Tainos in the DR?

[Baracutay]

I remember when I was young my mother would say "Cuando mi taita llegaba aciguatao dei conoco habia que traeile una maima de agua y carne curi timbita"! I believe this is a very good example of Taino/Afro Spanish.
The word Taita, alhtough I have heard it may be African, appears in many Native languages from the Andes such "Taita Inti" (father sun) or in Yoreme (Mayo-Yaqui) from Mexico where one hears Taita yorem (grandfather of the yoreme people. Aciguatao comes from ciguato, which means rotten in Taino, conuco is field in taino, Maima is a big higuera which is sometimes called jicara as well, also Taino. And of course there is Curi which is a rodent which also has A Taino name. The word that makes me wonder is "timbita" which sounds more African. But its all good!
I come from Jaibon/Laguna Salada. My grandmother who taught me most of what I know about the campo and died at 104 years of age, insisted till her last days that her grandmother was a pure Indian and that most of the people in the region when she was a girl, were Indian. In fact she had these wild stories of remembering when the Spanish landed on the island! We would joke with her about this of course, telling her that she could not be 500 years old!! But you know it was not until she was in her coffin, and I was looking at her and thinking about all the things she said, that it occured to me that as young girl, she must have witnessed the arrival of many people of Spanish descent to the cibao after the Spanish American War. She clearly remembered for example when the first hatians started crossing over our part of the country. My mother recalls how our family hid Haitian women when they were being killed by Dominican soldiers and how these women would cry out "compai aye compai no me mate con cuchillo mate me con palo". They seem to have a tabboo against dying by the knife. Stories like these still bring tears to my mothers eyes and she is so proud that our family hid these people. This is one reason I have always taken it so personally when someone critiques me as being anti-African just because I am pro-taino. If you could look into my mothers eyes you can still feel the pain she felt that long ago to watch another person of color die for it, by people of the same color no doubt. Truly amazing.
I am sorry, but I guess I digress! I think that the Spanish elite in most Latin American countries ephasized the correct usage of the Spanish language and maybe that is why they speak with so many sss, sometimes more than neccessary!

 

[Mirador]

...The word that makes me wonder is "timbita" which sounds more African. But its all good!...

"timbita"? maybe you heard "tibita", which is an expression (in the diminutive) for the Spanish word "tibio", as in "agua tibita".

 

[SuperConejo]

That is a beautiful story, I know from my mothers side, my great grandmother (her mothers mother) is a Zamba, high cheekbones, mid-brown-reddish skin, thick very curly hair, they had some spanish too, not much though. The story of your grandmother remembering the arrival of the mass immigation of spanish into the Cibao is very accurate! Because i am part of this story myself, most of my family who lived in the countryside of and near San Francisco de Macoris and Santiago were mostly Full African or Zambos with very little to no spanish blood. Most of the spanish blood in my family actually came later around late 1800s to early 1900s. For example my mothers grandfather came from Cuba, and his Father came from Spain. He came to D.R and married my mothers black dominican grandmother. Its similar on my fathers side too, it seems that alot of whites came into the cibao around the late 1800s to 1900s. This coincides with the spanish american war, and with the blanquecimiento in cuba, which occured around the same time. It is interesting that Taita Inti means father sun. Is Taita father and Inti Sun? Because in Kongo Tata means father. Words seem to be close in pronounciation and meaning. Oh and Guarapo strikes me as Taino word from hearing it, but i'm not sure. as Far as Timbita, it could very well be a Kongo variation, or a spanish variation of Tibia like Mirador says. But in Kongo theres words Timba, Timbalaye, Tumbadora, Timbales. Some of the others one i havent heard of they do sound very Taino.

I think some people might see you as anti-african because the spanish have used the Taino to put down the African. So theres this un-necessary backlash by some people against the Indigenistas. Even though it isn't that way at all, they both co-exist and blend together, as in the case of your family and in the case of mines.

 

[Baracutay]

To Mirador:
Could very well be Mirador, except that my mother used it to mean quickly.
Like sometimes, if youre running an errand for her, she will jokingly say "voy a escupir en en el piso, y si tu no llegas timbita y se ah secao la salibita te voy a dar duro"!

To SuperConejo:
Regarding the "ei" in other Native groups. I dated a girl who is Lokono from Surinam. The Lokono speak the closet language to the Taino and this is the language that many Tainistas are using to re-construct our ancient tongue. Anyway when I first met her she was speaking to her mother in Loko and I was amazed at how many "i" largas they use.
Also the Garifuna people of Belize who are commonly called "black Caribs" speak a language that is similar to Taino. They have the Gua and "ei" as well.
For those that dont know the Garifuna are a people that are mixed African and Carib Indian. Their language it seems is more Taino due to the fact that Carib warriors raided the bigger islands in search of women whom they kept on small islands while they went off raiding. When the women gave birth to male children the Warriors would take these with them and bring them up as such. When the women gave birth to girls, the women would keep them. After all the rainding of Taino villages, in time most Carib women spoke Taino whereas the men spoke Cariban.

 

[NALs]

Baracutay, if its not too intrusive to ask, in what year did your grandmother passed away?

-NALs

 

[Baracutay]

She died in February 2003.

 

[NALs]

She died in February 2003.

That means that she was born in 1899 and her memory probably extended as far back as 1904, assuming she was like myself who can hardly remember anything from age 5 and prior, but obviously memory becomes better with things/facts learned after age 5 to today.

If she remembered when the first Haitians crossed into the DR (or atleast to the Laguna Salada area - assuming she lived her entire life there), it coincides with historical documentation which is readily available in various history books and on the net which claim that Haitian migration to the DR was almost non-existant during the Haitian occupation and is more a phenomenon of the 20th century. Did she ever told you around what year she began to see the first influx of Haitians into the DR? I would guess it was around 1920s onward, based on my own research into this subject.

Do you know if she ever said in what year she witnessed the influx of Spaniards? Given the year she was born in, I would assume she was referring to Spaniards fleeing the Spanish civil war and not descendants of Spaniards who arrived the DR via Cuba and Puerto Rico in the mid- to late-1800s. Constant migration to and from Cuba/Puerto Rico were quite common up until the Americans took control of both islands and began to impose travel restrictions as the 20th century progressed.

Did she ever mention anything about Syrians or Lebanese people, commonly referred to as Turcos? If so, what year if possible?

Also, the story about hiding the Haitians, was that during the Trujillo dictatorship, around the time of the massacre?

I know many, if not all of these questions are unanswerable due to the fact that source is no longer with us, but please provide whatever bit of info you may know about this.

Thanks.
-NALs

BTW, the total national population for the DR in 1850 was 200,000; by 1900 it had grown to 700,000; and didn't broke the one million mark until the late 1920s, by 1960s was 3 million, by 1980 was 5 million, by 2000 was 7 million, and today is 9 million. Amazing how a country can go from 200,000 in 1850 to 9 million by 2007; with much of that growth occuring after the 1950s. Considering birth rate, mortality rates all have been on a decline and immigration rates have been on an increase (but on par with the emigration rate), it's amazing how much the country has changed in a century vs the preceding 400 years.

 

[morenita inglesa]

I've been following this thread for the past couple of days but until now have not posted anything as I don't feel that I'm particulary clued up on the subject. I will say that I have found it very interesting though, especially being that my daughter is half dominican and that I hope to one day be able to educate her on all aspects of her very mixed heritage, my family are from the island of Dominica or wait'tu kubuli (it's carib name) and we are also a mix of african, indian and european. My knowledge of the Tainos is very minimal so I am finding this to be very informative.

Baracutay: wow, you are full of so much knowledge and information about your heritage. Keep it coming!

btw, I'm glad to see that this thread is back on track, I was worried earlier that it would get closed.

 

[Mirador]

Taino features in my family....

My father swears he doesn?t have one drop of African genes (notwithstanding he was born in 1907 in Tomasique (previouly DR territory, lost by the Treaty signed by Presidents Rafael L. Trujillo and Stenio Vincent, which set the border in its present day position). I don't believe it, but who knows! My father lived most of his early years in San Juan de la Maguana and Azua, and he says he never saw an African man until he moved to San Pedro de Macoris, circa 1916. Take a look at his picture and see if you can detect any Zambo or Mulato features (I?d rather be called a Mulato than a Zambo ;-). My father is the first from the left, the others are my uncle Angel, and my aunt Altagracia. By the way, we celebrated yesterday my fathers 100th birthday. He now lives in Murcia, Spain. Here?s an article on him that appeared last week in HOY.

Bienvenidos al Hoy Digital

 

[Exxtol]

My father swears he doesn?t have one drop of African genes (notwithstanding he was born in 1907 in Tomasique (previouly DR territory, lost by the Treaty signed by Presidents Rafael L. Trujillo and Stenio Vincent, which set the border in its present day position). I don't believe it, but who knows! My father lived most of his early years in San Juan de la Maguana and Azua, and he says he never saw an African man until he moved to San Pedro de Macoris, circa 1916. Take a look at his picture and see if you can detect any Zambo or Mulato features (I?d rather be called a Mulato than a Zambo ;-). My father is the first from the left, the others are my uncle Angel, and my aunt Altagracia. By the way, we celebrated yesterday my fathers 100th birthday. He now lives in Murcia, Spain. Here?s an article on him that appeared last week in HOY.

Bienvenidos al Hoy Digital

Yes, the admixture is apparent (particularly in your father and aunt)--they look like light-skinned "mulattos". But phenotype and genotype are always tricky. Happy belated to your father--100 yrs huh, those are good genes!

 

[NALs]

My father swears he doesn?t have one drop of African genes (notwithstanding he was born in 1907 in Tomasique (previouly DR territory, lost by the Treaty signed by Presidents Rafael L. Trujillo and Stenio Vincent, which set the border in its present day position). I don't believe it, but who knows! My father lived most of his early years in San Juan de la Maguana and Azua, and he says he never saw an African man until he moved to San Pedro de Macoris, circa 1916. Take a look at his picture and see if you can detect any Zambo or Mulato features (I?d rather be called a Mulato than a Zambo ;-). My father is the first from the left, the others are my uncle Angel, and my aunt Altagracia. By the way, we celebrated yesterday my fathers 100th birthday. He now lives in Murcia, Spain. Here?s an article on him that appeared last week in HOY.

Maybe he does have African genes and maybe he doesn't, only he knows. If it turns out that he has no African genes, then its highly probable that there was some rejected illegitimate sibling who did have African genes, but due to the illegitimacy was rejected by the family. And if your granfather was white and married a white woman, all of his legitimate offsprings would have been white, even though he could've been fooling around with mulatto and black women on the side as well. Eh, who knows!

Interesting that he said that he didn't see a black person until visiting San Pedro, a similar thing was said by my own grandfather with the exception that he's from Santiago and grandmother from La Vega. I've heard similar stories from many other people as well and I've read first hand reports written by foreigners visiting the country failing to mention the presence of blacks, but did mention the presence of "whites" and "mixed". But, I think these are highly localized reports, meaning that they had a "tour" of specific villages and towns and anything that existed between their port of entry and their destination within the Cibao.

There is a report titled "A visit to Santo Domingo" (I think that's the title), published in the 1910s or 20s. The American visitor visited Santo Domingo and went into the Cibao and the South and he mentions that the population is a mixture. He also mentions the presence of British West Indies Blacks, with a woman in Santo Domingo asking him if she can see the queen, believing that he personally knew the queen of England. Interesting info, you can find the report on jstor.org.

Who knows whats the truth, the only thing we can all be sure of is that the DR has gone through many population shifts caused by war, immigration, emigration, and natural growth and the population has never really been a homogenous composition. However, it appears that the predominant "look" of Dominicans has changed in the course of a century or so.

-NALs

 

[Baracutay]

Taicaraya Nals,
Thank you for your post and I also want to thank everyone on here for the enjoyable social intercourse.
To answer your question about my grandma:
Yeah, she used to tell us that she could remember when the Spansih first arrived on the island as I mentioned before. We would tease her and tell her she could not be that old! After she passed I realized that she was probably describing the influx of Spanish people coming from Cuba and Puerto Rico. She even mentioned how some of these people only went out at night for fear of being "discovered" (apparently running from something). In my research I came across the following regarding the census records:

Jose Alvarez de Peralta writes that, at the time of the treaty between Spain and France on June 3, 1777 at Aranjuez, the Dominican population was, not counting the Haitian side, 400,000. The break down was as follows:

blancos (white).............................................................100,000
Mestizos de Raza India y Blanca........................................100, 000
Mulatos.........................................................................70,000
Mestizos de Raza India y Negro..........................................60,000
Negros..........................................................................70, 000
Emilio Rodriguez Demorizi In, Relaciones geogr?ficas de Santo Domingo Vol 1, P.162.

After reading the above I realized more than ever that my grandmother was very accurate regarding the demographics of the population around our home town and sorrounding areas.
Another curious statement my grandmother made ( and please dont anyone laugh!) was one time when my grandmother could not comprehend why my hair was not straight like hers or my mothers. I explained to her the the African strain is strong indeed. She responed with " I dont see how, in our hometown there were three kinds of people when I was growing up. There were Indians, whites and people con color Indio". This caught my attention and I asked her what was the difference between Indio and color Indio. She replied that Indio and color indio were two different things because color indio did not automatically mean that a person was Indio.
I have never heard this before or since. She seemed to really distinguish between the two, which of course is very different today were ALL dominicans are color Indio no matter how Blackbrown or tan they may be.

To Mirador:
Great pics, cant say from mere observation how Black/indio/sambo/mulato/blanco they may be, what I can say is that they are all very beautiful children indeed.....what happened to you? LOL

 

[Mirador]

To Mirador:
Great pics, cant say from mere observation how Black/indio/sambo/mulato/blanco they may be, what I can say is that they are all very beautiful children indeed.....what happened to you? LOL

Little ol? me? I?m not an ancestor yet!...;-). Not trying to debunk this 'phenotype and genotype' approach to establishing our Taino ancestry, but I suspect that most people's idea of what Taino looked like is derived from images acquired by reading historical colonial accounts, but mostly from cinematic Hollywood images of Northamerican Indian Chieftains, like Baracutay. Take my grandchildren for instances (see pic below), who could tell that their father is a registered Cherokee (Lacota). Maybe if they had some body paint and feathers in their hair..

Back the way it was.

 

[Baracutay]

Very cute children Mirador.
Seems like interest has waned on this subject. Thanks again to everyone for manking this a very cool experience.

 

[SuperConejo]

Baracutay, very nice statistics. They seem pretty realistic, but of course that doens't count all the Taino/Africano maroons in the mountains of the Cibao, and the Bahoruco.

To mirardor, i think its hard to just tell your grandfathers ancestry. He can either be a Zambo or a "Mulatto" sometimes genetics can be dormant. Like i know a girl whose mother and father dont really show any Taino phenotype, just African and European. But their daughter came out like all 3! They always confuse her for being philipino for having high cheekbones, light brown skin and very thick lips. I dont know if this is a false assumption or a stupid theory. But from my observations it seems that Taino genetics appear more often on females then males. Can this be due to the fact that most Taino dna is on the Mtdna? I've seen guys with the features too, but in families i've seen girls have the strongest features, the highest cheekbones, and the smallest eyes. A genetisit might kill me for that theory, but thats all it is a theory. LOL.

But as far as being able to conclusively tell a persons ancestry by looking at him isn't always easy. For example one might look at Barrack Obama and assume he has native because of his eyes and mid-high cheekbones. Or one might see a person like my friends mother, and say she has no native but when lookin at her mother u see very strong Taino features. Genetics does what it wants most of the time.

 

[Baracutay]

Superconejo Wrote:
They always confuse her for being philipino for having high cheekbones, light brown skin and very thick lips. I dont know if this is a false assumption or a stupid theory. But from my observations it seems that Taino genetics appear more often on females then males. Can this be due to the fact that most Taino dna is on the Mtdna? I've seen guys with the features too, but in families i've seen girls have the strongest features, the highest cheekbones, and the smallest eyes. A genetisit might kill me for that theory, but thats all it is a theory.

Hola SuperConejo,
I dont think any geneticist would kill you for your theory after alll thats what science is all about: asking questions, forming hypothesis and then proving or disproving them. Ayee!
As I mentioned before in an earlier post, I have witnessed some peoples, especially in the Sonoran mountains where the Asiatic eyefold is found more frequently in women than in men. Also the men of this region have big ears with big lobes and yet their women have small ears.
That said I think that the mirador's pictures display something more important, that the kids are very good looking! Makes you wonder why mirador has not posted a personal picture yet.....!:glasses: :glasses:

 

[Mirador]

.... Makes you wonder why mirador has not posted a personal picture yet.....!:glasses: :glasses:

OK, OK, here it is, a picture of me taken early this month at my compound north or Azua...

 

[Mirador]

Here's a another perspective view (sorry, very low resolution pic) of my compound north of Azua, with the "folk healers" cross in the foreground. I surmise this cross, called "la cruz melliza" is derived from a similar emblem used by the Taino.

 

[Baracutay]

Great pic Mirador, and what a beautiful home. I hope to retire in ten years and my wife and I will be moving to the DR. I dream of houses like this and views so spectacular.
We truly come from the most beautiful place on Earth!
Thanks for sharing the pic. Unfortunately for me, I am the ugliest!
Baracutay

 

[Mirador]

Baracutay, thanks for the compliment. I built the compound following Taino architecture, however, I included many modern amenities. Because of the large amount of Taino pottery shreds and other artifacts, and the large concentration of wild medicinally useful plants in the area, I suspect the place was once the abode for a Taino "medicine man". You are more than welcome to use the premise for an Are?to or visitation, any times. I have enough beds to accomodate an army, well, maybe a platoon.... ;-)