The Taino believed that the sun rose from this cave, and hid when the moon emerged from the same cave. Moon goddess The legend of the moon goddess states that there is a cave of the country chieftain Mautiatibuel (son of dawn) or “Lord of the Dawn.” Both the sun and the moon were born in this cave.
Full Answer
Who are the gods of the Tainos?
Due to the violent and destructive aftermath of hurricanes, Guabancex was often portrayed as having a very volatile temper. Yocahu: Yocahu is the leading god of the Taino people. He is the son of Atabey and god of the sea. However, like most gods who lead a people, Yocahu lives in the sky to keep watch over the Taino people.
What did the Taíno believe about the Sun and Moon?
One Taíno oral tradition explains that the Sun and Moon come out of caves. Another story tells of people who once lived in caves and only came out at night, because it was believed that the Sun would transform them. The Taíno believed they were descended from the union of the cultural hero Deminán Caracaracol and a female turtle.
What is the meaning of the Taino symbol?
It is the Sacred Badge of Authority according to the Taino and is indicative of tribal blood lineage. The symbol is traditionally carried by the Cacique of the tribe to cement their authority. The spiral is a common symbol found in Taino art. It is a representation of cosmic energy and its unendingness. It is also representative of sweet water.
What was the Taíno tribe known for?
The Taíno women were highly skilled in agriculture. The people depended on it, but the men also fished and hunted. They made fishing nets and ropes from cotton and palm. Their dugout canoes (kanoa) were made in various sizes, which could hold from 2 to 150 people.
Who is the Taíno moon goddess?
AtabeyAtabey is an ancestral mother of the Taino, one of two supreme ancestral spirits in the Taíno religion....Atabey (goddess)AtabeyAbodeThe heavensSymbolDepicted as a nude woman, a therianthropic representation of Mother of WaterPersonal information2 more rows
What does the Taíno moon mean?
The legend of the moon goddess states that there is a cave of the country chieftain Mautiatibuel (son of dawn) or “Lord of the Dawn.” Both the sun and the moon were born in this cave. It was believed that the moon rises from the cave Mautiatbuel at dusk, only to return when the sun rises.
What is the name of the Taíno goddess?
AtabeyAtabey is the supreme goddess of the Taínos, one of two supreme deities in the Taíno religion. She was worshipped as a goddess of fresh water and fertility; she is the female entity who represents the Earth Spirit and the Spirit of all horizontal water, lakes, streams, the sea, and the marine tides.
What symbols are important to Taínos?
Puerto Rican Warrior Symbols. The Taino coqui tattoo, which represents the Puerto Rican coqui, the frog, displays an encircled leaping frog – a symbol of longevity. Similar Puerto Rican warrior symbols include lizards, turtles, and snakes – each which translated to survival and strength.
What is TOA Taino?
Description of Toa As Toa is the word for mother in Taino, the children began to cry out the words 'toa toa' as a plea for their mothers in the hungry state. The men who were unable to console their children were turned into frogs.
What did Taínos use to represent god?
The Taínos were deeply religious and worshipped many gods and spirits. Above the gods there were two supreme beings, one male and one female. The physical representation of the gods and spirits were zemis, made of made of wood, stone, bone, shell, clay and cotton.
Who are the Taínos gods?
The Tainos believed in two main gods, Yucahu, who was the god of cassava (the main food crop of the Taino) and Atabey, the mother of Yucahu and the goddess of fertility. They also had many other deities, such as Guabancex, the goddess of hurricanes and Maketaori Guayaba, the god of the dead.
What is a zemi in Taínos?
Zemí (or cemí) is a term used by Taíno peoples, the diverse societies that inhabited the Antilles archipelago before European contact, that linguistically relates to a quality akin to sweetness. Zemí refers not to an object or image but to an immaterial, spiritual, and vital force pertaining to deities and ancestors.
What is a DUHO?
Duho (Ceremonial Seat) 11th–15th century This small seat in the form of a reptilian figure, perhaps a turtle, might have functioned as a portable bench. Composed of valuable greenstone and featuring a mythological reference encoded in the geometric designs, it would have been an important symbol of political power.
Are all Puerto Rican Taínos?
According to a study funded by the National Science Foundation, 61 percent of all Puerto Ricans have American Indian mitochondrial DNA, probably from a common Taino ancestry.
Did the Tainos have tattoos?
“As a pre-columbian society the Taino had no written alphabet. Instead they had a language called Arawakan, which consisted of petroglyphs, artistic symbols that were carved on rocks. These artful symbols were also tattooed. Taino men had tattoos for spiritual purposes, the women had piercings.”
What does the spiral mean in Taino?
The spiral is a common symbol found in Taino art. It is a representation of cosmic energy and its unendingness. It is also representative of sweet water. The spiral is a symbol of both material and immaterial concepts and objects.
Did the Tainos have tattoos?
“As a pre-columbian society the Taino had no written alphabet. Instead they had a language called Arawakan, which consisted of petroglyphs, artistic symbols that were carved on rocks. These artful symbols were also tattooed. Taino men had tattoos for spiritual purposes, the women had piercings.”
Is Taino Native American?
The Taíno were an indigenous American people who were among the first to feel the impact of European colonisation after Columbus arrived in the New World in 1492. They lived in dense, well-organised communities across the Caribbean, and were known for their expert farming and generosity.
Does anyone speak Taino?
Taíno is an extinct Arawakan language that was spoken by the Taíno people of the Caribbean. At the time of Spanish contact, it was the most common language throughout the Caribbean.
What is the Taino word for gods?
The Taino word for gods were zemi . These zemi were the various gods, goddesses, spirits, and ancestors they worshiped. Zemi was also the name given to the wooden or stone effigies of these gods.
What were the Taino people?
The Taino were the pre-Columbian civilization in the Bahamas and were among some of the first people Columbus met upon first arriving in the Americas. Unfortunately, they were also one of the first to be almost completely wiped out by European settlers. Between diseases brought by the Spanish and being forced into slave labor by settlers, the Taino culture all but disappeared. They were able to somewhat survive in Puerto Rico, but by then had mixed with a great many other cultures that had been driven from their homelands.
Who are the twin gods of the underworld?
Boinayel and Márohu were the twin gods of the gentle rains to grow healthy crops. Finally, there was Maketaori Guayaba, the god of the underworld. Taino Creation Story. Atabey gave birth to herself, and for a time was the only being in existence. Eventually, she gave birth to twins, Yocahu and Guacar.
Symbol
She manifests in multiple aspects primarily as the loving mother but also the spirit of love and the wild mother of storms and natural disasters. She is most commonly depicted in the birthing position, representing a nurturing maternal figure. Taino women would call upon her to watch over them during childbirth.
Culture
There is not much known about this ancient goddess of the Caribbean; after a brief period of coexistence the relations between the new-comers and natives deteriorated as the Tainos were removed from villages and sold into slavery, starved and died of european diseases and suffered greatly under the oppression of the Spainiards searching for the New World.
Overview
Spirituality
Taíno spirituality centered on the worship of zemís. A zemí is a spirit or ancestor. The major Taíno zemis are Atabey and her son, Yúcahu. Atabey was the zemi of the moon, fresh waters, and fertility. Other names for her include Atabei, Atabeyra, Atabex, and Guimazoa. The Taínos of Quisqueya (Dominican Republic) called her son, "Yucahú Bagua Maorocotí", which means "White Yuca…
Terminology
Various scholars have addressed the question of who were the native inhabitants of the Caribbean islands to which Columbus voyaged in 1492. The assumption that European accounts can be read as objective evidence of a native Caribbean social reality is unjustified. The people who inhabited most of the Greater Antilles when Europeans arrived in the New World have been deno…
Origins
Two schools of thought have emerged regarding the origin of the indigenous people of the Caribbean.
• One group of scholars contends that the ancestors of the Taíno were Arawak speakers who came from the center of the Amazon Basin. This is indicated by linguistic, cultural and ceramic evidence. They migrated to the Orinoco valley o…
Culture
Taíno society was divided into two classes: naborias (commoners) and nitaínos (nobles). They were governed by male chiefs known as Caciques, who inherited their position through their mother's noble line. (This was a matrilineal kinship system, with social status passed through the female lines.) The nitaínos functioned as sub-caciques in villages, overseeing the work of naborias. Caciq…
Cacicazgo/society
The Taíno were the most culturally advanced of the Arawak group to settle in what is now Puerto Rico. Individuals and kinship groups that previously had some prestige and rank in the tribe began to occupy the hierarchical position that would give way to the cacicazgo. The Taíno founded settlements around villages and organized their chiefdoms, or cacicazgos, into a confederation.
Food and agriculture
Taíno staples included vegetables, fruit, meat, and fish. There were no large animals native to the Caribbean, but they captured and ate small animals, such as hutias and other mammals, earthworms, lizards, turtles, and birds. Manatees were speared and fish were caught in nets, speared, trapped in weirs, or caught with hook and line. Wild parrots were decoyed with domesticated birds, and igu…
Spanish and Taíno
Columbus and the crew of his ship were the first Europeans to encounter the Taíno people, as they landed in The Bahamas on October 12, 1492. After their first interaction, Columbus described the Taínos as a physically tall, well-proportioned people, with noble and kind personalities.
In his diary, Columbus wrote: