Foro: Rescribiendo nuestra ethno-historia

Estimados(as) Amigos(as):

Están invitados al Foro: Reescribiendo Nuestra Etnohistoria. Adjunto le envío una invitación con mas información sobre las temáticas del Foro. Este Foro servirá como plataforma para informar al publico e invitados sobre los nuevos hallazgos e interpretaciones etno-históricos culturales de Puerto Rico.

La iniciativa de realizar este foro surgió con el objetivo de refutar y descartar viejas teorías. A través de un debate franco, constructivo y abierto pretendemos identificar algunos de los mal fundados tópicos y errores históricos que continúan perpetuándose en el Puerto Rico de hoy. Queremos lograr una nueva perspectiva sobre la herencia etno-histórica cultural de Puerto Rico y el Caribe. ¿Que nos dicen los nuevos hallazgos arqueológicos, etnográficos e históricos sobre esta temática? En fin, apoyamos una revisión literaria de nuestro pasado etno-histórico - reescribir nuestro pasado precolombino.

El Foro es multidisciplinario ya que se presentaran temas provenientes de la antropología, arqueología, biología (estudios genéticos), geografía, e historia - siendo la misma una valiosa experiencia educativa. Se espera que la información compilada en este foro contribuirá a un mejor entendimiento y apreciación de nuestra herencia etno-histórico cultural taina. Se presentaran varios trabajos de temas de autores e investigadores puertorriqueños - todos encabezados a refutar y descartar viejas teorías sobre nuestro pasado indígena.

Una vez más, les agradezco su amabilidad y quedo a la espera de sus noticias. Si tienen alguna duda o necesitan cualquier otra información, por favor, no vacilen en contactarme, ya sea mediante una llamada telefónica (787-671-0455) o correo electrónico (lynemelendez@yahoo.com). Sin otro particular, reciba mi más cordial saludo.

Cordialmente,

Carlalynne Meléndez, PhD
Catedrática
Departamento de Humanidades
Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico - Bayamón

UNIVERSIDAD INTERAMERICANA-BAYAMON
LA LIGA TAINA-KE
PRESENTAN
RESCRIBIENDO NUESTRA ETNO-HISTORIA

5 de diciembre de 2006 – 9:00am – 4:00pm
Salón de Usos Múltiples
Universidad Interamericana - Bayamón

Presentaciones

Apertura y Saludos
Carlalynne Meléndez Martínez (Yarey)

Grupo Areito Taina-ke Compuesta por estudiantes del Recinto
Estudiantes de: Areito de Cacibajagua
Narrador de Areito:
Cantante: Flor de Jesus

Presentaciones

Estudiantes de la Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico-Bayamón
Tema: Reescribiendo Nuestra Etnohistoria

Centro de Estudios Avanzados del PR y el Caribe
Dr. Juan Manuel Delgado

Sociedad Arqueológica del Caribe
Antonio Blasini:

Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña
Dr. Jose Luis Vega

Universidad de Puerto Rico-Río Piedras
Dr. Ramon Nenadich

Receso

Grupo Areito Taina-ke
Areito del Iguanaboina
Cantante: Flor de Jesus

Segunda Ronda de Presentaciones

Departamento de Educación
Dr. Pedro Vega

Oficina de Preservación Histórica
Dr. Miguel Bonini

Centro de Estudios Avanzados del PR y el Caribe
Dr. Sebastián Lamrache Robiou

Presentaciones de la Comunidad Taina

Margarita Noquearas: Servicio en la Comunidad Indígena

Robinson Rosado: Nuevos Hallazgos en Caguana

Martín Veguilla

Cierre
Dra. Carlalynne Meléndez Martínez

Grupo Areito Taina-ke
Areito: Muerte de Atabey (Madre Tierra)
Cantante: Flor de Jesus

Actividades

Artesanía Taina

CREDITOS

Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico en Bayamón

Organización y Planificación del Foro
Dra. Carlalynne C. Meléndez
Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico-Bayamón

Colaboración Especial
Estudiantes de Humanidades - GEHS-2010
Dra. Gladys Cruz, Departamento de Humanidades
Departamento Audiovisual

Dynamics of the Jamaican Taino

[Many thanks to BronxTaino@aol.com for forwarding this article]

November 19, 2006
Jamaica Gleaner News
The Dynamics of the Jamaican Taino

Edited by: Lesley-Gail Atkinson
Publisher: University of the West Indies Press
Reviewer: Barbara Nelson

Many of us in Jamaica have been taught that the Arawaks were our indigenous people and we continue to refer to them as such. The Arawaks, in fact, were the ethnic group that lived in the northern part of the Guianas. The Tainos were "the ethnic group that inhabited the Bahamian archipelago, most of the Greater Antilles, and the northern part of the Lesser Antilles prior to and during the time of Columbus."

The Earliest Inhabitants aims to promote Jamaican Tainan archaeology and highlight the diverse research conducted on our prehistoric sites and artefacts.

The editor, Lesley-Gail Atkinson, is an archaeologist with the Jamaica National Heritage Trust. She explains in her introduction to the 215-page volume, "Jamaican prehistory is regarded as one of the least studied Caribbean disciplines. That is not necessarily the case. The fact is that published Jamaican archaeological research has not had sufficient international circulation."

The Earliest Inhabitants is the first compilation on the Jamaican Tainos since J.E. Duerden in 1897 published a compilation on Jamaican prehistory, which included various sites, and research on the island's Taino artefacts.

The editor's passion for archaeology and her belief that "the knowledge and the artefacts do not belong to the Jamaica National Heritage Trust or the Institute of Jamaica, but to the people of Jamaica" inspired her to "undertake this ambitious project"

It took her almost 15 months to complete the project and she feels it is "a starting point and it aims to fill some of the gaps in Jamaican archaeology".

Six of the 14 papers are reprints of articles that are not widely available and deemed to be of archaeological significance. The remaining eight are based on recent archaeological research.

The volume has four thematic sections:

Section 1: Assessment and Excavation of Taino sites

The first chapter: The Development of Jamaican Prehistory provides a background for the evolution of Jamaican Tainan archaeology and the overall development of Jamaican archaeological research.

The Taino Settlement of the Kingston Area reports on a survey of18 sites that are arranged in an arc around Kingston. Some of the sites are difficult to access today because they are in socially volatile areas (Wareika and Rennok Lodge), while others have been partially or totally built over, for example, Norbrook and Hope Tavern.

The Pre-Columbian Site of Chancery Hall, St. Andrew is a three-part report on the discovery of the site in 1991 by George Lechler to the discoveries made at the site so far.

In Excavations at Green Castle, St. Mary, Philip Allsworth-Jones and Kit Wesler describe progress and findings in the excavations.

The Impact of Land-Based Development on Taino Archaeology in Jamaica. In this chapter, Andrea Richards examines the impact of land-based development on Taino Archaeology in Jamaica. She notes that the total number of recorded Taino sites in Jamaica is 357 and of this total 53 or 14.9 per cent have been reported destroyed as a result of infrastructural and real estate development, farming, natural disasters and raw material extraction.

Section 2: Taino Exploitation of Natural Resources illustrates the importance of natural resources for the Jamaican Tainos. The chapters are:

Notes on the Natural History of Jamaica - Wendy Lee.

The Exploitation and Transformation of Jamaica's Natural Vegetation - Lesley-Gail Atkinson. She notes that the Tainos were known for their majestic canoas (canoes); they slept in hamacas, (hammocks) made from well-woven cotton cloth; and the married women (according to Irving Rouse) wore short skirts called naguas

In Early Arawak Subsistence Strategies: The Rodney's House site of Jamaica - Sylvia Scudder reports on the analysis of the faunal remains recovered in 1978 from Rodney's house, St. Catherine.

Section 3: Analysis of Taino Archaeological Data

In Jamaica, the most abundant artefacts recovered from Taino sites are ceramics and, second, stone tools. This section analyses and highlights the importance particularly of the stone and ceramic artefacts. The chapters are:

Petrography and Source of Some Arawak Rock artefacts from Jamaica - M. John Roobol and James W. Lee.

Jamaican Taino Pottery - Norma Rodney-Harrack

Jamaican Redware - James W. Lee

Taino Ceramics from Post-Contact Jamaica - Robyn P. Woodward identifies evidence of Taino Hispanic cultural contact at Sevilla la Nueva, St. Ann's Bay that is one of the most significant sites in Jamaica.

Section 4 : Taino Art Forms

The Petroglyphs of Jamaica - James W. Lee, published in 1990 highlights the discovery of cave art sites before 1952 and sites discovered between 1952 and 1985. Lee identified 24 cave art sites; since then eleven more sites have been discovered. Most cave art sites in Jamaica are found in the southern parishes of Clarendon, St. Elizabeth, St. Catherine and Manchester.

Zemis, trees and symbolic landscapes: Three Taino Carvings from Jamaica by Nicholas Saunders and Dorrick Gray.

The publishers feel the collection will appeal not only to archaeologists, historians and students of archaeology, but also to anyone who is interested in Jamaica's history and archaeology.

I found The Earliest Inhabitants a very enlightening, enjoyable and absorbing book.

Rosa

[a poem submitted in connection with the Trinidad Caribs' Santa Rosa Festival. Written by an anonymous Trinidadian author, submitted for use only on this site. Reproduction is not currently permitted.]

Cloaked as she stands
In the stony habit of subjugation,
Saint or cultural shape shifter,
She waits only for the child.

This heart is neither meek nor mild
And that frozen mask of piety
Barely conceals the roucoued face
That stains her robes to flagrant pink.

Such are the small victories,
The toeholds that we must employ
To scale the brazen and impassive face
of ongoing ethnocide.

While roughshod over us they still ride
This infant, this ark of our kind
We will protect and hide
This same child who believed in us
Long after we had been converted
To disbelieving ourselves.

So into this hushed sanctum we will glide
Year after year,
To lift our blazing bouquets against the gloom.
Even under the patronizing smiles
we will slide,
to bring to our bride her infant groom,
To place the baby in her waiting arms.

Rosa lets them sing their psalms
But when the child rests smiling against her breast
The only song to give him rest
Will be her Carib lullaby.

Guanaguanare: Universal Aboriginality

As some readers already know, I am a fan of a Trinidadian blog that is titled, "Guanaguanare-The Laughing Gull." I recently received an email from that blog, with the following post:

....I have chosen to focus on one aspect of Trinidadian society and culture – the aboriginal presence. I will take the opportunity to think about the amnesia surrrounding aboriginality, whether deliberately induced or happily adopted, as the betrayal of man’s true nature. It is not my intention to write factual accounts about aboriginal peoples in Trinidad and Tobago. I’d be simply repeating what others have written. What I will try to do is to retreat into the cave, the Guacara, to try to remember-by-dreaming what it means to me.

To say that I have aboriginal ancestry is to proclaim that I belong to the human race. Every single one of us is descended from an aboriginal. On the physical level, DNA markers are obsessive recorders and guardians of our genetic roots and meanderings. If, for my survival, due to the introduction of competition or threat, I must lay claim to a particular geographic location or cultural identity, I must also admit to myself that this aboriginality as location is also temporary, not written in stone, not bequeathed for eternity.

Most of us originally came from elsewhere. If the centre of human genesis as we know it thus far, was located in Africa, then according to our logic, African peoples who still occupy their lands are the only genuine aboriginals. Even so, the connection to land, although a source of real comfort and rootedness, does not lock us into infinitely attaching ourselves to one location. There are many original peoples who have over time made voluntary and epic migrations from their “aboriginal” lands. We tend to think of diaspora in terms of specific ethnicities and geographic points. More interesting to me is the psychic diaspora which is part of man's experience over time and for many is remembered only as a bridge irreparably burnt.

I speak of this in order to delink and liberate the concept of aboriginality from physical location. I myself, own no land and feel no desire to reclaim the specific lands that were “taken” from my ancestors. It does not mean that I do not feel the loss but this comes NOT from my not having access to the land of my ancestors. It comes simply from not having access to any land which I feel is the right of every human being who is a citizen of this earth. I do not believe that land should be owned privately and in perpetuity by anyone and that includes myself. I will return to the topic of rights to land at a later point but I mention it here only because that is often the starting point for discussions about aboriginality.

I instead want to put aboriginality before land. I want to put it before everything else by which we allow ourselves to be distracted. Long after religion and philosophy had been trying to convince us of the brotherhood of man, science confirmed that we did in fact all come from the same place, that we had the same parents. That this discovery was not met with greater universal rejoicing is an indication of our amnesia. I want to go back to the Guacara, to remember the place where there was no doubt that we were ONE.