Across the region’s schools, students have long been taught that millions of Taino’s indigenous people have died out following the catastrophic arrival of the invaders in Spain, but recent revolutionary genetic studies are suddenly rewriting our history.
The latest major report published this month in the journal “Nature,” revealed that many modern Caribbean islanders retain Taino DNA or a specific deoxyribonucleic acid, the molecule that contains the unique genetic code of each organism transmitted to descendants, be they human beings or hutias. .
Skilled sailors and farmers, the Taino has also been preserved in our ready use of common words, derived from native languages, ranging from gava, canoe, cay, caiman, guava, hamog, iguana, maize, manatee, and potatoes, to mangrof, tobacco, and savannah. Destructive hurricanes that sweep through this part of the world regularly, originate in Hurakán, the Taino name for their terrifying God of storms.
Last Christmas weekend, we prepared a family favorite – a barbecue, described by a Spanish explorer in the 16th century, as “barbecue,” a raised platform for storing grain and cooking food, and the specific method of grilling meat on a rack. over a fire. More than a century later, “barbacu’d” appeared as a delicious verb, in the manuscript, “Jamaica Viewed” and the rest is culinary history whether jerk or chilli flavored. “Ya-mah-ye-ka” itself means “the Great Spirit of the Land of Man.”
I relied on my precious Guyanese “cassareep” made, inland, from bitter cassava juice to color my chicken pieces, and seasoned vegetable rice, leaving out this time the potatoes, the all are hail from the Andes, among them the sweet Taino version “batata” or magenta skin that we so love.
The exact Caribbean word, which gives us a certain proud identity, which creates comforting visions of the sea, sand and sun even in this COVID-19 closing age, takes its title by another famous indigenous group known as English, the Caribs, from the Spanish “Caribe,” probably adopted from the Arawakan language group, Taino, for “human being.” Since Taino exchanged sounds l, n, and r, when Christopher Columbus heard the term in Cuba today back in 1492, it was convenient for him to sound a lot like “Caniba,” which was generalized to mean terrible eaters and to justify ‘ wide. the genocide of the indigenous people who followed with addiction, abuse and disease. Many Taino terms resemble the surviving Arawak family of languages in Guyana and other parts of South America.
On December 23, “Nature” released the latest major study analyzing the remains of early Caribbean peoples. An international team of experts led by David Reich of Harvard Medical School, a geneticist specializing in ancient DNA, combined decades of archaeological work with advances in genetic technology, to prove that these residents are very mobile, with distant relatives living on different islands.
His lab developed a new genetic technique for estimating the size of the past population, showing that the number of people living in the Caribbean when Europeans arrived was much smaller than previously thought, likely in the tens of thousands alone. rather than the million or more boasted by Columbus and his successors.
The Florida Museum of Natural History highlighted in a related report that while the heat and humidity of the tropics can quickly break down organic matter, the human body contains a lockbox of genetic material: a small, unusually thick part of the bone that protect the inner ear. Primarily using this structure, researchers extracted and analyzed DNA from the 174 people living in the Caribbean and Venezuela between 400 and 3,100 years ago, combining the information with 89 individuals and previously arranged.
Throwing fresh light on the movement of animals and humans, in the region, where each island can be a unique microcosm of life, the genetic evidence shows that the first inhabitants, a group of stone tool users, had boats to Cuba around 6,000 years ago gradually expanded eastward to other islands during the then Arctic period of the region. Where they came from remains unclear, but interestingly they are more closely related to Central and South America than North America, although their genetics do not match any surviving native group, the University noted.
About 2,500-3,000 years ago, farmers and potters involved with the Arawak speakers of northeastern South America established a second route to the Caribbean. Using the fingers of the Orinoco River Basin as highways, they traveled from inside coastal Venezuela and pushed north into the Caribbean Sea, eventually settling Puerto Rico and moving west. Their arrival in the Ceramic Era led the region, marked by intensive agriculture and the widespread production and use of pottery.
Over time, almost all of the genetic remains of the people of the Arctic age mysteriously disappeared, except for a holding community in western Cuba that continued to reach Europe. Intermarriage between the two groups was rare, with only three individuals in the study showing mixed ancestry.
Many modern Cubans, Dominicans and Puerto Ricans are descended from people of the Ceramic Age, as well as European immigrants and enslaved Africans. But researchers have identified only marginal evidence of Arctic ancestry.
During the Ceramic Age, Caribbean pottery underwent at least five distinct shifts in style over 2,000 years. Decorative red pottery decorated with white painted designs surrendered to simple, buff-colored vessels, while other pots were punctuated with small dots and cuts or sculptured animal faces likely double as links. Some archaeologists cited these transitions as evidence for new migrations to the islands. But DNA tells a different story, suggesting that all the styles were developed by the descendants of the people who arrived in the Caribbean 2,500-3,000 years ago, though they may have interacted with outsiders and taken inspired by them, the University noted.
Highlighting the interconnectivity of the region, surprisingly a study of male X chromosomes revealed 19 pairs of “genetic cousins” living on different islands. These people shared the same amount of DNA as biological cousins but may have been separated by generations. In the most striking example, one man was buried in the Bahamas while his relative was laid to rest about 600 miles away in the Dominican Republic.
Professor Reich explained that revealing such a high proportion of genetic cousins in a sample of less than 100 men is another indicator that the total population size of the region is small.
A technique developed by the study’s co-author Harald Ringbauer, used shared segments of DNA to estimate past population size, a method that could also be applied to future studies of ancient humans. Mr. Ringbauer’s technique showed that just before Europe arrived, about 10,000 to 50,000 people lived on two of the largest islands, Hispaniola and Puerto Rico.
The 16th century historian Bartolomé de las Casas later claimed that the region had been home to three million people before being destroyed by European captivity and disease. While this, too, is an overstatement, the number of people who died as a result of colonization remains atrocious, Mr Reich said. “This was a systematic program of cultural eradication. The fact that the number was not one million or millions, but rather tens of thousands, does not make that eradication any less significant, ”he declared.
The Caribbean was one of the last places in the world to be settled by humans. Coincidentally, on the last day of this incredible year, we should look towards comprehensively reviewing and updating our outdated textbooks and teachings, given the evolving but fascinating narrative of our rich indigenous history and culture.
ID remembers Columbus was shocked by Taino’s civility. After meeting them in the Bahamas, he said “They will give everything they have for anything given to them, even exchanging things for broken pieces of china,” adding ” They are very well built, with very handsome bodies and very good faces …. They do not carry arms or know them …. They should be good servants. “