According to Jair: The Arawak Influence on Curacao

Jair Jansen is a guest blogger on Island of Healing.  He was born and raised on Curacao and will be giving the blog a first hand account of the general history, culture, and issues of his home island from time to time.

Hey guys, it's Jair Jansen again and I'm glad to be back again to tell you more about my beautiful home, the island of Curacao.  Today I will be discussing the native inhabitants of Curacao, a branch of the Arawak speaking people who migrated from South America to throughout the Caribbean, including Curacao.

As I stated in an earlier blog, the Caiquetio tribe of Native Americans are considered the earliest people on the island of Curacao.  They were stated by the Spanish explorers to be giants.  They were not, however, an isolated tribe but a branch of Arawak speaking people that migrated from deep in the Amazon in South America and settled throughout the Caribbean basin, including the Lesser and Greater Antilles. They
include the Taíno, from the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas; the Nepoya and Suppoyo, from Trinidad and the Igneri; and the Lokono. The Arawak language was the most used in the Pre-Columbian Americas.  Before the arrival of the Spanish they were driven from the Lesser Antilles by the Carib Indians, who were a constant threat and enemy of the peaceful Arawaks.  The Arawaks would suffer greatly throughout the Caribbean from the Columbian Exchange, with some groups on different islands, including Curacao, being completely wiped out by disease and European political policies.

 The Arawak speaking peoples of the Caribbean are thought to be peaceful traders, using slow, ocean going canoes.  They traded fruit and other goods, such as elaborately decorated pottery, throughout the Caribbean and as far north as the Bahamas.  On Christopher Columbus's historic discovery of the New World for Europe on October 12, 1492, the first native peoples he encountered were an Arawak speaking people in the Bahamas.  He mistakenly called them "indians," thinking he had reached India.  This is a picture of Columbus on probably Hispaniola with Arawak natives.

As stated before, the Arawaks were a peace loving people that were mostly interested in trade, religious practices, and agriculture.  They were constantly harassed by the Caribs who enslaved captured Arawaks and were even rumored to eat captured male Arawaks.  This did not hinder their trade amongst themselves in the Caribbean as they had developed large, ocean going canoes.  Europeans reported that Arawaks were not very concerned with clothing and often were naked.  They were farmers, hunters, and fishers.  They developed farming practices that kept their yields high, such as slow burning underbrush and using fish remains to fertilize the soil they were tilling for farming.  This allowed for population booms and large villages.  Scholars state that they believe that a large Arawak village would be surrounded by large, organized farming fields.  Their dwellings were circular huts that surrounded a large, central religious building used for idol worship and it is where the religious leaders probably lived.  A picture of a Taino dwelling can be see here.

 Their religious practices were shamanistic, or there was a religious hierarchy that was headed by a shaman, or witch doctor.  They are believed to have a very visible distinction between chiefs, shamen, and commoners. Chiefs wore special body adornments, including feathers, shells, and rare stones.  This a picture of a probable Arawak chief or shaman.

The Arawak worshiped idols or icons called "zemis," which is believed to usually had some type of ancestral religious value.  Some may have just been "good luck charms."  Curiously, women were not allowed to see the zemis.  Christopher Columbus thought the Arawaks would be easily converted to Christianity since he believed "they have no religion."  Arawaks worshiping zemis can be seen in this picture.

The Arawaks had something to contribute to American culture as well, as the "bar b que" was a common practice of the Arawaks.  One can be seen in this picture.

Thank you again for allowing me to tell you a general history of my home, Curacao.  The Arawak natives had a strong influence on Curacao and the Caribbean as a whole, even after they had disappeared in many places.  It pains me to say that very little lineage of the original Caiquetio inhabitants on Curacao still remain.  This is common in the Caribbean.  There is very little if any remaining lineage of the Taino branch of the Arawaks in the Bahamas, which was the first natives to encounter Columbus.  I look forward to talking to you again and telling you more about Curacao.

Sources:

Sepehri, Sandy. 2009. "Arawak." Rourke's Native American History & Culture Encyclopedia no. 1: 18-19. Book Collection: Nonfiction, EBSCOhost (accessed September 11, 2011).


Symcox, Geoffrey, and Blair Sullivan. 2005. Christopher Columbus and the enterprise of the Indies : a brief history with documents / Geoffrey Symcox and Blair Sullivan. Boston, MA : Bedford/St. Martin's, c2005., 2005.

Tennesen, Michael. 2010. "Uncovering the Arawaks." Archaeology 63, no. 5: 51-56. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed September 11, 2011).