This dialog took place on Bob Corbett's Hait list and is a discussion of his handling of the Taino in his on-line Haiti history course.
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 15:29:21 -0700 (PDT)
From: Bob Corbett <bcorbett@crl.com>
Subject: More on the Taino/Arawak Indians
Message-Id: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950622150409.8074A-100000@crl2.crl.com>
Thanks to a couple of you who wrote in about my treatment of the Taino/Arawak Indians. The issue is: to what extent, if any, that the Taino/Arawak's influenced life in Haiti?
My position is that there is very little reason to think that that had any significant influence. Certainly there must have been some intermarriage between African slaves and Tainos. Similarly, it is most likely that there were some sexual relationships between the Spanish men and Taino women. Thus there must be some blood pool from the Tinos still around in Haiti.
One of the people in the class wrote in that in his family there were stories of their family having an Indian ancestor way way back.
I do not in any way doubt this physical influence, but that in itself, would have had almost no cultural influence at all.
To the best of my knowledge, the only other claim that exists anywhere in the literature is the argument that some aspects of Haitian Voodoo, perhaps the very origin of the Petwo sect, is rooted in the Taino/Arawaks. (For those of you who have already read about Petwo, you may be surprised by my spelling, since you've probably seen it mainly as Petro. The Haitian language is just now seeming to settle into a single accepted spelling. In the new orthography, many "r" s have been changed to "w" to reflect a more phoenetic spelling. I am using what I think is the preferred spelling at this time.)
Before I pick up that argument, let me say just a very short word to place this for those of you who haven't studied the Haitian religion yet. We will do this in some detail later on. Basically there are two major "wings" of Haitian Voodoo, much like the Protestants and Catholics are two major "wings" of Christianity. There is no question that a dominant influence on Rada Voodoo (one of those two) is African. The question is -- what is the root of the other -- the Petwo Voodo.
There are three theories that I find in the literature of Voodoo regarding this question.
The generally accepted view is that Petwo Voodoo is certainly not African, featuring practices not found at all in Africa, like zomibification and a much greater reliance on the violent side of the spirits.
The most popular case seems to be that the influence is Haitian. The argument is that the slaves experienced such a harsh life that they began to develop a unique form of religion which responded to this difficult life situation they were in. On this view it is argued that Petwo's influence were new and particularly Haitian. On this view, note that even were Taino/Arawak's still alive and even participating, that the influences came neither from Africa or from the Indian culture, but especially from the situation of the slaves.
I lean toward this view.
The Spainish view is more in reference to the name than the practices. On this view Dom Pedro, a revolutionary slave form the Spanish sector is credited with being a powerful bokor (black magic houngan) who was responsible for creating this sect. This view actually has very little support in the literature and seems more a folk view that one taken very seriously.
Some have put forward the claim that this more violent and angry set of spirits are Taino/Arawak. That strikes me as most odd. First of all, the Taino/Arawak were known to be extremely gentle and peaceful. There don't seem to be precedents in their own religion for such practices. Now, it might well be that there could have been some influence from the Caribs, a much more warlike people, who, while not living on Hispaniola, did make raids onto Hispaniola to capture people, especially children to eat. At the time of Columbus they even had a small settlement in the northeastern part of the island around Samana Bay in the Dominican Republic.
It is certainly possible that this influence is there from the Taino/Arawaks. But, I think it is a most iffy and extremely speculative association. Thus I will stick with my original claim, that we know of virtually no cultural influences of any significance on contemporary Haitian culture from the influences of the Taino/Arawak Indians.
Bob Corbett
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 21:22:20 -0400 (EDT)
From: Stewart R. King <stumo@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>
Subject: Re: More on the Taino/Arawak Indians
One of the people in the class wrote in that in his family there were stories of their family having an Indian ancestor way way back.
Without meaning offence to our colleague, and without prejudging any individual case. . .Moreau de St. Mery, the famous pre-revolutionary Haitian (white) lawyer and philosopher made his name as a trial lawyer by representing a person of mixed race (mostly white, some African ancestry) who wished to have a commission in the militia (reserved for whites).
This person had lived most of his life in France, and had served as an officer in one of the metropolitan regular army regiments. Normally, a person with a French army commission would automatically be granted a commission in the militia by the Governor and Intendant of the colony. In this case, the man's neighbors objected that he had African ancestry and thus was ineligable.
Moreau de St. Mery argued successfully (and most likely fallaciously) that the man's non-European ancestors were Indians. They even had a name and some family records that suggested that one of the men in the family some generations back was the natural son of a Carib indian in St. Christophe (St. Kitts). This was good enough for the colonial government who were able to give the man the largely social distinction that was concomitant with his wealth and status.
I think that lots of people who were "passing" as white in those days attributed the occasional somatotype variation in the family to indian ancestors. In fact, down in the Cayes and Jacmel regions, where almost all the wealthy people were of partly African ancestry, one sees quite commonly the story of Indian roots in family narratives.
Hope this helps,
Stewart King
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 95 10:34:53 est
From: Saint-Vil, Jean <jes@nserc.ca>
Subject: More on the Taino/Arawak Indians
Bob,
Stewart's note on reported "Indian" ancestry is quite interesting. This would probably be a good starting point for the discussion on the question of colour in Haitian Society. This is not only important as an historical topic but also for understanding today's Haiti and the prejudices that still prevail on the whole island.
As for the reports of Taino genes in my father's family, I doubt that Stewart's account would suffice to explain it, because from my family's phenotype it is clearly obvious that we are of African decent and whatever Taino contribution to our gene pool would be minimal. However, I agree that any serious investigation on this subject should take into account the socio-political context at various periods of Haitian history. The term "Marabou", for example, is still well liked by many Haitians. It think that it refers to dark skinned people with straight (or slighty curled) dark hair somewhat like what english-speaking west-indians call "coolies". Some Haitians like to claim that they are "marabou", sometimes perhaps as a sort of psychological escape allowing them to stray as far away as possible from their origins in the "dark continent" or again as an expression of nationalistic anticolonial sentiments. Some have claimed that their "Marabou" features result from a mix of Taino, African and/or European genes. It is interesting to note that similar discussions rage around the origins of the Kreyol language and even the Vodou religion.
Do you know if any biological work has been done on this? What about other islands. I know that with mitochondrial DNA evaluations, scientist would be able to tell us "their truth" on this question. Perhaps some of this work was done in Cuba or in Latin America already.
In order to have somewhat reliable answers, I think that DNA testing of various populations would need to be done in Haiti because most of us are a little biased in that, deep in our hearts, we would like to find out that Columbus and his "zenglendos" failed to entirely wipe out the first Haitians. Especially if our forefathers can take some of the credits for the survival of the weakest.
Jean