Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T04:34:39.308Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Zemís, trees, and symbolic landscapes: three Taíno carvings from Jamaica

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Nicholas J. Saunders
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, England
Dorrick Gray
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Syracuse University, 209 Maxwell Hall, Syracuse NY 13244, USA & Jamaica National Heritage Trust, Port Royal, Kingston, Jamaica

Extract

Three carved wooden images have come to light in Jamaica, the most important find of Taíno carvings for two centuries from that island. Their discovery prompts a reconsideration of Taíno zemís, and their placing into the known context of the Caribbean region, with its South American links.

Type
Papers
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aarons, G. A. 1994. Tainos of Jamaica: the Aboukir zemis, Jamaica Journal 25 (2): 1117.Google Scholar
Abrahams, R. D. & Szwed, J.R. 1983. After Africa. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Alegria, R.E. 1986. Apuntes en torno a la mitologia de los Indios Tainos de las Antillas Mayores y sus orígenes Suramericanos. San Juan PR: Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Puerto Rico y El Caribe, Museo dui Hombre Dominicano.Google Scholar
ANONYMOUS. 1803. Appendix, 11 April 1799, Archaeologia 14:269, plate XLVI.Google Scholar
ANONYMOUS. 1896. Jamaica wooden images in (he British Museum, Journal of the Institute of Jamaica 2(3): 3034.Google Scholar
Arrom, J. J. 1989. Mitología y artes prchispanicas de las Antilias. Revised edition. Mexico: Siglo Veintiuno.Google Scholar
Arrom, J. J. & Rouse, I.. 1992. Comments on the three wood-carvings from Si Anne's, Jamaica. Letter, 7th October, on file at Jamaica National Heritage Trust.Google Scholar
Bourne, L. C. 1907. Columbus, Ramon Pane and the beginning of American anthropology, Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society (n.s.) 17: 310–48.Google Scholar
Butt, A. J. 1956. Ritual blowing, Man 56: 4955.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carneiro, R. 1978. The knowledge and use of rain forest trees by the Kuiknru Indians of central Brazil, in, Ford, R. (ed. The nature and status of Ethnohotany: 210-16. Ann Arbor (Ml): Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan. Anthropological Papers 67.Google Scholar
Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Puerto Rico y El Caribe. 1987. Exposición de Esculturas de los Indios Tainos. San Juan (PR): Centro de estudios avanzados de Puerto Rico y El Caribe.Google Scholar
Chanca, D. A. 1932. Letter to the city o f Sevilla. London: Hakluyt Society.Google Scholar
Columbus, C. [1969.] The four voyages of Christopher Columbus. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Crosby, A.W. 1972. The Columbian exchange. Westport (CT): Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Cundall, F. 1894. The story of the life of Columbus and the discovery of Jamaica, Journal of the Institute of Jamaica 2:179.Google Scholar
D'Anghera, P. M. 1970 [1912]. De Orbe Novo: the eight decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera. New York (NY): Burt Franklin.Google Scholar
Descola, P. 1994. In the society of nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Duerden, J. E. 1895. Discovery of Aboriginal remains in Jamaica [Letter to the editor], Nature 52(1338):1734.Google Scholar
Eliade, M. 1974. Shamanism: archaic techniques of ecstasy. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Fewkes, J.W. 1907. The Aborigines of Porto Rico and neighbouring Islands, Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology for 1903-04 (25): 1220.Google Scholar
Flower, W. H. 1895. On recently discovered remains of the aboriginal inhabitants of Jamaica, Nature 52 (1355):607608.Google Scholar
Gerbi, A. 1986. Nature in the. New World: from Columbus to Oviedo. Pittsburgh (PA): University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Gollán, J.A.P. & Gordillo, I.. 1994. Vilca/ULuruncu: hacia una arqueología del uso alucinógenos en las sociedades prehispánicas de los Andes del Sur, Cuicuilco 1 (1): 99140.Google Scholar
Hallowell, A. I. 1969. Ojibwa ontology, behaviour, and world view, in Diamond, S. (ed.), Primitive views of the world: 4982. New York (NY): Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Helms, M. W. 1986. Art styles and interaction spheres in Central America and the Caribbean: polished black wood in the Greater Antilles, Journal of Latin American Lore 12 (1): 2543.Google Scholar
Helms, M. W. 1988. Ulysses'sail. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Heyden, D. 1993. El árbol en el mito y el símbolo, Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 23: 201–19.Google Scholar
Howard, R. R. 1956. The archaeology of Jamaica: a preliminary survey, American Antiquity 22(1): 4559.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huch-Jones, S. 1979. The palm and the Pleiades. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Joyce, T. A. 1907. Prehistoric antiquities from the Antilles in the British Museum, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 37: 402–19.Google Scholar
Karsten, R. 1964. Studies in the religion of the South-American Indians east of the Andes. Helsinki: Sonietas Scienli-arum Fennica. Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum 29 (1).Google Scholar
Kerchache, J. (ed.). 1994. L'art des sculpteurs Tainos chefs-d'oeuvre des Grandes Antilles Précolombiennes. Paris: Paris-Musées.Google Scholar
Kus, S. M. 1983. The social representation of space: dimensioning the cosmological and the quotidean, in, Moore, J. A. & Keene, A. S. (ed.), Archaeological hammers and theories: 278300. New York (NY): Academic Press.Google Scholar
Las Casas, B. De. [1992.] A short account of the destruction of the indies. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Lechtman, H. 1993. Technologies of power: the Andean case, in Henderson, J. S. & Netherly, P. J. (ed.), Configurations of power: 244-80. Ithaca (NY): Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Lehmann, H. 1951. Un ‘duho’ do la civilisation Taino au Musée de L'Homme, Journal de la société des Americanistas (n.s.) 40:153-61, & plates I—III.Google Scholar
Lester, S. 1958. Jamaican treasures in London, The West Indian Review (January-Juno): 11.Google Scholar
Levi-Strauss, C. 1969. The savage mind. London: Weidenfeld St Nicolson.Google Scholar
Lewis, P. 1994. Probable tree identities of Taino sculptures. Letter to Dorrick Gray, JNHT, 22 June 1994. University of the West Indies Herbarium, Mona, Jamaica.Google Scholar
LóPez-Barai, T. M. 1985. El mito taino: raíz y proyección en la Amazonia continental. Revised edition. Río Piedras: Ediciones Huracán.Google Scholar
LovéN, S. 1935. Origins of the Tainan culture, West Indies. Göteborg: Glanders Bokfryckeri Akfiebolag.Google Scholar
MéTraik, A. 1946. Indians of the Gran Chaco, in Steward, J. H. (ed.). Handbook of South American Indians 1: The marginal tribes: 197370. Washington (DC): Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar
NATIONAL GALLERY OF JAMAICA. 1994. Arawak vibrations: homage to the Jamaican Taino. Kingston: National Gallery of Jamaica & Jamaica National Heritage Trust.Google Scholar
Naxon, R. M. 1993. The nature of shamanism: substance and function of a religious metaphor. Albany (NY): Stale University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Nicholson, D. V. 1983. The story of the Arawaks in Antigua and Barbuda. Antigua: Antigua Archaeological Society & Linden Press.Google Scholar
Oviedo, G.F DE. [1959.] The natural history of the West Indies. Chapel Hill (NC): University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Porro, A. 1994. Social organization and political power in the Amazonian floodplain: the ethnohistorical sources, in Roosevelt, A. C. (ed.), Amazonian Indians: from prehistory to the present: 7994. Tucson (AZ): University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
Rashford, J. 1985. The cotton tree and the spiritual realm in Jamaica, Jamaica Journal 18(1): 4957.Google Scholar
Reiciiel-Doi-Matoff, G. 1961. Anthropomorphic figurines from Colombia, their magic and art. in Lothrop, S. K. et al. (ed.), Essays in pre-Columbian art and archaeology: 229-41. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Reiciiel-Doi-Matoff, G. 1971. Amazonian cosmos. Chicago (IL): Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Reiciiel-Doi-Matoff, G. 1975. The Shaman and the Jaguar. Philadelphia (PA): Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Reiciiel-Doi-Matoff, G. 1981. Things of beauty replete with meaning: metals and crystals in Colombian Indian cosmology, in Sweat of the the Sun, tears of the Moon: gold and emerald treasures in Colombia: 1733. Los Angeles (CA): Terra Magazine Publications/Natural History Museum Alliance of Los Angeles County.Google Scholar
Reiciiel-Doi-Matoff, G. 1988. Orfebrería y chamanismo: un estudio iconográfico del Museo del Oro. Medellín: Compañía Litogràfico Nacional.Google Scholar
Roe, P.G. 1982. The cosmic zygote: cosmology in the Amazon Basin. New Brunswick (NJ): Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Roe, P.G. 1995. Myth-material cultural semiotics: prehistoric ethnographic Guiana-Antilles. Paper presented at the 94th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington (DC).Google Scholar
Roth, H. Ling. 1887. The Aborigines of Hispaniola, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 16: 247286.Google Scholar
Rouse, I. 1948. The Arawak, in Steward, J. H. (ed.), Handbook of South American Indians 4: The circum-Caribbean tribes: 507-46. Washington (DC): Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar
Rouse, I. 1992. The Tainos: rise and decline of the people who greeted Columbus. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Ruggles, C.L.N & Saunders, N. J.. 1993. The study of cultural astronomy, in Ruggles, C.L.N. & Saunders, N. J. (ed.). Astronomies and cultures: 131. Niwot (CO): University Press of Colorado.Google Scholar
Sauer, C.O. 1966. The early Spanish Main. Berkeley (CA): University of California Press.Google Scholar
Saunders, N. J. 1988. Chatoyer. Anthropological reflections on archaeological mirrors, in Saunders, N. J. & Mont-mollin, O. de (ed.), Recent studies in pre-Columbian archaeology 1: 140. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. Intenational series 421.Google Scholar
Scott, J. F. 1985. The art of the Taino from the Dominican Republic. Gainesville (FL): University of Florida.Google Scholar
Schüler, M. 1979. Myalism and the African religious tradition in Jamaica, in Graham, M. E.. & Knight, F. W. (ed.), Africa and the Caribbean: the Legacies of a link, Baltimore (MD): Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Sloane, H. 1707. A voyage to the islands Madera, Barbados, Nieves, S. Christophes and Jamaica with the natural history of the herbs and trees, four-footed beasts, fishes, birds, insects, reptiles, etc of the last of those islands. London.Google Scholar
Standley, P. C. 1920-26. Trees and shrubs of Mexico. Washington (DC): Smithsonian Press.Google Scholar
Stevens-Arroyo, A.M. 1988. Cave of the Jaqua: the mythological world of the Tainos. Albuquerque (NM): University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar
Sullivan, L. E. 1988. Icanchu's drum. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
VáZquez De Espinosa, A. 1942. Compendium and description of the West Indies. Washington (DC): Smithsonian Institution. Miscellaneous Collections 102.Google Scholar
Vega, B. 1987. Descubrimiento de la actual localización del único zemi del algodón antillano aim existente, in Santos, shamanes, y zemies: 116. Santo Domingo: Fundación Cultural Dominicana.Google Scholar
Walker, D.J.R. 1992. Columbus and the golden world of the island Arawaks. Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers Ltd.Google Scholar
Wassén, S.H. 1967. Anthropological survey of the use of South American snuffs, in Efron, D. H. et al. (ed.), Ethnopharma-cologic search for psychoactive drugs: 233-89. Washington (DC): US Government Printing Office. Public Health Service Publication 1645.Google Scholar
Weintraub, B. 1993. Geographica, National Geographic Magazine (September).Google Scholar
Wilbert, J. 1975. Eschatology in a participatory universe: destinies of the soul among the Warao Indians of Venezuela, in, Benson, E. P. (ed.), Death and the Afterlife in Pre-Columbian America: 163-90. Washington (DC): Dumbarton Oaks.Google Scholar
Wilbert, J. 1977. Navigators of the winter sun. in Benson, E. P. (ed.), The sea in the pre-Columbian world:1646. Washington (DC): Dumbarton Oaks.Google Scholar
Wilbert, J. 1985. The house of the swallow-tailed kite: Warao myth and the art of thinking in images, in, Urton, G. (ed.), Animal myths and metaphors in South America: 145-82. Salt Lake City (UT): University of Utah Press.Google Scholar
Wilbert, J. 1987. Tobacco and shamanism in South America. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, S.M. 1986. The conquest of the Caribbean chiefdoms: sociopolitical change on prehispanic Hispaniola. Ph.D dissertation, University of Chicago. Ann Arbor (MI): University Microfilms.Google Scholar
Wilson, S.M. 1990. Hispaniola: Caribbean chiefdoms in the Age of Columbus. Tuscaloosa (AL): University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar