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

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cultivation, processing, and recreational and ceremonial usages. De Las Casas account
state:
En esta isla Española y en las comarcanas tenían otra manera de yerba como
proprias lechugas, y ésta secaban al sol y al fuego, y hacían de unas hojas de árbol
secas un rollete como se hace un mosquete de papel y metían dentro una poca de
aquella yerba y encendían el mosquete por una parte, y por la otra sorbían o
atraían el humo hacia dentro en el pecho, lo cual les causaba un adormecimiento
en las carnes y en todo el cuerpo, de manera que ni sentían hambre ni cansancio,
y estos mosquetes llamaban tabacos, la media sílaba luenga 187 .
The above quote not only places the word tabaco as a plant cultivated by the
Taino of Hispaniola to be smoked in a rollete > ‘cigar’, but also de Las Casas gives an
example of the way the Taino pronounced the word, “they called it tabacos,
pronounced with an elongated middle syllable”. Therefore, if as stated by Real
Academia, the word was a pre-Columbian Spanish term, why would de Las Casas
explain that “they called the cigar roll, tabaco” and why would he try to give phonetical
examples of its pronunciation? As a matter of fact, it is crucial to mention that both de
Las Casas and Oviedo, only gave phonetical examples of native words in their
chronicles. In all their accounts, we have yet to find a case where they explained any
Spanish terms. Their tendency was to transcribe Taino and native phonetics to a
European audience for whom their chronicles were written.
It is relevant to note that later in the same text, de Las Casas writes about some
Spanish people adopting the habit of smoking tobacco from de natives of Hispaniola 188 .
187
(De las Casas, 1566)
188
(De las Casas, 1566)