Crossing the Borders: New Methods and Techniques in the Study of Archaeological Materials from the Caribbean

Metal Objects and Indigenous Values / 41
a simple description of the ternary metal alloy. The meaning of the word was implicitly
bound up with a concept of the exotic, and it was used to describe other
objects and concepts of value that shared similar aesthetic properties, such as rare
feathers, stones, plants, and celestial bodies. Guanín, as both a metal and a concept,
is most commonly associated with caciques in Taíno society, reflecting a link between
social status and possession of these highly valued materials.
The Europeans, who valued gold as the most precious metal of the New World,
exploited this differential value between caona and guanín metals in Taíno society.
Bray (1997) discusses how the Europeans distorted the trade and exchange of metals
by using exchange rates of 200 caona for 1 guanín. This provides one possible
explanation for the relatively small amount of caona found at El Chorro de Maíta,
even though it was the only metal that could be locally sourced.
Brass was only introduced to the Caribbean following the arrival of the Europeans,
but it was soon integrated into the preexisting system of symbolic value.
The aesthetic properties of the brass meant that it was associated with the sacred
celestial, and according to Las Casas it was described as turey. “Anything made of
latón [brass] was esteemed more than any other [metal]. . . . They called it turey, as
a thing from the sky, because their name for sky was turey [or tureyro, tureygua];
they smelled it as if by doing so they could sense it came from heavens” (Oliver
2000:198). This link between brass and the sacred in Taíno society meant that it
was a highly valued material.
Therefore, it is possible to conjecture that the first Europeans to arrive in the
Caribbean found that a small, expendable clothing accessory became one of their
most valuable items for trade with the indigenous population. This perhaps goes
some way to explaining why European brass objects become the most common
metal item to appear in an indigenous cemetery in eastern Cuba.
Conclusion
The cemetery of El Chorro de Maíta has produced the largest metal collection to
be excavated from an indigenous context in the Caribbean. These metal objects
are associated with a limited demographic subset of the burial population in the
cemetery. This study has provided early indications of European artifacts being incorporated
into the material culture of an indigenous community. Further discussion
of the social and cultural significance of these grave goods and their reflection
of a hierarchical society is detailed in further publications (Valcárcel Rojas
and Rodríguez Arce 2003, 2005). This chapter has focused on an archaeometallurgical
study of the objects themselves and concludes that three separate categories
of metal object have been identified as having distinctively different origins and
meanings. It is argued that the inverse ratio between the quantity of metal found
and the distance from its likely source of origin is reflective of the value system
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