Taino Religion
The Arawak Indians were the dominant tribe in the Caribbean in 1400’s. Their territory is spread throughout various islands in the Caribbean and some parts of Central America. In the island of Hispaniola, which is currently referred to as The Dominican Republic and Haiti, lives a branch of Arawak tribe called the Taino Indians. The Taino Indians share all of the same language, cultures, and religious beliefs as Arawak; the only difference between them is that the Taino specifically live in Hispaniola. The Taino Indians are the largest group of Arawak Indians that accumulate in one specific area. The Spanish explorer Christopher Columbus landed in Hispaniola on December 6th, 1492 (Corbett, 1). Afterwards, the Spanish empire claimed Hispaniola as one of their colonies.
The Taino Indians were a polytheistic religious tribe with multiple Gods that they called Zemi. In many ways, the Taino Indians’ religion was closely related to ancient Greek religion with one exception. In Greek mythology, the Gods had distinctive personalities, which then lead to many myths and stories to arise from the certain actions they take. In the Taino religion the Zemi do not have as much as an individual personality as the Greek Gods. But each Zemi, like the Greek Gods, are awarded a power over a certain being or force of nature. "Because of these powers there are many Arawak/Tanio stories which account for the origins of some experienced phenomena in myth and or magic. Several myths had to do with caves. The sun and moon, for example, came out of caves" (Corbett, 1). The have many myths that involve the Zemi to explain the elements of the earth that could otherwise be unsolvable. The Taino also believed the afterlife, which could either be rewarding or miserable. Those who lived a good life and worshipped the Zemi would meet their dead relatives, friends, and woman in paradise. In contrast, those that lived bad lives and didn’t worship the Zemi were sentenced to live in a hellish universe for eternity (Corbett, 1).
The Taino Indians viewed worshipping and obedience to the Zemi and their dead ancestors, or as they referred to them as caciques, to be crucial for a good afterlife and daily life. They believed that the Zemi and the dead had powers over their living world. If the rituals and ceremonies pertaining to them were not dealt with properly, it could have very grim consequences. Like the Greek Gods that each has their own appearance, the Zemi all have their own physical looks, but not usually in a human form. More commonly the Zemi took on shapes of frogs, snakes, etc. The Taino Indians carved many of the Zemi’s shapes onto stone blocks. These stone artifacts were treated as sacred objects that were placed in holy temples and worshipped almost every day (Inouie, 1).
The most common form of worship in the Taino religion was ceremonies. Priests, doctors or also called medicine men, or village chiefs usually conducted ceremonies in the center of the village or a specific ceremonial location. The Taino Ceremonies always consisted of loud drum beatings, feverish dancing, and singing that told about religious myths, stories, and their history. Women would cook delicious food prior to the event, and then serve a portion of the meal to the people in the ceremony and another to the Zemi stone carvings as offerings. At the end of the ceremony, when everyone had finished eating, they would put sticks down each of their throats. The sticks would cause a gag reflex and make the vomit their recent meal and a little bit of the other past meals in the day. The Taino Indians believed that vomiting relieved them of all of their impurities inside their bodies and spirits (Corbett, 1).
Although many different types of ceremonies were carried out, only three general types were mostly used. These were: ceremonies to purely praise and worship the Zemi and their power, and also typically accumulated with the largest crowds. Then, they had ceremonies or festivals for religious holidays at certain times during the year to simply celebrate their good fortune. Finally, priests and medicine men conducted ceremonies to seek advice or healing from Zemi and would present a carving of one of the Zemi that their prayers were addressed to for the occasion (Corbett, 1).
By: Elliot Rosen