Kalinago Words for Black People

Whilst perusing Breton's dictionary, yet again, we saw that the Kalinago had words for the mixed-race children of Indian men and black women. The language also used Iábouloupou for the children of white men and black women. For black people in general, they seem to have used the word tibouloue. The Galibi on the South American mainland used the word tibourou for blacks. Thus, it seems like tibouloue is of Cariban rather than Arawakan origin. However, in Garifuna, the word wuriti is used for black. In Palikur, black is pohe or puhiye. In Wayuu, it can be rendered as mütsiiya or yuulii. The distant Ashaninka language has cheenkari for black. In Lokono, khareme seems to be the word for black, while in Suriname black people are called Dolhi. 

However, one must determine if the same word for the black color was applied to people of African descent in the 1500s and 1600s for other Arawakan languages, like Taino. Since "Taino" people were the first to see and engage with Africans and mixed-race people of African descent, it is tempting to wonder if terms like Chibárali and cachionna could be of Taino origin. According to Breton, Chibárali was also used for a type of dangerous arrow. This is no surprise, since the word sounds somewhat close to simara, which was probably the Taino word for arrow (or something rather close to it) which, later on, became incorporated into the word for maroon in Spanish (and subsequently, other European languages). However, the term actually seems to be connected to the ray, an animal whose tail was used for a very deadly type of arrow. The mainland Caribs have a similar word for ray, although the Kalinago term for the arrow made using the ray sounds like a fusion of chimara and chibali. Was the use of this term for black-Indian people to express disdain or fear of the deadly nature of the mix?

It is fascinating how the Kalinago of the 17th century were using a word etymologically linked to arrows and rays to describe mixed-race Indian-black people. By the time Breton met and recorded their language, the Kalinago had already been interacting with Europeans and Africans for several decades. In addition, fleeing Taino speakers from Puerto Rico and likely other parts of the Greater Antilles were said to have sought refuge in the Lesser Antilles. Could these Taino speakers have introduced the meaning of Chimara as connotating half-black heritage? It's certainly possible given the earlier exposure of Taino speakers with Europeans and Africans and their own experiences or knowledge of marronage from Spanish colonial authorities in the 1500s. Intriguingly, the 17th century Kalinago, who were known for taking African slaves as captives and reselling some to Europeans, used another word for maroons or fugitive slaves, Anourouti or toüalicha. These terms seem to be of Cariban or non-Arawakan origin. One suspects the Kalinago also would have quickly gained familiarity with maroon in the sense it was used by Europeans. 

The other term for half-black people, cachionna, could also be used for half-white, half-black peoples. It contains the Kalinago word for Sun but could also be related to a number of other words. It could also be related to a number of words in the Island Carib language referring to fruits, wood, young geese, or a type of manioc flour. Interestingly, cachi is similar to the word for Moon in a number of Arawakan languages, although Breton gives Moon as cati in his dictionary. Is it feasible for the Kalinago language to have used a word for Sun that sounds so similar to the word for Moon in other Arawakan languages? For example, Arawak in Suriname uses kathi for the Moon and adali for the Sun. Garifuna uses hati for Moon. In the language of the Wayuu, Kashi also meant Moon. Why was the Kalinago term for Sun so similar to the word for Moon? Did Breton make a mistake? 

Although far more work remains to be done, we wonder if the general word for black people in Taino and the Arawakan-rooted words in Kalinago were similar, perhaps something like the Garifuna wuritti. Or perhaps something close to the Lokono khareme or Wayuu yuulii was used as a general term for dark-skinned black Africans. But was cachionna perhaps similar to a Taino term for mixed-race black-Indian peoples.

Guatiao in the Antilles

Another surprise, although it probably shouldn't be, is the use of a word akin to guatiao in the Kalinago tongue. In Breton's dictionary, it is rendered as Itignaom, quite distinct form the Galibi banaré in Pelleprat's dictionary. Clearly, Itignaom is etymologically related to guatiao, and how the word was used by the Kalinago who traded with the French may give us an idea of how it worked. The system of ritual kinship and alliance cemented by an exchange of names was used by the Kalinago and the French for trading purposes. If the Kalinago equivalent was similar to the Taino version, then the appearance of the name Agueybana in both Saona, eastern Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico could possibly have been through a ritual kinship sealed by the exchange of names. This would have facilitated trade and alliances and perhaps explain a lot of the similarities in ritual iconography, art, and even the exchange of areitos between indigenous groups in Puerto Rico and eastern Hispaniola. 

Eracra as "Bed"

Another word we find interesting in the language of the island of Haiti, given by Oviedo as a synonym for bohio, or house, is eracra. To some scholars, this sounds like a word derived from a non-Taino language spoken on the island of Hispaniola in pre-Columbian times. While this is possible, we found a potentially similar word that provides clues to its meaning. In this case, Kalinago, according to Breton's dictionary, contains the word écra, denoting bed. The resemblance to eracra could be a coincidence, but it is certainly plausible for the word for bed in Kalinago and Taino to have been similar. Interestingly, this word has not survived in Garifuna, which uses the word gabana. We couldn't find any similar word for house or bed in other languages like Palikur or Wayuu. While some scholars argue that the word eracra may come from the Ciguayo tongue, the existence of a similar word in Kalinago could point to a deeper antiquity or wider spread of it across the Antilles. Alternatively, checking Pelleprat's Galibi dictionary revealed the word acado for bed (and bati as another word for bed). We suspect eracra in Taino signified bed.

Nitaino???

Since we are novices to the world of linguistics, consulting what others have done to reconstruct the Taino language is very important. In this case, Casa Areyto's video on nitaino is actually quite interesting. Instead of viewing it as a term designating a social elite or upper class, it may have been more rooted in kinship. I think something similar could be relevant for naboria, too. 

Areíto in the Batey

Depiction of the type of drums used by our forebears

In order to continue our exploration of possible origins and alternative meanings of well-known words from the Taino lexicon, we decided to continue our journey with areito and batey. Both words are connected, as the batey has been conceived of as a central place or plaza in which areitos were likely conducted or held while the same space was also used for the ballgame. Therefore, exploring the etymology and development of these words may be useful for understanding the origins of three central components of "Taino" civilization in the prehispanic Greater Antilles. Relying on our usual dictionaries of Warao, Lokono/Arawak, Palikur, Kalinago, Wayuu and Garifuna, we decided to see what looking for similar words and concepts in other languages may reveal.

First, batey. This word does not seem to have close equivalents in other languages besides Kalinago. In Palikur, wetri or higiw can signify place. In Warao, a Spanish-Warao handbook gave us auti autu as en todo el centro. Plaza in Warao is jojonoko or kotubunoko, neither one sounding anything like batey. Lokono doesn't give many clues, either. Central is rendered as anakubo. A Garifuna trilingual dictionary provides amidani for middle. We must look to other languages to see possible ideas on the origins of the word.

It is only in Kalinago where a word sounding somewhat close to batey can be found. In this case, a 17th century French-Kalinago dictionary of Breton uses the word bati to designate the place or corner of someone, as in the space used by someone to hang their hammock in the house. This very specific and limited meaning suggests batey in Taino may have once held a similar meaning for a small corner or space used by someone. Somehow, over time, Taino speakers began to expand their definition of the term to encompass larger plazas or central spaces (as well as retaining the original, restricted use of it, as its survival in Caribbean Spanish attests). Interestingly, the Kalinago used the word bouellelebou to designate a yard or the place between the carbet and houses. The word they used for the place where cabins or homes were established was bouleletebou, clearly related to their word for yard. It seems likely that the Taino batey originally referred to a smaller area or space associated with a particular person, then was expanded upon to designate a larger central plaza (and the associated ballgame). It was possibly also a local development and not particularly influenced by plazas or the ballgame in Mesoamerica, if the linguistic evidence is clear. 

Areíto likewise presents a challenge. In Warao, dokotu warakitane or dokoto wara mean to sing. A party is oriwaka. In Wayuu, to sing is ee'irajaa and party is mi'raa. In this same tongue, to remember is so too aa'in. None of these words are particularly close to the Taino word. Neither does Palikur come close, except for one word. However, in that language, musique is arigman. To play an instrument is arigha. More intriguingly, the word for rumor is aritka. This could actually be etymologically linked to the Taino word in the sense of rumor being related to story, storytelling, and narratives. This is also linked to the Garifuna words for remember and remembrance. Indeed, in Garifuna, a trilingual dictionary renders remember as aritagua. Remembrance is aritahani. This is close to the Taino word and the Palikur aritka. Thus, areíto, though accompanied by music and dance, was etymologically related to remembrance, history, tradition and stories. This sense is very clear in some of the Spanish chronicles. Indeed, Oviedo explicitly compared the Taino way of recording history to romances in Spain. It also makes it quite clear that a clear historical component was central to the areíto. 

Surprisingly, however, the Kalinago language, at least based on the 17th century French dictionary did not possess such a close equivalent. Nonetheless, the word for storyteller, arianga-lougouti and the word for to speak, arianga, may be related to the Garifuna terms for remember and remembrance. It is also possible that speakers of Taino who fled to the Lesser Antilles during and after the Spanish conquest introduced their version of the word? But, the fact that a similar word was present in Palikur, in South America, suggests that this was not necessary for all 3 languages to develop similar-sounding words for related concepts. 

So, what does this foray in language tell us? It establishes quite clearly a historical character for the areíto. The Spanish chronicles are reliable here in describing it as one whose central purpose was linked to history, or at least a "Taino" conception of history and genealogies. The word must have held deep roots and was clearly linked to historical narratives, myths, legends, and tales of lineage (for those of chiefly rank?) that were accompanied by song and dance, possibly to  facilitate memory as well as entertain. The batey, on the other hand, seems to have originally designated just a small space, corner, or area of a particular person, which was presumably linked to the idea of a "yard" near their home. This was, at some later date, expanded to refer to larger central plazas and the ballgame. The antiquity of large plazas in the Caribbean suggests that this may have happened much earlier in the history of the language, and part of the reason why it didn't use words of continental origin for the space. 

The Calusa

Ancient Americas on Youtube has another good video on an indigenous people of the Americas. The Calusa, who seem to have for sure been in contact with the Caribbean after or possibly before the Spanish conquests of the Antilles, have a fascinating history as a people who did not rely on agriculture.

Inca Civilization in Cuzco

This is probably not the best place to start with for Zuidema. A translation of lecture series from the 1980s he gave in France, the book attempts to analyze myths reported in the chronicle, fieldwork based on the ceque system, and kinship structure theories to make sense of how Inca civilization in Cuzco was tied to the calendrical, agricultural, and ritual cycle. Somehow it's all connected to moieties in which, however, each ruling Inca did not have a panaca that continued after his death. I'm still not sure what to make of Zuidema, but I'm definitely in favor of the more historicist approaches to the chronicles. Zuidema, on the other hand, seems to think that viewing more of the information recorded in the chronicles as myth can actually free our minds to develop alternative models which might be closer to the realities of pre-Hispanic Andean civilization. He even compares the age-class system of the Inca to the Ge peoples of Brazil, raising a possible area of exploration by looking at the Andean age-grade system in comparison with all of South America's Amerindian peoples.

I guess I keep falling back on the historicist bias since some of the chroniclers, like Sarmiento de Gamboa, even had representatives of each 'panaca' listen to the chronicle and offer feedback for any points they disagreed with. It's possible that each group had its own 'mythohistoric' view of their collective past and were able to agree on a coherent enough vision that was written down by Sarmiento de Gamboa. But I suspect the Inca, at least since Pachacuti, had a keen interest in history in both our "modern" sense and one related to myth. I don't think they interpreted their past as entirely "mythohistoric" and the evidence of possible quipu "records" and specialists in the interpretation of said records undoubtedly meant that a core "historic" tradition must have been propagated since at least Pachachuti in the 1400s.

Black Indians For Sale

Again, perusing the colonial newspaper of Saint Domingue can reveal some surprises. For instance, in 1786, when the Chevalier de Valmont announced he was departing for Europe, several "Black Indians" were put up for sale. Since other cases of "Black Indians" turned out to be Asian Indians, we suspect these domestics were similarly from India.

Creole Sauvage from New Orleans (1770s)

Whilst perusing digitized copies of Saint-Domingue's colonial newspaper, Affiches américaines, we encountered a reference to the sale of what may have been a Native American person from North America. Up for sale by a wood seller, Gaignard, in what is now Cap-Haitien, the unnamed "sauvage" was described as a Creole of New Orleans. Assuming that "sauvage" in 1770s Saint-Domingue was still a reference to Amerindian peoples or indigenous peoples of the Americas, we suspect this enslaved person was of indigenous origin, probably from a group in today's United States, but born in New Orleans. Reference to small numbers of Native American people from Louisiana or the Midwest sold into slavery in the Caribbean can be found in a variety of sources, so it is plausible that someone of Native American origin ended up in Au Cap via New Orleans. 

Madras, India Connection

One must be careful when interpreting the "nations" reported of runaway slaves in Saint-Domingue. This is also true for cases of "Negro Indians" or "Black Indians," who may have usually been people from India or South Asia. Although undoubtedly only a very tiny part of the slave population in Saint-Domingue, they occasionally appeared in the colony's press as runaway slaves. Sometimes they are assigned very specific regions of India, such as Bengale, Coromandel, Malabar, or the Mascarenes (where the French enslaved many Indians). In this case, however, we have encountered, for the first time, an Indian from Madras. This specific Indian runaway, Jean-François, was probably the subject of a runaway ad posted in May 1790. Without this additional description of him in the newspaper, we would not have figured out he was from Madras, or supposedly from Madras (a Tamil, then?).

A Brief History of Peru

Since the history of the indigenous peoples of Peru obviously did not end with the Spanish conquest, we recently read a general history of Peru to refresh and expand our familiarity with colonial and postcolonial Peru. Christine Hunefeldt's A Brief History of Peru is a good place to start for this. Relatively short, containing ample photographs, charts, and tables, and providing a synthesized overview of Peruvian history that endeavors to encompass social, economic and political history, she largely succeeds in capturing the depth, contradictions and contours in the storied annals of Peru. Sadly, like so many general histories of this nature, more than half of the book covers the 19th and 20th centuries, ending with the presidency of Toledo. 

Two short chapters suffice to cover ancient Peru and the Inca, and then 4 subsequent chapters cover the colonial period. This is to be expected, particularly in the case of authors who specialize on colonial and modern Peru, which obviously benefits from ample documentation. As one would expect of a survey history such as this, several recurring themes of social/racial division, colonial legacies, the exploitation of Indian or indigenous labor, and the coast/Lima versus the highlands are major dynamics that reverberate throughout Peru's history. Indigenous people perceived as exploited labor through tribute, the hacienda system, and the ongoing question of how to develop Peru with its rich natural and mineral resources. From Potosi to later mining operations, or the relation of the colonial and postcolonial state to indigenous groups in the highlands or Amazon, these questions are never truly resolved adequately justly. Peru's economic history, nonetheless, presents a fascinating case of lost opportunities and passing moments of wealth, at least compared with much of Latin America. Yet throughout the narrative, much of this wealth was lost through an export-oriented economy that was insufficiently liked to the internal markets, squandered by government waste or inefficiency, used for external debts, or too dependent on raw materials with price fluctuations on the global market. 

Of course, as a brief survey cannot cover all topics fully, we will have to continue reading other books on specific periods or eras of Peruvian. Topics such as colonial Peru's mining economy or the history of slavery and textile mills, for instance, are fascinating topics. The years of the guano boom or the agrarian reform of Velasco in the 20th century are additional topics or periods we would like to explore. Naturally, our interests are still mainly in the precolonial and colonial era, and we need to thoroughly familiarize ourselves with the historiography on that period. Last, it may be interesting to explore the relations between Peru's highlands and coast with the Amazonian region across the precolonial, colonial and postcolonial eras.

Shining Path and Indian Peru: The Persistence of Postcolonial Relationships

BBC's Peru Country Profile

     Though the Shining Path movement claimed to fight for indigenous communities and the poor of Peruvian society, the Maoist organization ultimately furthered postcolonial legacies of paternalism and abuse of indigenous Peruvians. Despite offering openings to women not only as members but positions of leadership, and initially recruiting some indigenous groups, by the end of the Shining Path’s tenure as an active threat to the Peruvian state, indigenous and peasant communities in the highlands had organized rondas autonomously to remove Shining Path militants from their own villages and towns without military pressure.[1] Indeed, the Shining Path’s paternalistic and violent treatment of indigenous communities reflected postcolonial legacies of racism and a lack of comprehension of the dynamics of Indian society.

     Beginning with the establishment of the Aristocratic Republic, coastal whites created a state without indigenous suffrage and deliberately perpetuated colonial labor and racial relations, privileging the coastal regions at the expense of the mostly Indian highlands. Once firmly established, subsequent Peruvian governments retained the structure. The rise of indigenismo among progressive Peruvian intellectuals in the 1920s was an attempt to democratize the Peruvian political system by recognizing the importance of Indian culture as a source for national identity.[2] Unfortunately, the predominantly non-indigenous intellectuals spearheading the movement saw themselves as protectors of Indians, predicated on Indian inferiority, as they required assimilation into broader society, education, and handling under the leadership of radical intellectuals opposed to political centralization.[3] Similarly, the Alianza Popular Revolucionaria American, or APRA, which also emerged during the 1920s, focused on workers on the northern coast, thereby neglecting the much larger issue of land reform and Indians.[4] However, APRA began the university reform movement in Lima and Cuzco, centers of the future Shining Path, which claimed legacy of both José Carlos Mariátegui and APRA’s leftism.[5] Claiming the legacy of Mariategui, who believed Indians could lead the socialist revolution because of their tradition of “primitive communism,” Shining Path leadership saw indigenous communities they claimed to fight on behalf of as “masses” that would overflow the enemy on demand, not as equals.[6] Thus, the Shining Path insurgency carried on the contradictory legacies of the indigenist intellectual movement of the 1920s and the divisions within the Peruvian left that made land reform and improving the lives of indigenous peasants more difficult.

     Of course peasants in the highlands had resisted their economic exploitation autonomously since the colonial period. During the 20^th century, peasants invaded lands of elites, petitioned governments for land reform, and sought employment in the Lima and other cities.[7] Class differentiation also developed during this period, with many indigenous men finding work in mining and other industries, opening the door for some to eventually accumulate land and “the proletarianizing” of village populations in the 1930s for others.[8] This led to conflicts within village communities as the working poor and agrarian families “called on traditional reciprocity and subsistence ideology as their only weapons in a changing class struggle” and “the emerging entrepreneurial sector, wishing to take advantage of new production and market opportunities, attempted to push forward the commodification of all property and village relationships.”[9]  An agrarian bourgeoisie eventually developed as a result of the privatization of communal land, the commodification of private and communal labor that occurred because of migrant labor and class differentiation, and growing integration of peasant society into the national economy and political system, which illustrates the historical agency and dynamism of Indian populations. The Shining Path’s perception of indigenous communities as untouched by societal change and overlooking class differentiation and other great changes that had come to the highlands by 1980 ignored the historical agency and complexities of life in the highlands. Like the indigenist intellectuals, Shining Path claimed to fight for the destitute peasants, but revealed them to be outside agitators with no appreciation for the nuances of Indian reality.

     Moreover, Peruvian military-imposed agrarian reform and social revolution also failed for its undemocratic and paternalistic relationship to indigenous communities. Under Juan Velasco Aldvorado, between 1968 and 1975, the dictatorship endeavored to stop land invasions by redistributing land through government-controlled programs such as the Sociedades Agrarias de Interes Social and the Estatuo de Comunidades, which promoted communal agrarian production cooperatives.[10] Due to military-enforced agrarian reforms assumptions of a static indigenous population, and attempts to force reform without letting peasants decide for themselves, agrarian reform only succeeded in redistributing 7.4% of total arable land.[11] Once the military began the process for democratization and legalizing leftist parties, the Shining Path acted against the political system, due to Abimael Guzman’s belief that “True reform lay in toppling the system and extirpating its remains.”[12] In order to ensure that the electoral system would fail the Peruvian left, Shining Path declared armed struggle against the state on the day of the 1980 election, the first with universal suffrage, by burning ballot boxes in Ayacucho successfully weakening the chances for leftist coalitions to win at the national level.[13] The Shining Path’s adoption of violent means against indigenous communities mirrored that of the military, and the colonial legacy of violence used to subordinate indigenous peoples as well.

     Shining Path’s relationships with Indian communities and towns during the zenith of their struggle also demonstrate an outright violent or paternalist approach to indigenous peasants. Initially supported in central Ayacucho, the extreme military repression and indiscriminate killings of civilians, in addition to the Shining Path’s brutal murders of suspected peasant traitors, led to their loss of popular support by the middle of the 1980s.[14] While the Shining Path’s practice of dividing indigenous communities by aiming at the younger generation succeeded because of youth discontent, the people’s trials against local elites alongside contradictory violence against the communities they claimed to fight for led to self-organized rondas within the community to force the Shining Path out.[15] Indeed, peasant resistance to Shining Path militants was natural, especially since Shining Path rule led to authoritarian living conditions, akin to concentration camps where the peasants who resisted were subjected to extreme violence and murder, leading to an ethnic discourse in which peasants were believed to be too ignorant to understand Shining Path’s revolutionary project.[16] Soon Shining Path were forced into Peru’s Amazon region, where the group worked with drug cartels and forced Ashaninka indigenous peoples into joining the Movement, effectively ruling the area like a concentration camp.[17] Before driven away to the jungle, Shining Path endeavored to force children into the war, conscripted entire families, and led to multiple massacres of civilians.[18] Under Shining Path repressive Peoples’ Committees, peasant children were reared by the state for brainwashing, family structures and communal organizations were replaced by revolutionary organizational structures, and religious practices were banned. Furthermore, Shining Path leadership deliberately misinformed the masses about the progress of the movement and murdered infirm and sick living in their regions.[19]

     The internal weaknesses and failure of Shining Path to maintain popular support in Ayacucho during its long armed struggle stems from a postcolonial legacy of violence, paternalism, and racism. The movement’s leadership perception of indigenous communities as savage chutos ensured it would not last, since the indigenous communities were dynamic communities with class differentiation, Protestantism, and increasingly integrated into the national political and economic system. Like the intellectuals who espoused indigenismo and the military, Shining Path did not allow those living under their yoke freedom of religion and directly challenged their family, social, and political institutions, which had already changed dramatically as a result of a decades-long process of social change wrought by migrant labor and peasant mobilization in land invasions on estates. Shining Path’s refusal to recognize and support indigenous resistance on and according to indigenous terms, instead of imposing Maoist ideology and using violence and fear to control them, ensured peasant resistance to Shining Path would spread and the organization’s loss of local support in the countryside doomed their plan for revolution.          

---

[1]  Robin Kirk, The Monkey’s Paw: New Chronicles from Peru (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997), 182.

[2] Florencia E. Mallon, Lecture 10/18/2011.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Robin Kirk, The Monkey’s Paw: New Chronicles from Peru (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997), 174.

[7] Florencia E. Mallon, Lecture 10/20/2011.

[8] Florencia E. Mallon, Defense of Community in Peru’s Central Highlands: Peasant Struggle and Capitalist Transition, 1880-1930 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983), 267.

[9] Ibid., 305.

[10] Florencia E. Mallon, Lecture 10/25/2011.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Robin Kirk, The Monkey’s Paw: New Chronicles from Peru (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997), 174.

[13] Florencia E. Mallon, Lecture 10/27/2011.

[14] Florencia E. Mallon, Lecture 11/1/2011.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ponciano del Pino H., “Family, Culture and ‘Revolution:’ Everyday Life with Sendero Luminoso,” in Stern, Shining and Other Paths, 160, 162.

[17] Florencia E. Mallon, Lecture  11/1/2011.

[18] Ponciano del Pino H., “Family, Culture and ‘Revolution:’ Everyday Life with Sendero Luminoso,” in Stern, Shining and Other Paths, 171.

[19] Ibid., 186-187.

Estimating Saint-Domingue's "Indien" Population

One thing we have been toying with is the possibly of using the number of reported runaways of small "nations" to reach estimates of their total numbers in the colony of Saint Domingue. Thanks to the excellent data collected in Le marronage dans le monde atlantique project, one can more easily sift through the reported runaway slaves in Saint-Domingue's press. In this particular case, we focused on "Indiens" reported as runaways in the period 1766-1790. Checking for possible repeated offenders, we found approximately 42 "Indiens" (of Amerindian, Asian Indian, or mixed "Indian") origin. If, following the work of Eddins, we assume a total number of reported "maroons" was 12,857, then we can play with the numbers for very rough estimates of the total "Indien" population in the colony. In this case, if 42 out of 12857 maroons were "Indien" in the aforementioned years, then about 0.33% of the maroons were classified as such. Applying that figure to the total slave population in 1790, which we will just use the "safe" estimate of 500,000, gives a figure of about 1633 "Indiens." Using a larger figure based on the total estimated slave imports of approximately 800,000, about 2613 slaves imported into the colony during the period of French rule were "Indien." These figures, though still very small, are likely overestimates. Since many of the "Indien" slaves in Saint-Domingue seem to have been domestics and others lived in towns or cities, their share of the reported marronage cases may be somewhat inflated. In that case, we should use lower figures and keep in mind the diverse sources of "Indien" slaves in the colony (Louisiana, Lesser Antilles, Spanish colonies, India, Mascarenes) are not always documented. Nonetheless, using the lower estimate of about 1633, based on the period from 1766-1790, is still plausible for an Amerindian & East Indian presence of less than 1% of the total slave population. It is rather easy to see how this population was quickly absorbed or disappeared in Saint-Domingue and independent Haiti. 

Pacariqtambo and Mythohistory

In our effort to familiarize ourselves with more scholarship on the Incas and precolonial Peru, we read Urton's The History of a Myth: Pacariqtambo and the Origins of the Inkas. A short study, Urton's work seems to follow more in the footsteps of Zuidema, opting for a more structuralist approach to the Spanish chronicles and sources on the pre-conquest past of Peru. In our understanding, Urton argues that the origin myth of the Incas from the caves of Pacariqtambo were "concretized" and "historicized" based on very specific conditions related to colonial society in the 1560s and 1570s, particularly the period of Viceroy Toledo's rule. In short, some of the Pacariqtambo area caciques (such as the Callapina family, on 3 different occasions in colonial Peru) argued their descent from Manco Capac and other Inca nobility through a "reworking" of the "mythohistorical" narratives/traditions of Pacariqtambo as containing the caves from which Manco Capac and the early ayllus of Cuzco first arose. His argument is plausible since Indians who could "prove" their noble descent were exempted from taxes and personal service to Spaniards. So some descendants of old kuraka and provincial Incas by privilege likely did engage in some "creative" genealogical reconstructions of their lineages. 

We, however, were a little lost or perplexed by some of Urton's additional arguments. For instance, when he tries to connect the widowed woman who helped Pachacuti defeat the Chancas and save Cuzco to an ancestor of the first Callapina who petitioned to have his noble status recognized in 1569. Is the evidence sufficient to link one of his named ancestors in that 1569 document to a woman who, assuming she did exist, lived in the 1400s and became part of the "mythohistorical" narratives of Pachacuti's victory over the Chancas? It is possible, but we increasingly enter into more uncertain terrain. The final chapters of the book explore the ethnographic present and modern ritual travel/pilgrimage, speculating on how the religiously syncretistic nature of today's Pacariqtambo ayllus and celebrations of the saints may reflect past ayllu-connected rituals regarding kinship and the origin of the Incas. Again we have less evidence to draw from, but it does appear that the ayllus of today's Pacariqtambo have rituals tied to the reworking of their pre-Hispanic past and Catholic saints, rituals. Moreover, Urton does seem to be right that the exact "location" of Pacaritambo and the modern area bearing that name didn't seem to become concrete until 1569-1571, and that some of the Cuzco Inca noble witnesses of the first Callapina were also informants of Sarmiento de Gamboa for his chronicle on the Incas. But without more familiarity with his more detailed ethnographic work on the indigenous peoples of Pacariqtambo today, it was a little harder to see how exactly it supports the earlier chapters in the text. 

Nevertheless, reading this has challenged us to finally engage the works of Zuidema and Urton on the Incan and precolonial past of Peru. Our own bias in favor the "Rowe" model has definitely precluded us from fully considering the colonial context in which the aforementioned "mythohistorical" narratives of Inca origins were first written down in the 1500s and 1600s. But if the traditions about Pachacuti's interest in history and consolidating a "standard" narrative are accurate, perhaps we are all in one form or another acolytes of the Pachacuti school of Inca history. The degree to which it is acceptable more as "myth" versus history depends on context and was probably always in flux, depending on the narrator and audience. Our misfortune today is we lack a full understanding of how amauta and quipu-readers conceived of historicity, although we suspect that the most recent of the Inca emperors were more definitively historical figures rather than mythologized ones like those recalled in the chronicle of Montesinos.