Takahi (greetings) Leticia

Mabrika (welcome) to our network. My name is Miguel. I am one of the moderators here. I read your research interests and noticed that you are interested in learning more about the music and dance tradition of the ancient Taino. I wanted to share some information on this subject. The Cuban researcher Jose Antonio Garcia Molina carried out extensive research on the subject of Taino dance tradition. That research explored Taino ancient dance customs and the survival of some of that tradition to the present time in Cuba. He wrote a book about all this: HUELLAS VIVAS DEL INDOCUBANO (Living Traces Of The Cuban Indigenous People). The book thoroughly explores most of the surviving Taino traditions in the modern Caribbean region, especially an obscure, rarely seen spiritual dance called EL CORDON still performed ritually in remote areas of Cuba by modern Cubans of all races, which scholars now agree is derived from ancient Taino culture.  This dance exhibits arm and foot movements that are easily recognizable in the dance tradition of acknowledged Caribbean Indigenous people living on the Caribbean island of Dominica such as the Kalinago.  These same arm and foot movements have been recognized in the dance tradition of Indigenous people belonging to the Arawakan language family in the mainland continent of South America where the ancestors of both the Taino and the Kalinago originally came from before they migrated to the Caribbean islands 2000 years ago. Both the Taino and Kalinago tribes belong to the Arawakan language family. Two of the ancestral source Arawakan tribes in South America who also perform dances with almost identical arm and foot movements are the Lokono of Surinam, and the Wapishana of Guyana. Here is a video of the researcher Jose Antonio Garcia Molina presenting a demonstration of the Cuban Cordon Dance at a special Taino culture convention  at the New York City annex of  the Smithsonian's Museum Of The American Indian. In this demonstration the scholar performs the unique arm and foot movements that are characteristic of the dance in the traditions of all of those other Indigenous tribes.