THE IDOL OF PATANA


BY JOSÉ BARREIRO


tury as the “Idol of Patana,” it is a significant piece in the cosmology, or the understanding of the universe, of the Caribbean’s Taíno peo- ple. It is also a focus of international tension. Archeologist Mark Harrington spot-


A


ted the iconic idol in 1915 while excavating a remote cave on the easternmost coast of Cuba. As a researcher and buyer for George Gustav Heye—whose collection of American antiquities in New York formed the nucleus of the National Museum of the American Indian—Harrington explored many archaeo- logical sites of Cuban Indians who belong to the Taíno culture. This culture (which some archaeologists prefer to call the “agro-potter” culture) encompasses the original grouping of Indigenous inhabitants of the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas.


16 AMERICAN INDIAN SUMMER 2019


carved stalagmite from eastern Cuba sits in the col- lection of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. Known to archaeologists for a cen-


THE TROUBLED HISTORY OF THE TAÍNO DEITY OF BOINAYEL


Archaeologist Mark Harrington (second from left), sitting under a chikee with a Seminole family in Florida in 1908. He would leave to excavate in Cuba just a few years later. NMAI/P37386


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