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

P a g e | 52
a)—Mentions in a 1514 letter from the governor of Cuba Diego Velazquez de
Cuellar to the Spanish monarch Ferdinand II:
é la otra los Guanahatabibes, que son los postreros indios dellas; y que la vivienda
destos guanatabibes es á ma nera de salvajes, porque no tienen casas, ni asientos, ni
pueblos, ni labranzas, ni comen otra cosa sino las carnes que toman por les montes, y
tortugas y pescado; y que así venidos, los tornó á enviar á la dicha provincia de la
Habana. 85
The above quote from Velazquez de Cuellar seems to depict the Spanish bias
towards these Indians labeling them as a wild and savage group predecessor of the
Taino with no agriculture, houses or towns. This quote is important for two main
reasons: first, because it agrees with Bernal Diaz’s portrayal of the same group in his text
when he states that “these Indians were like savages 86 ” and second, because in his
manuscript Velazquez de Cuellar uses the Taino plural formation bu, be, bí (although
never losing the Spanish s at the end of the word) to name the group. Another important
dialectic element to note about the quote is that, whether intentionally or by pure
distraction, Velazquez mistakenly omits the term ha in the second sentence of the
original text which could indicate either an elision in the voiceless glottal transition of
the fricative sound h (common in many Indo-European languages speakers) or a
possible dual source for the pronunciation of the word. This assertion could explain
Bernal Diaz’s spelling of the word as Guanahataveyes employing the v and the ey as
a phonetical plural or a possibly phonetic interpretation of an unknown language
learned from sources with different linguistic backgrounds.
85
(Velázquez de Cuéllar, 1864-1884)
86
(Diaz del Castillo, Historia Verdadera de la Conquista de la Nueva Espana| Aparato de Variantes, 1632)