Caciques and Cemi Idols

Caciques and Cemi Idols: The Web Spun by Taino Rulers Between Hispaniola and Puerto Rico by José R. Oliver is a challenging read. Drawing from more recent scholarship that challenges the paradigm of Irving Rouse and past generations of archaeologists, Oliver focuses on the political-religious dynamics of Taino civilization through caciques and cemí idols. Pushing back against Rouse, Oliver sees Tainoness as a complex mosaic of societies (mostly) in the Greater Antilles, with diverse histories of interactions with the Archaic societies in the region. However, intense interactions and mobility linked this mosaic of societies and polities (perhaps peer chiefdoms and heterarchy is more accurate for the sociopolitical character of precolonial Puerto Rico and other islands), especially Puerto Rico and Higuey in Hispaniola. 

Moreover, Oliver contextualizes Taino religion through a multinatural, animistic cosmos similar to perspectivism among South American indigenous populations. Through that lens, the Taino cemí represents a state of being in which even deceased forebears can become cemífied. Due to their animistic, multinatural worldview, the Taino also believed humans, animals, and objects like stones or wood have personhood. However, this personhood was dividual, partible, permeable and fractal. This belief, plus the use of cohoba for communing with a cemi probably explains the fusion of human and animal features in some Taino art. Clearly, Oliver is suggesting a rather different model for understanding Taino religion than that of Arrom, but one that may be more accurate than Arrom's assumption of a Western-like individualist perspective. Either way, it suggests Taino religion was part of a much deeper history of cemí religious practices, one that may have begun as early as 700 AD. 

Most of Caciques focuses on the different types of cemí idols, such as trigonoliths and face masks, and the close relationship between said idols and cacique political authority. Cemí figures could be inherited, stolen, gifted, or exchanged in a complex set of ways that linked caciques to each other, as well as lineage groups and alliances. As persons or beings invested with personhood, a cemí could develop a lengthy biography and become part of an epic history of a cacique, their lineage, or community. This helps explain why Ramón Pané reported some were able to flee or run away, or others were very human-like. For our purposes, it would be excellent to know, if possible, the extent to which the cemís described in the famous account by Pané were objects of specific veneration across Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and parts of Cuba. 

The remainder of the book shifts to the thorny question of acculturation, transculturation, assimilation and the post-conquest conditions of Taino religion. As the political system was deeply embedded in their religion, the Spanish conquest sought to destroy both. Through native alliances, they were able to defeat the indigenous polities of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. With the death of the cacicazgo, suppression of cohoba and cemis, Taino religion was irrevocably changed. However, aspects of Marian devotion in Cuba and archaeological evidence there suggest possible Taino influence. Early glimpses of it could be seen in the 1490s in Hispaniola and early Cuba, where some Taino adopted icons of the Virgin as another type of cemi. Perhaps most interesting was the way in which some caciques used Catholic icons against rival native chiefs. Even more impressive, Agueybana II's rebellion and the long-lasting resistance on Puerto Rico actually sought to spread indigenous rebellion to Hispaniola through their web of related kin and political allies in Higuey! Unfortunately, the movement in Hispaniola was defeated before it could have been implemented. Nonetheless, it was an interesting example of how caciques in Puerto Rico and Hispaniola continued to consult their cemis and used the guidance of said beings to guide their rebellions against Spanish authority.