The Taino Duho

Taino duhos are some of the best-known and most elaborate works of pre-Columbian Caribbean craftsmanship and art. Associated with cacical authority and the elites of Taino society, the best known duhos are often sculpted of wood. Many possess two-dimensional geometric patterns and designs and feature anthropomorphic or zoomorphic faces and features. Although stools are widely used in South and Central American indigenous cultures, among the Taino, duhos, particularly the ornate wooden ones, have stood the test of time and still serve as a testament to the artistic talent and technical brilliance of indigenous woodcarvers. As powerful artifacts associated with caciques and the elites, they can also be a powerful source or analysis for reconstructing something of Taino ruling ideology. Their restricted use, elaborateness, and the addition of symbols that may be based on cotton textiles, belts, navels, cemis (and/or ancestors) and entoptic phenomena suggest art and religion were closely entwined in an overall ideology of rulership.

Joanna Ostapkowicz, author of the thesis Taíno Wooden Sculpture: Duhos, Rulership and the Visual Arts in the 12th-16th Century, appears to be one of the world's leading experts on the subject. Her thesis, including an extended catalog of extant duhos and their provenience and museum acquisition histories, establishes that at least 147 duhos have survived. Unfortunately, several have been damaged and the original contextual location of the find is not always clear. More than a few pieces probably ended up in private hands and several more likely await discovery in the Caribbean. Haiti, for example, with La Gonave identified as one center of production during the time of Anacaona, might yield more duhos of wood that could shed light on their production and distribution. Ostapkowicz's study also includes those built of stone as well as wood, but the wooden ones are often the most remarkable. In addition to examining the known origins of over 100 duhos, she includes examples of other wooden sculpture in Taino art traditions. A sophisticated review and discussion of known scholarship on Taino chiefdoms, the role of women in production, animal symbolism, and the relationship between rituals and ideology in cacical authority and duho use cover the rest of the dissertation.

The technical aspects of production are likewise included, as she estimates that wooden duhos constructed out of dense, tropical hardwoods like guayacan, would have likely required a specialist artisan (part-time or perhaps master artisan) 4 to 6 hours per day and at least a year to finish. This does not include the amount of time required to fell a tree or the seasoning time, either. Undoubtedly, crafting elaborate duhos required a woodcarver who know how to select the appropriate tree and the mastery of techniques with adzes, heat, and cutting to produce a finished stool. At the time this was written, the specific type of wood used for the duho or more precise dating was lacking. Today, however, some duhos have been dated as far back as the 13th century. Ostapkowicz's analysis and dating of other wooden artifacts, such as cohoba stands, suggest elaborate woodcarving in guayacan probably developed centuries earlier. Indeed, some masterpieces of Taino Hispaniola wooden sculpture date back to the 11th or 12th centuries. Perhaps elaborate duhos carved from guayacan or mahogany were already in circulation by the 11th century, possibly of restricted, elite use and distribution? This would suggest an efflorescence of Taino arts and cacical authority a few centuries before the dates proposed by Rouse.

Where Ostapkowicz's analysis is most interesting is on the subject of women in production, exchange, and use of duhos. If, as indicated by Martyr d'Anghiera, women in La Gonave actually produced duhos and wooden sculptures, this would suggest women were not restricted only to ceramics, domestic duties and cotton cloth production. Moreover, if the duhos depict the anthropomorphic or zoomorphic figure wearing cotton bands, belts, and caps, produced by Taino women, then the role of goods produced by women were essential to elite accoutrement. Women were also involved in the transfer of duhos, as Anacaona herself gave duhos to the Spanish. Moreover, according to Ostapkowicz, duhos may have been inherited matrilineally and exchanged at weddings. Indeed, women were also participants in at least some of the ritual activities involving cohoba, and probably sat on duhos if in positions of authority as cacicas. The past assumptions of scholars for a strict gender segregation during cohoba rituals or the actual act of sitting on a duho, lack sufficient evidence. Even among various South American populations from whom ethnographic analogies are often sought, women occasionally use stools and participate in various hallucinogen-induced trances or rituals. 

Similarly important for understanding Taino society is the prominence of anthropomorphic features of several duhos. For Ostapkowicz, this emphasis is likely linked to ancestors and or cemis, as past cacique ancestors could also become cemis. By incorporating them into the duho, they literally and symbolically act as the foundation or support for the sitter. The sexual genitalia, linked to procreation, may have further supported this view. Moreover, the symbolism of trees with roots, trunks and branches associated with stages of life and connections to the subterranean world was likely linked to spirits, or seen as embodying or housing a spirit or being. Ostapkowicz, though skeptical of drawing too heavily on Pané, cites numerous episodes involving trees, wood, or, in one case, fruit. A tree moving on it own, and speaking with a behique through cohoba, can direct the shaman/carver into cutting it. Moreover, cemis carved of wood were also believed to be able to move on their own and escape from caciques or communities they were not interested in staying with. If ancestors were similarly venerated and could become cemis, their representation in a duho would become a powerful numinous quality that justified the sitter's right to office. Through sitting on the duho that was explicitly linked to powerful ancestors, and using the same duho in cohoba rituals or placing it in caves, the owner asserted their power to intercede between the human and other worlds in the Taino cosmos. In other words, elaborate duhos can be "read" as powerful texts of rulership.