T AÍNO RESUR GENCE


Women and girls of Concilio Taíno Guatu-ma-cu a Borikén do an areíto (ceremonial dance and song) in Puerto Rico’s Susúa forest, April 2018. This forest is a significant site for the community, and is where they hold an annual naming ceremony that is open to the public.


On the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, Cacique Gypsy Córdova (right) of the cultural-religious community Yukayeke Taíno a Borikén conducts a healing ceremony in July 2018 using rolled tobacco, the salvia plant, and incensed resin of the endemic tabonuco tree (Dacryodes excels).


ancestral communion and healing, as in espir- itismo del cordon (Cordon Spiritism). In Cuba, practitioners of the Cordon dance in a circle, stepping, holding hands and swinging their arms while chanting, producing a trance that invokes disembodied entities and facilitates healings. According to performance studies scholar Jorge Luis Morejón, these elements derive directly from the ancient Taíno areíto (ceremonial song-dance). A pivotal, yet overlooked, feature of what


inspires and drives Taíno resurgence is what people describe as profound and personal experiences of the “spiritual” kind. Prophetic dreaming, clairvoyant or clairaudient phe- nomena and relationships with india/o spirits have propelled many people towards an urgent reconnection with neglected ances- tors and forgotten traditions. This includes reviving ancient Taíno rituals and ceremonies lost through colonialism and the imposed domination of Christianity. It also includes a regeneration of ancestral rural lifeways that diminished through migration, urbanization and economic restructuring, which is espe- cially salient for Puerto Ricans. Religion has been deeply embedded in the colonial enterprise and experience, and


22 AMERICAN INDIAN FALL 2018


so, for many Taíno, it is a fundamental focus of decolonization efforts. While many Taíno today practice diverse faiths like Christianity, Judaism or Lukumí, following a spirituality that is distinctly Taíno is a strong current that runs through the resurgence movement. Expressive of this yearning is Concilio Taíno. The group’s Cacique Martin Cacibaopil Ve- guilla explains that the religions practiced currently in Puerto Rico are all rooted in the cultures of distant lands. Veguilla lament- ingly asks, “But who practices that of the Taí- no? No one, because no one remembers it.” Through the guidance of channeled ancient abuelas and cemis (primordial, ancestral guardians), Concilio Taíno is resurrecting a Taíno spirituality that emerges from and speaks directly to their homeland. Ancestral lands and geographical features


therein nourish Taíno and provide a deep sense of belonging and vitality of body and soul, a relationship that Miguel Sagué believes should ideally inform one’s religious identity and practice. “If a Taíno is following a Chris- tian path,” he states, “that tradition includes all kinds of foreign elements that don’t have to do with us historically…. What do we have to do with the Jordan River? We have to do with the Toa River [in Cuba]. We have to do with rivers in Puerto Rico and in the Dominican Repub- lic…. Our physical geography is part of our spiritual geography.” As founder of the Caney Indigenous Spiritual Circle, Sagué trains new generations of bohitiu (shaman-healers) and behike (ceremonial leaders) according to a re-


constructed Taíno mysticism that reflects this relationship to Caribbean geographies, stories and elements. Elsewhere there has been growing inter-


est in reviving the ancient Taíno medicine, cohoba. Cohoba is an entheogenic snuff made from a mix of ground seashells and the crushed beans of the cojóbana tree (Anade- nathera peregrine) that ancient Taíno inhaled nasally using a Y-shaped pipe, also called cohoba. They revered cohoba for opening a direct portal to the ordinarily unseen ances- tral realm. There, Taíno received prophetic visions and warnings, and consulted with ancestral beings on matters such as warfare, healing and harvesting. Jorge Estévez, Do- minican Taíno and Smithsonian researcher for the Caribbean Indigenous Legacies Project, shares that while shamanistic use of the medicine ceased, “the act of making the cohoba itself never died.” He references Do- minican farmers who still prepare it to treat sick livestock, calling it abey. “The Spanish never recorded the preparation and yet these people know exactly how to make it.” Within the Taíno movement, cohoba is being slowly and carefully re-introduced as a ceremonial medicine, building on comparative research on related medicines in South America like the yopo. An important elder who has been instrumental in reviving it said of the cohoba: “She is a woman and she is a teacher.” From the teachings of cohoba, the in-


structions of abuelas, and the meaningful experiences of the “world alive,” the feminine


PHOTO BY JOANNA MARTÍNEZ


PHOTO BY CHRISTINA M. GONZÁLEZ


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