american-holocaust

50 AMERICAN HOLOCAUSTsymbols and patterns like paintings were fashioned by using wood and barkthat had been dyed black along with other wood peeled so as to stay white,thus appearing as though made of some other attractive painted stuff. Othersthey adorned with very white stripped reeds that are a kind of thin anddelicate cane. Of these they made graceful figures and designs that gave theinterior of the houses the appearance of having been painted. On the outsidethe houses were covered with a fine and sweet-smelling grass. 91These large buildings conventionally were arranged to face the great housethat was inhabited by the local cacique, and all of them in turn faced anopen field or court where dances and ball games and other festivities andceremonies were held. In larger communities, several such fields were placedat strategic locations among the residential compounds.The people of these climate-blessed islands supported themselves witha highly developed level of agriculture-especially on Cuba and Hispaniola,which are among the largest islands on earth; Cuba, after all, is largerthan South Korea (which today contains more than 42,000,000 people)and Hispaniola is nearly twice the size of Switzerland. In the infrequentareas where agricultural engineering was necessary, the people of the Indiescreated irrigation systems that were equal in sophistication to thoseexisting in sixteenth-century Spain. 92 Their staple food was cassava bread,made from the manioc plant yuca, which they cultivated in great abundance.But also, through so many long generations in the same benigntropical environment, the Arawaks had devised an array of unique methodsfor more than satisfying their subsistence needs-such as the followingtechnique which they used to catch green sea turtles weighing hundreds ofpounds, large fish, and other marine life, including manatees:Noting that the remora or suckerfish, Echeneis naucrates, attached itself tothe body of a shark or other larger fish by means of a suction disc in itshead, the Arawaks caught, fed, and tamed the remora, training it to toleratea light cord fastened to its tail and gill frame. When a turtle was sighted theremora was released. Immediately it swam to the turtle, attaching its suctiondisc to the under side of the carapace. The canoe followed the turtle, theArawak angler holding a firm line on the remora which, in turn, held tightlyto its quarry until the turtle could be gaffed or tied to the canoe. 93In addition to this technique, smaller fish were harvested by the use ofplant derivatives that stupefied them, allowing the natives simply to scoopup large numbers as though gathering plants in a field. Water birds weretaken by floating on the water's surface large calabashes which concealedswimmers who would seize individual birds, one at a time, without disturbingthe larger flock. And large aquaculture ponds were created andwalled in to maintain and actually cultivate enormous stocks of fish andturtles for human consumption. A single one of these numerous reed rna-