The letter of Dr Chanca

[Miguel Sague Jr]

In his letter to Seville the personal physician of Christopher Columbus, Dr, Chanca mentions the word "Taino" for the first time in relation to the self-identification of Caribbean Natives.

Please click this link to access a PDF archive copy of that letter in English.

Dr%20chanca%20letter%20Columbus.pdf 

 

Below is a screen shot of the pertinent page of this document including editor's footnote describing how when the Natives that Chanca heard cried out "Tayno" "Tayno" (Good Good) they actually meant to say "We are the Good People" as a tribal identifier. The word "Taino", ethnologically analyzed from the related Arawakan language LOKONO, is the conjunction of two terms "Tai" (meaning "good" or "noble") and "no", which is a plural suffix, the combination of which renders the term "The Good Ones" or "The Noble Ones".

 

(Enlargement)

 

[Jeffry Mucaro Blake Johnson]

Excellent information as always. Hahom, d'atiao! Eyeri - "human being" yes? Is Eyeri somehow associated in meaning with the folk word iere?

[Miguel Sague Jr]

The topic of self-identification among early Caribbean Indigenous people is a complicated one and there has always been considerable debate on the subject. I believe that each region in the Caribbean had groups who used a variety of words to identify themselves locally. I know for a fact that in Cuba the word "Ciboney" or "Siboney" was used by some people to identify a certain group of Natives. For a very long time scholars of the early twentieth century used that word to identify cave-dwelling Indigenous people, who lived in the extreme western tip of the island, who were not as technologically advanced as the rest of the island's inhabitants, who lived entirely from fishing and gathering without agriculture or pottery-making, and who apparently did not speak the same Arawakan-based language. But now this perception has been seriously questioned. Many (including myself) prefer to call those extreme western cave-dwellers "Guanahacabibes" or "Guanatabeyes" and we reserve the name "Siboney" for the fully Arawakan Tainos of the central and eastern portions of the island. I identify myself as a Taino, using that word to associate myself generally to the Tainos of the whole Caribbean. But I also see myself as a Siboney since that is a name specifically associated to my home island. Cuba. It is a well-known fact that in the island now occupied by the countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic there were some people who identified by the name "Ciguayos". The Tainos of Boriken (Puerto Rico) probably used the word "Eyeri" to identify themselves whereas now modern-day Tainos of Boriken often use the word "Boricua" to identify themselves locally. On the Bahamas the local Tainos called themselves "Lucayos". It has to be recognized That this is a natural process, that local communities come up with local terms to identify themselves locally even if they understand that they also all belong to a larger, more widely spread-out ethnic group. I feel it is totally legitimate for all of us Tainos to identify ourselves as Tainos, using that term which means literally "The Noble Ones", while at the same time acknowledging our regional identifiers "Boricua", "Siboney", "Lucayo" etc. My UNITED CONFEDERATION OF TAINO PEOPLE membership card identifies me as a "Siboney Taino" from Cuba.

      

[Jeffry Mucaro Blake Johnson]

Hahom! Is this as close as we get to knowing how our ancestors identified themselves or do we know of a different way that they self-identified? 

Many Indigenous peoples seem to have some sort of identifier that has to do with what others thought of or interpreted incorrectly as a word or a self-identifying name.  I am thinking of the Cherokee, who did not refer to themselves as such, but as Ani-Yunwiya (Principle People), and others - Diné. 

That is pretty cool, if that is how we were perceived as the "Good" people.