Are The Taíno And Kalinago Culture?

As children, it was engraved into our minds that Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas. In fact, we were forced to learn about his voyages with rhymes to help us remember the “facts” of his “discovery”. It seems, however, that while children of the Caribbean were chanting, “Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492”, the entire world was forgetting that the Caribbean was “discovered” centuries before the Santa Maria hit the shores of Bahamas, by the Amerindians. Now that we are more educated on the truth of Columbus’ voyages, we, understandably, start to search for answers about the true parents of our people and the question “Are the Kalinago and Taíno alive and well today?” is commonly asked. The answer to this is quite oblique and can
Their cuisine, language, and technology have been carefully outlined throughout the years and increasingly, we are seeing similarities between the one seen centuries ago and aspects of Caribbean culture today.
According to http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/, some of the Taíno and Kalinago people’s customs included flattening foreheads and eating agouti. It says, “They brought guava from South America as well as animals like agouti and opossum”. While we do not flatten our foreheads, the agouti is one delicacy that many Caribbean persons enjoy. Caribbean persons eat jerk agouti regularly and it is evident that the enjoyment of these rodents seemed to have been a practice passed down for generations from the Taíno people.
Like the customs of both of these indigenous groups, the crops originally cultivated by Taíno and Kalinago are seen today. Most notably, the manioc, or cassava. According to http://www.fao.org/, cassava was always an important plant from the times of the indigenous people and remains important today. They even posit that “Cassava can be an ideal focus for a development-oriented research where goals concern food security, poverty alleviation, equity, and protecting natural