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

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of the mainland such as the Maya and the Aztecs. The first hint can be found in the
prefix of the word cu which in the surviving identified Taino words means hill,
enlighten, friendly, good or sacred place. This prefix can be found in the words cŭaba
or pinewood from the hills to make fire. The possible linguistic corruption or evolution
from the Eastern Taino word cŭaba (translated as center pinewoods or pinal central)
could have turned in the Western Taino word Cuba > ‘majestic’, ‘enlighten’, ‘sacred’,
‘pine hill’. But whether these terms evolved from one another it is not as pertinent to
this study as it is the meaning of cu, ku’, cuea itself in the word Cuba. This word is
important because the phonetic prefix cu, ku’, cuea can also be found in common
Taino words such as cuyo > ‘light’ e.g. cocuyo > ‘firefly”, in the word ku’ ceremonial
hill for areyto and in the word cuey 54 > ‘sacred object’. It is important to note that as
illustrated in the paragraphs above when mentioning the ending of the word can-ey or
central house of the cacique, the ey seems to be associated with important or great
things e.g. batey > ‘main field in town’, magüey > ‘agabe (Nahuatl)’ or ‘mothercactus’,
carey > ‘immense sea turtle’, Atabey > ‘god of earth and water’.
Yet, what becomes truly remarkable about the prefix cu, ku’, cuea is that later in
Bernal Diaz del Castillo’s text this word finds its Mayan cousin kue, cue or god’s sacred
hill, being mentioned by the Yucatan Indians trying to sacrifice the Spanish
conquistadores during the battles. This morphophonemic parallel between the Taino
cu, ku’, cuea and the Mayan kú or kue forced the chronicle to variate the spelling, the
pronunciation and (to a certain stent) the ceremonial usage of the word cue later in the
text, thus giving a window to a possible phonetic alteration in the pronunciation of these
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(Fernanadez de Oviedo, 1535 - 1557)