Brief Thoughts on "Taino DNA" and Caribbean Indigeneity

While perusing old papers and documents in various Google Drive accounts, I came across an old essay on Taino revivalism in Puerto Rico. This has inspired me to revisit some of my past interests in the precolonial Caribbean, as well as the legacy of the indigenous inhabitants. Needless to say, I find a continued interest in the alleged "Taino" DNA in contemporary Puerto Ricans, which the above video contributes to. None of this is new at all. A quick perusal of travel accounts, traditions, and histories of Puerto Rico often allude to the "Indian" inheritance among the Puerto Rican population. Whether or not it was really traceable to the Taino was unknown, since Europeans imported "Amerindian" captives from other parts of the Americas to their Caribbean colonies. But, it was often alleged that the Puerto Rican jibaro possessed Indian blood, by everyone from Schoelcher to Salvador Brau. 

Of course, given the demographics of the early colonial Spanish Caribbean, it is no surprise that many of the current populations in Puerto Rico are descendants of European males, Indian women, and Africans who formed the nucleus of the colonial populations in the 16th century. Indeed, I suspect my Hispanic Caribbean roots to consist of a mixture of African, European and probable Indian ancestry through a family lineage that has been in the Caribbean for several centuries (I must confess, I lost interest in the 1700s, but they were likely established in Puerto Rico since the 1600s or 1500s). However, recent advances in analysis of pre-Columbian Puerto Rican remains do suggest there is some continuity between the earlier indigenes of Puerto Rico and populations living there today. Moreover, one should suspect many aspects of rural life in the Caribbean today resemble or inherited aspects of indigenous agricultural practices, particularly since they were the ones who likely showed Europeans and Africans the ropes in adapting to Caribbean environments. Who knows, it is even possible that some of the folklore of the region has inherited bits and pieces of our Amerindian past, although I am unsure how one could ever prove it.

So, why do groups like neo-Taino organizations endeavor to revive the indigenous past or legacy when it was so quickly incorporated into new colonial identities forged by European colonialism and enslavement of Africans? In my past ramblings on this subject, I linked it to a theory of indigeneity as performance, indigeneity and sovereignty, and re-racialization of genetic science on the part of gene fetishists. An example of the first is a National Indigenous Festival of Jayuya, in which a beauty pageant consists of contestants dressing themselves up in ways that allegedly resemble those of the indigenous population. Needless to say, contestants believed to look like the Tainos were favored, and the whole charade links Taino-ness to the performance of stereotyped traits. Neo-Taino groups have also attempted to perform indigeneity through the reinvention of rituals, clothing styles, and language to counter narratives of Taino extinction. The performance of a "Taino" identity is, through the aforementioned practices and rituals, legitimated as an expression of group identity, even if they lack any degree of historical veracity. However, if identity truly is just performance, then one can understand and even recognize indigenous performativity on the part of some Puerto Ricans as being as legitimate as the official, tri-racial discourse of Puerto Rican national identity (which, needless to say, is also problematic and creates it own demons of racial inequality).

It also comes into play as an expression of sovereignty. Indeed, since the 19th century, writers of the Spanish Caribbean have utilized the indigenous past for expressions of their own nationalism. Invoking the caciques of the past, or the brutality of the Spanish conquest, could serve the greater cause of independence and nation-making for the diverse, subjugated colonial populations of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic. Attempts in the 20th and 21st century to revive outright Taino identities can also serve this purpose of sovereignty and self-rule for Puerto Ricans living under US rule on the island or in economically and racially marginalized spaces in the US mainland. Indeed, assertions of indigeneity lend weight to Puerto Rican demands for reparations, independence, and alternatives to the official historical narrative. Unsurprisingly, the historical record will always contain its errors or blank spaces, but indigenous revivalism forces society to remember the silencing of indigenous lives after European conquest, reasserting the rights of subaltern voices and their descendants. Even if some of the proponents of indigenous revivalism commit themselves to gene fetishism and reinscribing "race" to understanding DNA, they are hardly alone for using genes or "race" to determine membership or status of indigenous communities. 

To conclude the aforementioned thoughts, the question of indigenous identity and, increasingly, the use of science and DNA to justify said claims, are more interesting for the motivations rather than outright rejection or refusal. Although some of the attempted revivals and historical scholarship are inherently problematic and, in some cases, questionable or false, indigeneity remains a dynamic concept. It cannot be simply stuck in the past with the expectation of "racial" homogeneity over time and a specific place or land attached to it. Identities are too flexible and permeable to allow for such an understanding, past or present. In truth, the pre-colonial peoples of the Caribbean were too diverse and mobile to allow for such a simplistic view. Further, it clearly resonates with groups living in colonial conditions today, just as it did for 19th century independence movements. Perhaps the idea of indigeneity in Haiti is of applicable interest here. In the Haitian case, the leaders of the revolutionary army invoked indigeneity, too, calling their army an indigenous one. Later Haitian writers picked up the theme again, invoking Haitianness as "indigenous." For Dessalines and subsequent Haitians, Haiti avenged the "Amerindian" inhabitants of the island and claimed the space for themselves as a sovereign state, directly linking indigeneity with sovereignty. For the most part, Haitians do not claim direct ancestry from the Taino, but we too have a complex relationship of our own with the idea of indigeneity and anti-colonialism. Perhaps that's the best definition of indigeneity we can arrive at for the Caribbean, one that is mobile, diverse, and opposed to colonialism.