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

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to describe constrictor snakes in English, the usage as a verb form only survived
today in the Northern region of Dominican Republic in the word anaiboa which is
an expression that means to squeeze the fruit like a snake: ana (fruit)-i-(like)-
boa (snake). The term i (looks like) in the word anaiboa can also be found in the
word iguana I (looks like) guana (palm leave-flexible).
Canoe: This was a Taino word used to describe the smaller of two types of
dugout or fire caved boats. The first was canoa (used for island hopping for more
than ten passengers). The second, piragüa for one or few passengers, usually no
more than four. This first word, canoe entered the English language in the mid-
1500s. The first mention of this word can be found in Columbus’s diary when he
describes the way Taino approached his vessels off the coast of modern-day Haiti
or Hispaniola 9 .
Caribbean and Cannibal: These two terms, one used to describe the eastern
island region of the Americas, the other to represent a man-eating individual
living in that area, were a linguistic and evolutionary corruption of the same term
Caniba. This term was employed by the Taino to describe the Kalinago, the fierce
tribes that inhabited the other islands of the Easter Caribbean 10 . In other words,
most of the Taino kingdoms were scattered along the Greater Antilles. The rest of
the Caribbean (according to Taino descriptions to the Spanish) was populated by a
series of raiders and marauders, that often-raided Taino villages and stole their
9 Las Casas, A Short Account.
10
Juan Bosh, Indios, Apuntes Históricos y Leyendas (Santo Dominigo: Editorial La
Nación, 1935).