Origin of the Tainos

 Once upon a time, there was no ocean and all of the human race lived in a cave in the mountain of Cacibajagua on what is now the island of Haiti. Macocael was put in charge of watching over those leaving the cave at night and dividing them up over the land. The people could not get caught by the Sun and could only venture out of the cave under the cover of the night. One day, Macocael was late in returning from his job and the Sun caught him. The Sun turned Macocael into a stone statue at the entrance of the cave.  

Guaguyona became angry about the amount of people lost to the Sun. He convinced all the women to take their children and abandon the men in the cave to forge out on their own. The children were abandoned by a stream and eventually turned into frogs. Guaguyona eventually abandoned the women as well. 

The men who were left went in search of the women but found no sign of them. One day when the men went out of the cave, they found a creature that was neither male nor female. The men decided to catch the creatures and create new women. They used people who had the disease caracaracol, which made their hands rough, to catch the creatures because they were incredibly quick and slippery.

Once the creatures were caught, the men tied them up and set woodpeckers on them to turn them into women. After the creation of women, men and women no longer had to fear the Sun and were able to move freely in the sunlight.

After the creation of women, the world still did not have an ocean. A man, Yaya, had a son who wished to kill him, but Yaya was clever. He disowned his son and later killed the son. He put the bones of his son in a gourd and hung them up in his house.

Later when Yaya wanted to see his son he took down the gourd. Instead of his son’s bones, Yaya found fish in the gourd. One day when Yaya was out, some children went in the hut in search of food. The children found the fish in the gourd and started to eat them. They got scared and broke the gourd. Water started gushing out of the gourd along with the fish and from it the ocean was born.   

Fray Ramón Payé recorded these legends and many others during his time with the Tainos. Ramón was a friar who went with Columbus on his second voyage to the New World. He came along on the voyage because there had been no friar on the first voyage, and he knew how to speak the native language. Columbus wanted Pané to write down the native customs and religion so Columbus could better understand them. Pané’s records continue to be the best records of the Taino society culture.

Pons,Frank Moya. The Dominican Republic: a National History.Princeton, New Jersey: Markus Weiner Publishers, Inc., 1998.

Bourne,Edward Gaylord. Columbus, Ramon Pane and the Beginnings of American Anthropology. Kessinger Publishing, 2003.