Indigenous Roots
The Taino CivilizationThe island that now includes Haiti and the Dominican Republic was first inhabited by approximately 400,000 indigenous people like the Arawak Taíno and Ciboney. The Arawak Taíno called this island Quisqueya (Mother of the Earth) and Haiti (Land of Mountains), the latter of which was preserved by Haitian Creole language and made into the island’s official name.
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, Taino social structures were quite complex. Their spiritual practice was based on zemis, which were spirits or ancestors of natural things and people. They were a primarily agricultural society skilled who practiced slash and burn agriculture to grow staples like cassava, maize, beans, tobacco, and yams (to name a few). While they hunted small animals like birds and lizards for food, their primary food source from the animal kingdoms were fish and shellfish. The Taíno were a hierarchical, patriarchal, and polygamist society where most men had 2 - 3 wives and caciques (chiefs) could have as many as 30, meaning that a cacique’s home could house nearly 100 people from their family.
The island itself was politically organized into five Caciquats (parts ruled by a cacique), each a tributary kingdom that accepted harvests as a form of payment:
- Maguá, the central region.
- Jaragua, the west.
- Marién, the northwest.
- Higüey, the east.
- Maguana, the south.
Little is known about the the indigenous people of pre-Columbian Hispaniola, but most American schoolchildren can tell the grim story of this civilization’s final years...
