Modern Taino Heritage Groups of people currently identify as Taíno, most notably among the Puerto Ricans and Dominicans, both on the islands and on United States mainland. The concept of the “living Taíno” has been proven in a census in 2002.
Possibly as many as three million souls—some 85 percent of the Taíno population—had vanished by the early 1500s, according to a controversial extrapolation from Spanish records. As the Indian population faded, so did Taíno as a living language.
Taíno is an extinct Arawakan language that was spoken by the Taíno people of the Caribbean. At the time of Spanish contact, it was the most common language throughout the Caribbean.
Due to harsh treatment in the gold mines, sugarcane fields, and unbridled diseases that arrived with the Spanish, the population rapidly declined. This is how the myth of Taíno extinction was born.
Popular history holds that shortly after Christopher Columbus arrived to the Caribbean in 1492, the Arawakan-speaking Native people known as the Taíno were completely destroyed by slavery, European disease, starvation, and war.
AD 1493: Spanish settlers enslave the Taíno of Hispaniola
Christopher Columbus, who needs to demonstrate the wealth of the New World after finding no gold, loads his ship with enslaved Taíno people. During the next four decades, slavery contributes to the deaths of 7 million Taíno.
In appearance the Taino were short and muscular and had a brown olive complexion and straight hair. They wore little clothes but decorated their bodies with dyes. Religion was a very important aspect of their lives and they were mainly an agricultural people although they did have some technological innovations.
The Taino maternal DNA is prominent in the ex-Spanish colonies (61.3%–22.0%) while it is basically non-existent in the ex-French and ex-English colonies of Haiti (0.0%) and Jamaica (0.5%), respectively.
Few of the Spanish suffered the disease since most acquired immunity after surviving smallpox as children. Within 100 years, the Taino were extinct, mainly due to smallpox and other diseases. The Taino disaster was repeated many times in the New World. The native peoples had no experience with quarantines.
Arawakan languages
Taino, a now-extinct Arawakan language, once predominated in the Antilles and was the first Indian language to be encountered by Europeans.
Anacaona (1474? –1504), or Golden Flower, was a Taíno cacica, or female cacique (chief), religious expert, poet and composer born in Xaragua.
Taíno religion was polytheistic, which is the belief in several gods or di- vinities who are the subject of worship on an independent basis. Their gods were called cemís, religious persons identified with an image or idol worshipped by the community or a particular individual.
The language of the central Arawak or Lokono (meaning the 'people') and the Garífuna language, currently of Central America, are prime examples that are closely related to the Taíno language, which is sometimes referred to as 'Island-Arawak.
the colors express the essence of bronze color from natural pigment. The Tainos were known by this distinct bronze coloration of the skin.
Taíno Indians, a subgroup of the Arawakan Indians (a group of American Indians in northeastern South America), inhabited the Greater Antilles (comprising Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola [Haiti and the Dominican Republic], and Puerto Rico) in the Caribbean Sea at the time when Christopher Columbus' arrived to the New World.
While some retain substantial amounts of Native American ancestry, others are largely composed of African and/or European ancestry (5–7). Puerto Ricans, for example, harbor between 10 and 15% Native American ancestry; however, it is unclear to what extent this component reflects Taino ancestry.
Modern Taino Heritage
Groups of people currently identify as Taíno, most notably among the Puerto Ricans and Dominicans, both on the islands and on United States mainland.
Within twenty-five years of Columbus' arrival in Haiti, most of the Taíno had died from enslavement, massacre, or disease. By 1514, only 32,000 Taíno survived in Hispaniola. 1492-93. Click to enlarge.
Yuiza: "The Perfect Genome"
The closest individual and therefore the most similar to the "perfect genome" is an individual that corresponds to a Puerto Rican woman, and we can relate it to the Taino India known as Yuiza.
The Taino maternal DNA is prominent in the ex-Spanish colonies (61.3%-22.0%) while it is basically non-existent in the ex-French and ex-English colonies of Haiti (0.0%) and Jamaica (0.5%), respectively.
Today, more than 70% of Jamaica's populace are descended from African slaves. Tragically, descendants of the Tainos have all but disappeared.
It is believed that they had an olive complexion. They also had long, straight, coarse black hair. For the Arawaks, to be beautiful meant having flattened foreheads, so they would place the head of their babies between two boards and so flatten their foreheads and shape their skulls up to a peak.
Men wore loincloths and women wore aprons of cotton or palm fibres. Both sexes painted themselves on special occasions, and they wore earrings, nose rings, and necklaces, which were sometimes made of gold. The Taino also made pottery, baskets, and implements of stone and wood.
Answer and Explanation: During the Spanish conquest, the Taino offended the Spanish by not praying respect to their Christian symbols. In their culture, the Taino prayed to several gods, goddesses and spirits.