"JosÉ [Barreiro] writes the true story in TaÍno—the Native view of what Columbus brought. Across the Americas, invasion, and resistance, the TaÍno story repeated many times over." – Chief Oren Lyons (Joagquisho), Turtle Clan, Onondaga Nation The story of what really happened when Columbus arrived in the "New World," as told by the TaÍno people who were impacted In 1532, an elderly TaÍno man named GuaikÁn sits down to write his story—an in-depth account of what happened when Columbus landed on Caribbean shores in 1492. As a boy, GuaikÁn was adopted by Columbus, uniquely positioning him to tell the story of Columbus's "discovery," directing our gaze where it rightfully belongs—on the Indigenous people for whom this land had long been home. Revised and updated by author JosÉ Barreiro (himself a descendant of the TaÍno people) with new information and a new introduction, this richly imagined novel updates GuaikÁn's carefully crafted narrative, chronicling what happened to the TaÍno people when Columbus arrived and how their lives and culture were ruptured. Through GuaikÁn's story, Barreiro penetrates the veil that still clouds the "discovery" of the Americas and in turn gives

A Taino Indian legend about a young boy and his search for the healing caimoni tree.

Organized by El Museo del Barrio in New York to coincide with a major exhibition, this is the first comprehensive English-language publication on the fascinating legacy of Taiacute;no art and culture. Showcasing over one hundred rare and beautiful ceremonial and domestic artworks and individual masterpieces of this ancient culture -- produced in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Haiti, and the Bahamas between A.D. 1200 and 1500 --Taiacute;noincludes examples of finely detailed and polished sculptures carved in wood, precious ornaments of shell and bone, and ceramics decorated with animals, birds, and intricate geometric motifs. The contributors include ten of the foremost scholars of pre-Columbian culture and art, and an appendix features writings from Spanish explorers who had contact with the Taiacute;no. Of Arawak descent, the Taiacute;no -- whose ancestors migrated to the Caribbean from the Amazon Basin in South America during the sixth century -- were the first people encountered by Christopher Columbus. Although they ceased to exist as an autonomous society within sixty years of the arrival of Spanish colonizers, the Taiacute;no -- skilled agriculturists and navigators and accomplished weavers, potters, and carvers -- developed a complex political, religious, and social system, and made a substantial contribution to the biological, cultural, and linguistic makeup of large areas of the Caribbean. To this date, Caribbean communities in the Antilles and in New York and other large American cities exhibit the survival of Taiacute;no practices in their worldviews, religious beliefs, language, music, and food.

The author uses first-hand life experiences to lay bare enduring truths. Four remarkable stories of evolutionary change are woven into a single journey down the river of time; One, a vision-filled canoe trip through Pennsylvanias Allegheny Forest; Two, a dramatic sequence of dreams documenting the saga of an Indigenous Caribbean family; Three, the 260-century evolutionary trek of global humanity envisioned by ancient Native wisdom; Four, the authors personal 65 years of life experiences in the modern-day Taino Indigenous Resurgence movement.

A Contested Caribbean Indigeneity is an in-depth analysis of the debates surrounding Taíno/Boricua activism in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean diaspora in New York City. Drawing on in-depth ethnographic research, media analysis, and historical documents, the book explores the varied experiences and motivations of Taíno/Boricua activists as well as the alternative fonts of authority they draw on to claim what is commonly thought to be an extinct ethnic category. It explores the historical and interactional challenges involved in claiming membership in, what for many Puerto Ricans, is an impossible affiliation. In focusing on Taíno/Boricua activism, the books aims to identify a critical space from which to analyze and decolonize ethnoracial ideologies of Puerto Ricanness, issues of class and education, Puerto Rican nationalisms and colonialisms, as well as important questions regarding narrative, historical memory, and belonging.

This collection examines the Taino revival movement, a grassroots conglomeration of Puerto Ricans and other Latinos who promote or have adopted the culture and pedigree of the pre-Columbian Taino Indian population of Puerto Rico and the western Caribbean.

For many centuries the islands of Haiti and Boriken had been home to the Taino people, the peace-loving inhabitants of the Greater Antilles whose carefree society led Columbus to believe that he had stumbled across the earthly paradise that stirred the imagination of most fifteenth-century Europeans - until he and the Spanish conquistadors initiated the most terrible genocide our planet has ever witnessed. This is the story of the epic encounter between two alien civilizations in the lands that the Spanish renamed Espanola and Puerto Rico, between a unique culture that would soon vanish from the earth - though its legacy lives on throughout the Caribbean - and a crusading nation whose lust for gold and missionary zeal brought the fires of hell to a new world that was as old as its own.