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FEATURE STORY...

The Eagle, Condor and Thunderbird

Part I

By Carol Perez Petersen - Elk Looks Back/Aguila Blanca

March 21, 2006

Brilliant red, scarlet ponchos and Andean wool hats were worn by the Aymara military men.  They were all into their 50’s with rough and deeply line skin unprotected from the sun bearing down through a hole in the ozone layer above us.   Women wore full pleated satin skirts and bowler hats perched slightly to the side. Their faces had broken purple capillaries cheeks from the lack of oxygen at 13,000 feet.   A quarter of a million maybe more people dancing with Coca leaf banners waving up and down to pan pipes filled the air.

Amawta Valentin Mejillones Acarapi my elder brother head of the Council of Mystical Knowledge of Tiwanaku, Bolivia invited me to attend the spiritual ritual ceremony for Aymara President Evo Morales at Tiwanaku.  He said, “I will pass the sacred staff to him.  “Bring your ceremonial dress.” 

This journey did not begin here it began 30 years ago when I began to walk with a sacred pipe. It led me to Patagonia in 2005 where I met with the spiritual leaders of seven nations:  Toba, Guarani, Mapuche, Maya, Wichi, Aymara and Guarpe.  At this meeting they invited me to sit in their circle and I was to introduce myself in the same friendly manner as did they.

I said, “I am Carol Perez Petersen; my mother is born in Mazatepelt, place of the Deer, Nicaragua, Central America.  My father is born in Tyler, Minnesota near a beautiful quarry where they have red stone to make the peace pipe.  He is Danish.”  The Aymara read my coca leaves and said, “The place of the North is where the mouth of Earth Mother is.” The Maya elder said, “Soon you will read from the book of time and you will do something no one else has been able to do.”  I was asked to build a medicine wheel in the Indigenous Park in Buenos Aires and to be their voice, the voice of the South to the North.

When I came home I had several messages letters of my council positions and signatures that took a year to acquire.  I had been asked to join the Consejo de Saber Qullo, Council of Mystical Knowledge and was invited to Tiwanaku, Bolivia for my consecration.  “Bring your elders,” they said.  Alas what elders do I have here in the north I wondered?

When I returned I heard a call to attend Treaty 1-11 at Enoch Reserve near Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.   I met the sacred bundle carrier and visited Onion Lake with special elders whom I could pray with. We placed the cloth in the fire and all had a turn in singing.  It was the day of the first snows.  They cared for a little girl whose parents are burdened with alcohol addiction.  Her name is White Buffalo Calf Woman.  When they opened their front door for me she screamed with delight.  She is my elder. 

While at the Treaty 1-11 when the leaves fall I received a message from a spirit lieutenant who follows Lead Thunderbird of Soto and Anishinabe Nations of Turtle Island

Kitchi O-Stew Ka-Nee-Ka-Na-Go-Shick Okimow-Wacon Ka-Nee-Ka-Neet.  I believe the pipe leads the way.  I was given Clan Mother Title and protection with Peace and Friendship Treaty papers to bring to the Amawta elders and native government officials of Bolivia.

I entered the ceremonial pyramid grounds a spotted eagle feather was given to me.  I tied it to my hair.  This feather had strength and endurance it parted through crushing throngs of people. It rained hard, then cleared and the sun was like a hot mirror of white light.

Evo came down the hill walking beside Amawta Valentin. The press were everywhere with camera’s poised and clicking.  The people were barricaded off in a distant.  President Evo Morales spoke for a time then only a few representatives from other indigenous nations gave him gifts.  The feather in my hair was wafting in the wind.  The voices of my ancestors were speaking.  “You must go and present me to Evo,” I heard. I had to act fast. Within seconds I had an interpreter.  She was from Peru and could speak perfect English.  “We must go now, she said.”  The organizers were working fast they rushed me forward down a gauntlet of Andean dog soldiers in heavy woolen ponchos.

I insisted I was from Turtle Island but they said the USA. The crowd booed.  It was a humbling experience to walk through.  I wasn’t prepared for the cry of oppression. I recognized the pain but you cannot boo it away.  It must be transformed.

Three years prior I couldn’t walk a step without excruciating pain.  The tendons in my ankles had torn and I was homeless.  I wandered to a valley, where my car was the 4^th in a collision.  Totaled unable to be repaired I wondered was I to stay put or find a way to buy a better car and hit the road.  It was dad’s car.  He had passed on in his sleep on the day of Earth Mother, Pachamama, Dec 12, 1999. In the spirit world, he was supporting my destiny.

I was sleeping in a borrowed RV eyeballing a house across the way.  Finally I had the nerve to knock on the door.  We saw a pair of eagles flying above us and he offered me his home where I did the impossible I got better.  It was hard and painful.  There were only steep hill for me to practice and regain my strength.  I fought off the demons of depression while voices of peacemaking gently lifted my spirits.  I took small steps with gifts from nature and enormous visions filled my heart.

In the South pain has brought everyone together in a moveable positive way.  In the north pain still keeps the nations apart from each other.   I kept my head held high above the fury of hatred towards the American government. I was beckoned to the pyramidal steps and began to climb up them.

Evo stood like an Andean god dressed in ancient symbols. He is a mighty chief wearing an orange tunic and the hat of the four directions, coca leaf with flower wreaths around his chest, he held a sacred staff in his hands.

I stood face to face with him gazing into his soft warm eyes. Transfixed I held the micro phone and a voice came pure and strong.  I am the voice of the Eagle, the heart of the Bear and the Strength of the Buffalo Nations of Turtle Island.  In the same breath while I continued speaking the crowd in the distant roared with enthusiasm. This was the sound of a great healing, a mending of the sacred hoop, the lands of our common ancestors.

I continue with dignity, “I am the Eyes and Ears of Kitchi O-Stew Ka-Nee-Ka-Na-Go-Shick Okimow-Wacon Ka-Nee-Ka-Neet, the Heart of Indian Title and Sovereign Inheritor of The Great Turtle Island. I am here to share Creator's good message of Unity for the Eagle and the Condor here and now with honor for all people a land without borders.  While emphasizing the courage of the Aymara nation and their perseverance for justice through wisdom, I took the eagle feather out of my hair and passed it to Evo, the Apus Malku, traditional leader of an ancient world, reborn in the heart and placement of precise cosmology with the Galactic center Tiwanaku 

The eagle feather destined by prophesies to mate with the Condor was broadcasted all throughout Latin American on CNN. It was tied to the hair of a woman sovereign in spirit, born of original innocence and freed to fly into a kingdom of heaven.   One who was able to bear the weight of nations, balanced the heart of the meek with the humble on a scale measured against the weigh of the sacred union Eagle with Condor  From that union the Thunderbird people are born.

The Thunderbird Nation and The Milky Way to be continued. Part II 

OPINION PAGE...

Manataka received the following email in late April and we felt you might be interested in our response.

RUMOR OR FACT?

We received a message containing the following information.  Can anyone verify the veracity of this information:

Bird Flu Pandemic is a scare tactic to make millions of dollars

• 'Bird flu' was discovered in Vietnam 9 years ago and only 100 people have died worldwide in that time.

• Americans alerted the world as to the efficacy of the human antiviral Tamiflu as a preventative.

• The efficacy of Tamiflu against the common flu is questioned by a great part of the scientific community.

• Roche Laboratories markets Tamiflu.

• Gilead Sciences, Inc. bought the patent for Tamiflu from Roche Laboratories in 1996.

• Then president of Gilead Sciences was Donald Rumsfeld, the US Secretary of Defense who remains a major shareholder.

• Roche Laboratories controls 90% of the crushed aniseed used to make Tamiflu.

• Roche sales of Tamiflu was over $254 million in 2004 and more than $1000 million in 2005.

Please send verified facts to: manataka@sbcglobal.net   Thank you!

NEWS ALERT:

RED NATION WEB TELEVISION CHANNEL--
THE FIRST AMERICAN INDIAN CHANNEL FEATURING ALL AMERICAN INDIAN PROGRAMMING
SET TO MAKE ITS NATIONWIDE DEBUT ON MAY 1, 2006

Los Angeles - Red Nation Web Television Channel, is slated to make its nationwide debut on May 1, 2006, says Joanelle Romero, founder and creative director of the new web channel.  "Our aim is to make this year, 2006, the year the American Indian emerges on national web television. Our continuing efforts should make the industry and the public aware that it's time to
further broaden knowledge and cultural diversity on TV...time to THINK INDIAN." This is the first American Indian web television channel promoting America Indian films, music videos, documentaries (long and short forms) pilots, drama series, music specials and commercials.

Romero declares. "I simply got tired of being told NO when I proposed this idea to the industry and I, and others, got together
and decided that it was time for us, RED NATION as individuals and as an organization, to do something about it."

Joanelle Romero, humanitarian, actress, producer/director and activist, is spearheading this ground-breaking project. Apache,

Cheyenne and Jewish descent, Romero starred in the first American Indian woman's story ever produced for TV.
 

Made for CBS in 1977, A GIRL CALLED HATTER FOX brought a lot of attention to contemporary Indian problems. Later in her career, Romero directed the first American Indian Award Winning Holocaust film, AMERICAN HOLOCAUST: WHEN ITS  ALL
OVER I'LL STILL BE INDIAN.

The new American Indian Red Nation Web Channel is all about airing quality American Indian entertainment. It will draw from the vast pool of American Indian filmmakers, actors, producers and other entertainment entities to bring best of the work created by these members of the industry to the forefront and to audiences who can appreciate and enjoy their projects.  In building its place in show business, Red Nation Web Television intends to compete with all other networks in creating a bankable market in support of American Indian talents, and instill an image of a heritage that was and is still so important to the development of our country's heritage and growth.

The initial offering on the Red Nation Web Channel will be the first  produced in the U.S. American Indian drama series HOME, HOME ON THE REZ, starring Larry Sellers, Joanelle Romero, Elaine Miles, Elizabeth Sage and Conroy Chino. It  will air on May 1, 2006 on http://www.rednation.com  Produced in association with Spirit World Productions., it will be followed by an ever-growing agenda of top quality entertainment using all native casting and production as did the popular BILL COSBY television series.

The Red Nation Web Television Channel hopes to reach millions of viewers and to develop future productions through the organization's family company the Red Nation Media Entertainment Company. "In this day and age, to have the American
Indian's contemporary image on web/tv is more important than any other time in history, not only for economic status, but to make a giant step forward for our generation and for generations to come. We are aiming for a slow but steady growth in this unique endeavor but we believe in our ventures limitless possibilities," says Romero.

MEDIA ALERT: On MAY 1, 2006, watch for the debut of

Red Nation Web Television Channel!
http://www.rednation.com

Submitted by Jennifer WhiteFeather Attaway

NEWS ALERT:

Canada tribes fight off eviction

Six Nations protester in Ontario Indigenous Canadians occupying a construction site on land they claim as their own have rebuffed an overnight police attempt to force them out.

Protesters blocked an approach road to a half-finished housing project in Ontario, burning tires as police moved in and made several arrests.

The group has occupied the land for 52 days, insisting it was granted to native Canadians in 1784.   But the government says the site was ceded in 1841 to make way for a road.

Deputy Commissioner Maurice Pilon blamed protesters for agitating against police, saying "officers were required to use some force" in making a reported 16 arrests, Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper said.

Protesters blamed police for disrupting a peaceful occupation.

'Ready for more'

A judge granted an injunction in March to force the protesters, who call themselves the Six Nations, off the land in Caledonia, about 110km (70 miles) from Toronto.

Authorities held talks with occupation leaders but those discussions broke down earlier this week.

A spokesman for the group, Janie Jamieson, said police used pepper sprays and dragged people from the tents where they slept.

"The OPP [police] has made the decision to break the peace, and that's what's happened," she said.

The protesters were ready to continue their occupation and expected another visit from the police, she added.

Mr Pilon insisted the police wanted to resolve the long-running dispute.

"We would ask everyone to work with us in restoring calm," he said.

"Violence is certainly not the answer."

Police said they had no immediate plans to return to the site.

 

Submitted by Jennifer WhiteFeather Attaway

HISTORY.... 

The Caniba as "Canibal"

by Anthony Castanha, Copyright 2004

Indeed the radical dualism of the European response to the native Caribbean - fierce cannibal and noble savage - has such     obvious continuities with the classical Mediterranean paradigm that it is tempting to see the whole intricate web of colonial      discourse as weaving itself in its own separate space entirely unaffected by any observation of or interchange with native      Caribbean cultures (Hulme 1986).

Abdul JanMohamad notes the continuing legacy of colonialist "moral superiority," where the colonizer rarely question "the validity of either his own or his society's formation and that he will not be inclined to expend any energy in understanding the worthless alterity of the colonized."

This attitude spans a five hundred year gap in Puerto Rico, from Columbus' arrival to the contemporary colonial situation as depicted by the recent mass mobilization of citizens protesting and eventually ending the U.S. Navy bombing, desecration and military presence on the island of Bieke (Vieques). In terms of culture and identity, there is an implicit link between the two time periods. It was in 1492 when the colonial was conceptualized in Boriken. What the people there didn't know at the time was that Columbus' preconceived notion of the Carib of Caniba as "cannibal" had already taken form in the Herodotuian tradition, and they were IT.
Indeed, the western territory of Boriken was called "Caniba," or the "lizard" (Lamourt-Valentin 1998). As we will later see, the name "canibales" (or "cannibal") appears to originally derive from the word Caniba, and only thereafter came to be used as a marker of anthropophagy for the Caribe or Carib people of the region.

The meaning projected in Columbus' journal (Diario de Colon) of his first voyage would assist in dramatically altering the way of life and course of history in the Antilles. While the Indian people were conveniently divided into "good" and "evil" for the sake of the colonizer, the dominant perception of the people depicted back in Europe was that of the "cannibal," e.g., as portrayed by the antagonistic character "Caliban" in Shakespeare's The Tempest. This is what Roberto Fernandez-Retamar means when he says that
Caliban, the anagram for "cannibal," is our symbol (1989). The journal is where the term "canibales" first appears in a European text. Peter Hulme indicates it is here where the term comes to define the "Other" in the European imagination "with the practice of eating human flesh" (1986).

However, since the original journal and only known copy were lost in the mid-16th century, what has survived as the "journal" is a transcription of a handwritten abstract by Bartolome de Las Casas that was probably taken from the copy of the original (Ibid.). This complex history may obviously lend itself to inaccuracies, for instance if seen as a "genuine" account of the first voyage. Yet, when "bracketing particular questions of historical accuracy and reliability in order to see the text whole," the journal may take on more importance if simply seen as a narrative of unfolding events (Ibid.). The journal is significant as a piece of the puzzle needed to help understand the early colonial history of the region.

While on Cuba, Columbus records that his Indian translators told him there were people on the nearby island of Bohio ("Hispaniola") with "one eye in their foreheads," and others they called "canibales" who "eat them" and of whom "they showed great fear" (Las Casas, in Dunn and Kelly, eds., The Diario, 1989). Jose Barreiro alludes to this scenario in The Indian Chronicles when a cacike of Cuba, Bayamo, jokes to Columbus about the "bad men" from the south. The old people had said to him, "Watch out when you see those uglies coming!" (1993). These were "a bunch of jokes" being played on the Spanish in order "to get rid of them," says Oki Lamourt-Valentin (1998). It is important to stress here how two Caribbean Indian scholars draw analogies about "jokes" or games being played on the Spaniards with obvious implications that the notion of "cannibalism" was far-fetched. Lamourt-Valentin has been engaged in studying indigenous Caribbean matters for over twenty years and Barreiro for nearly as long.  Regarding Columbus' understanding of the native language, Hulme provides this explanation for the statement:

     More telling is what might be called the internal opacity of the statement. Columbus's 'record', far from being an observation
     that those people called 'canibales' ate other people, is a report of other people's words; moreover, words spoken in a

    language of which he had no prior knowledge and, at best, six weeks' practice in trying to understand (1986).

Indeed, Columbus himself notes that he communicated by "signs" with the Indian people, "because I do not understand them through speech" (The Diario, 1989).

Former Carib chief Irvince Auguiste of Dominica elaborates on the cannibal myth. He explains how in war a piece of the enemy's flesh might symbolically be eaten but in terms of human meat consumed as a staple food, the charge of cannibalism against his people is "a very wicked lie.... It goes back to the Spaniards, to the English. Columbus came to the new world looking for gold . . . he met the people inhabiting these islands and tried to enslave them. And the Carib people had enjoyed centuries of freedom, making their cassava bread and catching fish. Naturally they would retaliate against anyone trying to enslave them" (Auguiste, in Barreiro
1990). And Fernandez-Retamar's analysis of the making of the "cannibal" corresponds to the right wing of the bourgeoisie of the time, "the typically degraded vision offered by the colonizer of the man he is colonizing" (1989). Though sides of the same political coin, this view contrasted with the left wing bourgeois vision of the "New World" as depicted in Thomas More's Utopia. These competing ideologies informed Columbus' thought. The indigenous peoples were at first no less than angels but soon after became despised. As we see below, the Greek author Herodotus' invention of the "barbarian" during the Greek and Persian wars
helped to create the image of the "cannibal" or "savage" on that first voyage.

It is also important to note how the Carib or Caribe was thought to reside in the "Greater Antilles," where the "peaceful Arawak" were supposed to be. In fact, the Arawak did not penetrate the Antillean region (Lamourt-Valentin 2002; Rouse 1992). The belief in a Carib presence, not ironically, is repeatedly recorded in the latter half of the journal and on Columbus' last stop in "Hispaniola." It was the indigenous peoples of the region who ascribed the names "Carib" and "Caribes" to a people (Las Casas, in Dunn and Kelly, 1989), not Columbus. Eugenio Fernandez-Mendez points out that it is evident to many writers that the Carib were present in the northern
Antilles in ancient times (1972). According to Fernandez-Retamar, "Before the arrival of the Europeans, whom they resisted heroically, the Carib Indians were the most valiant and warlike inhabitants of the very lands that we occupy today" (1989). When Columbus then asks about "gold," he is directed by the indigenous peoples to the next island, "San Juan" (Boriken), in the "classic pattern" he had been directed all along the island chain since his first stop in the Bahamas: "Gold now lies to the east: to the east are the lands of Carib. What more could Columbus want?: to find gold and to confirm the teratology of Herodotus at one and the
same time" (Hulme 1986). But he appears to hesitate, writing that the island is difficult to visit because the Caribe is "said to eat human flesh" (Diario de Colon, in Hulme 1986). He is then blown off course back to Spain, this final and most significant irony that "desire and fear, gold and cannibal, are left in monstrous conjunction on an UNVISITED island" (Hulme 1986).

Dividing the Caribbean
So how does the Caribbean come to be divided-up between the "peaceful Arawak" and "man-eating Carib"? Outside Western interests enforced the internal divide within native societies out of a seemingly "larger threat and order of destruction" of itself (Brotherston 1992). Gordon Brotherston writes that this ploy has "sustained generations of popular accounts and even academic studies of American civilization; written in this sense from the outside and in third party interests, these enforce the divide between
diabolically bad and helplessly good Indians, barbaric Carib, Aztec, and Sioux to one side, helpless Arawak, Maya, and Pawnee to the other, denying strategy and memory to all" (Ibid.). As Brotherston goes on to point out, and we show below in relation to the Antilles, this maneuver actually masks the consistently intense resistance to European colonialism throughout the Americas. The maneuver had to do with attempting to gain and maintain control in the Antillean region and beyond.

Hulme's in-depth examination of Columbus' journal pinpoints two competing outside discourses: the "Oriental" discourse of Marco Polo and the Grand Khan and the "discourse of savagery" in the Herodotian tradition. Both are competing for a "single signifier," the word "canibales" (or "Caniba"), which Columbus originally believes refers to "the people of the Grand Khan" ("la gente del Gran Can") (Hulme 1986). The crucial moment signaling the defeat of the "Oriental" discourse takes place in Cuba. Columbus
thought the island was the province of "Cathay" because it was so extensive. However, his sudden shift from sailing northwest along Cuba's northern coast in order to meet with the Grand Khan, and abortive "embassy" inland only to be met with deference by the Indian people there, were signs that his "Oriental" expectations were "becoming embarrassingly evident" (Ibid.) As the Marco Polo scenario fades away the quest for gold takes on paramount importance:

On the coast of Cuba Columbus immediately, without hesitation and without comment, sailed north-west before, in this flurry of explanations, strange maneuvers and nonsensical assessments of position, changing direction. The basic point, as Sauer recognized, is that when the terrain made a south-westerly course no longer possible and forced a choice between north-west and south-east, Columbus chose south-east because he was more likely to find gold in that direction: not of course the gold of Cathay, but exploitable mines of 'savage gold'. This was not just a difficult decision, it was one that could not be brought to textual consciousness, for to do so would have been to admit that the whole discursive structure of the Columbian enterprise had been in vain (Ibid.).

 

From this moment forward lands and people southeast take on "savage" proportions. The idea of the "peaceful Arawak" came into being through Columbus' letter written on his return voyage to Spain. The letter, which obviously "puts the best possible gloss" on the events of the first voyage (Hulme and Whitehead 1992), has been seen as a means of securing funds from Spanish sovereigns for future voyages, in part, by giving the impression that the "peaceable" inhabitants encountered were ripe for Christianity. The portrayal of the Carib as anthropophagic is noted towards the end of the letter and de-emphasized. The letter is immediately translated and widely circulated throughout Europe. It is the principal source in which the dichotomy between the "guileless" and "ferocious"
comes to enter the European consciousness (Hulme 1986).

It would be more accurate to suggest here that the pre-European contact indigenous peoples of the Antilles were both fierce and peaceful. They were fierce in the sense that they adamantly defended their lands against hostile outsiders as best as humanly possible, and peaceful in terms of cultivating harmonious relations within tribal groups and with outsiders.  While it could be said that the people of the northern Antilles were "docile" to the point where atrocities carried out by the Spaniards were unfathomable to them, the idea that they simply laid down and "took it" is absurd. Once the Indian people realized that the Spanish were there to
exploit their lands and subjugate them, the resistance began. This very resistance was Columbus' justification to enslave the people as the will of God, to reaffirm "the civilization and nobility of all Christians" (Cummins, in Wilson 1997). Resistance and hostility and, thus, evil then become synonymous with the terms "Carib" and "canibales," while peaceable and docility and, thus, good come to define the "Arawak" or "Taino," or those who do not appear to resist. In sharp contrast to this perception, the evidence of resistance to the initial Spanish encroachment among the indigenous peoples of the northern Antilles was great.

One of the first outbreaks of fighting occurred in "Hispaniola" between Spaniards and Indian people who were trading. Peace was made the next day, but not for the thirty-nine men Columbus left behind at "Navidad" on the  first voyage. When he returned in November 1493, their fortress had been burned down and all his men slain. According to Las Casas, the men began to quarrel and fight among themselves. They "took women from their husbands and daughters from their parents, and they individually bartered for gold among themselves." The cacike of Maguana, Caonab, was joined by others against the Christians who were then "separated in the country where they were killed for their offenses and evil doing" (Las Casas, in Tyler 1988).

Also in Quisqueya, the cacike Guarocuya's (Enriquillo) fourteen year war against the Spanish crown "nearly paralyzed" the island at one time.  Enriquillo and his people won that war, which "resulted in capitulations that constitute the first treaty between a European power and an American indigenous people" (Barreiro 1993), signed in 1533.

In Boriken, the implementation of the encomienda system led directly to the uprising of 1511 and subsequent war of that year. Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo notes the resistance of the uprising and "how they [the Indians] killed half of the Christians that were on the island of San Juan."

Moscoso says that in this battle, "More than 350 Spanish settlers were reported to have been killed in the towns or scattered in the haciendas in the countryside" (Moscoso, in Lopez 1980). And in Xaymaca (Jamaica), Columbus barely escaped death after being hostilely received in 1494.
 

Given the above depictions and recent ethnological data, the ethnical dichotomy between the two groups begins to fade. Indeed, many scholars have argued that the "Island Caribs" (Caribs from the Antilles rather than South America) are "closely related to the Taino and other Caribbean groups..." (Wilson, in Wilson 1997). The social and cultural characteristics and practices between the two groups are very similar, as they "shared a common material culture" (Barreiro, in Hulme and Whitehead 1992). As referred to above, intermarriage provides the strongest evidence of the bond between indigenous Caribbean peoples. Even the dominant view that
"Arawakan" was the common origin of the language of both groups has been called into question, especially since the Arawak never entered the region. Fernandez-Mendez writes, "the arawak adscription of the Taino language rests on rather flimsy linguistic comparisons. It would not surprise me if a careful checking of linguistic evidence, would reveal as well some Chibchan and Talamacan, that is, Central American affinities" (1972). Lamourt-Valentin points out that the language spoken in the
Antillean region was "in fact a member of the mayance family of languages, . . it is a 'Maya' language" (1979).

The main point to be made here is that regardless of historical origins, the people of the Circum-Caribbean are much more closely related than previously thought. Most interestingly, Louis Allaire indicates that several publications have even suggested, "the Caribs were in reality a group of Tainos living under different socioeconomic conditions," a point he opposes (Allaire, in Wilson 1997). This would imply the two groups were essentially the same people. Allaire notes that before a decade ago no anthropologists supported this theory. However, most if not all anthropologists a decade ago thought the indigenous peoples were "extinct," and some still hold on to the view that the Carib were "cannibals." Allaire himself writes that the Carib traditionally "raided for cannibal victims," but by the 1650s there were obviously "no Tainos to contend with ..." (Ibid.). Given this, it is then not surprising to see how some remain trapped within the "peaceful Arawak"/"man-eating Carib" syndrome obscuring views of other paradigms. Were the Carib and Taino then basically the same people living under different or slightly different socio-economic conditions depending on the island topography? I would affirm this as others have suggested. However, as we see below, it would be more accurate to say that it was actually the "Taino" who were in reality, Carib.

Tony Castanha

papbullslist@revoke.org

Legends of Old: