Taíno Mythology. Tracing back the origin through myths

The Taíno peoples were discovered by Columbus in 1492, although for a long time he thought to have arrived at the islands surrounding the Japanese coast. He became very interested in the peoples he met and ordered Fray Ramón Pané to live among the people of two caciques. As a result one of the most important reports were written about the Taíno and the first ethnological work in the Americas. This work knows a history of many problems. These started during the writing period and ended with the disappearance of the original manuscript, after Fernando Columbus handled it. The term Taíno is used for almost all cultures found on the Greater Antilles, the Bahamas and a couple of the Lesser Antilles. However, this term, Taíno, should be used with great care. The area is not as homogeneous as first thought. There are differences is language, religion practices and sociopolitical structures and as of yet no element has found that characterizes this area as a whole. This term can be regarded...Show moreThe Taíno peoples were discovered by Columbus in 1492, although for a long time he thought to have arrived at the islands surrounding the Japanese coast. He became very interested in the peoples he met and ordered Fray Ramón Pané to live among the people of two caciques. As a result one of the most important reports were written about the Taíno and the first ethnological work in the Americas. This work knows a history of many problems. These started during the writing period and ended with the disappearance of the original manuscript, after Fernando Columbus handled it. The term Taíno is used for almost all cultures found on the Greater Antilles, the Bahamas and a couple of the Lesser Antilles. However, this term, Taíno, should be used with great care. The area is not as homogeneous as first thought. There are differences is language, religion practices and sociopolitical structures and as of yet no element has found that characterizes this area as a whole. This term can be regarded as similar to the term Europe, a certain landmass that possesses several distinct cultural groups. The word Taíno is used here for the two communities in which Pané resided for a couple of years and where he wrote his reports. The Taíno were a society that showed great creativity and energy, they were the most developed in the Caribbean region. They had complex chiefdoms and lived in a hierarchical society. Their religion had evolved as well. Among others Pané wrote about the myths of the Taíno. Stevens-Arroyo has ordered these stories into two groups, creation myths and hero myths. All of these have larger themes and smaller elements in them, important for the community that acts and reacts on them. These themes will be compared to myths found on the mainland of South America to find out where the Taíno, according to the myths, could have originated from.Show less

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Taíno Mythology. Tracing back the origin through myths