Friday, March 9, 2012

Ethnic Identity, History, the Reality of Creolization, and the Politics of Contemporary Puerto Rican Taínos. !

Ethnic Identity, History, The Reality of Creolization, and the Politics of Contemporary Puerto Rican Taínos,


by Gabriel Haslip-Viera

 

These comments are mostly in response to the video interview of historian, Dr. Juan Manuel Delgado, which appeared on this network and on YouTube on February 11th and 12th, 2012. They also include comments on issues that were discussed in conference presentations and a published article that were posted by Dr. Delgado on his newly created “blog” on January 14, 2012, which also overlap in significant ways his comments on the YouTube video. References are also made to comments and assertions made by Taíno survivalists and by Tony Castanha in his recently published book, The Myth of Indigenous Caribbean Extinction: Continuity and Reclamation in Borikén (Puerto Rico) (New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2011).

 

1. Is the assertion or adoption of an exclusive Taíno identity politically divisive?

In the video, Dr. Delgado claims that the assertion or adoption of an exclusive and privileged “Taíno” identity is not politically divisive and is important because it allows the individual to focus and examine more deeply his or her overall history, the indigenous past, and the individual’s family background—especially its alleged indigenous components. I strongly disagree with this assertion on both counts.  

Puerto Ricans and other Caribbean Latinos/as who adhere in some way to a nationalist tripartite or creolized ethnic identity based on the European, the African, and the Amerindian (which is in fact the reality) are certainly capable of examining deeply the history of their homelands and their individual family histories, including the indigenous past. The experience of the Puerto Ricans in the Diaspora, as opposed to that of the islanders, is or may be different in this regard. Those of us in the Diaspora of a certain age remember clearly and with great dismay how Puerto Rico was not included AT ALL in the classes or curricula of the mainland elementary and secondary schools, and also in the colleges and universities—even in college courses that focused on Latin America in general, except for brief comments as an afterthought in the discussion of the 1898 “Spanish-American War.” There was nothing, Nada, except stories that we sometimes heard from our parents with regard to the subject if they happened to be informed about Puerto Rican history in some way. This was not usually the case because of the overwhelming and largely beleaguered and under-educated working class background of the huge migrant cohort that came to New York and other mostly northeastern communities of the U.S. during the period 1945 to 1965. 

The great Nuyorican awakening of mostly young people in the late 1960s and early 1970s was extremely important in bringing a Puerto Rican focus into the classes and curricula of U.S. mainland educational institutions. The newly politicized views of the generation of the late 1960s and early 1970s, along with the awakening of many parents and the support of Puerto Rican professionals, resulted in the demand for the inclusion Puerto Rico in the curricula of elementary and secondary schools. At the College level, there was the confrontational but successful campaign led by Puerto Rican students and supported by many professionals to include courses on Puerto Rico and the Spanish-Speaking Caribbean in college curricula, along with demands for the establishment in academia of interdisciplinary Puerto Rican Studies Departments and programs. There were building takeovers, student arrests, often vehement resistance by college administrators and conservative faculty in discipline based departments, but the campaigns were largely successful, especially at the City University of New York, despite continued and consistent attacks on these departments and programs at the time and during the years that followed.

The view towards identity that emerged or was confirmed during this period was mostly that of the island nationalist ideal which promoted the mixed creolized or the more schematic tripartite model of the Spanish, Indian and African elements in the population make-up and culture of Puerto Ricans, or variations, such as an emphasis on the Indian and African as opposed to the European. The hispanophile model, which was still very influential on the island during this period, was largely rejected by Diasporan Puerto Ricans who adopted what was often called the “Rainbow” model of Puerto Rican identity and culture.[1]

Many or most of the young “Nuyoricans” of the late 1960s and early 1970s learned about the indigenous, African and mixed creolized history and culture of Puerto Ricans for the first time during this period, and this was also true of many of us in the previous generation of the 1940s and 1950s, including yours truly, who had the time and inclination to examine the subject. The creole model was also largely adopted by the new generation of mainland artists, writers, poets, and other cultural practitioners. For the most part, we were interested in ALL ASPECTS of our Puerto Rican background and many of us had the opportunity to study this experience deeply—even becoming professional educators at all levels of the mainland educational system in the years that followed. Some of us (relatively few I would argue) became totally focused on the indigenous past, and this led in some cases to the assertion or adoption of an exclusivist Taíno identity and the emergence in the Diaspora of the “revival movement” that continues to evolve up to the present time in connection with similar movements on the island.[2] However, most of us also adopted the new working class analysis of the young academics on the island—mostly on the political left—who began a deeper study of this aspect of Puerto Rican history, and who also supported the overwhelmingly working class Diasporans in their endeavors.[3]

I would argue that the overwhelming majority of Puerto Ricans on the island and the mainland (four million of us on the mainland at this point) see the assertion of an essentialist, exclusive and privileged Taíno identity as politically divisive on the island and even in Diasporan politics—especially because, as Delgado admits in the video, it is often promoted as a narrow alternative nationalist identity that is in conflict with the broader and largely accepted nationalist identity promoted on the island and officially in place since the establishment of commonwealth status sixty years ago. The call by contemporary Taínos for official recognition as some sort of tribe or nationalist entity within “The Puerto Rican Nation,” along with calls by some for “reparations,” “compensation,” “a national homeland” and control or management of indigenous lands on the island under U.S. law, is anathema to most persons in the political establishment of the island regardless of party or political affiliation.[4] It’s also largely rejected by most other Puerto Ricans in the Diaspora and the island who are familiar with this issue, and who see all of this as strange or weird at best, or politically divisive and dangerous at worst.

 

Is the “extinction” of the Pre-Columbian Indian population a myth?”

 

The word “extinction” is almost always defined broadly and simplistically by advocates of Taíno revival or survival when its use is applied to the pre-Columbian populations of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, and what happened to these populations in the years after the Spanish conquest and colonization of the sixteenth century. As Dr. Delgado admits, historians, social scientists, professionals in the humanities, and others have defined and applied the word “extinction” in a more nuanced way, and this was certainly the case, according to Dr. Delgado, before the early 1950s and the establishment of the commonwealth government. His interesting critique of the commonwealth government, its promotion of the tripartite model of mixed ethnic identity and the implementation of cultural and educational policies that allegedly erased the “living Taíno” actually undercuts the assertion made by the contemporary Taínos that claims that academia has always conspired to suppress the true history of “indigenous survival.”[5]

 

In actuality, most professional historians and other social scientists have (and had) defined and applied the word “extinction” biologically to the previously isolated, pure blooded, pre-Columbian indigenous population of Puerto Rico and the other islands of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean with this kind of extinction taking place (with perhaps a few exceptions) in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth centuries. Academics also have promoted the idea that there has, or had been, indigenous cultural survival, along with partial biological survival, through ethnic mixing with Spaniards, Africans and others that eventually results in the emergence of an ethnically hybrid population with a creolized culture in all areas of Puerto Rico in the decades and centuries that follow the biological extinction of the pure bloods. This has certainly been the view of most professional historians, starting with Salvador Brau at the beginning of the 1900s if not earlier, and it continues up to the present time.[6] It’s also the model that has not been disproven despite recent efforts by some academics and advocates of Taíno survival.[7] There also is the frequent reference to the “Indians” who were suddenly counted in the official enumerations of the island’s population in the late 1700s after a hiatus of some 250 years, but in all likelihood, these “Indians” were also probably hybrids in actuality, which was the case with regard to most indigenous groups in the Americas by the eighteenth century. There also is the debate as to whether these defined “Indians” were descendants of the original Taíno population or “Indians” brought to the island from elsewhere during this period or earlier. Most academics—including some advocates of Taíno survival—have concluded that they were actually outsiders.[8]

 

It’s clear that the over the top, emotionally based hatred of the term “extinction” by contemporary Taínos is based more on politics than anything else. Contemporary Taínos reject the term in any way that it might be used because it establishes a disconnect between the contemporary groups and the pre-Columbian Taínos. Nevertheless, the disconnect still exists at the same time that the contemporary Taínos would minimize and work to deny the reality of their ethnic hybridity and creole culture. It is true that the history of the indigenous needs to be articulated and taught in a more nuanced way—perhaps promoting the use of terms such as “decimate” or “near extinction” as opposed to “extinction,” which are terms that have been increasingly used in recent years. However, advocates of the narrow, exclusivist and privileged indigenous identity also need to realize that the actual reality of the Puerto Rican experience has been one of ethnic hybridity and cultural creolization as reluctantly admitted at times, but dismissed or erased as unimportant by contemporary Taínos in their discourses. In the video, Dr. Delgado states that he has been looking for Indian survival—especially in the mountainous interior of Puerto Rico since the mid-1960s, and that if “we” are not interested and don’t look for the Indians in this region, we won’t find them. The same can also be said of the Spaniards, the Africans and the others who migrated into these regions from the sixteenth to the end of the nineteenth century. If we don’t look for these people and develop an understanding of the ethnic hybridity and cultural creolization that took root and evolved over time in these regions, we won’t find them. At this point, we still don’t know very much about what happened in the interior of the island during the period 1500 to at least the late 1700s (and perhaps the late 1800s) because of the very fragmentary evidence that we have and the large gaps in the historical chronology which still prevail for these regions. It is unfortunate that these problems provide a big opening for all sorts of exaggerated speculation and claims made by advocates of Taíno survival and their supporters in academia and elsewhere.

 

The reality of ethnic hybridity and cultural creolization among Puerto Ricans since the late sixteenth or early seventeeth century.

 

1. Preliminary comments on the impact of epidemics on the indigenous population of Puerto Rico (however defined) and everyone else from the 1490s to the 1760s.

 

As noted earlier, the reality of ethnic hybridity and cultural creolization that takes place in Puerto Rico over the long term has not been disproved or invalidated despite efforts by advocates of Taíno revival and survival to minimize or totally reject even the possibility of ethnic hybridity and cultural creolization[9] The old Puerto Rican story as told by professional historians and other social scientists since at least the beginning of the 1900s still prevails. The pure blooded pre-Columbian Taíno population of Puerto Rico probably became extinct everywhere on the island by the end of sixteenth or early seventeenth centuries as a result of warfare, exploitative abuse, and the widespread epidemics that decimated the indigenous population and its economy during this period. 

It is true that Taínos escaped into the mountains and to other islands of the Caribbean during this period, but we still don’t know how many. Dr. Delgado and advocates of Taíno revival and survival cannot provide any numbers with regard to the escapees or those who were already resident in the mountainous regions during this period. Dr. Delgado makes little or no reference to the epidemics and how these very serious contagions might have spread into the mountainous regions of the island during this period and later without the actual presence of Europeans and Africans in these areas. Research that focuses on other parts of Latin America—in Mexico, Central America, and especially in Peru, demonstrate that epidemics of measles, smallpox, typhus, the common cold and other contagions impacted Native Americans with devastating effect even in allegedly isolated communities in the months or years before the actual arrival of European settlers.[10]  There is a general consensus that epidemics were an important contributing factor in the immediate and apparent near extinction of the indigenous populations of Puerto Rico, Cuba and Santo Domingo, but again, along with other factors, we don’t know to what extent this was the case because of the lack of data, and also because of the problematic comments that were made by Spanish officials and others during this period. Nevertheless, historian Fernando Picó notes that epidemics affecting all Puerto Ricans were most probably important factors in keeping the island population at low levels into the early eighteenth century, after which there were noticeably fewer reported epidemics. Ultimately, and despite the claims made consistently by spokespersons for the Taíno revival and survival movement, there is no evidence that large numbers of pure or even mixed-blood Indians survived in isolated communities in the mountainous interior regions of Puerto Rico after the 1530s. There are no reported numbers and references are very fragmentary at best.[11] Additional research is required to hopefully clarify this issue, along with a deeper investigation of the factors that should contribute to our understanding of how a hybrid population and creole culture clearly emerged in the interior regions of Puerto Rico and elsewhere on the island by the late 1700s.

 

2. Other biological and environment factors that contribute to the emergence of cultural creolization and a hybrid population in Puerto Rico’s interior, 1508-1850s and beyond.
 

Evidence for the emergence of cultural creolization and a hybrid population in the interior regions of the island already exists for the period 1508 to the 1850s and beyond. First, there are the inevitable biological and environmental factors. Historians and other social scientists point to evidence that Spaniards, Africans and other Europeans migrated into the interior regions of the island soon after the colonization began. However, as in the case of the Taínos, we have no numbers for these migrants for the entire period from the early 1500s to the 1740s. Dr. Delgado and advocates for Taíno survival also admit to this influx, but they minimize its importance, or they erase it from their narrative based on their ideas with regard to “absorption” and/or “assimilation,” but the facts begin to tell us otherwise. There are reports that small cattle and farming enterprises (estancias) were established by migrant settlers in the interior of the island in the final decades of the sixteenth century as a replacement for the collapsed mining industry.[12] However, there also is evidence that at least initially, many Spaniards, Africans and others gave up their habits and practices and adopted the economy, technology and life style of the indigenous peoples at least initially.[13] It’s also probably true that the biological component of the Indian was initially greater as the hybrid population of the interior evolved. However, Stan Steiner, who is an important source for advocates of Taíno survival, believes that the sixteenth century cultural connection that emerged between Africans and Indians was on balance equal, when he states (ignored by contemporary Taínos) that :

 

“In the early years of slavery (16th century), it was the Jelofe (Wolof) tribesmen of Senegal who were most often shipped to Puerto Rico…. It was the Jelofes who led the way into the mountains, to freedom, where they joined the Borinqueños in their hidden caves and villages…. As a tribal people, the Jelofes and the Borinqueños lived in somewhat similar ways. They had common beliefs. They knew similar trees and gods and spirits. They ate roots and fruits that were familiar, for both were men and women of the tropics. So they understood one another better than either understood the behavior of the Europeans…. The African men on the island outnumbered the black women by four to one; so it was natural that these men sought Indian women as lovers. And the children born of these matings created the strongest bonds between the slaves and the Indians.” [14]

 

There are also other factors that support the beginnings of biological, environmental and cultural hydbridization in the interior regions of Puerto Rico during the sixteenth century. In addition to viruses and bacteria that led to epidemic disease, the Spaniards also introduced many “old world” plants and animals into the island environment. These quickly found their way into the mountainous regions of Puerto Rico soon after their arrival. They included cows, horses, pigs, goats, chickens, donkeys, mules, and especially plantains, which quickly became a staple along with yucca, corn (maíz), yams and the other native crops. The royal government gave permission to the settlers to allow their animals to roam freely without and branding, which must have been truly devastating for the indigenous economy because of the initial lack of fencing and other safeguards needed to protect native crops. As a result, the animals were said to be everywhere on the island by the end of the sixteenth century [15], with the presence of animals and their consumption by residents confirmed for the interior regions of Puerto Rico by the middle of the 1700s.

In his 1776 survey of conditions on the island, Fray Iñigo Abbad y Lasierra makes reference to the hunting of animals by families that live at considerable distance from the towns, and notes that they raised chickens for sale, but also consumed the meat. Abbad also makes reference to the use of horses, oxen, donkeys and mules for transport and the planting and consumption of plantains, rice, aguardiente (a crude rum), coffee (with honey), milk, and the undercooking of pork, which is consumed “dripping with blood.”[16] These reports contradict Dr. Delgado’s claim in the video that the mostly “indigenous” population of the island’s interior were resistant or did not consume these foods until the twentieth century. His attempt to perhaps deny or minimize the on-going creolization of the interior is also contradicted by the use of technology and other items that were introduced from the outside prior to the 1770s. It is certainly true that the population was inclined to live in bohios and used technology originally employed by the Taínos of the pre-Columbian period, but they also used spoons (cucharas), glass bottles, machetes, and also wore clothing that is later seen in nineteenth century photographs, such as the simple shirts (camisa), pants (calzoncillos) and straw hats with no shoes for men, and a long dress, bandana, and the mantilla used by women when they went to church—another sybcretism.[17] 

The cultural creolization that took root in the island’s interior throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was reinforced by the demographic changes that began to take place in in the early 1700s. The population began to grow through natural increase during this period as an apparent result of better diets (including the increased availability and consumption of meat), fewer epidemics, lower mortality rates, continued high birth rates and a better ratio of men to women.[18]. There was also a movement into the interior of small scale farmers and cattle ranchers from the coastal regions of the island at the same time that the Royal government became less resistant to the establishment towns which had been opposed by the larger cattle ranchers of the region who were in competition with the mostly small subsistence farmers of the region.[19] Utuado (Otoao) was finally established as a formal inland community in the years 1734-1739. The community had its parish church built with its first resident priest in 1746. Sebastián de Morfi (Murphy) was appointed and served as the first teniente de guerra in charge of the local militia created in the years 1745-1747. The militia was reported to have been divided into two companies with a total of 126 soldiers in 1759. A total of 608 persons, along with fifty slaves were also enumerated in the Marshal Alejandro O’Reilly survey of 1765.[20]


More importantly, the population of Utuado began a period of growth with considerable ethnic diversity in the years that followed. As a result, the following figures are recorded in Abbad y Lasierra eleven years after the O’Reilly survey:[21]

 

Population of Utuado, 1776

Defined as Whites…………………..........……T=640….....57.3%

Defined as Pardos Libres……………......….T=410… ....36.7%

Defined as Negros Libres and Slaves......T=67…......6.0%

Total……………………………..................….T=1117......100.0%

Indians are of course not counted in Abbad’s enumeration, but we can assume that a biological component of the Indian was part of the make-up of a significant, if unknown number of residents in Utuado during this period, along with the European and African—again demonstrating ethnic hybridity in the population. It is important at this point, to note that Abbad y LaSierra was himself quite clear about the ethnic diversity of the island’s population. He was also clear on the legal and status definition of pardos libres, along with most other colonial officials in the northern and Caribbean parts of the Spanish Empire. Pardos libres, were seen as mixtures of Europeans and sub-Saharan Africans—not as “Indians” as Castanha claims in his book. Nor were they seen as mestizos, or mixtures of the European and Indian as seen by Martínez Cruzado and rigidly and officially defined by colonial officials. It is clear from his text that Pardos libres were seen by Abbad as the majority component of Puerto Rico’s overall population, and as mixtures of Black and white when, but it’s also true that he knew of the existence of defined Indians on the island when he wrote his survey.

 

For example, Abbad makes reference to the founding of Añasco near the western coast of the island in 1733 by both “Spaniards,” and also “Indians” from the town’s mountainous hinterlands. But he also notes that by 1776, the town’s residents are “very dark in color” in part because of climate, and in part because of the mixture of Indians with other “castas” such as Spaniards, Africans and others, who in his words, “typify the island’s population.” This is not quite the story told by Delgado in his blog or video interview. Abbad also makes reference to the “numerous” militia of “Indians” in the town of San German later in his survey, but he also notes again that there are actually “few” of them because most had “mixed with other castas.” In other words, Abbad is aware of the existence of designated Indians in Puerto Rico’s population, but he also appears to see them as largely creolized, probably too small in number, and perhaps not worth enumerating as a separate group in his statistics.[22]


Other towns were also founded in the mountainous interior but they were mostly established in the nineteenth century. The evidence that survives suggests that the pace of migration from the coast to the interior continued or increased during this period, but Picó argues that the majority of the migrants were initially resident islanders as opposed to the foreign immigrants who also began to arrive on the island in increased numbers after the Haitian slave uprising in 1791.[23] There were also the policies of the Royal government that encouraged the economic development of the interior (e.g.: Cédula de Gracias, 1815) as reflected in the earlier policy suggestions of O’Reilly, Abbad Lasierra and others in the eighteenth century.[24] Historian Laird Bergad has studied the founding and development of nineteenth-century Lares, another important town in the mountainous interior of Puerto Rico which was founded in 1827. He provides the following figures for the town’s population from 1842 to 1878:[25]

 

Population of Lares, Puerto Rico, Selected Years, 1842-1878

1842

 
Defined as Whites…...2,246/47.8%
Free Mulatos............ 2,344/49.9%  
Free Blacks/Slaves.......111/02.3% 
                          T = 4,701/100%
1868 
Defined as Whites...12,536/83.2%  
Free Colored............2,322/15.5% 
Slaves.......................216/01.2%                    
                       T=15,074 / 100%

1870
Defined as Whites...11,886/86.8% 
Free Colored............1,623/11.9%
Slaves.......................171/01.4%
                         T=13,680/100%
1878
Defined as Whites...12,536/86.6%
Free Colored........... 2,256/13.4%
Slavery ended/1873 
                       ..T=16,824/100%

The sharp increase in the number and percentage of “whites” in Lares in the twenty-six years between 1842 and 1868 needs investigation, as is the case with the change that takes place in the categorization from “freemulatos” to “free colored” as recorded by Bergad for these years. 1868 is also the year of the “Grito de Lares” revolt, but it’s not clear from the source whether the enumeration took place before or after the uprising. However, there are also figures that Professor Bergad was able to find, list and analyze with regard to the farming of areas devoted to non-native crops and their consumption when he did his research. These figures, along with others for non-Native animals listed for Utuado by O’Reilly in the previous century (1765) are as follows: [26]
 

Animals in Utuado, 1765—Originally Imported by Spanish Colonists

Horses………….....……249
Mules……………......……19
Donkeys………..….......14
Cattle and Oxen…….667
Sheep…………….......…39
Goats……….…......………3
Pigs…………....…....…320
Total…………......….1,311

 

Areas farmed with Non-Native Crops, 
Lares Puerto Rico, 1842.
(Cuerdas = 0.9 acres)

Plantains---about 100 cuerdas.
Rice--------about 100 cuerdas
Coffee------about 30,000 trees
Oranges----about 2,000 trees

Other evidence also exists that points to the continued creolization of society and culture in the interior regions of Puerto Rico—especially in the later part of the nineteenth-century. There was an apparent sharp increase in the number of immigrants who migrated to the highlands after 1868 as the commercial coffee growing sector of the region also underwent a dramatic expansion. This was reflected in the formal allocation of all vacant land on the island by the 1880s.[27] It was also reflected in the equally dramatic increase in the population of highland towns. The average population increase for interior communities such as Lares and Las Marías during the period 1867-1899 was 45%, but in Utuado it was 121% and in Ciales it was 169%.[28] According to Picó, most of the traders in Utuado in the earlier year of 1848 were already identified as “Spanish.” In Lares, they were mostly Catalans and Mallorcans.[29] These patterns at all levels of the interior social hierarchy continued up until and beyond the U.S. occupation of the island in 1898. Although the Spanish regime at times tried to enforce the policies regarding the traditional racialist hierarchy or casta system based on distinctions between whites, mulatos and Blacks (etc.), most of the population in the lower levels of society ignored the decrees that were issued in this regard—especially in the interior highlands. Ethnic mixing and the resultant hybridity apparently continued apace during the period 1868 to 1899 and beyond. It is said that the hybrid (not Indian) Jibaro of the highland interior turned into the “typical Puerto Rican during this period.” [30]

 

3. Factors contributing to the specifics of cultural creolization in Puerto Rico’s interior, 1493-1900.

 

Evidence also exists for the specific creolization of culture in the interior highland regions of the island during the entire Spanish colonial period and beyond. The evolving hybrid based mostly on elements of African, European and indigenous culture continued to evolve in styles of dress, personal appearance, music and the other arts in popular culture. This hybridity was noticed, articulated and even promoted by a number of Puerto Rican writers and other cultural practitioners starting in the mid nineteenth-century and despite the promotion by conservative elites of a European/Hispanophile culture exemplified by the establishment of the Ateneo Puertorriqueño in San Juan in 1876.[31] The syncretism also continued to evolve in the areas of religion and spirituality. In reality, it continued to be difficult for people living at a considerable distance from interior towns to attend Catholic mass on Sundays and to also participate in the more than forty feast days that had been established on the island and its interior by the late eighteenth century. As a result, there was an emphasis by these people on the saying of the Catholic rosary in private and the placement of domestic altars in their homes. African elements, including those derived from Santería, were also incorporated into the Catholicism established in the highlands, along with the spiritualism (espiritismo) of Europe which was grafted onto the spiritualism and religious practices and beliefs of the pre-Columbian Taínos.[32] This was a syncretism—a hybrid, and not the “absorption,” “assimilation” or the erasure of these elements as articulated by Castanha, Delgado and the other advocates or supporters of Taíno revival in their discourses on the indigenous. The many feast days devoted to Saint Anthony, Saint Blaise, Saint Francis, the Archangel Michael, the Apostles, the Virgin Mary and the Puerto Rican Saint Rose were also reduced in number during the course of the nineteenth-century because they were seen as being too great in number by the owners of the new coffee plantations and other enterprises that were established in the interior during this period. They lobbied for their reduction because of the negative impact on productivity, and they were largely successful in their campaign to reduce their number by the end of the century.[33] We can also speculate that the reduction of feast days also contributed to the syncretism in religious belief and spirituality, and also to the encouragement of private religious practices and the establishment of altars in people’s homes, etc.

 

Delgado also makes a big deal about the linguistic influences of the indigenous on the Spanish spoken in the interior highland regions of the island. He makes reference to place names, the names of products, and the use of indigenous words in the vernacular of Puerto Rico, but this is well known and commonplace throughout the Americas regardless of the significant presence or absence of Amerindian peoples. For example, indigenous based words from the Caribbean are used in New York (and elsewhere) including “canoe,” “hammock,” and “hurricane.” There also are the indigenous based place names of the New York region, such as Manhattan, Maspeth, Neponsit, and Canarsie. At one point, and based on a discussion that he had with anthropologist, Roberto Martínez Torres, Delgado emphasizes the alleged importance of the previously and supposedly unknown indigenous terms catei and caguama. The statements “pues aquí, dando catei” (well here, creating mayhem) and saca la caguama” (take out the head) are quoted by Delgado, but somehow, he fails to recognize or articulate the obvious—that these words are used in Spanish sentences, and that this constitutes a hybridity—a syncretism, which is also typical of the vernacular of all languages spoken in the Americas and not an “absorption” into the indigenous, although in this case it clearly seems like it’s the absorption of the Indian into the Spanish.[34]

 

It also needs to be emphasized at this point that advocates of indigenous revival and survival, along with their supporters in academia and elsewhere emphasize the importance—historical, biological, cultural, and otherwise—of the mountainous interior of Puerto Rico when they make their claims for a rigidly exclusive and privileged “Taíno” identity. This has been done primarily through the collection of oral testimonies,[35] but it’s interesting to note how relatively few persons have identified as indigenous in places like Lares, Utuado, Las Marías (where the Indieras is located) and other towns in the region in the 2010 census. The following figures are instructive: persons who identified as Native American or Alaska Native averaged 0.23% on average in the six selected towns. 101 individuals also specified their indigenous identity. These persons may, or most of them probably are, individuals who have self-identified as “Taíno.” However, 89.2% or just under 90.0% of the total population of the six selected communities self-identified as “white,” and as a colleague of mine from the region expressed it at on point, many of these individuals are discreetly, privately, or even assertively proud (orgulloso) of their European origins.[36]

 

Population of Selected Towns 
in the Interior of Puerto Rico, 2010 Census.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

                    Lares                Jayuya           Las Marías

“White”   28,006/91.1%   15,094/90.7%    8,523/86.3%
“Black”        926/03.0%        566/03.4%  

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