Neo-Taino Nations - The Term and Context of The Ciboney (Siboney)

The Term and Context of The Ciboney (Siboney)

Ciboney (also Siboney) is a term preferred in Cuban historic contexts for the neo-Taíno nations of Cuba.

Our knowledge of the Cuban indigenous cultures which are often, but less precisely, lumped into a category called Taíno (Caribbean Island Arawak) comes from early Spanish sources, oral traditions and considerable archeological evidence. The Spanish found that most Cuban peoples were, for the most part, living peacefully in tidy towns and villages grouped into numerous principalities called Cacicazgos with an almost feudal social structure (see Bartolomé de las Casas). They were ruled by leaders called Caciques. Cuba was divided into Guanahatabey, Ciboney-Taíno (here neo-Taíno), and Classical (High) Taíno. Some of western Cuba was Guanahatabey and some Siboney (see below).

Taíno-like cultures controlled most of Cuba, dividing it into cacicazgos or principalities. Granberry, Vescelius (2004), and other contemporary authors only consider the cacicazgo of Baracoa as Classical or High Taíno. Cuban cacicazgos including Bayaquitiri, Macaca, Bayamo, Camagüey, Jagua, Habana y Haniguanica are considered neo-Taíno. These principalities are considered to have various affinities to contemporary Taíno and neo-Taíno cultures from Puerto Rico and Hispaniola, but are generally believed to have been somewhat different.

Read more about this topic:  Neo-Taino Nations

Famous quotes containing the words term and/or context:

    Most literature on the culture of adolescence focuses on peer pressure as a negative force. Warnings about the “wrong crowd” read like tornado alerts in parent manuals. . . . It is a relative term that means different things in different places. In Fort Wayne, for example, the wrong crowd meant hanging out with liberal Democrats. In Connecticut, it meant kids who weren’t planning to get a Ph.D. from Yale.
    Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)

    The hard truth is that what may be acceptable in elite culture may not be acceptable in mass culture, that tastes which pose only innocent ethical issues as the property of a minority become corrupting when they become more established. Taste is context, and the context has changed.
    Susan Sontag (b. 1933)