Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Arawak are a group of Indigenous peoples of northern South America and of the Caribbean.The term "Arawak" has been applied at various times to different Indigenous groups, from the Lokono of South America to the Taíno (Island Arawaks), who lived in the Greater Antilles and northern Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean.
The Kalinago, also called Island Caribs [5] or simply Caribs, are an Indigenous people of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean. They may have been related to the Mainland Caribs (Kalina) of South America, but they spoke an unrelated language known as Kalinago or Island Carib. They also spoke a pidgin language associated with the Mainland Caribs ...
In turn the Arawak legend explains the origin of the Caribs as offspring of a putrid serpent. The social classes of the neo-Taíno, generalized from Bartolomé de las Casas , appeared to have been loosely feudal with the following Taíno classes: naboría (common people), nitaíno' (sub-chiefs, or nobles), bohique, ( shamans priests/ healers ...
The Caribbean islands were dominated by two main cultural groups by the European contact period: the Taino and the Kalinago. Individual villages of other distinct cultural groups were also present on the larger islands. The island of Trinidad in particular was shared by both Kalinago and Arawak groups.
[5]: vi Its variants, including the English Carib, were then adopted by other European languages. [5]: vi Early Spanish colonizers used the terms Arawak and Caribs to distinguish the peoples of the Caribbean, with Carib reserved for indigenous groups that they considered hostile and Arawak for groups that they considered friendly. [6]: 121
Their lives were turned upside-down, however, with the descent of the Carib Indians from the same region they had come from. A warrior nation, the Caribs killed the Arawak men and enslaved the women. When Europeans began to explore the Caribbean, Carib society had almost completely displaced the Arawaks. [citation needed]
The bulk of the Arawaks left Antigua about 1100 AD. Those who remained were subsequently raided by the Caribs. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the Caribs' superior weapons and seafaring prowess allowed them to defeat most Arawak nations in the West Indies—enslaving some and cannibalising others.
An Arawak stone carving uncovered in Guadeloupe.. During European contact in 1492, Caribbean islands were densely populated by different indigenous groups. Recent scholarly research has investigated the origins and evolution of the islands' populations over the entire period.