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Encyclopaedia Resources:
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The
Catholic Encyclopaedia: Caribs -- Next to the
Arawaks, probably the most numerous Indian stock, of more or less nomadic
habits, in South America.
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The
Catholic Encyclopaedia: Arawaks (Also Aruacans).
-- The first American aborigines met by Columbus -- not to be confounded
with the Aroacas or Arhouaques, linguistically allied to the Chibohas of
Columbia -- an Indian stock widely distributed over South America.
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The Catholic Encyclopaedia: Saliva Indians (Venezuela)
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Columbia
Encyclopedia on Looksmart: Caribs: Pronunciation:
[kar´ib] (key) native people formerly inhabiting the Lesser Antilles, West
Indies. They seem to have overrun the Lesser Antilles and to have driven out the
Arawak about a century before the arrival of Christopher Columbus.
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The
Columbia Encyclopedia: Sixth Edition, 2000: Carib Indians— “They
seem to have overrun the Lesser Antilles and to have driven out the Arawak
about a century before the arrival of Christopher Columbus. The original
name by which the Caribs were known, Galibi, was corrupted by the Spanish
to Caníbal and is the origin of the English word cannibal. Extremely
warlike and ferocious, they practiced cannibalism and took pride in scarification
(ritual cutting of the skin) and fasting….”
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The
Columbia Encyclopedia: Sixth Edition, 2000: Cannibalism— “[from
Span. caníbal, referring to the Carib], eating of human flesh by
other humans. The charge of cannibalism is a common insult, and it is likely
that some alleged cannibal groups have merely been victims of popular fear
and misrepresentation. Nevertheless, archaeological research suggests that
ancient societies did practice cannibalism, and it has been observed in
Africa, North and South America, the South Pacific islands, and the West
Indies…”
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Columbia
Encyclopedia on Looksmart: Arawaks: Arawak --
Pronunciation: [ä´räwäk] (key) linguistic stock of
indigenous people who came from South America and, at the time of the Spanish
Conquest, occupied the islands of the Greater Antilles, the Bahamas, Trinidad,
and other areas of Amazonia.
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The
Columbia Encyclopedia: Sixth Edition, 2000: Arawak Indians—“…
linguistic stock of indigenous people who came from South America and,
at the time of the Spanish Conquest, occupied the islands of the Greater
Antilles, the Bahamas, Trinidad, and other areas of Amazonia. Before the
arrival of the Spanish they were driven from the Lesser Antilles by the
Carib. Most of the Arawak of the Antilles died out after the Spanish conquest….”
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Encyclopaedia
Britannica entry for “Arawak”: Excerpt—“ American
Indians of the Greater Antilles and South America who spoke languages of
the Arawakan linguistic group. The Antillean Arawak, or Taíno, were agriculturists
who lived in villages, some with as many as 3,000 inhabitants, and practiced
slash-and-burn cultivation of cassava and corn (maize). The people were
arranged in social ranks and gave great deference to theocratic chiefs.
Religious belief centred on a hierarchy of nature spirits and ancestors,
paralleling somewhat the hierarchies of chiefs. Despite the complex social
organization, the Antillean Arawak were not given to warfare. They were
driven out of the Lesser Antilles by the Carib shortly before the appearance
of the Spanish…”
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Encarta
Encyclopedia entry for “Arawak”: Excerpt—“a once-predominant
group of Native Americans originally inhabiting an area that stretched
from present-day Florida down through the islands of the West Indies and
the coastal area of South America as far as southern Brazil. The group
is in the Arawakan linguistic family. The Arawak were the first natives
of the Americas encountered by the Italian-Spanish navigator Christopher
Columbus. A number of Arawak tribes have been extinct for several hundred
years. Those of the Lesser Antilles were subjugated in fighting with the
Carib peoples in the late 15th century. The Arawak population in the West
Indies fell from a probable 2 to 3 million to a few thousand by the early
16th century; by the end of that century, island Arawak were extinct. This
catastrophic mortality rate was due to the introduction of European diseases,
damage to the Arawak's food supplies, and Spanish brutality and enslavement….”
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Encarta
Encyclopedia entry for “Carib”: Excerpt—“ Carib,
tribe of Native Americans of the Cariban linguistic stock, occupying various
regions of South and Central America. The Caribbean Sea is named after
them. The Carib, who probably originated in the valley of the Orinoco River,
were noted for their ferocity. The tribe practiced cannibalism; in fact,
the word cannibal is derived from the Spanish term for these Native Americans,
Caníbales. During the late 15th century, the Carib inhabited most
of the islands of the Lesser Antilles and the coast of what is now Venezuela,
territories from which they had expelled the Arawak people. Carib men valued
exploits in combat above all else. They were not organized into a hierarchical
structure under a chief, but fought as individual warriors and raided other
peoples. Male captives were tortured and eaten; female captives became
slave-wives….”—EDITOR’S NOTE: this entry is a typical example of the perpetuation
of colonial stereotypes and myths, and the reader is cautioned to ignore
such unsupported assertions of cannibalism.
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Encyclopaedia
Britannica entry for “Cariban Languages”: “a group
of South American Indian languages that were spoken before the Spanish
conquest from what is now the Greater Antilles to the central Mato Grosso
in Brazil; most of the languages, however, were spoken north of the Amazon
River in what is now northern Brazil, the inland areas of the Guianas and
Venezuela, and lowland Colombia. West Indian Cariban is extinct, and the
languages of the group have undergone a drastic decline in the other areas.”
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The
Columbia Encyclopedia: Sixth Edition, 2000: Native American Languages—“…More
than 100 distinct linguistic stocks have been proposed for South America,
and more than 1,000 separate languages have been discovered on that continent
and in the West Indies. The latter had two aboriginal stocks, Arawakan
and Cariban, which are also found in South America….”
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The
Columbia Encyclopedia: Sixth Edition, 2000: Juan Ponce de Leon—“…
From 1502 to 1504 he assisted in the conquest of Higuey (the eastern part
of Hispaniola, now the Dominican Republic) and was made governor of that
province. After finding gold on Boriquén (Puerto Rico) in 1508,
he conquered the island and, as governor (1509–12), made a fortune in gold,
slaves, and land. Hearing tales from the Carib of a wonderfully rich island
called Bimini, said to be N of Cuba, Ponce de León secured a commission
(1512) to conquer and colonize that land….”
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Encarta
Online: Sir Walter Ralegh
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The
Columbia Encyclopedia: Sixth Edition, 2000: Dominica— “…
The island was sighted by Columbus in 1493. English and French attempts
at settlement were thwarted by the Caribs, who had taken it earlier from
the Arawaks. An Anglo-French treaty of 1748 left Dominica in Carib hands,
but both powers continued to covet it. The island definitively passed to
the British in 1815. Hostilities between the British and the Caribs led
to the virtual extinction of the Caribs, who number about 500 and occupy
a reservation on the eastern side of the island….”
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Encyclopaedia
Britannica entry for “Guyana—The People”: Excerpt—“
The indigenous peoples of Guyana are collectively known as Amerindians
and constitute about 4 percent of the population. Indian groups include
the Warao (Warrau), Arawak, Carib, Wapisiana (Wapishana), Arecuna, the
mixed "Spanish Arawak" of the Moruka River, and many more in the forest
areas. The Makusí (Macussí or Macushí) are the most
prominent of the savanna peoples. Sizable concentrations of Amerindians
inhabit the far west along the border with Venezuela and Brazil. They are
rarely seen in the populated coastal areas, although a few have interbred
with blacks and East Indians. Since 1970, traditional Amerindian lands
near the international borders have come under government control, although
Amerindians continue to hold village lands informally throughout Guyana's
interior….”
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Encyclopaedia
Britannica: The Maroni River, between Suriname
and French Guiana.
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The
Columbia Encyclopedia: Sixth Edition, 2000: San Blas Islands—“
The inhabitants are almost pure-blooded aborigines of Carib origin; fishing
and coconut gathering are the chief occupations. Protected by a treaty
with the government of Panama…”
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Encyclopaedia
Britannica entry for “Sir Walter Raleigh, 1554-1618
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Encyclopaedia
Britannica, entry for “Taíno”: Excerpt—“ Arawakan
Indians who at the time of Christopher Columbus' exploration inhabited
the Greater Antilles (comprising Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola [Haiti and the
Dominican Republic], and Puerto Rico) in the Caribbean Sea. As the most
numerous Indian people of the Caribbean, the Taíno may have numbered one
or two million at the time of the Spanish conquest in the late 15th century.
A peaceful people, they had long been on the defensive against the aggressive
Carib Indians, who had conquered the Lesser Antilles to the east. The Taíno
were easily conquered by the Spaniards beginning in 1493, and enslavement,
starvation, and disease had reduced them to a few thousand by 1520 and
to near extinction by 1550. Although Taíno culture was largely wiped out,
groups of Taíno survived colonization. Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the U.S.
state of Florida are among the regions in which Taíno populations flourished….”
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Encyclopaedia
Britannica entry for “Trinidad and Tobago—The People”:
Excerpt—“ The original inhabitants of Trinidad were chiefly Arawak. Although
there are inhabitants of the town of Arima who claim descent from Carib
royalty, it is doubtful that the land was settled by Caribs. Tobago was
frequently visited by American Indians, probably both Arawak and Carib,
but was not settled before the arrival of Columbus….”
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“Caribs”
in the 1911 Edition Encyclopedia: sample—“CARIBS,
the name, used first by Columbus (from Cariba, said to mean a valiant man),
of a South American people, who, at the arrival of the Spanish, occupied
parts of Guiana and the lower Orinoco and the Windward and other islands
in what is still known as the Caribbean Sea. They were believed to have
had their original home in North America, spreading thence through the
Antilles southward to Venezuela, the Guianas, and north-east Brazil. This
view has been abandoned, as Carib tribes, the Bakairi and Nahuquas, using
an archaic type of Carib speech and primitive in habits, have been met
by German explorers in the very heart of Brazil. It may thus be assumed
that the cradle of the race was the centre of South America; their first
migrating movements being to Guiana and the Antilles….”
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“Caribs
or Canibs?”, from THE HINDU, India’s National
Newspaper.
Other Reference Materials:
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"Taíno:
Ancient Voyagers of the Caribbean", by Dicey Taylor, Ph.D, Guest Curator,
El Museo del Barrio: a paper outlining the archaeological
history, pre-colonial culture, religious beliefs, cosmology, food, and
social structure of the Taínos, ending with a consideration of the their
cultural legacy-this relates to the exhibition, by the same name, hosted
by El Museo del Barrio.
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“Ethnobotanical
survey of the medicinal flora used by the Caribs of Guatemala” by Giron
LM, Freire V, Alonzo A, and Caceres A.—abstract:
“An ethnobotanical survey was conducted among the Carib population of Guatemala
in 1988-1989. In general terms, the sample surveyed possessed a relatively
good standard of living. Results indicated that health services were utilized
by the population, and that domestic medicine, mainly plants (96.9%) was
used by 15% of the population. One hundred and nineteen plants used for
medicinal purposes were collected, of which 102 (85.7%) could be identified;
a list of these together with the information provided for each plant is
presented….”
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Medieval
Sourcebook: Christopher Columbus: Extracts from Journal— “This
document is the from the journal of Columbus in his voyage of 1492. The
meaning of this voyage is highly contested. On the one hand, it is witness
to the tremendous vitality and verve of late medieval and early modern
Europe - which was on the verge of acquiring a world hegemony. On the other
hand, the direct result of this and later voyages was the virtual extermination,
by ill-treatment and disease, of the vast majority of the Native inhabitants,
and the enormous growth of the transatlantic slave trade. It might not
be fair to lay the blame at Columbus' feet, but since all sides treat him
as a symbol, such questions cannot be avoided….” Full text free to download.
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Modern
History Sourcebook: The New Laws of the Indies, 1542— “
The Laws and ordinances newly made by His Majesty for the government of
the Indies and good treatment and preservation of the Indians created a
set of pro-Indian laws - so pro-Indian that they some had to be revoked
in Mexico and in Peru due to settler opposition. where the viceroy was
killed when he attempted to enforce them.”
Free Books:
Films:
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“El
Espíritu de mi Mamá/ Spirit of My Mother”, a Garifuna Woman’s
Journey to Honduras—a movie by Alí Allié: “Sonia
is a Garifuna woman, raising a young daughter alone in Los Angeles. Disturbed
by dreams of her deceased mother, Sonia journeys back to Honduras with
her daughter and returns to her native village to seek guidance from relatives
and elders. Through semi-documentary footage, we see Sonia reintroduced
to the ceremony and rituals of her culture, and through this discovery
of self- and cultural- identity, a healing process begins. An altogether
original take on the mother/daughter story, The Spirit of My Mother (El
Espíritu de Mi Mamá) is a unique film essay. Blending narrative
and documentary techniques, director Allié tells the story of one
woman's quest to reach out to her mother, and to the ancestral traditions
and endangered culture of the [Garifuna]…”—this site includes reviews of
the movie, photos from the film, video clips, music clips, and contact
information.
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QUEST
OF THE CARIB CANOE, Directed by Eugene Jarecki (Documentary, 50 minutes,
2000)— "QUEST OF THE CARIB CANOE tells the story
of a group of contemporary Carib Indians who undertake a sea voyage in
a hand-built canoe, leaving their Caribbean island home to return to their
ancestral homeland in South America. For Jacob Frederick, a Carib artist
and activist, the voyage is the culmination of a boyhood dream. Centuries
before Columbus came to the islands of the Caribbean, Jacob's ancestors
had come as settlers themselves, migrating northward from the Orinoco Delta
in great ocean-going canoes. Five centuries of European colonization followed,
all but erasing the Carib people and their culture. In 1994, Jacob's dream
captured the attention of fellow Caribbean artist Aragorn Dick-Read. Together,
the two men lead a group of Caribs to carve a dugout canoe and sail it
nearly a thousand miles of sea and river. Their journey would reconnect
Dominica's Caribs with their mainland ancestry and make a first step toward
rebuidling their fragmented nation. Purchase Price: $150.00"-----THE LINK
WILL TAKE YOU TO "LATIN AMERICAN VIDEO TITLES" WHERE YOU WILL HAVE TO SEARCH
FOR THIS FILM WITH THE ABOVE TITLE
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The
Garifuna Journey, special project by Cultural Survival:
"Beginning in 1994, Garifuna tradition bearers, artists, and technicians
collaborated with filmmakers Andrea E. Leland and Kathy Berger in producing
The Garifuna Journey, a documentary project focusing on a remarkable story
of resistance and continuity of culture in the face of overwhelming odds.
Cultural traditions specific to the Garifuna were collected on audio and
videotape…."
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"Le
bouillon d'awara (Awara Soup)": A documentary
set in a French Guyanese village, centred on the making of this soup, a
symbolic metaphor for the mixture of peoples in what the promoters argue
is one of the most cosmopolitan places on the planet-"We meet descendants
of indigenous Galibi Indians, of Bushnegroes who escaped slavery in the
jungles, of mixed race Creoles who remained in the French towns and of
Javanese contract rice laborers, as well as more recent immigrants, Taki
Taki-speaking refugees from political strife in next-door Surinam, Brazilian
migrant workers and Hmong farmers resettled after the Vietnam war…"
This page was last updated:
Saturday, 03 April, 2004
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