Taino Indians
TAG ARCHIVES: BORICUA
Aborignial Puerto Rico
Posted on January 31, 2010 by Ojibwa
( – promoted by navajo)
The aboriginal Taíno name for the island that is today called Puerto Rico is Borinquen and thus people from the island are Boricuas. While the Taínos were the dominant aboriginal group on the island when the Spanish arrived in 1493, they only arrived on the island in the seventh century. They replaced an earlier island culture and by the year 1000 had become the dominant political, economic, and cultural power on the island.
When the Spanish arrived in the Caribbean they found the native people there to be friendly. The Spanish had come to the Caribbean in search of great wealth: wealth from gold and silver; and wealth from agricultural crops such as sugar. Since it takes a great deal of labor to produce wealth from these things, they simply enslaved the Taíno. The impact of forced labor coupled with European diseases and deliberate murder soon decimated the Taíno population.
In 1511, the Taíno under the leadership of Urayoán and Agueybaná revolted. The revolt, however, was quickly put down by Ponce de León and the superior Spanish weaponry. By 1520, the Taíno population on Puerto Rico was considered almost extinct.
Like the other indigenous people in the Caribbean, the Taíno in Puerto Rico had an agricultural based economy. In addition, they engaged in trade with the people on the other islands, with the American Indian tribes in Florida, and with the people in Mesoamerica.
The Taíno culture emphasized creativity in pottery, basket weaving, cotton weaving, and stone sculpture. Both men and women painted their bodies and adorned them with jewelry made from bone, shell, stone, and gold. The presence of this gold jewelry encouraged the Spanish quest for wealth.
Feasts and dances were a part of the social, ceremonial, and religious life of the Taíno people. The Taíno drank alcohol which they made from fermented corn. Like Native Americans in other parts of the Americas, they also used tobacco in their religious ceremonies. We don’t know a great deal about Taíno religion as the Spanish were not interested in recording it: they simply assumed that the Taíno didn’t have any religion.
One of the gifts from the Taíno to the rest of the world was the hammock. The term “hammock” is derived from the Taíno term “hamaca.” Hammocks were readily adopted by sailors all over the world as a convenient means to increase the crew capacity of ships. They also improved the sanitary conditions of the sleeping quarters. Today they are found in many American backyards.
In 1898, the United States decided that it wanted to become an imperial power so it acquired Puerto Rico as well as other colonies. Ignoring Puerto Rico’s aboriginal past, most Americans think of Puerto Ricans as hispanics in terms of both language and culture. Genetically, the Taíno DNA continues in many Puerto Ricans. More importantly, the memories of the aboriginal Borinquen have not been forgotten and many still call themselves Boricua and relate to this earlier culture.
The United Confederation of Taíno People (UCTP) was created in 1998. Its purpose is to protect, defend, and preserve the Taíno cultural heritage and spiritual tradition. Taíno cultural heritage and spiritual tradition includes but is not limited to the protection and maintenance of ancestral remains, sacred sites, artifacts, and religious practices which involve the use of ceremonial objects such as sacred plants and various feathers.
In spite of suppression by both the Spanish and the Americans, some of the Taíno language has managed to survive.
Contrary to what has been thought and taught by some, the Taíno language was not completely extinguished. Portions were absorbed over time into the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. Spanish spoken in Boriken retains over 600 Taíno words.
Among words of indigenous origin are objects, geographical names, personal names as well as flora and fauna. A few contemporary cities and towns in Boriken include Yabucoa, Bayamon, Coamo, Ceiba, Caguas, Guanica, Areciboetc.
Many Taíno words are used as adjectives and verbs. For example, the phrase “dar mucho katei” and “joder la pita” means to be very bothersome. “Duro como el guayacan” refers to a person in good shape and “tiene unos macos bonitos” means having pretty eyes.
Source: http://www.boricua.com/taino/T…
Some Taíno words:
Ana: flower
Caona: gold
Ector: sweet soft corn (maize)
Ita: don’t know
With regard to religion, the Caney Circle has kept alive a modern version of the shamanic traditions of the Taíno.
At the heart of our belief in the vitality of spiritual experience is the knowledge that Cosmic wisdom exists within the concept of the sacred circle. This concept is similar to the concept of the North American Indian belief in the “Medicine Wheel” and Asian belief in the “Mandala”.
Source:
http://caneycircle.owlweb.org/Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged boricua, Puerto Rico, Taino
Chief Joseph RiverWind/ A Prophecy Fulfilled!
by Christine Egbert
I was recently blessed to meet a husband and wife ministry team that God is using mightily for such a time as this, that time spoken of in Acts 3:21, a time of the restoration of all things spoken through the holy Prophets from ages past. This husband and wife team is none other than Chief Joseph RiverWind, a descendant of the ancient Arawak Taino Tribe, and his beautiful wife, Dr. Laralyn, who is from the Cherokee and Muskogee Creek.
Their ministry is called Firekeepers International. (http://Www.FireKeepersInternational.org) Earlier this year, in 2018, during Israel’s “Jerusalem Day” celebration, Jerusalem’s Knesset appointed the RiverWinds “Ambassadors of God.”
The RiverWinds met my pastor, Matthew Miller, by divine appointment while in Israel recently. And at some future date, I will tell you how that came to pass. But at this time, I feel compelled by the Spirit to tell you an even more important story. Most of the content for this article comes from Chief Joseph’s book titled, “That’s What The Old Ones Say.”
A Bit Of History
In ancient times, in the times of the caves, the Old Ones were given a prophecy that was to change their world forever. The prophecy foretold of a time when three great war canoes, filled with bearded, pale-faced men, covered like turtles, would arrive on their shores, bringing with them “talking leaves” that would speak to them of the Creator. But the prophecy also warned that these men, covered like turtles (with armor), would also bring destruction…to their people and their way of life.
War Canoes & Talking Leaves
This ancient prophecy foretold by the Old Ones came to pass for the Taino people when three war canoes were sighted off the coast of Kiskeya (known today as Hispaniola, in the Dominican Republic). Three canoes, the La Nina, the La Pinta, and the La Santa Maria, brought to shore Conquistadors, who introduced the Taino people to their Creator’s WORD, the Bible, but they did so at the point of a sharp Spanish sword.
The Scriptures are indeed talking leaves. For God indeed speaks to us from the Bible’s pages, pages made from trees. And the Taino people listened. Unfortunately, the witness of these Conquistadors (their godless actions) failed to emulate the Most High’s command for all mankind to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God. Instead, a lust for gold that was to be obtained at any cost brought destruction to the ancient Taino people, destruction foretold in the prophecy of their Old Ones.
More History
On December 5, 1492, Columbus established the colony of La Navidad (the Nativity in Spanish), in western Kiskeya. There, in a letter written to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, Columbus described the Taino people. “They have no creed and are not idolaters. They are gentle and do not know what it means to be wicked…to kill or to steel…They are sure,” Columbus wrote, “that we come from Heaven.” Columbus assured the King that the Taino people had no weapons, except for sharpened stakes attached to the stems of reeds, which Columbus said they would dare not use.
In That’sWhat The Old Ones Say, Chief Joseph writes, “It is interesting to note Columbus’ error in stating we (the Taino people) had no creed, yet he also said we believed they had come from heaven. One does not understand the concept of heaven without some type of spiritual belief. Indeed, we did have spiritual beliefs. But apparently at the time of this letter our ancestors had not divulged information about our spirituality to these newcomers.”
Returning To Yah
Chief Joseph’s knowledge of the horrific cruelty committed for over 500 years by those who claimed to be Christians caused him to completely renounce the Christianity preached by his own father, who was a pastor, so he turned to the traditional teachings of his native people. But in his quest to learn from the Old Ones an incredible thing happened. Chief Joseph discovered an amazing TRUTH. Many of the accounts recorded in the Bible were the very same stories that had been told and retold for generations by the Old Ones.
Then One Night…
One night Chief Joseph found himself on his face in heartbroken repentance. That was the night he finally understood salvation. Chief Joseph had answered many altar calls in his lifetime before renouncing Christianity and going on his quest for TRUTH. But on this night something in him changed.
He realized suddenly that all his decisions held consequences, consequences for which Chief Joseph could no longer blame the Creator. From the Old Ones he had learned that the Creator gives everyone a special song, and that no one knows who they really are (what they were created to do) until they discover their special song. And that night, as God’s presence permeated the atmosphere, Chief Joseph heard the Creator’s loving voice: “Make music and point people to Me!” God then opened Chief Joseph’s ears to a heavenly symphony. The purity of each note, each crescendo, filled the room with praise to God as Chief Joseph’s tears of brokenness transformed into tears of exhilaration.
Forgiveness, The Greatest Challenge
In his book, Chief Joseph quotes Romans 1:20, which says: “The unseen things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things made, both His eternal power and Godhead, for them to be without excuse.” Chief Joseph writes, “Our people knew who the heavenly Father was. Yet Trickster (Satan) knew how to make us turn away from the Gospel message brought to our shores. The doctrine of conquest left the indigenous people of this land with a poisonous 500 year old root of bitterness…” Chief Joseph’s greatest spiritual challenge was to forgive. He had to forgive before God could use him. He had to forgive the Spanish Conquistadors, the Christian missionaries, and America for stealing their tribal lands under the guise of “Manifest Destiny”. If he failed to forgive, he would be nothing but a hypocrite. So he forgave.
Chief Joseph RiverWind was raised by talented musicians. They instilled in him a love for music. Music had filled his home and permeated their gatherings with joy. It had prepared him, he now understood, for the divine calling the Creator was entrusting him with. That night Chief Joseph asked the Most High to instill in him a hunger for the Creator’s Word. And that hunger was instantly given. Chief Joseph became ravenous, not only to read but to dig deeply into the Hebrew and Greek.
Music and Spiritual Battle
In Scripture, Chief Joseph read that Israelite worriers entered battle playing instruments. With songs of praise and blasts from ram’s horns victories were won. This was God’s pattern. He realized that he was to do battle in the spirit with musical instruments. So the Army veteran, Chief Joseph RiverWind, traded his riffle for a drum, his sidearm for bagpipes, and his knife for a flute, instruments that were used in the Scriptures for warfare, according to literal Hebrew.
Origin Of The Sun (Son) Dance
The Lakota lived in the east, long before they were pushed west to hunt buffalo on the planes. The story of the Son Dance, as told and retold by the Old Ones, occurred during the time when the Lakota still lived in the east. A time of great sickness fell on the people. Many were dying. Their medicine men and women had tried everything to no avail. So the old Chief, as was his custom, went up to the sacred mountain to fast and pray.
With his arms stretched toward heaven, he cried, “Creator, Maker of all things, Giver of breath, I come humbly before You on this vision quest. Your people need help. They are dying. I do not know what to do.” He explained that they had tried everything. Nothing had worked. Then he asked if there was a plant, a tea, a salve they could make to heal the people. He got no answer.
On the second day, after singing, praying and dancing all day, the old Chief again raised his arms toward heaven. “Wakan Taka, oh Great one, You alone know all things. You spread the stars across the sky. Your people are dying. I do not know what to do.” This time the old Chief asked if there was a song the Creator could give him to sing over the people and make them live. But again, there was no answer.
On the third day, as hunger gnawed at his empty stomach and a fiery thirst burned in his mouth, the old Chief once again raised his hands toward heaven. “Tunkasila, Grandfather, You who are without beginning or end, who formed man from the earth of the planes, Your children need help. They are dying!” This time the Chief asked if there was a dance the Creator could teach him, so that he could pray and war in the spirit realm. But again, no answer came.
Then on the fourth day, as the sun headed west toward its setting, the Chief again raised his hands toward heaven. His hunger and thirst had abated, fed through prayer and song. “Great Mystery, You who made the moon and the stars and placed them in the sky. You gave us life and sustained us throughout our generations. Please, Creator, Your children are dying. I don’t know what to do, other than pray and seek an answer. How can my people be saved, oh Great One in the sky?”
This time, the Great One sent a Spirit Being. The old Chief dropped to his knees, as the Spirit Being moved his arm and drew a large opening in the sky with his finger.
“Look through this window,” the Spirit Being instructed the old Chief, “and you will see the answer to your prayers.”
So the Chief looked into the window drawn in the heavens and beheld a man. He was pierced and hanging on a tree.
“He is dying so your people may live,” the Spirit Being told him.
As the last rays of the sun sunk into the western horizon, the window in the sky began to close.
“Wait!” the old Chief cried. “What is his name, that we may remember him and his sacrifice? For there is no greater honor among our people than to give one’s life for another.”
“His name is Bright Morning Star,” the Spirit replied. “Remember His Name!” Then the Spirit was gone. The old Chief fell to his knees weeping, but assured that his people would live.
This, according to the Old Ones, was the origin of the Sun (Son) Dance. When the Chief came down off the mountain and told of his vision, the people made up this dance to honor the Creator’s Son, the Bright Morning Star, who died so that his people might live. But over the centuries, the dance has changed. As the Pipe-Carier, who recounted this ancient tale to Chief Riverwind, said, “We have the tree of Life and we dance and sing, looking toward the sun. And we pierce our skin just as He was pierced. Some tribes dance without piercing, but this is how it all began.”
Pre-Columbian Hispaniola – Arawak/Taino Indians
R Nelson (riannelson@aol.com)
To:anamer2000x Details
Hi Anna:
You sent my blog a comment on April 27 at bofm.blog. I will answer you as best I can.
First of all your beliefs are your very own and it is between you and your Savior. No one can tell you how you feel. I feel the lands of the Book of Mormon happened in the USA like you do. And I agree with you that if the Prophet tells me it happened somewhere else I will always follow the Prophet. Here is a quote however from Pres Nelson when he was Pres of the Quorum of the 12. You will see he clearly states the USA is that choice place of the USA.
“The Book of Mormon reveals that Joseph, the son of Jacob who was once sold into Egypt, foresaw the Prophet Joseph Smith and his day and noted that there would be many similarities in their lives. Centuries later, the Prophet Joseph stated, “I feel like Joseph in Egypt.” The Book of Mormon reveals that the inheritance of Joseph, son of Israel, was not forgotten when land was distributed to the tribes of Israel, as promised in the Abrahamic covenant. Joseph’s inheritance was to be a land choice above all others. It was choice not because of beauty or wealth of natural resources, but choice because it was chosen to be the repository of sacred writings on golden plates from which the Book of Mormon would one day come. It was choice because it would eventually host the world headquarters of the restored Church of Jesus Christ in the latter days. And it was choice because it is a land of liberty for those who worship the Lord and keep His commandments.” President Russell M. Nelson President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles June 23, 2016. Seminar for New Mission Presidents
https://missionary.lds.org/content/dam/mportal/mission-presidents/pdfs/snmp/2016/The-Book-of-Mormon-A-Miraculous-Miracle-President-Nelson-2016-SNMP.pdf
The Maxwell Institute has been reformed under a few different names. “The Interpreter” Book of Mormon Central, and FAIRMormon. None of them are owned by the Church and neither was the Maxwell Institute and neither was the old FARMS organization.
The head of FAIR Mormon is Scott Gordon https://www.fairmormon.org/contact
The leader of Book of Mormon Central is Kirk Magleby https://bookofmormoncentral.org/contact
The leader of the Interpreter is Daniel Petersen https://www.mormoninterpreter.com/
The leader of Meridian Magazine is Scot Proctor. https://latterdaysaintmag.com/contact-us/
None of these websites are affiliated with the Church and none of them speak for the Church. Much of what they teach is wonderful and full of good information, but they all have one hangup which concerns us. They all believe the Book of Mormon events happened in Mesoamerica. That by itself often slants their answers toward that opinion. None of these websites will allow our FIRM Foundation articles or information on any of their websites. They adamantly oppose our opinion that the Book of Mormon happened in the USA and they refuse to debate with us about it.
Each of the people I listed are good active members of the church as I am and so are my friends, Rod Meldrum, Boyd Tuttle, Jonathan Neville, Wayne May etc. We are happy to dialogue with the others but they just don’t want to. They have closed their mind to even discuss issues with us.
I hope this helps. Please contact me any time and May the Lord bless you.
Ana Merkurieff (wordpress@bofm.blog)
To:riannelson Details
New comment on your post “Columbus, Lehi, and Mulek Converge”
Author: Ana Merkurieff (IP address: 24.54.193.61, 24.54.193.61)
Email: anamer2000x@hotmail.com
URL:
Comment:
Stories I grew up with: Cristopher Columbus arrived in Boriken (Puerto Rico), in 1493, the Boricuas or Taíno indians thought he was the white bearded god who visited their ancestors and said he would be back. Columbus was in his thirties, his hair which had gone white, was cropped to his shoulders and his grey blue eyes had a soft tender look, probably not intended. We always thought our ancestors came from Florida not from the Amazon. Recent DNA tested from the teeth of a woman who lived in the Bahamas before Christ has been linked to modern day Puerto Ricans. The 800 carved rocks kept by a Taino village in the south of Puerto Rico near the town of Yauco, which was the village of the cacique Yauco, have been proven authentic, and the writings are Phoenician. The indians drowned Diego Salcedo, a Spanish soldier and waited 3 days for him to come back to life.
You can see all comments on this post here:
https://www.bofm.blog/2019/05/16/columbus-lehi-and-mulek-converge/#comments
Genes of ‘extinct’ Caribbean islanders found in living people
Jorge Estevez grew up in the Dominican Republic and New York City hearing stories about his native Caribbean ancestors from his mother and grandmother. But when he told his teachers that he is Taino, an indigenous Caribbean, they said that was impossible. “According to Spanish accounts, we went extinct 30 years after [European] contact,” says Estevez, an expert on Taino cultures at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian, who is based in New York City.
Many scientists and historians continue to believe the Taino were wiped out by disease, slavery, and other brutal consequences of European colonization without passing down any genes to people in the Caribbean today. But a new genetic study of a 1000-year-old skeleton from the Bahamas shows that at least one modern Caribbean population is related to the region’s precontact indigenous people, offering direct molecular evidence against the idea of Taino “extinction.”
“These indigenous communities were written out of history,” says Jada Benn Torres, a genetic anthropologist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville who studies the Caribbean’s population history and has worked with native groups on several islands. “They are adamant about their continuous existence, that they’ve always been [on these islands],” she says. “So to see it reflected in the ancient DNA, it’s great.”
The skeletal remains come from a site called Preacher’s Cave on Eleuthera, an island in the Bahamas. Archaeologists began excavating there in the early 2000s to probe the Bahamas’ first European arrivals: Puritans who took refuge in the cave after a shipwreck. As they dug, they also found older artifacts associated with the island’s precontact indigenous culture, including a handful of well-preserved burials.
At the time, Hannes Schroeder, an ancient DNA researcher at the Natural History Museum of Denmark and the University of Copenhagen, was on the lookout for skeletons from the Caribbean he could test for DNA—even though he knew success was a long shot. DNA deteriorates faster in hot, humid environments than it does in cold, dry ones. Hunting for ancient DNA in the Caribbean “was uncharted waters,” he says. He tested teeth from five of the Preacher’s Cave burials, and in the end just one had DNA intact enough to sequence. But by the standards of ancient DNA from the tropics, that tooth was a bonanza.
It belonged to a woman who lived about 1000 years ago, according to radiocarbon dating. Schroeder’s team sequenced each nucleotide base of her genome an average of 12.4 times, providing the most complete genetic picture of a precontact Taino individual to date, they report this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “It’s a feat of working with tropical samples,” says Maria Nieves-Colón, a geneticist who studies ancient and modern Caribbean populations at the National Laboratory of Genomics for Biodiversity in Irapuato, Mexico, and at Arizona State University in Tempe.
The Taino woman’s DNA shores up archaeological evidence about her ancestors and her culture. When Schroeder’s team compared her genome to those of other Native American groups, they found she was most closely related to speakers of Arawakan languages in northern South America. Early Caribbean ceramics and tools are strikingly similar to ones found in excavations there, archaeologists have long argued.
The two lines of evidence suggest that about 2500 years ago, the woman’s ancestors migrated from the northern coast of South America into the Caribbean, rather than reaching the islands via the Yucatán Peninsula or Florida. It seems that once people arrived, they didn’t stay put. Archaeologists know that ceramics and other goods were traded between islands, indicating frequent trips. Moreover, the Taino woman’s genome doesn’t contain long repetitive sequences characteristic of inbred populations. Her community, therefore, was likely spread out across many islands and not confined to 500-square-kilometer Eleuthera. “It looks like an interconnected network of people exchanging goods, services, and genes,” says William Schaffer, a bioarchaeologist at Phoenix College who helped excavate the remains in Preacher’s Cave.
Genetic studies of modern populations have found that many people from Puerto Rico, Cuba, and several other Caribbean islands carry significant indigenous ancestry, in addition to genes inherited from European and African populations. Still, it’s possible that these living people descend not from the Taino, but rather from other Native Americans who, like many Africans, were forcibly brought to the islands as slaves. But when Schroeder compared the genomes of modern Puerto Ricans to the ancient Taino woman’s genome, he concluded that they descend in part from an indigenous population closely related to hers. “It’s almost like the ancient Taino individual they’re looking at is the cousin of the ancestors of people from Puerto Rico,” Nieves-Colón says. Growing up in Puerto Rico, she, like Estevez, was always told that the Taino died out. “You know what? These people didn’t disappear. In fact, they’re still here. They’re in us.”
Estevez, who founded the cultural organization Higuayagua Taino of the Caribbean, didn’t need an ancient DNA study to tell him who he is. Thanks to his family’s oral history and cultural practices, he says, he has always had a strong connection to his indigenous ancestry. But he hopes the new study will convince skeptics that Taino people are alive and kicking. “It’s another nail in the extinction coffin,” he says.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/02/genes-extinct-caribbean-islanders-found-living-people
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