Language of the Voiceless: Traces of Taino Language, Food, and Culture in the Americas From 1492 to the Present

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hammock, sharing its connotation with the prefix he. This prefix is also found in the
Garifuna héneru > ‘cloth’, ‘fabric’. The suffix of the word can also be found in surviving
terms such as Borinquen >Taino name of Puerto Rico, which is in turn a corruption of
Burénquén. This suffix is also found within the word mukén > ‘grill’, from which
corruption and French lexicalization we get the word buccan and later buccaneer.
However, one possible explanation for this shift in the essence of the word between the
Mayan and the Taino terms could be that they were heteronym terms that coexisted in
parallel with similar phonetics, but with completely different meanings in both
languages. Whereas in Maya the kihaab denotes the fiber of the agave, in Taino the
word was used to describe a ‘string’ or ‘cord’.
I’m also inclined to believe that the shift between the definition of the plant and
the string could also be linked to the presence of the prefix he > ‘related to string’ e.g.
nequén and henequén. Nevertheless, what is quite remarkable is that the Taino
connotation of the word overpowered the Mayan term and became a misclassification of
the object. Thus, turning the Taino henequén into the Mayan ‘agave’. This
reconstruction is argued here, because that is the connotation given by Bernal Diaz in
his text and the subsequent meaning of the word today.
Number of mentions of the word henequén in The True History of the
Conquest of New Spain including the cross reference of the three
manuscripts:
Other Primary Source mentions of the possible origin of the word henequén:
a)— Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Historia de las Indias: