Pre-Colombian Jamaica: Caribbean Archeology and Ethnohistory

42 / Chapter 3.
dens to get decorated potsherds to plug into space- time diagrams” (Keegan
1994:255). The subject, he claims, is already transforming itself into a “ selfreflective,
critical study of the peoples who produced those sherds.” If “what
is needed is a new agenda,” it looks as though that agenda is already being put
into practice. So far as Jamaica is concerned, Keegan’s own excavations at Paradise
Park have shown what can be achieved by concentrating on the ecological
side of things (Keegan et al. 2003). Nonetheless, the question of how the archaeological
material, strictly speaking, can best be ordered (a question that
Rouse spent his lifetime trying to answer) will still be there demanding answers,
and time will tell what new framework will be judged appropriate.
The Taínos and the Arawakan Language Family
The name that should be given to the indigenous inhabitants of the Caribbean,
and the Greater Antilles in particular, is a topic that cannot be avoided, either
in this work or in general. On the one hand, James Lee, throughout his career,
referred to the Pre- Columbian inhabitants of Jamaica as Arawaks, and his collection
of archaeological material is also referred to in this way. On the other
hand, it has been recommended that the use of this term should be abandoned
(Reid 1994) and the alternative of Taíno is becoming more widespread in the
island. Thus, although Jamaican people at large still continue to talk of the Arawaks,
the museum at White Marl, when it was reopened in 2001, was designated
Taíno instead. Probably at the present time this does cause some confusion.
In reviewing the matter, it might be convenient to start once again with
Irving Rouse.
In his survey published in 1948, Rouse used the term Arawak for the inhabitants
of the Greater Antilles, on the grounds that this was the language they
spoke, rather than Taíno (Rouse 1948:495, note 1; 521, note 9). As he said, this
nomenclature was introduced into the Caribbean by D. G. Brinton in 1871,
although the recognition of the Arawakan language family as such goes back
much further than that, to 1782, thanks to the work of F. S. Gilij in Venezuela
(Payne 1993:130). The term Taíno also has a respectable antiquity, since
it was apparently introduced by C. S. Rafinesque in 1836. It is a word meaning
“good” or “noble,” and is said to have been used by the inhabitants to indicate
to the Spaniards that they were not Caribs. In 1987, however, Rouse reversed
his position, stating that the term Arawak was “a misnomer and should
be abandoned” (Rouse 1987:87). He did so for two reasons, (1) because Taíno
was the name first proposed, and (2) because “the islanders spoke a different