Aztec Human Sacrifice

Although we remain rather ignorant about the Aztecs and Mesoamerican civilizations, we found this detailed video to be quite informative and interesting. The question of human sacrifice is an important one since the scale of it in prehispanic central Mexico was said to have been of epic proportions. Like our ongoing interest in the Incas, their practice of human sacrifice was also used by the Spaniards to justify colonialism. This video helps dispel some of our preconceived notions about the practice and what it actually looked like on the ground. 

Cacibajagua

Although not remarkable musically, it is nice to hear Haitian and Dominican musicians in a collaborative project that commemorates the island's indigenous past.

Caonabo Tribute

Another beautiful music tribute to our caciques. This one, by Yoyito Cabrera, features some amazing percussion and a catchy chorus. 

Cacica Catalina of Mayama

Although our descent from a man said to be of converso origins is through the Delgado Manso of Puerto Rico, he came to Hispaniola in 1514. The son of Diego Guillen and Mayor Gutierrez, he apparently, he enjoyed connections at court and was promised an encomienda. However, in the 1514 Repartimiento in the island, his name appears as one of the vecinos of Santo Domingo who received, in encomienda, 30 service Indians from the cacica Catalina of Mayama. In addition, ten naborias de casa were also assigned to Guillen. However, the same cacica Catalina de Mayama was also assigned to Gomez Diaz, which, if true, meant that Guillen had to share the 30 or so Indians with another vecino.

Guillen's daughter, Isabel, stayed on the island of Hispaniola. She married a Gonzalo de Guzman who first came to Hispaniola in 1502, with Ovando. However, Guzman had married Isabel with the expectation of a large dowry and access to more encomienda Indian labor. This did not materialize, although it does appear that Isabel father did indeed receive some Indians in the 1514 Repartimiento. According to Ida Altman, the daughter Isabel Malaber (Maraver) was the head of a poor household in the 1530s after her husband died. Her elderly father, Juan Guillen, was still alive, but the household also included mestizas, black slaves and an old Indian naboria women.

Although Altman believed Isabel Maraver possibly ended her days as a poor widow, it turns out she married a second time with Francisco Ruiz de Oviedo. References to her and this second husband can be found in Historia y Geografía Cuentas de las Cajas Reales de Santo Domingo 1544-1549. Now, our descent from Juan Guillen is via another daughter, Eufrasia Maraver. She came to Hispaniola in 1514 with her parents, but ended up in Puerto Rico as the wife of a Pedro Espinosa. According to research in the archives by Luis Burset Flores, the Delgado Manso family were descendants of Eufrasia Maraver through the Manso. Indeed, in 1568, a chubby Spanish soldier, Francisco Delgado, married Juana Manso de Espinosa, daughter of Alonso Díaz Manso and Isabel de Espinosa. Isabel de Espinosa, according to the sources cited by Burset Flores, was the daughter of Eufrasia Maraver, a child of Juan Guillen and Maria de Maraver.

Our descent from the Delgado Manso is actually the result of a descendant of this family marrying a woman of color in 1727. And while we are more interested in the African and indigenous contributions to the making of the Caribbean, it reveal how the events and places in the early Spanish Caribbean directly involved our ancestors, who came from all social classes. Some of our forebears, for instance, were living on Hispaniola during Enrique's revolt. Some, such as the father of Eufrasia Maraver, were apparently recipients of encomiendas in Hispaniola. Who was the cacica Catalina of Mayama? Presumably located somewhere not too far from Santo Domingo, what happened to the Indians? Were some of them among the mestizas and the old naboria living in Isabel Maraver's household in 1531? Was the cacica Catalina someone exercizing the position of cacica before the Spanish conquest or was her rise to power a result of the brutal Spanish invasion?

Jamaican Tainos

 

Chief Kalaan Nibonrix Kaiman of Maroon and indigenous descent speaks with Wendy Aris about what it means to be Taino in Jamaica today. Since ethnographic and genetic evidence does support the idea that some of the Maroons in Jamaica do indeed possess indigenous ancestry, it is interesting to watch an interview with an informed person with this heritage.

Prehistoric Haiti

Michel Aubourg's Haïti préhistorique: mémoire sur les cultures précolombiennes, Ciboney et Taino is too outdated and far too brief to offer much for modern researchers interested in the indigenous past of the island. Nonetheless, the first part of the text is a nice overview of the history of Haitian archaeology with copious references to studies by professional and amateur archaeologists. In fact, the major value of Aubourg's brief study is the overview of these past excavations and surveys. Many of the studies cited by Aubourg, unfortunately, are dated articles from the Bureau d'Ethnologie's bulletin (often too short) or other studies offering antiquated information and theories about the indigenous peoples of the Greater Antilles. However, the references to findings by archaeologists who reported Indian findings in areas such as La Gonave, Ile a Vache, the Artibonite Valley, Fort Liberte or other areas in the North are worthy of reading and deserve subsequent visits by archaeologists. For instance, the reports of ballcourts in Haiti and the possible archaeological proof of irrigation canals in Xaragua should be expanded upon to enhance our knowledge of indigenous cultures on the island. Alas, the second half of the text is a quick summary of Ciboney and Taino periods using a chronology based on that of Rouse. Much of the information is rather outdated, particularly with evidence of earlier ceramic traditions in the Archaic period in the Antilles. Still, the many references to sources on archaeological research in Haiti are of use, particularly for those interested in understanding the history of archaeology and the indigenous past in the development of Haitian ethnology. 

The Cacicazgos of Hispaniola

Bernardo Vega's Los cacicazgos de la Hispaniola raises a number of important questions about the political and geographic map of the island in late precolonial times. Arguing against the traditional narrative of Haiti and the Dominican Republic in which there were 5 cacicazgos, with borders conceived of or based on those described by Oviedo and Las Casas, Vega believes it is better to rely on the map of Andres Morales and the writings of Pedro Martyr. Although Las Casas first came to Hispaniola before Morales, who drew his map in 1508, he did not actually write in detail about the cacicazgos of the island until several decades later, when his advanced age led to errors. Oviedo, the other chronicler heavily relied upon for the history of the Taino cacicazgos and the idea of the 5 principal ones being Higuey, Marien, Magua, Maguana and Xaragua, however, came to the island in 1514 and was therefore only present several years after the Spanish conquest. Morales, on the other hand, was on the island during the time of Ovando and had traveled across the island. With his personal travels across Haiti, Morales was more likely to have accurately recorded the territorial divisions and geographical features that were used by the native population. Pedro Martyr, who relied on the map of Morales and interviews with him and other Spaniards who traveled to Hispaniola in the early days of the Spanish conquest, was able to transcribe Morales's information into the map and record for posterity the major provinces of the island. These five provinces included Bainoa, a large province which covered most of modern Haiti and included the Xaragua cacicazgo.

It is possible that, despite the lapses in the memory of Las Casas and the fact that the writings of his and those of Oviedo postdate the earlier work of Pedro Martyr, the traditional idea of the 5 paramount caciques whose territory did not align perfectly with that described in the map of Morales may be at least partially accurate. If the provinces described by Morales and Martyr, with their natural borders based on rivers, mountains, and other geographic provinces are not exact matches with the 5 dominant cacicazgos described by the other chroniclers, this may reflect a different interpretation by the natives of the island's political and territorial maps. Of course, we lack evidence for this, but we find it unlikely that the cacicazgos described by Las Casas and Oviedo as the dominant ones, did not have some large degree of territorial control which fluctuated over time and was not necessarily based on the borders and divisions of the provinces. Furthermore, the indigenous cosmology and view of the island's geography as described by Pedro Martyr suggests a magico-religious interpretation that may not have been meant to indicate the political divisions of cacicazgos. For example, if the far west of the island was the anus of an island conceived as a living being, with a cave considered to be the origin of the island's first people, perhaps there were other types of religious symbolism in the other provinces like Bainoa or Cayabo. 

In spite of our own reservations about Vega's conclusions, his use of the map of Morales plus that of other 16th century maps and surviving toponyms of Taino origin in Haiti and the Dominican Republic is rather impressive. His success in identifying about 90 percent of the places indicated in the map of Morales certainly fleshes out our understanding of the island's geography and indigenous toponyms. For example, Vega's theory of Xaragua's capital being located in the area of Port-au-Prince, probably directly north of Kenscoff, is intriguing. The river they relied upon for their irrigation canals, Camin (or Cami) identified as rio Blanco is certainly useful information for those interested in pursuing the specific history of Xaragua. Some of Vega's conclusions about the ciguayos is also worthy of consideration, although we find it highly unlikely that Caonabo was a Ciguayo. Furthermore, we find the notion of a cave-dwelling or primitive population of foragers in the far west of Haiti to be less likely, since we know the Indian population that fled from the Spaniards to live in the mountains subsisted on roots, hunting, and food sources available in areas far away from Spanish control. While there could have been an archaic, pre-farming population in the southwestern corner of Haiti in the late precolonial era, it seems more likely that the area was populated by agriculturalists. In addition, ciguayos who preyed upon inhabitants in the plains near their mountainous abode, where they were ruled by Mayobanex, emerge from Vega's analysis as an intriguing and distinct indigenous population of the island. Whether or not the archers encountered by Columbus at the Golfo de los flecheros is an unresolved question, but Vega's idea of a Carib temporary residence there is plausible. Indeed, such a case seems to have been present in nearby Puerto Rico.