Taino Tribe Organization and Living

History and Its Importance

• History is the discipline that studies events that happened in the past
• Three sciences that help us understand history:
  • Archeology: studies ancient societies from material remains (e.g., bone, pottery, building ruins)
  • Anthropology: studies how human cultures and societies develop
  • Chronology: orders events according to date

The First Inhabitants

• Archaic people:
  • First settlers in the Caribbean
  • Travelled by canoe
  • Seminomadic (moved from place to place, but had a permanent house)
  • Built settlements close to beaches and mangroves
  • Lived in caves and made houses of stone, wood, and straw
  • Hunted and fished
  • Gathered snails, crustaceans, wild fruits, seeds, and root to eat
  • Used stones, shells, and bones as tools
  • Not sure if they knew agriculture or pottery

Arawaks and their Lifestyles

• Came mainly from South America
• Sedentary (settled permanently in one place)
• Lived in villages and built towns
• Agroceramic (knew agriculture and pottery)
• Cultivated corn and tubers
• Made casabe (bread of yucca)
• Belonged to different groups:
  • Huecoids: settled in the Caribbean, came from the northeast coast of South America (Andes Region)
  • Saladoid: came from the Orinoco River in Venezuela, known for their high-quality pottery with red and white paint

Ostionoids and their Plazas and Agricultural Techniques

• Also known as Pre-tainos
• More complex culture
• Sedentary and agroceramic
• Built ceremonial plazas with petroglyphs (drawings carved into stone) and pictographs (drawings painted onto stone)
• Built two types of villages:
  • Central plaza surrounded by homes
  • Village with houses on the seafront or riverbank
• Used slash and burn technique to improve soil fertility
• Planted on montones (small mounds of soil) and terraces (steps in hills and mountains to retain moisture)

Tainos in Puerto Rico

• Indigenous name for the island: Borikén
• Did not develop a writing system
• Information about Tainos comes from analysis and interpretation of researchers and chronicles (documents written by Europeans during conquest and colonization)
• General characteristics:
  • Sedentary and agroceramic
  • No writing system or calendars
  • Social and cultural complex based on family
  • Organized in tribes (family groups that shared customs, beliefs, and needs)
  • Lived in yucayeques (small villages)
  • Yucayeques consisted of:
    • A Caney (residence of the chiefs and their families)
    • Batey (central plaza for ceremonies and ball game)
    • Bohios (ordinary houses for the rest of the tribe)
• Political and social organization:
  • Caciques (chiefs of Taino tribes)
  • Matrilineal kinship (succession passed to the first child of the cacique's oldest sister)
  • Used guanin (a disk worn around the neck)
  • Sat in a dujo (special chair used during ceremonies and rituals)
  • Nitaino (most political power and warriors)
  • Behique (healers and spiritual leaders)
  • Naboria (workers)
• Taino lifestyle:
  • Diet included peppers, tobacco, cotton, peanuts, corn, papaya, pineapple, guava, and root vegetables
  • Emphasized the significance of their heritage

Batu (Class Discussion)

• The Taino game of batu, also known as batey
• Played without using hands or feet
• Players struck a solid rubber ball with their bodies in a stone-marked court
• Game was steeped in ritual and had implications for cosmology and social harmony
• Results were often seen as divine messages

Chronology

• Study of arranging events, facts, or data in a temporal sequence
• Involves assigning dates or time intervals to events, objects, or phenomena
• Methods:
  • Direct evidence (written records, inscriptions, and historical documents)
  • Indirect methods (radiocarbon dating, dendrochronology, and stratigraphy)
• Types of chronology:
  • Absolute chronology (identifies specific dates or time intervals)
  • Relative chronology (orders events in relation to one another without associating specific dates)
• Importance of chronology:
  • Essential for studying history
  • Allows historians to establish a coherent narrative of past events
  • Used in various fields, including archaeology, paleontology, and astronomy
• Challenges and limitations:
  • Incomplete or ambiguous evidence
  • Calendar conversion
  • Dating techniques (radiometric dating, etc.)### Chronology
• Chronology is the science of arranging events in their proper sequence of time.
• It is essential to understanding our past and is used to piece together the events of humanity from the dawn of civilization to the present day.

From Ancient Megaliths to Modern Calendars

• Calendars have been used for thousands of years to keep track of passing time.
• Ancient civilizations, such as the Sumerians, Egyptians, and Maya, used sophisticated methods to record the movement of celestial bodies to structure their calendars.
• Today, we have the benefit of Gregorian and Julian calendars, which have been refined over centuries to provide greater accuracy and consistency.

Dating Methods

• Carbon-14 dating: a widely used method based on the radioactive decay of carbon-14, which is incorporated into living organisms during their lifetimes.
• Dendrochronology: a dating technique that relies on the annual growth rings of trees.
• Palynology: a method of estimating ages based on the analysis of pollen and spores.
• Potassium-Argon (K-Ar) dating: a method that measures the decay of potassium-40 to argon-40 in volcanic rocks or metamorphic rocks.

Historical Periodization

• Organizing the past into manageable periods is a fundamental aspect of chronology.
• Historical periodizations include:
  • Ancient history: from the earliest human ancestors to the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
  • Medieval period: from the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the Renaissance.
  • Early Modern Period: from the Renaissance to the mid-18th century.
  • Modern Period: from the mid-18th century to the present day.

Chronology in Modern Contexts

• Chronology plays a vital role in various modern contexts, including:
  • Climate science: studying climate records and dating techniques to understand past climate changes and make predictions about future climate events.
  • Archaeology: using dating techniques to identify the age of artifacts, sites, and remains.
  • Forensic sciences: using dating techniques to determine the time of death, the age of crime scenes, and the age of artifacts related to crimes.

Arawaks and Their Lifestyles

• Arawaks come mainly from South America.
• They are sedentary, lived in villages, and built towns.
• They are agroceramic, cultivated corn and tubers, and made casabe (bread of yucca).
• They belong to different groups, including:
  • Huecoids: agroceramic, settled in the Caribbean, named after La Hueca sector in Vieques, and did not use paint on their ceramics.
  • Saladoids: came from the Orinoco River in Venezuela, had elaborated pottery techniques, used red and white paint, and built villages with oval-shaped houses.

Ostionoids and Their Plazas and Agricultural Techniques

• Ostionoids are also known as Pre-tainos.
• They have a more complex culture, are sedentary, and are agroceramic.
• They built ceremonial plazas adorned with petroglyphs and pictographs.
• They used agricultural techniques such as slash and burn, planting on montones, and planting on terraces.

Exploring Village Layouts

• Village layouts have evolved into various configurations, each reflecting unique cultural, geographic, and functional aspects.
• Rectilinear grid layout: a highly ordered and systematic arrangement of streets and blocks, often inspired by the Greek city-planner Hippodamus of Miletus.
• Organic layout: an informal arrangement of buildings, with streets and pathways winding in an unpredictable manner to accommodate the natural topography of the land.
• Linear village layout: a long, narrow settlement that follows the contours of a waterway, road, or ridge.
• Circular village layout: a design centered around a shared space or common area, such as a central plaza or green.
• Radial village layout: a design centered around a central point, such as a temple, fortress, or marketplace.
• Clustered village layout: a high concentration of buildings and dwellings grouped together in a central area.

Learn about the political and social organization of the Taino tribe, including information about their yucayeques, caney, batey, bohios, caciques, and matrilineal kinship. Explore how they lived in small villages and were organized in family groups.