The Earliest Inhabitants: The Dynamics of the Jamaican Taino

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14 Zemís, Trees and Symbolic Landscapes: Three Taíno Carvings from Jamaica N ICHOLAS and S AUNDERS D ORRICK G RAY IN 1495, DURING his second voyage to the Caribbean, Christopher Columbus was one of a handful of Europeans to observe a religious rite of the indigenous Taíno (Arawak) inhabitants of Hispaniola (Bourne 1906, 171–72; Columbus 1969, 192). Central to this ritual was the role of wooden “idols”, zemís, which the Taíno appeared to worship, and which the Spanish regarded as evidence of pagan idolatry (Columbus 1969, 154). Wooden image-zemís have been found throughout the Greater Antilles, notably in the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Cuba (Fewkes 1907, 197–202; Lovén 1935, 598–602). In 1792, three figures carved of a dark, polished wood were discovered in a cave in the Carpenter’s Mountain in southern Jamaica (Anon. 1803, 1896; Joyce 1907, 402–7; Lester 1958). In 1992, three further wooden objects came to light, said to have been discovered in a cave in north-central Jamaica (Aarons 1994; Weintraub 1993). This new discovery, a major find of Taíno wooden carvings, is the most important in Jamaica for two hundred years. 1 In studying these new images, we realized that they afforded an opportunity to re-examine the place of wooden zemís in Taíno religion, rather than simply “fit” the pieces into the accepted hierarchy of putative Taíno deities – which themselves are imperfectly known from a fragmentary and often ambiguous ethnohistorical record; they had a more complex symbolic importance. Here we consider these new discoveries as well as the generality of wooden zemís from the perspective of their material – wood, the trees from which the wood came and the concep- Originally published in Antiquity 70, no. 270 (1996): 801–12. 187
tual association of the objects with the animated landscape of the Taíno world view. The New Discoveries Figure 14.1 Anthropomorphic figure from Aboukir (detail), possibly representing the Taíno deity Baibrama. Note traces of white around face and mouth and eye sockets, which probably originally held inlay. Figure 14.2 Anthropomorphic figure from Aboukir. Figure is 168.4 cm high, 28 cm maximum width. ( JNHT [Archaeology Division], recorded 29.9.1992. Illustration by T. Lindsay.) In June 1992, the Jamaica National Heritage Trust heard that three Taíno wooden images had been discovered near the small village of Aboukir in the northern central highlands. The images, apparently discovered originally during the 1940s in a nearby cave, had subsequently been returned. They allegedly remained in the cave until 1972, when they were once again removed, this time by a Mr Clayton, and kept in his house for twenty years. These events, and the circumstances which led to the images finally coming to the attention of the Jamaica National Heritage Trust, appear to have been associated with obeah, Jamaican voodoo (Abrahams and Szwed 1983; Schuler 1979). The three objects, acquired by the Jamaica National Heritage Trust in September 1992, are currently (1994) on display in the National Gallery in Kingston. Each object is of a different type – an anthropomorphic figure, a bird and a small “utilitarian” spoon-like object with an anthropomorphic handle. On the basis of photographs, Arrom and Rouse (1992), seeing the aged and cracked appearance of the wood, judged them authentic. The anthropomorphic figure (Figures 14.1 and 14.2) is 168.4 cm high with a maximum width of 26 cm. The form of the bent legs suggests the presence of ligatures – a practice well known among the Taíno in general, and documented for the Jamaica Taíno by Columbus (1969, 196). It has prominent male genitals and thin arms with hands reclining on the chest. Arrom and Rouse (1992) consider these features characteristics of Taíno representations of Baibrama, the deity identified with the cultivation and consumption of cassava (Arrom 1989, 68–73), and not to be confused with Yúcahu, the supreme Taíno deity, whose name means “spirit of cassava” (ibid., 17–20). The eye sockets, ears and mouth probably originally held inlay, possibly shell, but conceivably gold or guanine, a copper-gold alloy. 188 T HE E ARLIEST I NHABITANTS
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The Earliest Inhabitants
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University of the West Indies Press
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Contents List of Illustrations / ix
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Illustrations A.1 Map of the sites
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13.2 Petroglyphs from Coventry and
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Preface I HAVE ALWAYS been fascinat
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Acknowledgements I WOULD FIRST like
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Introduction IN JAMAICA, THE indige
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encounter the term Arawaks used to
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90. Long Acre Point 91. Long Mounta
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ical publication in Jamaica. Geolog
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collections. Knowledge of the prove
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Section 1 Assessment and Excavation
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objective by using a frame of refer
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16 T HE E ARLIEST I NHABITANTS two
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18 T HE E ARLIEST I NHABITANTS fact
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20 T HE E ARLIEST I NHABITANTS the
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22 T HE E ARLIEST I NHABITANTS deco
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Howard (1965) recognized that Redwa
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people making Ostionan (Redware) po
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was the recovery of the Aboukir zem
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Appendix Table 1.1 Midden Sites Rep
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Table 1.2 Cave Sites Reported by Ro
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2 The Taíno Settlement of the King
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Henderson Hill lies to the south, o
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ivalves. Single gastropod valves we
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40 T HE E ARLIEST I NHABITANTS Taí
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Table 2.2 Neutron Activation Analys
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Plain may have played a role in the
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Table 2.3. Taíno Sites in the King
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contractors to drill and blast for
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chipped away. It is believed that t
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Figure 3.4 JNHT excavations at Chan
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Test Pit 6 Depth 40 cm. This is a s
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19.375 19.275 1 CHANCERY HALL, JAMA
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Appendix A Laboratory Study of the
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Table 3.1 All Recovered Organic Mat
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of slim, more or less parallel shap
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Table 3.5 Fish Bone Anatomical Part
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66 T HE E ARLIEST I NHABITANTS Surv
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Acknowledgements Thanks are due to
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SOUTH NEGRIL POINT Savannala-Mar Mo
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sudden event. Occupation 3 can be c
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dle, a ground stone artefact that m
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- infrastructural development throu
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emoval. Sometimes what is required
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Figure 5.1 Road cutting through the
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Later on the Spanish settled in the
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Figure 5.4 Long Mountain prior to d
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86 T HE E ARLIEST I NHABITANTS amon
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6 Notes on the Natural History of J
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Soils Several different soil types
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Shoreline On the north coast, there
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well established, especially in dis
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7 The Exploitation and Transformati
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Art Art can be religious, functiona
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of Long Mountain”, Andreas Oberli
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Figure 7.3 William Keegan explainin
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cedar (Cedrela odorata), santa mari
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According to Rouse, the density of
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17), grows abundantly on the island
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Incidental Dispersal The plant comp
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8 Early Arawak Subsistence Strategi
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and bagged by level. In April of 19
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Table 8.1 Significant Vertebrate an
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tory and habitat preferences. Follo
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Changing Subsistence Strategies The
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Table 8.2 Faunal Comparisons: Per c
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Appendix Table 8.3 Rodney’s House
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Table 8.3 Rodney’s House Faunal L
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Section 3 Analysis of Taíno Archae
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9 Petrography and Source of Some Ar
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The results discussed here were obt
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Petaloid Axes of Arawak Origin from
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Page 156 and 157: Coleraine) but also from other majo
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Page 160 and 161: in a lack of suitable rocks, so tha
Page 162 and 163: A surprising conclusion of the pres
Page 164 and 165: Figure 10.1 Redware, White Marl and
Page 166 and 167: triangular ridges. It is thought th
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Page 170 and 171: 11 Jamaican Redware J AMES W. LEE A
Page 172 and 173: only if planted at exactly the corr
Page 174 and 175: Handles Handles may be classified i
Page 176 and 177: Two more or less spheroidal pottery
Page 178 and 179: 12 Taíno Ceramics from Post-Contac
Page 180 and 181: and distribution of native labour w
Page 182 and 183: Figure 12.2 Distribution of New Sev
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Page 186 and 187: were fired at a low temperature, th
Page 188 and 189: Figure 12.11 New Seville ware: jug
Page 190 and 191: ters of the caciques. These politic
Page 192 and 193: Section 4 Taíno Art Forms ART IS A
Page 194 and 195: 13 The Petroglyphs of Jamaica J AME
Page 196 and 197: previously described petroglyphs ex
Page 198 and 199: glyphs in that belt, as the geologi
Page 200 and 201: Another carving that is unique is t
Page 202 and 203: Appendix Table 13.2 Jamaican Petrog
Page 206 and 207: According to Arrom and Rouse (1992)
Page 208 and 209: The Context of Sacredness Taíno wo
Page 210 and 211: Kept in niches or on tables within
Page 212 and 213: Another important correspondence be
Page 214 and 215: eliefs in the spiritual and life-gi
Page 216 and 217: References Aarons, G.A. 1983a. Arch
Page 218 and 219: Smithsonian Biological Survey of Do
Page 220 and 221: ———. 1988. Ulysses’ Sail: A
Page 222 and 223: ———. 1983b. Adornos, Jamaica
Page 224 and 225: Porro, A. 1994. Social organization
Page 226 and 227: Scudder, S. 1992. Early Arawak subs
Page 228 and 229: Wing, E.S., and A.B. Brown. 1979. P
Page 230 and 231: Rouse, I. 1982. Ceramic and religio
Page 232: M. John Roobol, is a consultant geo
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