Cacique:chief of the cacicazgo. Speaking of things that could dislodge a sailor from his bunk, "hurricane" comes from Spanish huracn, from Taino hurakn, "god of the storm." 9. For me, everything included in this kit is extremely meaningful, as it provides a glimpse at the lives of my ancestors as they settled into what was to become our home. 04/02/2019. When the first Native American explorers arrived 6,000 years ago, they would have seen an environment that resembles what we see today: warm and humid, with dense vegetation. Right. Aji = n : Hot Pepper. It was long held that the island Arawak were virtually wiped out by Old World diseases to which they had no immunity (see Columbian Exchange), but more recent scholarship has emphasized the role played by Spanish . Figure 4: Folio from the Drake Manuscript. Lesser Antilles:Group of over a hundred small islands, with Trinidad and Tobago to the South, and the Virgin Islands to the North. As indigenous groups in the Caribbean explored, settled, and adapted to their new surroundings, over time, they were able to pursue other activities beyond subsistence. Would you like to help support our organization's work with endangered American Indian languages? Key elements for a successful connection to the spiritual world included altered consciousness from hallucinogenic drugs, as well as the powerful. was a ball game played by the Tanos, and it greatly resembles the ball game played in other indigenous groups from Central and South America, such as the Maya. Anthropomorphic:Resembling the shape/morphology of humans. The first indigenous explorers reached the Caribbean nearly 6,000 years ago (see Fig. Arawak, American Indians of the Greater Antilles and South America. The Tanos were without a doubt the cultural group that reached the highest levels of political organization in the Caribbean. The nearest I have come is the word Ni for water, and Ama' for river or body of water. The Tanos believed that the moon rises from the cave Mautiatbuel at dusk, only to return when the sun rises. This answer is not entirely wrong. Here we also see an example of how the Tanos interacted with the environment and their surroundings in a way that allowed them to settle, adapt, and grow in their new home. Large conchs were used for the sound that they made, as a communication device during hunting. These changes also have other implications. Not everyone, however, reached the necessary state to communicate with the gods.