The recent series of Taino events at El Museo Del Barrio in New York City has asserted, among other things, one main theme: the Tainos are back.

Taino tribal leaders of the diaspora and the major homelands - Cuba and Puerto Rico mostly - have been publicizing the following declaration, first presented at their restoration announcement in the year of the
Columbus Quincentennial, 1992:

"The purpose of the Taino Restoration is to newly reclaim our right to our own indigenous Taino identity. Our Grandparents had to hide it to survive and transmit that knowledge to their families in secret. While
"others" propagated the death of our race. There never was any such extinction!...We live in the countrysides, in the villages, in neighborhoods, in the towns and cities of Boriken and Cuba and in the
diaspora in the U.S. We are not a "club." We are not a "group." We are not an "organization."...We are the complete restoration of a people..."

The list of interested parties is significant.

Since 1992, leaders as well as tribal members of the Oneida Nation, the Ramapough, the Lenni Lenape, the Kiowa Comanche, the Seminole, the Mixteca tribe in Mexico, the Caribs of Trinidad, the Goorang-Goorang Aboriginal Tribe in Australia and many others have expressed their support or have met to establish alliances with the Nación Taina (Taino Nation), the most repsected Taino tribal entity to date.

Simultaneously, officials from major research and academic institutions like the Smithsonian, El Museo del Barrio, the Rockefeller Foundation, Columbia University, Cornell University, the University of
Puerto Rico, the Cuban Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment and the Center for World Indigenous Studies in Washington (state) have all sponsored and/or participated in Taino related conferences and events.

At the center of this swirl of activity is Nación Taina de las Antillas, a tribe with approximately 400 core members and a growing list of interested applicants throughout the hemisphere. The Nación's leadership
includes Kacikes (Chiefs), Nitainos (sub-chiefs) and Naborias (common people) in New York, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic.

El Hispano spent some time discussing the fight against the extinction myth, their personal journeys and the restoration with Kacike Rene Çibanakán Marcano of New York, the Nación's primary spokesman, as well as with other registered members and with Jose Hatuey Barreiro, one of the country's most respected Taino scholars based at Cornell University.

The first interview took place in the residence of Kacike Çibanakán in Manhattan on January 9, the day before a Taino "Celebration and Open Forum" at El Museo. (In the following weeks, futher interviews were done by phone.) Çibanakán, which means 'separate stones', has been one of the central leaders of the Nacion since it's official inception in 1992 and has traveled on behalf of the tribe to Puerto Rico, Cuba, Trinidad and other places. He is often called on to give lectures at eastern universities such as Cornell, Columbia, CUNY, Rutgers, De Hostos Community College and other institutions.

How did you become involved with the Nación Taina and what were it's origins?

Çibanakán: In 1988, I went one day to the McBurney YMCA, now on 23rd St., to take my daughter Teresita to see the Ballet Folklorico of Mexico as she is part Mexican. While there I could hear some drumming in the distance, it was an intertribal powwow (in another part of the building.) I went to see that and stopped to talk with an Mexican Indian lady and as I was speaking with her, one of the dancers approached me. The dancer, a Kiowa Comanche, asked me "What tribe do you belong to?" and I said "I am Taino" and he asked "Why are you there as a spectator? You should be here with us." After that, I started dancing at powwows and getting more involved with Native American events generally....then I sat down to research, investigate, how did our ancestors look? And then we began to change the way we dressed until now, but that's how it started. I didn't start out trying to restore the nation. Other people of Taino descent started to hear about me and approached me...not too long after that a small group of us formed the Asociacion Taina and then some of us moved on to form la Nación...It was around 1992 that people starting addressing me as Kacike, which I didn't want at the time but a few of us, the leaders, eventually accepted this title, which for me, means alot of work and dedication. It means working for the people. It doesn't mean I'm on a throne. Look at this place. Do you think there's a throne
around here? (laughter)

I met a friend later on named Jack Rainmaker, he's a Lenni-Lenape of the Delaware, he became a close friend and with him I traveled all over the place to pow-wows. Jack has been active in his tribe since the 1940's and...he knows that, before he met me, there were Tainos nowhere in this country, that I was the first he had ever heard of and he's been out there traveling across the continent since the 40's. Jack wrote an article about how we began but we haven't published it yet...

But was it just then, at that pow-wow, that you realized your Taino heritage?

Çibanakán: No, no. I knew I was Taino, since I was very young (in Santurce, Puerto Rico)...and I was thought of as 'indio', but it didn't mean much to me at the time (in the 1940's and '50's.) I did the regular
things, I went to bailes, social events, did everything everybody else did...But my Taino heritage came mostly from my father, my mother was mulatta, but it was my mother who told of us our heritage, of indigenous, African and Spanish. She made it clear that we were mostly Taino and African...I always knew this, very proud, even before she told us...and I used to look at movies and the Indians were the bad guys, they were the savages and evil. Then the white guy was the good one, but I always felt
linked to the Indian and I didn't want to be the bad guy, but I always felt connected to the Indians...

And this leads to one of the sensitive points in this whole area, which is, are you saying now that you are "only" Taino?

Çibanakán: Oh no, no. I am proud of all of my heritage and I do not deny it. I am also of African descent of which I am very proud and I do have Spanish blood as well. Joining la Nación does not mean denying the rest of your heritage...but you must have Taino blood. There must be a bloodlink...One's religion is not important in this sense. We respect each others faiths. I am Roman Catholic and proud of it for instance...The Taino Nation means the people coming together again. It is in it's embryonic stages but that's what it means...some time ago, it was a crime to say you were Taino. It meant you were a dog, a savage. So nobody wanted to say they were Indian or Taino, and then they started to say we were extinct, that we don't exist, but now we are showing the truth...that's why the Taino Nation was restored on the quicentennial. It was time for us to stand up. We cannot wait another five hundred years to do it. We said to ourselves, 'we either do it now or not at all.'

Where are you in the restoration process?

Çibanakán: Well, at this point the Consejo de Kacikes (Council of Chiefs) meets on a monthly basis through face-to-face visits when possible but often through the mail and other means. For instance, we seek the input and approval of the Kacikes in Puerto Rico and Cuba before we decide on things. The Nation will have four areytos coming up, where we will celebrate together and the people can present suggestions, complaints, etc. and we can work on those...We are developing a restructuring plan for the
future and we already have certain concrete plans for the long term such as purchasing land in Boriken, working on reintroducing native plants, animals, agriculture...reforestation, restoring the uses of the many
medicinal plants and remedies...always we are interested in protecting the earth...But the main thing is to recapture our identity and then to restore all aspects of our culture that we can. We are working on certan things like now we have macanas (an engraved ceremonial club, now used in dances) and we are working on developing musical instruments like the zapona, bacha panpipes, ways of dress, we're studying that and the usage of feathers, dancing and recovering the language. Jibaro culture was influenced by
Tainos in the dancing, instruments, customs like burying the santos before the harvests, and that comes from the Taino custom of putting the cemi under the earth...when you take something from a tree you put tobacco around the tree to say thank you, you ask permission from the tree. You see when you pray you connect, the trees carry prayer, they are like the antennas of the earth...

During the third conversation with Kacike Çibanakán, we were able to interview two young Naborias active in the restoration. Kutubanama, 31 and Wahayona, 26, were glad to speak of their involvement and of their work on behalf of the Nación.

When did you become involved with the Taino Nation and tell us about your involvement with the Restoration?

Kutubanama: I became involved in '94 and I became a registered member of the Nation in '95. I've always beem aware of my native roots. When I was little (in Peñuelas, near Ponce, Puerto Rico) my parents shared a lot with me...I've been really looking for the Tainos for seven years...since I joined I've become very active. I try to do as much research as I can on the history, culture, language, music, dances and even the spiritual beliefs. Since I work for an airline, I travel to the island often and I've met many people interested in and sympathetic to the Nation. So many people in the Caribbean are of Taino ancestry, especially in Boriken.

Can you give some examples of historical information that is relevant to the Nation?

Kutubanama: There are many interesting things being explored now. For instance, in Puerto Rico they (the Spanish colonial authorities) did a census in 1799, listing close to 2,200 full-blooded Tainos from an area known as Las Indieras. In the next year, 1800, the number of "Indios" was listed as zero. None. In that same 1800 census, they created a new category called "pardo" - meaning free people of color - and under the pardo category they listed 2,200. The exact same number. And at that time we were forbidden from speaking our language or engaging in our cultural practices. We were forced to deny our identity...Some other interesting info...as you know, this year will mark the 100th anniversary of the U.S.
invasion. The commanding general of the U.S. forces was General Nelson Miles, famous for capturing Geronimo in this country (and for his activities in the "Indian Wars" of the late nineteenth century.) In his
diaries he wrote down that "marked indian features were observed everywhere especially in the isolated mountain regions." He also spoke of encountering "large numbers of indigenous people" like the ones he saw in the southwestern U.S. So as far as the extinction theory goes, there are more official documents that contradict it...We have a lot of research left to do and we're getting a lot of support from people on the island...

Wahayona, when did you become involved and what sort of work are you doing?

Wahayona: I've known Çibanakan for almost five years and I became registered in '97. Some years ago, an uncle of mine commented on the strong Indian features of another relative and I just started asking
around. Finally, my mother gave in and admitted that we definitely had Taino roots. Some Latin Americans, unfortunately, are still embarassed or afraid of being ridiculed for having Indian blood...I've been working on recognition and the revival of the language. In the countryside in Puerto Rico, they still use several Arawak, Taino words. I put together a small paper entitled "A Brief Summary of the Origin, Survival, and Re-emergence of the Taino Language in the Greater Antilles." Kacikes Çibanakán and
Boriwex (also in NY) helped edit. It's now on file at the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian here in New York...There's so much more to do.

For those interested in finding out more about La Nación Taina de las Antillas, and possibly about registry, please call The Taino Cultural Center at (516) 348 0786 or Kacike Çibanakán at (212) 866-4573.

Caribbean Amerindian Centrelink