Indigenous peoples of Jamaica

Jamaica was first inhabited by a gentle race of people called the Arawaks or Tainos. They are believed to have arrived on the island by migrating from North of the Orinoco Basin about 650 A.D.^[1] The Taíno depended mainly on farming, fishing and hunting for survival. They were short people, rather stout, with straight black hair and flattish noses; their skin was copper-coloured. They lived in huts shaped like those of the peasants of Jamaica and slept in hammocks. They made rough seats of wood, and spears tipped with stone, or with the teeth of sharks. They did not have the bow and arrow. The men were skilful fishermen, and caught fish and turtle to eat. They made their cooking vessels out of clay, and burnt them in fire until they became hard. The women grew cassava (from which they made bread called bammy), corn and sweet potatoes for food. They cooked their meat on a four legged stand called a bucan; made of spiced wood called pimento. Cotton grew wild in the island, and they twisted the fibre into cloth, strips of which they wore around their waists. They also wore strings of beads and shells.^[2] The Spanish colonisers made the Taino into slaves. They treated the Arawaks so harshly that in about fifty years all of them were dead. They had numbered fully sixty thousand. The Spanish bought slaves from Africa to take their place, and their descendants include most of Jamaica's current population.

Indigenous groups

• Arawaks
• Miskito
• Tainos

See also

• Alexander Bustamante

References