Tribalpedia

Taíno Perseverance in next [July 28, 2018]  NYC exhibit at National Museum of the American Indian

Taino Puerto Rican Indians in modern day.

“The Indigenous peoples of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean are not extinct and they never were. ‘Todavía estamos aquí (we are still here)’: this is the powerful message of the modern Taíno movement and the foundation of “Taíno: Native Heritage and Identity in the Caribbean,” a new exhibition presented by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian and the Smithsonian Latino Center. It opens Saturday, July 28, at the museum’s George Gustav Heye Center in New York.”

“The term Taíno most directly refers to the diverse Arawak-speaking peoples of the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico) and their descendants.

Cubans reclaim their Taino Indian heritage. Smithsonian Magazine.

Though the Indigenous peoples’ numbers greatly dwindled upon contact with European colonizers, they survived disease, enslavement and brutality. Currently, a Native heritage movement involving Taíno descendants is growing throughout the Greater Antilles and in diasporic Caribbean communities in the United States, such as the region around New York City.

The Moxum family have mixed Native roots. Mr. Norman Moxum is of Arawak-descent, and his wife, Yolanda Moxum, comes from a Miskito community in Honduras. Photo Credit- John Homiak.

These diverse groups have established robust networks that continue the proud legacies of their Native ancestors, and “Taíno: Native Heritage and Identity in the Caribbean” provides a framework for understanding the growth of this movement in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean and the United States.”

The exhibition is presented in English and Spanish and will be open through October 2019.

“Taíno: Native Heritage and Identity in the Caribbean” begins with an overview of Taíno cultures before European contact, where visitors encounter emblematic objects associated with aspects of Native political and spiritual life that would drastically change after European colonization. One particularly important series of objects identified in the exhibition are cemís. Considered living objects by Taíno peoples, cemís are stone, wooden or cotton artifacts used in ceremony to connect with deities, ancestors and forces of nature. In all, 31 objects from the museum’s collection serve as focal points for the exhibition, 19 of which date back to pre-contact (ca. A.D. 800–1500). The exhibition demonstrates how archaeological objects from the ancestral past inform and inspire the present-day Taíno movement.”

For more information, including associated events, visit https://s.si.edu/2HTYE5r.

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian