The Earliest Inhabitants: The Dynamics of the Jamaican Taino

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eliefs in the spiritual and life-giving qualities of trees, the Spanish subsequently hanged Anacaona and burnt Taínos whom they suspended from specially constructed timber gibbets (Las Casas 1992, 16, illustration, 22; Walker 1992, 299, illustration). Conclusion Wooden zemís, among the most elaborate and distinctive of Taíno artefacts, have received little systematic analytical study (but see Helms 1988). Despite being amenable to radiocarbon dating, botanical identification, chemical analysis, adhering resin and the potential of analogous explanation, many remain undated, their material unidentified and their possible semantic “connections” with South America unexplored. They have been identified with a few major gods, regardless of wood type, age, stylistic variability and geographical/cultural location, in an approach that denies the informative role of diversity in throwing light on wider conceptual issues – on, for example, the significance of wood type and of the presence or absence of polishing and form. Evidence from lowland South America as well as the Caribbean indicates that trees and wood possessed a rich symbolism for indigenous peoples. For the Taíno, trees contained spirits, and the zemís carved from them bestowed animated shape and elite status. The complex relationship between the physical and symbolic landscapes of the Taíno represents a unique opportunity to investigate a world view that was fundamentally Amerindian and also distinctively Caribbean. Z EMÍS,TREES AND S YMBOLIC L ANDSCAPES:THREE TAÍNO C ARVINGS FROM J AMAICA 197
Acknowledgements We would like to thank the Jamaica National Heritage Trust; the Department of History, University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica; Leonard Clayton (“Chemist”) of Aboukir, St Ann; Tony Aarons; the Museum of Mankind, London; and Patrick Lewis of the University of the West Indies Herbarium, Mona, Jamaica. We are particularly grateful to Peter G. Roe for his insightful comments on an earlier version of this chapter. Notes 1. There has been some confusion about the number and location of Taíno wooden objects from Jamaica. To the three pieces from Carpenter’s Mountain can be added the figure of a bird on the back of a turtle or tortoise, in the British Museum ( Joyce 1907, 406, plate L1, figure 2), an anthropomorphic seated figure, currently in the Museum of Primitive Art New York (Arrom 1985, figures 43 and 44), and a duho found by C.B. Lewis at the site of Cambridge Hill (Howard 1956, 56). Aarons (1994, 15) reports a wooden “doll” figure, 31 cm high, found in a shallow cave in front of the gate at the New Seville Great House Estate, which disappeared some fifty years ago. Including the three new discoveries, possibly ten wooden Jamaican Taíno objects/zemís are known. A small anthropomorphic figure in the British Museum (Register no. Am St 332) may also be from Jamaica. Although labelled by Arrom (1989, figure 48) as coming from Haiti or Dominican Republic, its British Museum record shows no definite provenance, and it is stylistically similar to the figure from Carpenter’s Mountain. 2. After much confusion concerning botanical identification, it is now recognized that cohoba was hallucinogenic snuff made from the ground-up seeds of Anadenanthera peregrina (Naxon 1993, 178; Wilbert 1987, 17–18), a mimosalike tree closely related to A. colubrine, the source of the sacred huilca snuff used in western South America (Gollán and Gordillo 1994; Wessén 1967). 3. The association of avian-image zemís and hallucinogenic cohoba may relate to complex Taíno beliefs concerning shamanic flight and spirit trees, for which there exist South American parallels. Warao shamans launch supernatural attacks accompanied by an effigy of their avian master (Wilbert 1985, 154), and the Cubeo possess bird images representing patrons of mourning rituals and said to be under the effects of the hallucinogen Banisteriopsis coapi (Goldman 1979, 249). 4. This term is sometimes recognized as the Ceiba, and sometimes as a generic term for several tree varieties which had medicinal qualities. 198 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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Blue Schist The story of Jamaican b
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Coleraine) but also from other majo
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from which several Jamaican artefac
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in a lack of suitable rocks, so tha
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A surprising conclusion of the pres
Page 164 and 165: Figure 10.1 Redware, White Marl and
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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 204 and 205: 14 Zemís, Trees and Symbolic Lands
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 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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The Earliest Inhabitants: The Dynamics of the Jamaican Taino

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