Taíno: Pre-Columbian Art and Culture from the CaribbeanMonacelli Press, 1997 - 189 pages Organized by El Museo del Barrio in New York to coincide with a major exhibition, this is the first comprehensive English-language publication on the fascinating legacy of Taiacute;no art and culture. Showcasing over one hundred rare and beautiful ceremonial and domestic artworks and individual masterpieces of this ancient culture -- produced in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Haiti, and the Bahamas between A.D. 1200 and 1500 --Taiacute;noincludes examples of finely detailed and polished sculptures carved in wood, precious ornaments of shell and bone, and ceramics decorated with animals, birds, and intricate geometric motifs. The contributors include ten of the foremost scholars of pre-Columbian culture and art, and an appendix features writings from Spanish explorers who had contact with the Taiacute;no. Of Arawak descent, the Taiacute;no -- whose ancestors migrated to the Caribbean from the Amazon Basin in South America during the sixth century -- were the first people encountered by Christopher Columbus. Although they ceased to exist as an autonomous society within sixty years of the arrival of Spanish colonizers, the Taiacute;no -- skilled agriculturists and navigators and accomplished weavers, potters, and carvers -- developed a complex political, religious, and social system, and made a substantial contribution to the biological, cultural, and linguistic makeup of large areas of the Caribbean. To this date, Caribbean communities in the Antilles and in New York and other large American cities exhibit the survival of Taiacute;no practices in their worldviews, religious beliefs, language, music, and food. |
Contents
The Beaded Zemi | 6 |
Translated by Susan C Griswold | 15 |
The Daily Life of the Taíno People 181 Selected Bibliography | 34 |
Copyright | |
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Amazon Amazon Basin Amazonian Amerindian Amulet ancestors ancient animals Arawak archaeological Arrom artifacts axis mundi Bayamanaco behique bird bones Bruce Schwarz cacicazgos caciques called Caracaracol Caribbean Caribe carved Casas cassava cave Ceramic ceremonies chiefdoms cohoba Columbus complex cotton Cuba dead Deminán depicted designs Dirk Bakker Dominican Republic duhos Effigy vessel elbow stones European face figure fish Fray Ramón Fundación García Arévalo gourd Greater Antilles Guahayona hallucinogenic Height Hispaniola History Hombre Dominicano human idols images indigenous indios island Juan Lesser Antilles mainland manioc Mesoamerica motif Museo del Hombre myth mythic objects Ostionoid Pané's petroglyphs Photograph by Bruce Photograph by Dirk Pigorini zemi pre-Columbian priests Puerto Rico Río Piedras ritual sacred Saladoid Santo Domingo shamans shell Smithsonian Institution South America Spanish spirits status stone collars supernatural symbolic Taíno Taíno art Taíno culture Taíno shamans Taíno society three-pointers tion Universidad Valdés width women wood Yaya York