 1998 by a Cuban-Canadian team, Los Buchillones is the site of the only known intact Taíno house. In the last decade, continuing study of the site and the surrounding region by Mr. Valcárcel Rojas and Mr. Cooper has revealed a community with trade networks all over the Greater Antilles that survived into the Spanish colonial period in the early 17th century.

Clearly, they would have known about Europeans’ presence, but chose to avoid contact, unlike El Chorro’s chieftains. It may have kept them alive longer.

Together, the sites hint at an array of tactics not documented by the Europeans. “Most accounts seem to be based on the idea that Europeans ‘acted’and Taíno ‘reacted,’ ” said Elizabeth Graham of University College London, who with her husband, David Pendergast, first excavated Los Buchillones. “In the case of El Chorro de Maíta, the Taíno were clearly being proactive.”

The finds at El Chorro also help to fill a hole in the study of the Caribbean past created by Cuba’s political isolation. Archaeology of the island has been little known outside of its borders since the 1959 revolution. Very few foreign archaeologists have dug there, and the few field reports published by Cuban archaeologists, mostly trained by Soviet scholars, are difficult to get outside the country.

In recent years, there have been efforts to bring Cuban archaeology out of the long shadow cast by the 45-year-old United States sanctions. In 2005, the scholarly volume Dialogues in Cuban Archaeology assembled a dozen English-language reports in one place. (In it is a paper Mr. Valcárcel Rojas co-wrote about El Chorro de Maíta.) The relatively new Journal of Caribbean Archaeology currently has its first Cuban paper in peer review.

For most American archaeologists, papers published by their international colleagues are about as close as they are going to get to Cuba these days. Since 2004, the Bush administration has greatly tightened restrictions on educational travel to Cuba; programs under 10 weeks are now prohibited. Last summer, Florida went a step further, banning public universities from spending money on research in countries the State Department considers state sponsors of terrorism, including Cuba. Both sets of regulations are being challenged in court.

Last spring, Mr. Valcárcel Rojas was denied a visa to attend the annual Society for American Archaeology conference in Puerto Rico. Dr. Martinón-Torres and Mr. Cooper presented the research — which received Cuba’s highest academic prize — without him.

Still, the British-Cuban team is seeking a three-year grant in hopes of uncovering the trade and social networks that connected El Chorro’s inhabitants — in particular, the effects of the brass-gold trade on those connections. And there is European behavior to puzzle out, too.

“We would expect the Europeans to load up with brass in their cargos, but we haven’t found that brass in Cuba,” Dr. Martinón-Torres said. “It’s possible it hasn’t been recognized by archaeologists. We expect if both sides were happy with this exchange, there must be more evidence of it.”

Indigenous Founding Mothers of the Americas

Many thanks to the author of the following article, Rick Kearns (rickearns@comcast.net), for the permission to reproduce his article below. This website's Creative Commons license does not apply to this piece. The article originally appeared in Indian Country Today (www.indiancountry.com), on November 9, 2006. Rick Kearns is also the author of several pieces on the Taino restoration movement that appeared in Issues in Caribbean Amerindian Studies--please see: http://www.centrelink.org/Papers.html

The indigenous roots of Colombia are coming into focus, as it is yet another Latin American nation learning about its true history: the founding mothers of Colombia were indigenous.

According to a recently released DNA survey, 85.5 percent of all Colombian women have indigenous mitochondria, a component of DNA that is passed down unaltered through the maternal line.

Dr. Emilio Yunis Turbay, a distinguished scientist who founded the Genetics Institute at the National University at Bogota, was the principle author of the study. Yunis Turbay assembled a team of specialists, including his son, Dr. Juan Jose Yunis, who analyzed 1,522 samples of mitochondrial (mt) DNA from across Colombia.

The final analysis yielded a startling conclusion: Almost 90 percent of all Colombian women have a Native grandmother in their ancestry. This finding echoes the results gathered in Puerto Rico three years ago, where it was discovered that 61 percent of all Puerto Ricans had indigenous mitochondrial DNA.

According to Dr. Juan Martinez Cruzado, author of the Puerto Rico study, this signals a trend.

''This seems to be a common thread in all Latin America,'' he asserted. ''I spoke with a Mexican researcher who tested some Mexicans in the north of their country as well as Mexicans living in the southwestern United States, and over 80 percent of them had the indigenous mitochondrial DNA.''

Martinez Cruzado added that he had examined 16 indigenous mtDNA samples from Aruba recently and 86 percent of those samples showed the indigenous mtDNA. He has been in contact with Venezuelan scientists who informed him that a majority of the residents of Caracas, the capital city, also contained indigenous mtDNA.

''And in Argentina, which is so white, so European and which is most identified with Italy and Spain, most of the Argentineans also have indigenous mtDNA, according to the research of the well-known scientist Claudio Bravi,'' asserted Martinez Cruzado.

The presence of these grandmothers in the histories of Colombia and probably all of Latin America will force a re-evaluation of each country's story. And while the role of fathers and grandfathers is very important in any culture, it is the mother who teaches the children directly. It is the mother and grandmother who transmit the cultural values and beliefs.

For anyone who comes from Latin America, a great many of us are ''part-Indian.'' The ramifications of this historical fact will produce some similar results as well as some that are unique to each country.

Yunis Turbay put forward a similar argument in other media statements. He noted that upon analyzing the genetic structure of the Colombian population, one re-invents the history of the country as one reaches the conclusion that Colombia (like many Latin American countries) is genetically fragmented. But for Colombians specifically, there is another aspect of their genetic fragmentation that bears examination, according to the famous scientist.

There are ''the mulattoes on one side, the blacks on another, the indigenous in another, the white mestizos [mixes] in another,'' he pointed out. ''One begins to make a picture that shows a country made up of genetic patches. Looking at it this way explains the utilization of the tools of power to exclude populations,'' he asserted.

''The unity of Colombia is made by 'superstructures,' not by a structural development based on means of communication that integrate the market, allowing for the exchange of products, of cultures and unions of different origins,'' he continued. ''We have made Colombia a very unequal country, and what is worse, with citizens of different categories. We have regionalized race.''

Yunis Turbay and others in Colombia there are trying desperately to unify the country, an extremely difficult task for now. However, there is a good chance that Yunis Turbay's research and calls for action will be taken seriously. He is possibly the most well-respected scientist in his country, who has also contributed to national Colombian discussion on identity. He conducted a larger genetic study of the country in 1992 and authored a book, ''Why Are We This Way? What Happened in Colombia? An Analysis of the Mixing (Mestizaje).'' This work contains a series of essays in which he connected genetics, history, geography and politics to advance his argument of how to unify the country through markets and geography.

Here's hoping that his fellow Colombians are listening to him. Here's an idea: Maybe we should invite him to study the U.S. population, starting with Washington, D.C. Just a thought.

Rick Kearns is a freelance writer of Boricua heritage who focuses on indigenous issues in Latin America.

Guyana Forestry Blog

Janette Bulkan, much of whose work currently focuses on indigenous rights and forestry management issues in Guyana (see http://www.centrelink.org/resurgence/guyana.htm), alerted me to the fact that a new blog has been created at http://guyanaforestry.blogspot.com/. The author(s) remain(s) anonymous. As Janette explained, "for too long the forestry sector in Guyana has been protected by strict State opacity and control." This particular blog consists mostly of letters to the editor, "an indication of the lack of alternative space for civil society to articulate its concerns," as Janette explained. The letters themselves remain unchallenged by the government, which can lead one to the interpretation that the letters are in fact truthful, and that the government has not yet found a way to keep their authors silent.

Taino Language Dictionary by Alfred Carrada

The Dictionary of the Taino Language, prepared for free online access by Alfred Carrada (see: http://www.alfredcarrada.org/index.html), was apparently completed almost three years ago (unfortunately, I only discovered this very recently). Many readers are interested in learning as much as possible of the Taino language, as well as the names of places, historical figures, topographical features, fruit, trees, animals, etc. The notes for this site are fairly extensive. The dictionary is of a fair length. What is not too clear on first sight is how this differs from or adds to other Taino language resources online, including other Taino language dictionaries.

Alfred Carrada explains in his own words how he came to this project:

"I started collecting Island-Arawak (Taino) artifacts more that twenty years ago. Although I grew up in the West Indies I did not become fully acquainted wit this culture until I made a holiday trip to Santo Domingo in the late Seventies. I became fascinated and bewitched by the beautiful and intriguing objects made by the Taino artisans, and collecting these objects became a passion that took a life of its own. At the same time I began collecting Taino artifacts I started to acquaint myself with their culture by reading whatever material I could get may hands on. The first book I read was Fred Olsen's On the Trail of the Arawaks and it was an eye opener for me. I also became very intrigued by what the meaning of geographical, topographical and historical Indian names could mean. I had read that according to Julian Granberry 'words in Arawakan languages are monosyllabic' and so, with this in mind I began to make notes that would help me reach an etymological meaning to some of their names and words. So, here are the names and words I found relevant to my quest, with my etymological root value interpretation; as well as information I came across that I found of interest. I am publishing my findings in the internet in case that someone other than myself finds it interesting and worth looking into it."

Thank you Alfred, I am certain many people will be interested, and it is a beautifully designed site on top of everything else.