THE TAINOS OF JAMAICA
The African Caribbean Institute of Jamaica (ACIJ) was established in 1972 as a division of the Institute of Jamaica to deepen public awareness of African cultural retentions in Jamaica. In 1990, the Jamaica Memory Bank (JMB) was integrated into the ACIJ, forming the ACIJ /JMB. The JMB documents Jamaica’s social history via audiovisual recordings of the memories of senior citizens throughout the country. The ACIJ/ JMB has a wealth of resources relating to Afrojamaican cultural heritage and a vast area of Jamaica’s social history.
THE TAINOS OF JAMAICA
The Tainos arrived in Jamaica around 600 AD. Historically, they are referred to as Arawaks in the English-speaking world. It is believed that the Jamaican Tainos arrived in the island via Hispaniola, where they lived for a long time. When they were first encountered by the Europeans in the 15th century, there was an estimated 600,000 Tainos living on the island. Their population became almost extinct within 30 years of that contact and, today, only a few physical traces of them can be found. The early settlements of the Tainos can be traced through their pottery styles.
THEIR WAY OF LIFE
The world of the Tainos was very peaceful and healthy. As skilled hunters, fishermen, and farmers, they lived in large village settlements with established forms of social organization, religious beliefs and rituals. They were quite hospitable and generous to the Spaniards who invaded their territory and resorted to violence only in the face of extreme provocation. As farmers, the Tainos cultivated a variety of crops of which cassava was the staple. They grew corn, sweet potato, yampi, arrowroot, squashes, beans, peanuts, tomatoes, peppers and pineapples, and cultivated tobacco and annatto. They made permanent fields and planted their root crops in mounds. They were also knowledgeable on the value and uses of plants for medicinal and religious purposes.
They cultivated the calabash to use as containers and varied types of utensils. They carved bowls from wood and sculpted ornamental and ceremonial objects from wood and stone, and fabricated them from cotton. They also made musical instruments, such as trumpets and drums. In addition, they were tradesmen, and traded in pottery, copper, gold and cotton items.
Division of labour was practised in Taino villages. The women grew the crops and made cassava bread, pottery, hammocks and bowls. They also carried loads, fetched water, and cared for the livestock and garden plots, in addition to their domestic duties and childrearing responsibilities. The men felled trees, cleared the land for planting, made canoes, hunted, fished, and organised defence and religious ceremonies. Each village was headed by a cacique, and had a religious leader called a behique. Descent and inheritance was matrilineal, with the man living in the village of his mother’s people and his wife joining him there after marriage.