Arawak - Culture

Culture

The Taíno made crafts and played games. Two of these games, one called Areyto, which included religious ceremonies, as well as another game similar to soccer, were played in the batéy (an arena-like field flanked by huge standing stones depicting images of the Taino religion). The Taíno devoted their energy to creative activities such as pottery, basket weaving, cotton weaving, stone tools and even stone sculpture. Men and women painted their bodies and wore jewellery made of gold, stone, bone, and shell. They also participated in informal feasts and dances. The Taíno drank alcohol made from fermented corn, and used tobacco in religious ceremonies.

The Taino developed the hammock (the name derives from the Taíno term hamaca) which was first encountered by the Spaniards on the island they subsequently named Hispaniola. Hammocks were readily adopted as a convenient means to increase the crew capacity on ships and improved the sanitary conditions of the sleeping quarters; old straw – which was commonly used for bedding in earlier times, quickly became rotten and infested by parasites in the damp, cramped crew quarters of sailing ships. Cotton cloth hammocks could be washed easily if they became soiled, and were strong and durable.

Robert Gordon Latham, in his lectures of February 1851 on ethnology of the Indians of British Guiana, writes:

"The Pe-i-man is the Arawak Shaman. He it is who names the children – for a consideration. Failing this, the progeny goes nameless; and to go nameless is to be obnoxious to all sorts of misfortunes. Imposture is hereditary; and as soon as the son of a conjuror enters his twentieth year, his right ear is pierced, he is required to wear a ring, and he is trusted with the secrets of the craft.".

The Arawak Indians of the Amazon were also known for their making of terra preta. The soil was created by slow-burning fires - good for clearing the dense foliage, as well as enriching the soil with phosphorus and potassium. This innovation helped the Arawak civilization proceed from the Acutuba tribes (about 100-200 people per settlement) to the Manacapuru, to finally the Paradao, whose numbers were expected to be in the thousands. The soil produced by these tribes is still used today to support the growing number of people settling there, and can also be used to model a more sustainable way of farming without wasting the precious ecosystem of the Amazon through shifting cultivation.