Political scientist rebuts myth of Puerto Rican natives’ extinction
Tony Castanha traces survival of the Puerto Rico indigenous people
Tony Castanha grew up in Hawaiʻi, eating Chinese food and aware of his mixed blood, which also includes Portuguese and English ancestors. He studied in Seattle, lived in Europe and taught in Japan.
Long active in the Hawaiian movement, he wrote his University of Hawaiʻi master’s thesis on the effects of Hawaiian sovereignty on the non-native population.
But it is the Jíbaro blood of the Puerto Rican immigrants on his mother’s side of the family that called to him. Aware of his cultural identity and prompted by curiosity about that island’s experience with colonialism, the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa ethnic studies instructor turned his eyes to the Caribbean.
The Jíbaro, or Boricua, are the indigenous peoples, the “Indians,” encountered by Columbus on Borikén, the native name for Puerto Rico. Subjected to colonialism, they were considered virtually extinct as a people by the mid-16th century, and the refrain has been made over and over.
Castanha refutes that notion in his new book, The Myth of Indigenous Caribbean Extinction: Continuity and Reclamation in Borikén (Puerto Rico). “Whole communities of Jíbaro people survive today,” he said.
The myth of Boricua extinction results from history written through colonial eyes, he explained. Castanha used ethnographical data, turning to family histories gone “underground” and accounts gathered from artisans, academics, activists, cultural practitioners, elders, campesino farmers, curanderos (healers) and espiritistas (shamans).
The book, which draws on his research as a UH Mānoa doctoral student in political science, documents five centuries of remarkable resistance and cultural continuity.
“I look at the cultural continuity of people in Puerto Rico,” he said. People practice old traditions in agriculture—such as planting by the moon, mixing different plants and planting in mounds—as well as spiritual practices and use of medicinal plants. Indian words persist in the names of places, foods and plants, and Indian accents prevail in many Spanish words spoken.
“I’ve made many trips to Puerto Rico. I feel a strong cultural connection—I’m mesmerized,” he said. “I don’t deny my other backgrounds, they just don’t touch me like my Native American background.”
In Puerto Rico, as in Hawaiʻi, there is a resurgence of native culture, he observed. The indigenous Jíbaro provide the root culture in Borikén.
Puerto Ricans in Hawaiʻi
The colonial experience of Puerto Rico and Hawaiʻi isn’t just an academic comparison. After the great San Ciriaco hurricane and famine, more than 5,000 Jíbaro were brought to Hawaiʻi as laborers for the sugar plantations via 11 voyages at the turn of the 20th century—after the Portuguese, Japanese and Okinawans and before the Koreans and Filipinos.
Oʻahu’s Hawaiʻi Plantation Village includes a Puerto Rican camp, although it doesn’t identify the indigenous nature of the immigrants, Castanha said.
Most of those who survived the trip across the North American continent and Pacific Ocean stayed. The community, much closer in the 1930s and 1940s, has largely dispersed now, although the oldest and largest cultural association, the United Puerto Rican Association of Hawaiʻi, still exists and large populations remain in areas on Maui and the Big Island.
“A lot has been lost in terms of knowledge about the homeland,” Castanha said, but the culture persists in dances with Jíbaro music, foods that people cook and the mannerisms of the people.
He hopes his book will serve as an educational tool in understanding the past 500 years. He plans to have it translated into Spanish.
“I believe it’s an important subject, partially because Puerto Rico is still a colonial possession of the United States. This is not a kind of ‘revisionist’ history I’m telling. Lives are still at stake.”
More on the book
Visit the Palgrave Macmillan website.
Category: Research
I’m Puerto Rican and also a UH Manoa student and just wanted to point out that the indigenous people of Puerto Rico are not the “jíbaros” but the “taínos”. “Jíbaros” are the people who live in the mountains, the country side, a bit secluded. The “taínos” are, in fact, extinct, although you can still see their physical characteristics on a lot of the population. The “jíbaros” do exist and are still keeping our traditions alive but there aren’t too many and most of them are old people. Puerto Ricans use the term “jíbaro” nowadays, when referring to someone who’s shy and inexperienced.
Sister Kidys Medina the Jibaro is synonymous with Taino and no the Taino are not extinct DNA has already proven that check your facts. The fact that any trate of the Taino still exist is proof enough. As I always say, y tu abuela donde esta? You are, we are what they are. To deny any part of our hereritage is to deny who and what we are as a people. The Taino is alive and doing well just take a look and you’ll find us. Take care waitiao may the spirits of our ancestors bless you and all of your loved ones, Tau! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Taino-Boricua-News/
Tomas Baibramael Gonzalez
Tomas,iread your posting with great interest!i am
aware of Taino pride en los Boicuas.i am totally
ignorant on the matter,besides i left PR in 53!
i have posted the following;
own a book published in 1977 by Luis Hernandez
Aquino. “Diccionario De Voces Indigenas de Puerto
Rico”.A profesor at the University of Puerto Rico the rest of titles are to long for me to write here. are you familiar with the book? where the
latest vocabullary coming and if there are new dictionaries published? i have no idea why dad
Had the dic.mentioned above. my main interest the
history Of PR in general.
Pedro, para mas informacion sobre palabras Taino te refiero al siguiente link.
http://www.salonhogar.net/Diccionario/DicctainoA.htm
Creo que te va a interesar. Esparte de parte de “Clásicos de Puerto Rico segunda edición, editor, Ediciones Latinoamericanas, 1972″ fueron compllados por el historiador puertorriqueño Dr. Cayetano Coll Y Toste de la “Real Academia de la Historia”. El autor es el Dr Cayetano Coll y Toste (1850-1930), un hombre muy querido y respetado en su rama.
Tomas, obviamente no me referia al DNA porque demas se ha comprobado que somos una mezcla de Tainos, negro africano y españoles, ese es el puertorriqueño asi que en ese aspecto estas correcto, la sangre taina no esta extinta. Nunca he negado lo que soy, naci y me crie en Yabucoa, la mitad de mi familia es jibara y la otra afroantillana, simplemente expuse mi opinion con respcto a la manera despectiva con que se usa el termino “jibaro” en Puerto Rico, no digo que esta bien y habemos muchos que lo usamos con orgullo.
Kidys…you should ask your grandparents how they were call…jibaro will be the only word you will hear or indian…
In fact your right the TAinos are extinct, since they never existed, they are extinct…it was the Jibaro, us that truly exist…
Maybe if you study somexis native history you would learn that the colonial world will always put the traditional names as something that is wrong, or stupid, so it is very irresponsible to accept the mistake of thinking that jibaro refers to inexperience people…
Pluma, I was born and raised in Puerto Rico. We study our history throughout elementary, middle, and high school, even college plus as I stated before, my family are half jibaros and half anfroantillano. Tainos DID exist, as our friend Tomas and other pointed out (DNA & physical traits, words we still use in our language, centros ceremoniales, etc). Jibaro is not even a colonial term and I was referring to nowadays in PR, yes, we ALL know what jibaros really are but it is used (and I dont condone this) as a derogatory term a lot of times.
Im Puertorican living in PR and your statement is not correct, the jibaro is the farmer who was brouhgt to the island from the Canary islands because of the similarity of the rugged terrain both places have mountains and some spaniards couldnt deal with it, the Tainos escaped to the mountains so the Jibaros interacted with them creating the pool gene of the Boricua almost 33% have Taino blood as an Interamerican University study found, and it makes sense, the Tainos are alive and theres a huge chance that they are doing it even inside you and in your kids.
Dear Friends, I would like to clarify and point out that the word or term Jiba-ro with its meaning of “Men of the Forest” is of a linguistic Taino origin and was simply a new world term in the 1500s or name that was given by the Tainos to any Taino children who were mixed blooded, Spanish European and Taino American Indian. These “mestizo Taino people” are the same people living in the central mountain hill country of Puerto Rico. It appears that the children of Spanish European whom later would become the Puerto Ricans and whom also would become the future writers and historians started a new trend of referring to the Jibaro as the humble hill people as campesinos. It is without question that the Taino of the past never became extinct but simply mutated into “El Jibaro del Campo” retaining the original values, cultural patters and philosophy of the life and the old Taino way of living.
The Jibaros are not the indigenous people of Puerto Rico; they were called T A I N O. “Jibaros” are my abuelos people that lived in the mountains or worked with the crops they used the iconic pava hat and had jibaro music Puerto Rico’s folk music instruments like el cuatro etc…
The error could have been made by the person who wrote this article not the author.
ps The TAINO lives!
i grew up and lived in Puerto Rico thru
my first year at the university there.
i have read that 64% of the women on the
island have certain physical features (theeth)
formation found on the native Tainos.
A website,”Puerto Rico en Breve” is an excellent
on historical facts about the island.
i am 77 and the text books we used were in english
including the our history!
Invocations to you all…
I like with much respect to correct that the native people of this island are called the Jibaros that comes from our ancestor word Cachibalo…I stand firm to this because I have made many investigations noting oral history on P.R. around the islands, in mountains…I have interview many native that have never gone down from the mountains and they called themselves JIBAROS , only the people that have read books or have had any experience with the academic panorama use the word taino…I have also investigate academical researchers and books written by antropologist and arqueologist…
I have proof of all that I say…but, let me tell you also that the modern world created colonial strategies that has change our name from Jibaro to Taino with the only intention to declare that we dont exist…The taino word is just a nominal name in terms of archeological time
Pluma, I do not remember ever hearing the word “Cachibalo? What does it mean? Where does it come from? I have looked around for some definition and can not find one even though I have seen it in reference to some video. If at all possible and if you can, could you please give some links as to where I can find this information? Thanks
I could not find that either. Only in reference to that irrelevant video.
Awilda
Gracias, esto se ha convertido en un campo de batalla con personas qu dan una opinion irresponsable, especialmente cuando ni siquiera han vivido o estudiado en PR.
As a Boricua & graduate of Univ. of Hawaii (Manoa 1969) I can confirm that the Taino indian were exterminated during the Spanish colony. As a matter of fact, the Spaniards had to import African slaves to replace the Tainos working the land. The “Jibaro” was and is all those borne inland (away from the coast) that worked the land. Just as the two previous comments explain. And if you are from San Juan or Ponce then anybody else is a Jibaro.
I agree with much of what you said. Except that the Taino’s were all exterminated. My daughters, Great Grandmother (she was born in 1922), gave birth to all her children in a Bohio (by choice), behind their house in Utuado. I belive it still stands to this day, the proof is in the DNA, studies have been done. Also they imported slaves because the Tiano’s would rather die than be a slave. When I lived in Puerto Rico, I was a Jibaro, and prode of it.
Swizz, been born in a “Bohio” does not make you a Taino. All it says is that your parents were “Jibaros Puertorriqueños”. The type that has “La Mancha de Platano”, nothing more. My family is from Barrio Cedro Arriba in Naranjito and most of them did live in “bohios”, so I think I know what a Jibaro is and is not. I can accept that there is still some residual of the TAINO blood because of the crossing of Spaniard and African blood with the Taino indians but not to the degree of 20-30%. As I have mentioned before, my father told me that we had some Taino indian blood that I have calculated to be in the 1/16 to 1/8, most likly in the 1/16 ratio. My mother side was puere Spaniards. I am 74.
Look for a painting of Ramon Frade by the name “El Pan Nuestro” to see what a Jibaro look like back before the early 1950′s.
as a mater of fact my father was an artist also and we
visited Don Ramon at his studio in cayey.that was a long
time ago.
i was born and raised in san juan, just in front of
the fortress of san cristobal on norzagaray st.
i am in no way disputing your knowledge of Puerto Rican
history. at my age i have seen more jibaros that you
can imagine. i finished only one yr at the UPR.it turns
out that i enjoy Puerto Rican history than when i was
in school!where are you from in PR?
Puerto Rico en breve: historia, cultura y genealogía. History, Culture …of PR.Check this site!
http://www.preb.com/ -
I was born in Cayey (on the first floor of Ramon Frade’s house (he and his wife (Doa Reparada lived upstairs) and raise in Rio Piedras through my High School (Republica de Colombia Class 55). Ramon Frade was my godfather and myself and my brother were used as model for some of his paintings. Today I am 74, I lived in Naranjito and visited my grandfathe many time in his house in Cedro Arriba, Naranjito where we did mingled with the real Jibaro. To go to his house was a couple of weeks of planning the trip since they had to send horses the “la Linea” if the had any available. Otherwise we had to walk which would have taken us some 3 hours to get to their house.
Just for clarification, there were numerous reasons for writing the book. It also dispels the idea that “Taino” was used as a term of self-ascription. The word in this context is a nineteenth century anthropological invention coming from the periphery, not from inside the communities. The term does not survive in family histories, at least before this time. The Jíbaro are the true “Indian” people of Puerto Rico according to their own accounts, adapting over the centuries to many changes. Similar to how the term “Kanaka” became disparagingly used to depict the indigenous peoples (the Kanaka Maoli) of Hawai’i, so too were the Jíbaro at one time shamed and stereotypically seen as “backward,” “primitive,” “uncultured,” etc. Many people in primarily rural and mountain regions take pride in their culture and still identify by this native name, just as they did before the European arrival. Recent research further reveals that about 61 percent of the population on the island tests positive for Amerindian mitochondrial DNA (from the female line only). These are the Jíbaro Indian descendants, still there, not frozen in time, practicing their native culture in their subtle unassuming ways. However reading the book may be more convincing of this as it seeks to rebut long entrenched myths.
This is getting to be an interesting discussion.
evidently you never expected native Puerto Ricans
to read your assertions. where is all you write
about coming from?
Dear Mr. Castanha you should go back and look at the history of the Caribbean to learn a bit more about the Caribe and Taino Indians. The Caribe from Dominica Island (still with a reservation on the island) ant the Taino in Puerto Rico. By the way the name “Indian” came because Christopher Columbus was “looking” for India the country and its silk and spices and when he found land the natural thing was to call its inhabitants indians. Yes there were and in a limited amount there still some Taino blood in Puertorricans but ever generation it looses its place in our DNA. I myself have about one 1/18 to 1/8 Taino blood for what my father told me. The history of Puerto Rico is been taught in Puerto Rico with a book written by someone by the name of Escarano or something to that effect. I will look it up and let you know. But you are wrong on your claim of the Jibaro as original inhabitants of the island. Maybe you are tranporting the Jibaro Indian from Ecuador-Peru-Brazill Amazone to Puerto Rico and this never did happened.
Guakia Taino Yahabo- We the Taino People are still here no matter what anyone else says. Mr. Castanha your research is correct and there are thousands of us still here who carry on the Taino language, custom, traditions, areitos and more. Please feel free to contact me at any time for more information or just to link up with other fellow Taino’s. Taino ti and many blessings as you walk this road of discovery.
The Taino people are still around as the Cheese people live in the moon or the Dodo still is around.
Thank you Tony for clarifying this…I like to add that the modern world can deal with us the native in books and history but not alive…so that is why modern history has invented the name Taino for our people and burry our truly name Jibaro…how history has dissapeare us is not a mystery…historian just change our name to a fake name creating an abyss in our existence…through our truly name Jibaro we can proof that we have never dissapear…
‘ Cause Im here, Im alive, Im resisting the historical genocide….
Mr Castanha, following mmy own recomendation o you, I went back and loook for more information on the word TAINO. well acording to Cayetano Caoll y Toste this is what he wrote;
“Tayno – Bueno . Dice el doctor Chanca: “E llegóndose alguna barca a tierra a hablar con ellos, dicióndoles tayno, tayno , que quiere decir bueno .” Bachlller y Morales aplica este nombre a los indo-antlllanos, en general, para oponerio al de Caribe. Los caribes insulates procedían de los caribes del Continente; y los otros indígenas, anteriores a los caribes en la ocupación del Archipiélago antlllano, venían de los Aruacas de Tierra Firme; por lo tanto, lo natural y lógico es llamaries los Aruacas insulates; y al determinarlos decir haitíanos, quisqueyanos, ciguayos, boriquefios, siboneyes, xamayquinos, etcetera, según la isla.”
In another writing here I do mention about the “Boricua and Boriquen” names also from his writing. As you can see we all learn something new every day no matter how old we are.
Hi Jorge this is Pedro, your info is correct and
i have read the same. i am begining to wonder
were these other people are getting their information from on this matter. there are so
many resources in PR for those that would want to research about our history. as always i am in
agreement with you.
Back in 72 Rafael Hernandez Colon was elected Governor and he started the “Nationalization” for the Puertorricans when he started calling the Parks, Newspapers, Radio etc National meaning the island. until them everything was understood to be “insular” but not “National”. The Taino studies were accelerated and by the the 1979 Caribbean Games we even had invented Taino dances that were presented during the inauguration of the games. Since those days there has been many interesting discoveries and “inventions”. I assume many of these people are basing their information on the findings during these time and without going back in history to analyze what they are talking about. If you see many of those writing here are going by what they were told an many were not even born and/or raise on the island. some of them are pure Boricuas by blood but many I am sure are xxxricans. Nothing wrong with that but their culture, puer Boricuas by blood or not is different from the culture of those born and raise on the islans and that is a fact.
Although I have never heard the term “jibaro” used to refer to the culture, Boriken or a derivative like Boricua would more accurately describe the indigenous people of Puerto Rico. We say Taino today after Colombus. Story goes that they introduced themselves as “Taino” or “good and noble” people and so the term stuck. However they identified themselves by the name of their land, Boriken being Puerto Rico, Cubanakan for Cuba, etc. Jibaro, an indigenous word, persists as the term for the peasant class that took to the mountains, but also with many “taino” fleeing to the mountains to escape the yoke of colonialism and enslavement much of their bloodline continues in these areas, down to the moon-based agricultural practices that persist and even in elements of jibaro music like the use of the guiro and the maraca, indigenous instruments used by the original people of Boriken. To use the term “jibaro” to refer to “shy/ inexperienced” people or as was used in other communities where I grew up in Brooklyn as the equivalent of “hick” here in the states is to perpetuate the racism that is prevalent throughout the Americas that would still choose to portray indigenous people as inferior, incapable, etc.
As for extinct, I prefer to use the term for the animal kingdom where a species of animal ceases to exist. But if mitochondrial DNA studies have proven that more than 60% of Puerto Rico’s population possesses Native blood then we are just a product of the racial intermixing that came after the Conquest in 1493, the arrival of the Spanish and of Africans. Lastly the cultural evidence is overwhelming.
I forgot to mention that I greatly appreciate the references of the historical links between Hawaii and Puerto Rico as a result of the US conquest of each in 1898. More needs to be done about the links, commonalities and overlaps between these two communities.
Not been Puertorrican, born and raise ion the island it is understandable to inject “racism” to the calling someone a Jibaro. Puertorricans are very proud to be called a Jibaro for your information. You have been mixing your US mainland culture to that of the ones in Puerto Rico. Two (2) cultures totally different. This is a mistake made by most descendent of Puertorrican parents or those young Puertorricans that were brought by their parents to the mainland and grew up here. For your information the phrase of “llevas la Mancha de Platano” is one use by us to identify ourself as Puertorricans and it is use as a tribute to the Jibaro that worked the land producing plantains. This is not to say that there is no discrimination on the island but it is nor even a tenth of what is here on the mainland. One love expression used very much on the island is to call your love one “negrito or negrita mio(a)” and nobody get offended by it.
my parents along with my uncles when to Hawaii in 1920 with a group of 20 thousand Puerto Rican to work and in 1900 a group of 20 thou. had gone to Hawaii before them, my parent and my uncle were one of the few to return to P.R. i was station in Pear Harbor for over a year and met many Hawaiian Puerto Rican i was at the Puerto Rican Association on School St. about a mile from the base most of them don’t speak Spanish but they sing Puerto Rican music in spanish and eat arroz con gandules and pasteles for Chrismas. i would like to make a correction about the article the jibaros were the European people from the Canary Island, Corsica and Sicily brought to Puerto Rico by the Spanish Gov. who were given free land to farm in the interior of P.R. to replace the Taino who ran away to the mountain when the Spanish try to slave them. Puerto Rico was not a Colony of Spain it was province with representative in the Spanish Court and Spain never traffic slave they brought Catholic priest to Christianize the Taino and make them slave. my mother was Spanish decent and my father was Taino i’m a member of the Borinquen Tribe, 96% of P.Rican have European blood and about 46% have Taino blood so about have of the P.Rican population have Taino blood not African blood, the English were the one that traded slave from Africa was for the most part and to some extend the French an the Dutch. pa Que sepa
I think you should check you history again. The Spanish did bring blacks to replace the Tainos working the land. Yes the English and Dutch brought blacks to the Caribbean but the Spaniards did as well.
Peace
1. the term jibaro applies to two distinct groups of peoples: a. distinct ethnic group in Venezuela/Brazil regions. b. a person from the country side in Cuba, Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic, that may have had some native blood or not.
2. The native or indigenous people of Puerto Rico were the Taino people. While there are no pure blood Tainos left, mixed blood descendants abound.
1) The Jibaro Indian is from the jungles of Peru. Ecuador, Brazil primarily. The Jibaro in Puerto Rico is call anyone that lived inland and worked the land.
2) as you say the indigenous people of Puerto Rico ware the Taino Indian which were related to the Arawak Indian. Today the is some, but very diluted DNA of the Taino Indian in many Boricuas. I was told by my father that I was 1/8 to 1/16 Taino indian and I am 74 years old. So make your calculation and look at the dilution of the blood.
All we know of the Taino is what Bartolome de las Casas and others of that period wrote. First hand information died with the last Taino.
I’m Boricua but was born and raised in the states. As a historian I have researched a lot about my people, so I can understand the controversy that comes from this subject. I’m not going to comment much on this part because enough has been said. This article however has brought back good memories. I’m full Puerto Rican but half of my ancestors were Spaniards and half were Taino. My dad used to tell how he would go to his grandmother’s house in Jayuya (a town in the mountains). She was what he called an “India” and she would be chewing tobacco on the porch while he and his brothers would run around the house. One time she spit out the tobacco juice and it landed on my dad’s hand. He complained about it and she told him it was his fault for being in the way of her spit. Lol! Puerto Rican mothers and grandmothers were usually so rude and aggressive. She was also a santera, a woman who practiced Santeria. My uncles would stay over her house on some occasions and at night they would hear really loud footsteps above them. They would enquire about the footsteps the next morning and their abuela would say it was just her “Indio” spirit friend that would hang around the house and protect her every night. Remembering those freaky and funny stories always makes me want to visit. I hope I can go next summer.
Santeria is an Afro culture-religion not Taino. the indians they did have “medicime man” but did not practice Santeria. Santeria comes from working with the “Santos=Saints” of the Catholic church.
Wow, you guys are intense. I never said Santeria was a Taino custom, I said that is what my great-grandmother practiced. Because of African cultures brought to the island, African beliefs and customs as well as European, mixed with the practices of the natives (as has happened all over the Americas) and created many of the cultural practices on the island today. I was just remembering the stories my father told me, and wasn’t here to lecture people about what is right or wrong. As a historian, I could sit here and waste my time doing that, but I’m not going to. Es una pena que en vez de tener una buena conversacion y discusion sobre la historia de nuestra bella isla, estamos teniendo una competencia de quien conoce a Puerto Rico mejor. Disfrutemos nuestra mezcla de etnicidades que nos hace uniqos. Si la palabra es Taino o Jibaro, parece que eso depende de a quien le preguntes. Yo estoy agradecida que por lo menos todavia hay gente como Castanha que toman tiempo para estudiar e investigar el pasado y estan orgullosos de tener sangre Taina/Jibara.
For those of you who have been confused by the bickering about the genetics of the people of Puerto Rico, here is an article about the studies conducted by Dr. Juan Martinez Cruzado and published in 2003.
http://www.centrelink.org/KearnsDNA.html
Good luck to all, and if you are Puerto Rican, don’t rub it in other people’s faces because then they’ll never get to appreciate the beauty and wonder of our island, our culture, and our people.
Ms Negron Pues si! Boricuas are intense!! and thanks for the link.Check one link called
http://www.preb.com/
PS Felicidades a todos!!
Ms Negron, as our friend Pedro states, we Boricuas are intense in just about we do. From my part I can tell you that growing up on the island an having family and lived in the mountains of Naranjito-Corozal-Barranquitas we (I) did learn a lot of what we are talking here. Naranjito in the 40′s and even early 50′s was a place where the Jibaro came to town on horses with the “banastas” full of bananas and other staples to sell, Tabaco was produce and there was no asphalt other than the main road though town. Our “history” classes were based on an English book by a guy by the name Miller if I recall correctly. The only book used for many years on the island. I lived in Najarnjito during the Don Pedro Albizu Campo attempt revolution in 1952 where they attack the police station. I do write here when I see something that I believe to be wrong, I do try to be polite and respectful. I believe that it is our right and duty to try to enlighten those decedent Boricuas that were born or raise on the US mainland (xxxricans). I believe we all learn something new every day no matter how old we are and throughout the years to look up different sources even or when something is said that do not match what I think I know. I just do not like those people that I consider to be over enthusiastic about anything and try to pass it on as “true and the only truth” or when some “xxxricans” talk as if they were more Boricuas than those that where born and raise on the island. That there is some Taino blood still around in Puerto Rico, of course there is but that many of the things we are discovering today are as they were back in the 15-1600, please. To many historians invent or project things from written records and/or hearsay so it is important to read more than one historian to learn what could be true. I try, if at all possible, to the horses mouth to learn and make my opinion on the subject.
Sorry for this long and kind of jumping all around on subjects. As our friend Pedro did say we are intense!!!
Sr Rivera, con este parrafo usted ha resumido perfectamente lo que ha pasado aqui. Muchas gracias.
Tau Wei waitiao Yarizel,
Greetings from the Big Apple sister Yarizel, I’m sitting here reading and enjoying the postings on Jibaros and Taino. some doing research coming up with conclusions on whom and what is right and wrong according to the sources they come up with to prove a point. It’s all good it bring to the fore front the continuing saga of the Taino survival. Until the Taino resurgence movement of 1998. The Taino was dead and buried, extinct and to some who are in total denial, it never happened! Go figure. It was through the will of Yaya and the grace of Atabex that our women continued giving birth to the Taino, the good, the noble people. We as a people continue to live and thrive stronger than ever. Finally the Taino has taken its rightful place and no longer ignored, denied! but not ignored.
I had occasion to visited Cuba in 1999 and celebrated the survival of the Taino in Cuba. With Don Fernando, a local Cacike from the mountains of Guantanamo and his people who were brought down from the mountains to participate in an Areito in their honor in Santiago de Cuba. Even Fidel Castro has lay claim to being Taino. You brought this memory back to me with the question about Santeria and the Taino. We celebrated the whole day singing, dancing and eating. Exchanging gifts and trading our regalia and feathers with one another. That night at the stroke of midnight, los Santeros started celebrating with a Bembe of all Bembes. I was allowed to participate with some of the drummers and low and behold who was there dancing and fully participating in el Bembe? The Taino hand in hand with the Santeros. Just as the Africans had to convert to Catholicism in order to serve. So did the Taino within Santeria. No big thing just survival mi gente!
I hope the discussion continues and that more articles and books are presented and introduced to the readers so that they may educate themselves about the Taino del Caribe. Ahiahud waitiao, han han katu.
Muy buenas! Ms Negron, by bringing in Santeria we are
going into a different subject, Santeria roots
are African and as you know you will find similar
practices in the Caribbean and any place in Latin
Amerca that slaves were brought to.
Just wanted to point this out…because it annoys the hell out of me when this word is used improperly… Boricua means woman in Taino so for a man to use it is a little eeehhhhhh… but back on the topic yes the Tainos and the Caribes are both indigenous peoples that stem from the Arawaks which were thought to have migrated from Central America and spread all over the Carribean. Very rich history great to see people still have an interest in other cultures!
Boricua DOESNT mean woman in Taino- The Taino language is linguistically related to Arawak. The word Boricua means – Person of the House of the Great/Valiant Chief. Woman in the Taino language is Inaru- dont post wrong information up here that will mislead people.
Boricua means a person from BORIKEN, BORIQUEN, BORINQUEN, in other words, Puerto Rico. BORIKEN is what the Taino indian called the island whn Christopher Columbus landed on the island.
Going over the writing above as to “. . .Boricua means woman in Taino. . .”. You know, this person “Anonymous”. must be regular gringo or a xxxrican (newyorican, Chicagorican” etc that has not learn that just because ending in an “a” does no mean that is feminine. Unlike English, Spanish has that unique virtue that can be masculine when it ends on an “o”, can be feminine if it end on an “a”, or can be both it all depends on what it is. This is one of little things that many non native Spanish speakers do not know or understand. And why I have always said that just because you are a descendent of Puertorrican (one or two parents) and specially if you did not grew up on the island you are not a Boricua / Puertorrican (con mancha de platano). However that does not mean not to be proud of your ancestry. You are a proud Newyorican or whatever “rican” and proud of your ancestry like Italians, Germans or others are proud of theirs.