The Taíno was a subgroup of the Arawakan Indians from northeastern South America, inhabited the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Jamaica,
The Taíno were a historic Indigenous people of the Caribbean, whose culture has been continued today by Taíno descendants and Taíno revivalist communities.
The Lucayan branch of the Taíno were the first New World peoples encountered by Christopher Columbus, in the Bahama Archipelago on October 12, 1492. The Taíno historically spoke a dialect of the Arawakan language group.They lived in agricultural societies ruled by caciques with fixed settlements and a matrilineal system of kinship and inheritance. Taíno religion centered on the worship of zemis.
A zemi or cemi (Taíno: semi [sɛmi]) was a deity or ancestral spirit, and a sculptural object housing the spirit, among the Taíno people of the Caribbean. Cemi’no or Zemi’no is a plural word for the spirits.
Taíno religion, as recorded by late 15th and 16th century Spaniards, centered on a supreme creator god and a fertility goddess. The creator god is Yúcahu Maórocoti and he governs the growth of the staple food, the cassava. The goddess is Attabeira, who governs water, rivers, and seas. Lesser deities govern natural forces and are also zemis. Boinayel, the Rain Giver, is one such zemi, whose magical tears become rainfall.[1] Spirits of ancestors, also zemis, were highly honored, particularly those of caciques or chiefs. Bones or skulls might be incorporated into sculptural zemis or reliquary urns. Ancestral remains would be housed in shrines and given offerings, such as food.
Zemis could be consulted by medicine people for advice and healing. During these consultation ceremonies, images of the zemi could be painted or tattooed on the body of a priest, who was known as a Bohuti or Buhuithu.The reliquary zemis would help their own descendants in particular.
The Taíno society, as described by the Spanish chroniclers, was composed of four social classes: the cacique, the nitaínos, the bohíques, and the naborias. According to archeological evidence, the Taíno islands were able to support a high number of people for approximately 1,500 years. Every individual living in the Taíno society had a task to do. The Taíno believed that everyone living on their islands should eat properly. They followed a very efficient nature harvesting and agricultural production system. Either people were hunting, searching for food, or doing other productive tasks.
Tribal groups settled in villages under a chieftain, known as cacique, or cacica if the ruler was a woman. Many women whom the Spaniards called cacicas were not always rulers in their own right, but were mistakenly acknowledged as such because they were the wives of caciques. Chiefs were chosen from the nitaínos and generally obtained power from their maternal line. A male ruler was more likely to be succeeded by his sister's children than his own unless their mother's lineage allowed them to succeed in their own right.
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