Pre-Colombian Jamaica: Caribbean Archeology and Ethnohistory

Environment, Fauna, and Flora / 59
Some domesticated plants were used for purposes other than consumption.
Bottle gourds (Lagenaria siceraria) were used as containers, and also as floats
for fish nets, acting as a counterpart therefore to the stone net sinkers that
form a constant component of the Lee Collection. Cotton was also important.
There are two domesticated species in the New World, Gossypium barbadense
and Gossypium hirsutum. It was probably the marie- galante variety of the latter
that was used by the Taínos in Jamaica. Lee found clay spindle whorls at a
number of sites in the dry south of the island, and at Image Cave (MC3) he
found “a crudely whittled hardwood spindle,” which he took to be prehistoric.
The spindle was presented to the Institute of Jamaica, and is today on display
in the Taíno museum at White Marl (Appendix 29). Edward Goodall illustrated
the use of a spindle by Carib women to produce cotton on his visit to
Guyana in 1841–1843 (Menezes 2002:Plate 3). According to Senior (2003),
this former staple commodity of Jamaica is now hardly cultivated. The occasional
plant can be found growing wild, but 100 years ago it still provided the
basis for a flourishing industry.
There are many tree fruits, described by different authors, making up what
Rashford called a “food forest.” Some of the edible fruits included sweet and
sour sop (Annona squamosa and Annona muricata), custard apple (Annona reticulata),
star apple (Chrysophyllum cainito), sea grape (Coccoloba uvifera), stink ing
toe (Hymenaea courbaril ), macca fat (Acrocomia spinosa), hog plum (Spon dias
mombin), mammee apple (Mammea americana), golden apple (Passifl ora laurifolia),
sweet cup (Passifl ora maliformis), naseberry (Manilkara zapota) (Spanish
níspero), pimento (Pimenta dioica or jamaicensis), wild cucumber (Cucumis
anguria), prickly pear (Opuntia dillenii), dildo pear (Stenocereus hystrix),
and coco plum (Chrysobalanus icaco). Some edible fruits, such as the guava (Psidium
guajava) (Spanish guayaba), had symbolic meaning for the Taínos. The
dead were believed to reside in caves during the day, coming out at night in the
form of bats to eat this fruit, among others (Vega 2001). There is an explicit
connection to Maquetaurie Guayaba, the Taíno lord of the underworld (Senior
2003), whose features appear on one of the artifacts recovered from the cave of
Aboukir (Appendix 50). Other edible fruits, such as guinep (Melicoccus bijugatus)
(Spanish jagua), had dual uses, since the seeds produce a blue- black liquid
that was used for body paint in ritual ceremonies (Senior 2003). Vega (2001)
suggests that this material may also have been used to make drawings in the
caves and to dye cotton. Anatto (Bixa orellana) had several uses as well (Senior
2003). The seeds are covered with a soft reddish orange pulp, which could be