Talk:Arawak

message: Is there a source for current modern Arawak populations??
Grason1129 (talk) 23:43, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: (Source Needed)

message: Columbus writes in his diary, "As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first Island which I found, I took some of the natives by force in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts."
:I do not think anyone doubts the consequences of the conquest for the Arawak.  I do have one objection to the way this article opens, however.  I suspect that descendants of the Arawak today, and the Arawak of 600 years ago, would object to their being portrayed first and foremost as victims.
:I suggest reorganizing this article not to change any content, but to make it more chronological.  Start with where the Arawak lived at the time of contact, and then whatever we know about their culture.  Only then describe the conquest, genocide, etc. Slrubenstein
:: I agree--Christaaugustin (talk) 23:57, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: (unstated topic)

message: IS there any reason this in not a redirect to taino? Rich Farmbrough 01:15, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Redirect

message: In the introduction to Comparative Arawakan Histories (ed. Jonathan D. Hill and Fernando Santos-Granero, 2002, University of Illinois Press; ) they include the show the Taino of the Greater Antilles, the Karipuna of the Lesser Antilles, the Nepoya, Suppoya and Yao of Trinidad and the Lokono of the Guianas as Arawakan people, but the Kariña of the Orinoco valley and the Warao of the Orinoco delta as non-Arawaks (however, the Yao are later referred to as Carib-speaking).  Taino is thus only a single entity among the many Arawak entities of the Caribbean
Santos-Granero (in the same volume, Chapter titled The Arawkan Matrix: Ethos, Language and History in Native South America) states:
:The Spanish recognized two large groups in the Caribbean region: a number of highly sophisticated hierarchical chiefdoms sharing many cultural traits, which occupied most of the Greater Antilles, the Bahamas, the Virgin Islands, and the northern portion of the Lesser Antilles (Leeward Islands), which generally but not always welcomed the Spanish peacefully; and a number of smaller and less complex groups, which occupied the southern portion of the Lesser Antilles (Windward Islands), who shunned contact with foreigners or firmly opposed their presence.
and then
:The diverse peoples belonging to the first category - the Boriqua, Lucayas, and other islanders - came to be known collectively as the Taíno in 1836 (Whitehead 1995a, 92).  In 1871 Daniel G. Britton deonstrated that theirs was an Arawakan language - similar to that of the Lokono or mainland Arawaks - and for this reason decided to call them Island Arawaks (Rouse 1992, 5).
:Santos-Granero describes the "classic Taino" (of Puerto Rico, Hispaniola and eastern Cuba; the most sophisticated group) and the "western Taino" (of Jamaica, the Bahamas and Cuba) as being more peaceful and developed than the "eastern Taino" (of the Virgin Islands and the northern Lesser Antilles) who had to contend with Carib raids; the eastern Taino as reported to have taken slaves, war captives and have practised cannibalism, as did the Lokono.
They and other sources go on to discuss the different theories of origin of the "Island Caribs" - it seems that the old theory of Carib replacement has been largely supplanted by theories of reticulate origins, in which Carib-speaking immigrants from South America either conquered the islands and killed the men but kept the women as wives, or that they simply immigrated in and intermingled with the previous Arawak-speakers of the Lesser Antilles (sometimes referred to as Igneri, to distingish them from the Arawak-speakers of the Greater Antilles and South America).  The "Island Caribs" (Kalinago) appear to have spoken an Arawakan language among the women and children, but that the men spoke a Carib language or pidgin.
Neil Whitehead (same book, Chapter titled: Arawak Linguistic and Cultural Identity through Time: Contact, Colonialism and Creolization) states that Douglas Taylor (1946) "gives the orthgraphic form ni'tinao (formal friend [ws] or progenitor [ws/ms])" for Taino, while Raymond Breton (1665, 1666) "giv[es] the form ne'tegnon and nitino/neteno (husband's father, husband's mother, or daughter's husband [ws])" (ws = woman speaking, ms = man speaking).  However, he states that guatiao is the older term - used by Columbus for the "tractable" natives; aruaca was first used for the Lokono - derived from the word aru, manioc flour, their primary item of trade.  The word Taíno was coined by Constantine Rafinesque in 1836 in his book The American Nations; or, Outlines of Their General History, Ancient and Modern.
Additional info:
Shirley McGinnis (1997) in Ideographic Expression in the Precolumbian Caribbean (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Texas at Austin) stated that:
:On the 23rd of December...Columbus discovered that the name nitayno meant important person.
also, during the second voyage, Dr. Chanca of Seville wrote (about people when they landed in Gaudeloupe):
:When a boat came to land to speak with them, they said to them tayno, tayno, which means good.
Guettarda 21:14, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Arawak/Taino

message: Is is safe to assume that yuca is meant, rather than yucca? — Pekinensis 20:25, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: yes.  Guettarda 23:56, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yucca? 

message: Hello,
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thread_title: New Assessment Criteria for Ethnic Groups articles

message: Please reference tonight's diff's to see the POV unsourced statements introduced into the article.  Ronbo76 04:15, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tonight's POV edits 

message: Does anyone have any maps showing the location of the Arawaks i believe they were located on the Islands of the Carrabean (sorry spelling) would be nice if we had some maps, i have looked but cant find any usable ones....
the arawaks painted there face because of spirtual and magical reasons. they believed that if they put these paintings on there face it would keep mosiqutos and evil spirts away  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.231.44.158 (talk) 19:02, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Maps? 

message: The Taino and other Arawak, as the article clearly states, were spread throughout the Caribbean and the Spanish Main.  However brutal Columbus' behavior during his brief reign on Hispaniola, it clearly could not cause Arawak population decline throughout this whole region, only a tiny part of which he ever controlled.  It is also anachronistic to blame Columbus for the encomienda system introduced long after his removal as governor.  I have consequently edited the population decline section.Pirate Dan (talk) 22:14, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Columbus and population decline

message: Should this article be about the Taino etc. in the Caribbean, or about all of the peoples who speak Arawakan languages? Are the latter an ethnicity at all, or are they only linked by linguists and those following linguistic classifications? Maybe restrict the article to a single ethnicity [can we define it? speakers of Ta-Arawak languages, maybe?], but note that the term is ofter used broadly, and move to Arawak people? — kwami (talk) 09:41, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  extent of "peoples" 

message: The second paragraph is very difficult to understand in its current form. If possible, please re-write. 
69.65.74.174 (talk) 10:48, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: (Second Paragraph needs work)

message: Similar to our articles on the Carib peoples (ie, Kalina people and Island Caribs), this article is very confused. Currently, it mostly discusses Arawaks in the Caribbean, meaning it largely just duplicates Taíno, which in its modern definition simply covers the Arawaks of the Caribbean. There is basically no information here (or anywhere) on the South American Arawaks, or Lokono. Further, the name "Arawak peoples" implies it covers several groups, instead of just one group or related groups. I haven't heard the term "Arawak" used to describe all speakers of Arawakan languages. As such, we have:
*Arawak peoples, which has an unclear focus and mostly contains information on the island Arawaks or Taíno
*Taíno, a somewhat better article on the island Arawaks
*No article on the specific group in South American that self-identifies as Arawak or Lokono
*Arawakan languages, the language family that includes, but isn't limited to, languages spoken by peoples known as "Arawak"
*Arawak language, the Arawakan language specifically spoken by the Arawak/Lokono and not by other peoples in South American or the Caribeean
*Taíno language, the Arawakan language of the Taíno
*An inadequate dab page at Arawak (disambiguation)
As such, I propose we do the following:
*Retitle this article Arawak and make it a base article for covering the Lokono, the Taíno, and potentially other groups who are called "Arawak" in the sources
*Create a separate article on the mainland Arawak or Lokono, probably under the latter name
*Keep material on the island Arawak or Taíno in the Taíno article
*Clean up Arawak (disambiguation), Arawak language, Arawakan languages, and Taíno language to make clear what's connected to what.
I'll get started on this now.--Cúchullain t/c 17:16, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. I've rewritten this article as an overview of peoples called "Arawak" in sources I could find. The sources I consulted only discussed the mainland Arawak or Lokono and the Taíno, though they don't seem to have been more closely related than some other Arawakan-speaking groups. Most of the Taíno material was already better presented at that article, so I just removed it, and now material on the mainland group is at Lokono.--Cúchullain t/c 12:08, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Article scope

message: As of now, the history section makes references to Columbus' involvement in Arawak decline but leaves out a lot of crucial facts. This is not to say that he caused the decline throughout the entire region the Arawak natives inhabited, but he did directly cause hundreds of thousands of deaths in the Caribbean. Also, the history section says that "at some point, the Arawak natives just magically appeared in the Caribbean." Can somebody please add some information regarding the inhabitation of Xaymaca (Jamaica) and the spreading of Arawak natives into the rest of the Caribbean? Also, can somebody add some names to the "Arawak People" section? Here are some places to start: 
*"Taino." Race and History.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Feb. 2015.
*"Arawak | People." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 22 Feb. 2015.
*"Pre-Columbian Hispaniola - Arawak/Taino Indians." Pre-Columbian Hispaniola - Arawak/Taino Indians. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Feb. 2015.
*"Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress." Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Feb. 2015.
*"Exploring the Early Americas: Columbus and the Taíno." Columbus and the Taíno. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Feb. 2015.
*"The History of Jamaica." Jamaica Information Service. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Feb. 2015.
Evan.j.miranda (talk) 00:24, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: History edits

message: Substituted at 08:09, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: English voice 2605:A200:9501:3BB9:D81C:BEA0:E64D:3928 (talk) 04:43, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  What the Arawak lived