Arawak

For other uses, see Arawak (disambiguation).

Not to be confused with Sarawak.

Arawak

Arawak woman, by John Gabriel Stedman
Regions with significant populations
South America, Caribbean
Languages
Arawak, Arawakan languages, Taino, Caribbean English, Caribbean Spanish, Creole languages
Religion
Native American religion, Christianity

The Arawak are a group of Indigenous peoples of northern South America and of the Caribbean. The term "Arawak" has been applied at various times to different Indigenous groups, from the Lokono of South America to the Taíno (Island Arawaks), who lived in the Greater Antilles and northern Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean. All these groups spoke related Arawakan languages.

Name

Arawak village (1860).

Early Spanish explorers and administrators used the terms Arawak and Caribs to distinguish the peoples of the Caribbean, with Carib reserved for Indigenous groups that they considered hostile and Arawak for groups that they considered friendly.

In 1871, ethnologist Daniel Garrison Brinton proposed calling the Caribbean populace "Island Arawak" because of their cultural and linguistic similarities with the mainland Arawak. Subsequent scholars shortened this convention to "Arawak", creating confusion between the island and mainland groups. In the 20th century, scholars such as Irving Rouse resumed using "Taíno" for the Caribbean group to emphasize their distinct culture and language.

History

Arawakan languages in South America. The northern Arawakan languages are colored in light blue, southern Arawakan languages in dark blue.

The Arawakan languages may have emerged in the Orinoco River valley in present-day Venezuela. They subsequently spread widely, becoming by far the most extensive language family in South America at the time of European contact, with speakers located in various areas along the Orinoco and Amazonian rivers and their tributaries. The group that self-identified as the Arawak, also known as the Lokono, settled the coastal areas of what is now Guyana, Suriname, Grenada, Bahamas, Jamaica and parts of the islands of Trinidad and Tobago.

Michael Heckenberger, an anthropologist at the University of Florida who helped found the Central Amazon Project, and his team found elaborate pottery, ringed villages, raised fields, large mounds, and evidence for regional trade networks that are all indicators of a complex culture. There is also evidence that they modified the soil using various techniques such as adding charcoal to transform it into black earth, which even today is famed for its agricultural productivity. Maize and sweet potatoes were their main crops, though they also grew cassava and yautia. The Arawaks fished using nets made of fibers, bones, hooks, and harpoons. According to Heckenberger, pottery and other cultural traits show these people belonged to the Arawakan language family, a group that included the Tainos, the first Native Americans Columbus encountered. It was the largest language group that ever existed in the pre-Columbian Americas.

At some point, the Arawakan-speaking Taíno culture emerged in the Caribbean. Two major models have been presented to account for the arrival of Taíno ancestors in the islands; the "Circum-Caribbean" model suggests an origin in the Colombian Andes connected to the Arhuaco people, while the Amazonian model supports an origin in the Amazon basin, where the Arawakan languages developed. The Taíno were among the first American people to encounter Europeans. Christopher Columbus visited multiple islands and chiefdoms on his first voyage in 1492, which was followed by the establishment of La Navidad that same year on the northeast coast of Hispaniola, the first Spanish settlement in the Americas. Relationships between the Spaniards and the Taíno would ultimately sour. Some of the lower-level chiefs of the Taíno appeared to have assigned a supernatural origin to the explorers. When Columbus returned to La Navidad on his second voyage, he found the settlement burned down and the 39 men he had left there killed.

With the establishment of a second settlement, La Isabella, and the discovery of gold deposits on the island, the Spanish settler population on Hispaniola started to grow substantially, while disease and conflict with the Spanish began to kill tens of thousands of Taíno every year. By 1504, the Spanish had overthrown the last of the Taíno cacique chiefdoms on Hispaniola, and firmly established the supreme authority of the Spanish colonists over the now-subjugated Taíno. Over the next decade, the Spanish colonists presided over a genocide of the remaining Taíno on Hispaniola, who suffered enslavement, massacres, or exposure to diseases. The population of Hispaniola at the point of first European contact is estimated at between several hundred thousand to over a million people, but by 1514, it had dropped to a mere 35,000. By 1509, the Spanish had successfully conquered Puerto Rico and subjugated the approximately 30,000 Taíno inhabitants. By 1530, there were 1,148 Taíno left alive in Puerto Rico.

Taíno influence has survived even until today, though, as can be seen in the religions, languages, and music of Caribbean cultures. The Lokono and other South American groups resisted colonization for a longer period, and the Spanish remained unable to subdue them throughout the 16th century. In the early 17th century, they allied with the Spanish against the neighbouring Kalina (Caribs), who allied with the English and Dutch. The Lokono benefited from trade with European powers into the early 19th century, but suffered thereafter from economic and social changes in their region, including the end of the plantation economy. Their population declined until the 20th century, when it began to increase again.

Most of the Arawak of the Antilles died out or intermarried after the Spanish conquest. In South America, Arawakan-speaking groups are widespread, from southwest Brazil to the Guianas in the north, representing a wide range of cultures. They are found mostly in the tropical forest areas north of the Amazon. As with all Amazonian native peoples, contact with European settlement has led to culture change and depopulation among these groups.

Modern population and descendants

Arawak people gathered for an audience with the Dutch Governor in Paramaribo, Suriname, 1880

Kalinago

During the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Island Carib population in St. Vincent was greater than that in Dominica. Both the Island Caribs (Yellow Caribs) and the Black Caribs (Garifuna) fought against the British during the Second Carib War. After the end of the war, the British deported the Garifuna (a population of 4,338) to Roatan Island, while the Island Caribs (whose population consisted of 80 people) were allowed to stay on St. Vincent. The 1812 eruption of La Soufrière destroyed the Carib territory, killing a majority of the Yellow Caribs. After the eruption, 130 Yellow Caribs and 59 Black Caribs survived on St. Vincent. Unable to recover from the damage caused by the eruption, 120 of the Yellow Caribs, under Captain Baptiste, emigrated to Trinidad. In 1830, the Carib population numbered less than 100. The population made a remarkable recovery after that, although almost the entire tribe died out during the 1902 eruption of La Soufrière.

As of 2008, a small population of around 3,400 Kalinago survived in the Kalinago Territory in northeast Dominica. The Kalinago of Dominica maintained their independence for many years by taking advantage of the island's rugged terrain. The island's east coast includes a 3,700-acre (15 km²) territory formerly known as the Carib Territory that was granted to the people by the British government in 1903. The Dominican Kalinago elect their own chief. In July 2003, the Kalinago observed 100 Years of Territory, and in July 2014, Charles Williams was elected Kalinago Chief, succeeding Chief Garnette Joseph.

Lokono

In the 21st century, about 10,000 Lokono live primarily in Guyana, with smaller numbers present in Venezuela, Suriname, and French Guiana. Despite colonization, the Lokono population is growing.

Taíno

The Spaniards who arrived in the Bahamas, Cuba, Hispaniola (today Haiti and the Dominican Republic), and the Virgin Islands in 1492, and later in Puerto Rico in 1493, first met the Indigenous peoples now known as the Taíno, and then the Kalinago and other groups. Some of these groups—most notably the Kalinago—were able to survive despite warfare, disease and slavery brought by the Europeans. Others survived in isolated communities with escaped and free Black people, called Maroons. Many of the explorers and early colonists also raped Indigenous women they came across, resulting in children who were considered mestizo. Some of these mestizo groups retained Indigenous culture and customs over many generations, especially among rural communities such as the jíbaro.

In time, the number of recorded Taíno was greatly diminished through forced labor, disease and warfare, but also through changes to how Indio groups were recorded in the Spanish Caribbean. For example, the 1787 census in Puerto Rico lists 2,300 "pure" Indios in the population, but on the next census, in 1802, not a single Indio is listed. This created the enduring belief that the Taíno people went extinct, also known as the paper genocide. The paper genocide and the myth of extinction spread throughout colonial empires, Taíno people still continued to practice their culture and teachings passing it down from generation to generation. Much of this was done in secret or disguised through Catholicism in fear for their survival and of discrimination.

With the modern invention of DNA testing, many Caribbean people have discovered they have Indigenous heritage. This has supported the claims of individuals and communities with Taíno heritage living today, particularly in rural areas such as "campos" (meaning small villages/towns in the country side). Though many communities and individuals across the Caribbean have some amount of Indigenous DNA, not all of them identify as Indigenous or Taíno. Those who do identify as Indigenous Caribbean may also use other terms to describe themselves as well as or in addition to Taíno.

There has been increasing scholarly attention paid to Taíno practices and culture, including communities with full or partial Taíno identities. Because of this, Taíno people started to become more open about sharing their identities, passed down Indigenous culture, and beliefs. Even before the DNA confirmation in the scientific community, Taíno peoples within the Caribbean and its diasporas had started a movement around the late 1980s and early 1990s calling for the protection, revival or restoration of Taíno culture.

By coming together and sharing individual knowledge passed down by either oral history or maintained practice, these groups were able to use that knowledge and cross-reference the journals of Spaniards to fill in parts of Taíno culture and religion long thought to be lost due to colonization. This movement led to some Yukayekes (Taíno Tribes) being reformed.

Today there are Yukayekes in Cuba, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico, such as "Higuayagua" and "Yukayeke Taíno Borikén". There have also been attempts to revive the Taíno language—such as the Hiwatahia Hekexi dialect—using words that have survived into local Spanish dialects and extrapolation from other Arawakan languages in South America to fill in lost words.

Notable Arawak

• Damon Gerard Corrie, Barbados Lokono of Guyana Lokono descent, radical international indigenous rights activist, and creator of the militant Indigenous Democracy Defence Organization (IDDO), the only such global pan-tribal and multi-racial indigenous NGO in existence. He is also the creator of the only Phonetic English to Arawak dictionary (2021), and the only comprehensive books about Lokono-Arawak Culture called 'Lokono Arawaks' (2020), and on traditional Lokono-Arawak spirituality in 'Amazonia's Mythical and Legendary Creatures in the Eagle Clan Lokono-Arawak Oral Tradition of Guyana', and another work that challenges the 'No natives were here when European settlement occurred colonial version of the history of Barbados in the book 'Last Arawak Girl Born in Barbados – a 17th Century Tale' (2021)
• John P. Bennett (Lokono), first Amerindian ordained as an Anglican priest in Guyana, linguist, and author of An Arawak-English Dictionary (1989).
• Foster Simon, Artist,
• Oswald Hussein, Artist
• Jean La Rose, Arawak environmentalist and indigenous rights activist in Guyana.
• Lenox Shuman, Guyanese politician
• George Simon (Lokono), artist and archaeologist from Guyana.
• Tituba, one of the first women to be accused of practicing witchcraft during the Salem witch trials.
• Dominic King, the first Olympian of Arawakian heritage.

See also

• Adaheli, the sun in the mythology of the Orinoco region
• Aiomun-Kondi, Arawak deity, created the world in Arawak mythology
• Arawakan languages
• Cariban languages
• Classification of indigenous peoples of the Americas
• Garifuna language
• List of indigenous names of Eastern Caribbean islands
• List of Native American peoples in the United States
• Maipurean languages

Bibliography

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• Hofman, C. L., (1993). The Native Population of Pre-columbian Saba. Part One. Pottery Styles and their Interpretations. [PhD dissertation], Leiden: University of Leiden (Faculty of Archaeology).
• Haviser, J. B., (1987). Amerindian cultural Geography on Curaçao. [Unpublished PhD dissertation], Leiden: Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University.
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• Hill, Jonathan David; Santos-Granero, Fernando (2002). Comparative Arawakan Histories: Rethinking Language Family and Culture Area in Amazonia. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0252073843. Retrieved 16 June 2014.
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• Rouse, Irving (1992). The Tainos. Yale University Press. p. 40. ISBN 0300051816. Retrieved 16 June 2014. Island Carib.