Signal Hill Secondary School

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Signal Hill Secondary School

Caribbean History

Theme 1: The Indigenous Peoples and the Europeans

At the end of this topic, students will be able to:

1.  Describe the migratory and settlement patterns of the indigenous peoples in the Caribbean up to the arrival of the Spanish in 1492.

2.  Explain the factors that led to Columbus’ voyages.

3.  Assess the impact of the Europeans on the indigenous peoples up to 1600

4.  Assess the impact of the indigenous peoples on the Europeans up to 1600.

The Indigenous Peoples and the Europeans (People who came book 1)

We do not really know how people came to be in the Americas, but there is a theory that they came to America from Asia during the 4th Ice Age. The Bering Strait formed a bridge so that wanderers crossed the straits to the Americas. Most likely, being hunters, they followed the herds of animals like the giant mammoth, and continued to follow the herd without knowing that they were in a new land.

During these years, the newcomers travelled in many directions. Some stayed in North America. Eventually, some of them moved southward until they reached Mexico and the Isthmus of Panama and some of them continued even further Southward into South America.

Questions

1.  How many reasons can you think of why people might leave their country? Why do people migrate from your country? Why do others come to your country?

2.  Map-work-Imagine that you are a young Siberian, Using your map on page two of this handout, draw arrows which show how your people migrated from Asia to the Caribbean.

3.  Write the words below, then make sentences with each word:

a.  Migration

b.  Ice bridge

c.  Bering strait

d.  Siberia

Tainos

·  Complete the following table (Location Library-Photocopy Text Caribbean Story Book One- Page 7, and an Atlas which shows the Caribbean)

Amerindian Group / Places where they lived
Lucayans
Tainos
Kalinagos
Mayas
Borequinos
Ciboneys

Social Organisation

Food

The Arawaks were farmers, but fishing provided them with as much of their food as did farming. They ate a great variety of fish, mainly shellfish, but also grouper, snapper and barracuda. In Cuba, fish were bred in artificial pools, and turtles were also caught by using the remora, or sucker fish. Nooses, snares and nets were used for catching birds and part of an Arawak boy’s education was to learn to imitate the cry of birds and to make snares and nets.

The Arawaks also did some hunting. The hutia or coney was their favourite prey. They also caught iguana, the yellow snake and the manatee. The Arawaks were subsistence farmers and used the slash and burn method. This means that they burnt the land in order to clear it of weeds and bush, and cut down the trees in order to clear space for planting. The burning produced a certain amount of ash to be used as fertilizer, but it also burnt out essential elements in the top soil and reduced its fertility.

In planting, the women worked in rows, each woman carrying a bag of soaked grain around her neck. She made a hole with her digging stick, threw a few grains of corn into it with her left hand, covered the hole with her food and repeated the process until her share of the planting was finished.

They practiced a type of agriculture called the cunoco. This involved heaping the soil in mounds. In each mound were planted a variety of crops in such a way as to enrich and protect one another, since the plants took different nutrients from the soil. This type of planting let the air into the soil and provided ground cover. It also reduced the chance of erosion. The farming practices of the arawaks were also geared toward supporting a large population.

In addition to planting corn and cassava, the Arawaks planted yams, beans, cotton and tobacco, and supplemented their foodstuff by fishing. They ate a variety of fishes including groupers, snappers and barracudas.

Political Organisation

The cacique was the leader the the Arawak community. He had two roles:

·  In his own village, he was the headman and had the power of any other headman.

·  He ruled over the whole province and could give orders that affected people living in all the villages in that province.

His other roles were:

1.  He decided whether the people of a certain island would go to war against a neighbouring island or against another province.

2.  He could levy a kind of tax on the people of his province. This might be in the form of agricultural produce or of weapons.

3.  He might demand that a certain number of men be sent from villages to take part in the raids.

4.  He inherited his position. Unlike the Maya however, the Arawak recognized matrilineal descent that is, inheritance through the mother’s family. Moreover, the Cacique might be a woman.

Privileges of the Cacique

1.  He was given part of the harvest for himself and his family.

2.  Special cassava cakes were made for him.

3.  His house or bohio was built by the villagers and was larger than that of the others.

4.  He and his family wore ornaments of gold and copper alloy called guanin for gold was a sign of rank among them.

5.  His wives’ skirts were longer than those of the other women, for length of skirt was a sign of high rank.

6.  His canoe was the largest in the village and the only one to be painted.

7.  When he travelled by land, he was carried in a litter, while his son was carried on servants’ shoulders.

8.  At his death, he was burnt in his own hut or buried in a cave or grave.

9.  The Arawaks also buried two or more of the favourite wives of the cacique with him. They were provided with a calabash of water and a portion of cassava. This was to help to feed them on their journey to Coyaba, where they would continue to serve their husband.

Each village was ruled by a headman, or mitayno or touchaus while the province was ruled by the Cacique. For most Arawak people, it was the headman’s power which mattered. His functions were as follows:

·  He organized the work of the village.

·  He decided when land should be prepared, crops planted and harvested and any surplus stored for distribution in the community.

·  He was the religious leader of his village.

·  He was the judge whose word was law and who could sentence people to death for disobedience.

Nobles

Nobles and mitaynos also inherited their position.

Commoners

People who were born commoners remained in that class. Slaves were usually men and women captured in wars, female captives were given to outstanding warriors as concubines.

All work was done communally, the commoners and slaves doing the work which the nobles supervised.

Shaman

Each village had a lesser chief called a Shaman. These lesser priests performed a variety of functions including providing cures for illnesses and making prophecies.

Religion

1.  Their belief was called ANIMISM. It was based on the existence of a spirit world. To them , the forest and river possessed both good and evil spirits. There were spirits in the trees, rocks and birds. As a result, the Arawaks religious practices aimed at pleasing the spirit God or asking it for protection.

2.  They believed in a supreme being called JOCCHU, and felt that all life came from the sky.

3.  The Arawak zemis were idols made of different kinds of material-wood, bone, stone or even cotton-which were felt to contain the forces of nature or the spirits of the ancestors. Each family had its own zemi, which it prized highly and some families kept the bones of dead ancestors in a basket for use a zemis.

4.  The cacique’s zemis were felt to be more powerful than anyone else’s. It was believed that only the cacique could speak to the zemis.

5.  Even though the ordinary people could not converse with the zemis, each home had its own zemi in a place of honour on a small table.

6.  A bowl of snuff (cahoba) or powdered tobacco was placed before it and when the person wished to pray, he placed the cahoba on the zemi’s flat topped head and inhaled from it through his nostrils from a y-shaped cane tube. He often rubbed the zemi with cassava to feed it, for the Arawaks felt that if their zemi went hungry, they would fall ill.

7.  They placed great importance on religious ceremonies. The cacique announced the day on which a ceremony was to take place. Their bodies were washed and painted red, white and black. The men wore their feathered cloaks and the women decorated their arms and legs with shells and coral.

8.  When all were assembled the entire people formed a procession with the cacique at its head. He led them to the sacred hut on the outskirts of the village and there he and the priests entered to pray. First they tickled their throats with swallow sticks to make themselves vomit and prove to the zemis that no impurity remained in them. After this, they smoked the cahoba until they lost consciousness. It was then that the zemis were supposed to speak to them.

9.  The arawaks believed in many gods, whom the zemis represented. The most important among these were the god of the sky and the goddess of the earth from whom all living things had descended. They also believed in a God of the moon which they thought was the sun’s twin brother. They also believed in spirits called opia, which belonged to the dead, and who returned at night to try to enter their bodies. For this reason, they only went out at night in groups and protected themselves by wearing zemis around their necks or foreheads.

10.  Shamans or Piaimen were priests who were singled out to expain the mysterious and control the spirit world. They were said to possess supernatural powers. The greatest power they had was to drive out diseases. MATTRACAS (rattles), the chief articles of their trade, were used for chanting while they blew smoke on the diseased person.

Festivals/Entertainment

a.  The naming of a baby was a time of rejoicing for the arawaks felt that a child without a name would meet great misfortune.

b.  The wedding of a cacique and the inauguration of a cacique were occasions for festivity.

c.  Harvest time or the return of a victorious war party were also occasions to celebrate.

d.  The Arawaks’ favourite sport was a ball game called BATOS played with a hard rubber ball. The art of the game was to keep the ball in the air using the thighs only.

e.  Ball games as well as other events were occasions for dances. They danced and sang to the accompaniment of drums or to rattles.

f.  They were fond of drinking parties as well.

Food

i.  Their main food was cassava.

ii.  They made a kind of corn bread with green corn whose kernels they crushed.

iii.  Their main dish was pepperpot.

iv.  They usually ate in the morning and in the evening when they returned from hunting.

v.  Husbands and wives ate apart, and there was very little conversation.

vi.  They caught and ate various types of fish, shellfish, turtle and manatee.

vii.  They ate a lot of fruits such as pineapples, guavas and cashews.

Economic Organization

Trading was an important economic activity which was carried on from village to village, and island to island. Arawaks were farmers, so Arawak villages were usually near land which could be farmed. They grew cassava, corn, sweet potatoes and tobacco which they smoked. The role of the women in the economy was vital. They planted and reaped the crops, prepared the food and cared for the children. On the other hand, men cleared the fields, wove the baskets , fished and hunted. They were also excellent seamen and fishermen. As mentioned before, trade took place between the islands. Jamaica supplied hammocks and cotton cloth to Cuba and Haiti, while Haiti produced gold ornaments.

Dress

Women

They wore thin cotton bands on their arms and legs. Those that were married wore a loincloth. Ears, noses and often the lower lip were pierced so that ornaments usually gold, could be worn.

Men

They wore ornaments of stone, bone, shell , clay or gold, together with armlets, leg bands and necklaces. They painted themselves with red, white, yellow and black pigments. Roucou, a red dye, was their favourite paint.

Chiefs

The chiefs wore the GUANIN a plate of gold and copper alloy, and also dressed up in gold crowns and feather headdresses.

Role of women

1.  They cooked

2.  They did the spinning and weaving of cotton cloth.

3.  They tended the fields.

4.  They also served as priests.

Role of men

a.  They caught fish and meat for the family.

b.  They built their own canoes.

c.  They built their own homes.

d.  They hunted.

Houses

Several families shared one house, which was called a caneye. It was round and made of wattle and thatch. Sometimes it had windows, but not always.

The cacique’s house was called a bohio. He lived here with his wives. It was often larger than the others and rectangular in shape. Except for the zemis and the hammocks and some clay pots which were hung from the roof, there was no furniture in the arawak’s home.

Warfare

i.  Usually, their wars were on neighbouring tribes, fought to establish fishing or hunting rights. Or they might be wars of revenge.

ii.  They went to battle under a noble who had put himself forward as their leader.

iii.  They painted their bodies red and carried their round or square shaped shields with spears and clubs.