#arawak

“Indigenous peoples in Jamaica, wider Caribbean, Taíno, Carib, Arawak, developed sophisticated strategies to prepare for hurricanes, which they recognised as powerful natural events. They relied on keen environmental observation, oral traditions, and adaptive practices.

Environmental Observation: They closely monitored natural signs - changes in wind patterns, cloud formations, animal behaviour (e.g., birds flying inland), and ocean swells.

Appropriate Architecture: They built resilient homes, called bohíos (Taíno) or caneyes. These structures used strong, flexible materials like palm, cane, and hardwood, anchored deeply into the ground. Circular designs with steeply pitched roofs helped deflect high winds, and elevated platforms protected against flooding.

Food Security: To prepare for potential crop destruction, they stored surplus food like cassava, maize, and dried fish in secure locations, such as elevated or underground storage. Cassava, a hurricane-resistant root crop, was a staple, processed into durable flatbreads (casabe - bammy).

Community Coordination: Social structures emphasised collective action. Leaders and shamans (kasikes, behiques) guided preparations, organising communal efforts to secure dwellings, store resources, and relocate to safer areas, like caves or higher ground.

Spiritual Practices: Hurricanes were often seen as manifestations of spiritual forces (e.g.,Taíno deity Guabancex, the goddess of destructive storms). Rituals, offerings, and ceremonies were performed to appease these forces, fostering community resilience and psychological preparedness.

Mobility and Relocation: Some groups, particularly the more nomadic Caribs, moved to sheltered areas or inland locations during storms. Their knowledge of the landscape helped them identify safe zones, such as caves or dense forests.”

Caribbean Writers & Their Art: History, the Caribbean and the Imagination (1991)

Kamau Brathwaite in conversation with Edward Baugh as a part of the Caribbean Writers Summer Institute at the University of Miami.

Speaking on comparative literature in the Caribbean, Brathwaite says, "It is necessary that we do this because the Caribbean although artificially divided into English-speaking, French-speaking, Dutch-speaking, Spanish-speaking, is really part of a whole underground continent of thought and feeling and history."

All done! More Emily Windsnap goodness. Mary Penelope announcing her pregnancy to Jake. I headcanon during this time they wore matching bracelets personally made by Jake. And if you look closely: these bracelets each have a Taíno/Arawak pendant on them. Inspired by @kisari-vibes ‘ headcanon of Jake being Taíno.

[Image description: a merman hugs a pregnant woman in a long white dress who stands knee deep in the sea. Both are smiling, with a lighthouse and the sea and starry night sky behind them. End description.]

Also here are some closeups …

It's well meaning, I think. And for the longest I appreciated it. But part of the insidious nature of genocide is that it erases culture, and lumping the over one thousand independent tribes of the Americas as “indigenous peoples,” a broad term for people who existed in a land before they were colonized, does exactly that.

Christopher Columbus was a vile pendejo whose torture and genocide of my ancestors was so disgusting that he was arrested and tried for horrific acts that included live dismemberment, cannibalism and sexual crimes even against children. In 1500 Columbus wrote,

“A hundred castellanoes are easily obtained for a woman as a farm...and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from about nine to ten are now in demand.”

Bartolome de Las Casas was a Spanish priest and contemporary of Columbus who detailed many of his abuses. After watching Columbus and his men dismember, decapitate and otherwise murder over 3,000 Taino people in a single day wrote,

“Such inhumanities and barbarisms were committed in my sight as no age can parallel...My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature that now I tremble as I write.”

I want day of remembrance for the Iraquios, the Cherokee, the Lenape, the Shawnee. Replacing Thanksgiving with a day of remembrance of the Wampanoag tribe would be a great start, I think.