Where do most Taino people live today?
Modern Taino Heritage
Groups of people currently identify as Taíno, most notably among the Puerto Ricans and Dominicans, both on the islands and on United States mainland.
At the time, the Taino were thriving; Spanish priest Bartolomé de las Casas estimated that about 600,000 people each lived on Jamaica and Puerto Rico, with as many as a million on Hispaniola. That didn't last long; by the mid-16th century, smallpox and slavery had driven the Taino to the brink of extinction.
Taínos believed that at death their souls would go to Coyaba, their heaven - a place of tranquility and eternal rest. Coyaba was thought to be a place where drought, hurricane and sickness were absent, and there was an abundance of feasting and dancing.
Taíno is an extinct Arawakan language that was spoken by the Taíno people of the Caribbean. At the time of Spanish contact, it was the most common language throughout the Caribbean.
The Jatibonicu Taino Tribal Band of New Jersey, is a United States based Taino Tribal organization that is open to all members residing in the United States and Internationally.
The Taíno were declared extinct shortly after 1565 when a census shows just 200 Indians living on Hispaniola, now the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The census records and historical accounts are very clear: There were no Indians left in the Caribbean after 1802. So how can we be Taíno?
The Tainos were known by this distinct bronze coloration of the skin. This was a way of telling who tainos were during the early settling days of Christopher Columbus. this woman is depicted with a branch of a plantain tree, which is a very abundant crop in Puerto Rico.
Arawak, American Indians of the Greater Antilles and South America. The Taino, an Arawak subgroup, were the first native peoples encountered by Christopher Columbus on Hispaniola.
The Spaniards exploited the island's gold mines and reduced the Taíno to slavery. Within twenty-five years of Columbus' arrival in Haiti, most of the Taíno had died from enslavement, massacre, or disease. By 1514, only 32,000 Taíno survived in Hispaniola. 1492-93.
The Tainos believed in two main gods, Yucahu, who was the god of cassava (the main food crop of the Taino) and Atabey, the mother of Yucahu and the goddess of fertility. They also had many other deities, such as Guabancex, the goddess of hurricanes and Maketaori Guayaba, the god of the dead.
How do the Tainos look?
In appearance the Taino were short and muscular and had a brown olive complexion and straight hair. They wore little clothes but decorated their bodies with dyes. Religion was a very important aspect of their lives and they were mainly an agricultural people although they did have some technological innovations.
But by 1548, the Taino population there had plummeted to less than 500. Lacking immunity to Old World pathogens carried by the Spanish, Hispaniola's indigenous inhabitants fell victim to terrible plagues of smallpox, influenza, and other viruses.
Depopulation. Early population estimates of Hispaniola, probably the most populous island inhabited by Taínos, range from 10,000 to 1,000,000 people. The maximum estimates for Jamaica and Puerto Rico are 600,000 people.
The native population represents less than 1 percent of Puerto Rico's 3.7 million people, but indigenous leaders consider the latest head count a milestone—further proof that some Indians live on long after they were thought to be annihilated.
The language of the central Arawak or Lokono (meaning the 'people') and the Garífuna language, currently of Central America, are prime examples that are closely related to the Taíno language, which is sometimes referred to as 'Island-Arawak. '
Lastly, we find that the native component in present-day Puerto Rican genomes is closely related to the ancient Taino, demonstrating an element of continuity between precontact populations and present-day Latino populations in the Caribbean despite the disruptive effects of European colonization.
On average, Puerto Ricans have around 12 percent of this Taíno ancestry. But over 60 percent of their maternal-line ancestry is of Taíno origin. Interestingly, evidence of Taino ancestry is almost completely absent from the islands formerly controlled by Britain and France, such as Jamaica and Haiti.
On his father's side, Tino comes from a blended religious background — his grandfather was a Mexican immigrant and his grandmother came from an upper middle class Jewish family.
They lived in the islands of Cuba, La Española, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and other islands of the northern Caribbean. The first records described them as medium to tall healthy people with tan, bronzed skin. They had no body or facial hair, pronounced cheekbones, full pout, and a good dental hygiene.
At the 2010 U.S. census, 1,098 people in Puerto Rico identified themselves as "Puerto Rican Indian," 1,410 identified as "Spanish American Indian," and 9,399 identified as "Taíno." In total, 35,856 Puerto Ricans considered themselves Native American.
How many Taino people were killed?
AD 1493: Spanish settlers enslave the Taíno of Hispaniola
Christopher Columbus, who needs to demonstrate the wealth of the New World after finding no gold, loads his ship with enslaved Taíno people. During the next four decades, slavery contributes to the deaths of 7 million Taíno.
The Tainos were a gente people who named the island “Xaymaca,” meaning “land of wood and water.” The words “hurricane,” “tobacco,” and “barbecue” were also derived from their language.
"Tainos are alive and well throughout Jamaica - just that many people do not know." She said people are more concerned with other issues than those of identity.
The first Jamaicans were the Taino Indians who settled in Jamaica around 600 AD. They were stone–age peoples who had migrated to Jamaica from the northern coast of South America.
Taino, a now-extinct Arawakan language, once predominated in the Antilles and was the first Indian language to be encountered by Europeans.