Page 576 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

THE TAINOS
When Columbus made his first landfall in the the Tainos wearing, he set about searching for We know they worshipped deities known as
Bahamian archipelago on 12 October 1492, he the abundance of gold that Marco Polo attrib- zemis, whose characteristic features are
was greeted by a group of people from the cul- uted to the Indies. He also noted the possibility preserved in carved stone and wooden stat-
ture we now call Taino. Their ancestors had that the docile islanders could be easily con- uettes. The paraphernalia of their religious
migrated to the Antilles from the South Ameri- verted to Christianity and turned into laborers. ceremonies have also survived, as have carved
can mainland. If Columbus was puzzled by how Early exploitation of the Tainos, as well as stone belts associated with their version of the
little the relatively simple way of life of these their assimilation into the Spanish population ball game popular in pre-Columbian Meso-
people, whom he called "Indians," corresponded of the West Indies, led to the disappearance of america. Taino works of art were among the
to Marco Polo's account of the splendors of their culture by the mid-sixteenth century. earliest American artifacts to have entered
Cathay, he did not betray his surprise in the Much of our knowledge of their religion and European Kunstkammer collections.
journal of his first voyage. Instead, prompted customs comes from the report prepared for
by the small gold ornaments he saw some of Columbus around 1498 by Fray Ramon Pane.

409
(zemis). They placed narcotic powder (cohoba) on
WEEPING MALE FIGURE the upper platform and inhaled it through tubes
such as cat. 419. The resulting hallucinations
Tamo
wood were thought to be messages from the deity.
The Tainos believed that a pair of zemis were
3
100 (39 /sj responsible for sunshine and rainfall respectively.
The Trustees of the British Museum, London They sometimes depicted them as twins joined
together in a single piece of stone sculpture. In
This artifact was found in a cave in Jamaica, where other cases, as in this piece, they carved them
it may have been put to hide it from the Span- separately. This example portrays Boinayel the
iards. The Tamos normally kept such statuettes in rain giver (Arrom 1989, 37-45). His most impor-
their houses and worshiped them as deities tant feature is the grooves running down from his
eyes, which symbolize the course of the magical
tears that created rainfall. An incised piece of
shell has been placed in his mouth to represent
his teeth. Few such inlays are still in place.
I.R. and J.J.A.

410

CROUCHING MALE FIGURE
Taino
guayacdn wood
(2
61 )
4
Visual Equities, Inc., Atlanta

This piece is from the part of Hispaniola now in
the Dominican Republic. Its threatening expres-
sion gives reason to believe that it portrays
Baibrama, a zemi who embodied the Tamos'
knowledge about the planting, growth, proces-
sing, and consumption of cassava, their principal
crop. In that process they grated the tuberous root
of the plant, extracted its poisonous juice, and
converted its flesh into flour from which they
baked bread. Baibrama's expression may have
been intended to admonish people against drink-
ing cassava juice before it had been boiled to
evaporate its poison. Both the Tainos and the

THE AMERICAS 575