Gifts, Goods and Money
Comparing currency and circulation systems
in past societies
edited by
Dirk Brandherm, Elon Heymans and Daniela Hofmann
Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
Summertown Pavilion
18-24 Middle Way
Summertown
Oxford OX2 7LG
www.archaeopress.com
ISBN 978 1 78491 835 4
ISBN 978 1 78491 836 1 (e-Pdf)
© Archaeopress and the authors 2018
Cover image courtesy of the Megiddo Expedition, Tel Aviv University
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the
copyright owners.
Printed in England by Oxuniprint, Oxford
This book is available direct from Archaeopress or from our website www.archaeopress.com
Contents
List of contributors ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������iii
Introduction: comparing currency and circulation systems in past
societies������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 1
Dirk Brandherm, Elon Heymans and Daniela Hofmann
Indeterminacy and approximation in Mediterranean weight systems in
the third and second millennia BC ������������������������������������������������������������� 9
Nicola Ialongo, Agnese Vacca and Alessandro Vanzetti
Fragmentation patterns revisited ritual and recycling in Bronze Age
depositional practice ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������45
Dirk Brandherm
Weight units and the transformation of value: approaching premonetary
currency systems in the Nordic Bronze Age ���������������������������������������������67
Lene Melheim
Heads or tails: metal hoards from the Iron Age southern Levant ������������85
Elon D. Heymans
Weighing premonetary currency in the Iberian Iron Age ����������������������105
Thibaud Poigt
Of warriors, chiefs and gold� Coinage and exchange in the late
pre-Roman Iron Age���������������������������������������������������������������������������������133
David Wigg-Wolf
New wealth from the Old World: glass, jet and mirrors in the late
fifteenth to early sixteenth century indigenous Caribbean �������������������153
Joanna Ostapkowicz
Gifts of the gods objects of foreign origin in traditional exchange systems
in Palau ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������195
Constanze Dupont
i
ii
New wealth from the Old World:
glass, jet and mirrors in the late fifteenth to early
sixteenth century indigenous Caribbean
Joanna Ostapkowicz
Abstract
One of the most momentous cross-cultural collisions occurred in the Caribbean in 1492, heralding
a period of rapid change in both ‘New’ and ‘Old’ Worlds. During the early years of the colonial
period, when new relationships were being established, material objects became active agents
in the interactions between the indigenous Taíno and the Spanish. The Taíno gifted the Spanish
with objects that had significance in their own world, in an attempt to enmesh the Spanish into
Taíno socio-political and economic networks. In turn, Spanish objects entered into Taíno value
systems. Glass and jet beads, mirrors and brass ornaments were integrated into prestigious
objects, such as the two surviving Taíno cotton sculptures that form the focus of this paper: a belt
in the collections of the Weltmuseum Wien and a composite sculpture in the Museo Nazionale
Preistorico Etnografico ‘Luigi Pigorini’, Rome. These pieces offer a glimpse into how Old World
exotics were reinterpreted and integrated into indigenous value systems during a period of
cultural transition and change.
Keywords: Caribbean, early colonial period (AD 1492–1550), Taíno/Lucayans, European ‘exotics’,
indigenous value systems
Résumé
Nouvelles richesses du Ancien Monde : verre, jais et miroirs à la fin du XV et au début du XVI
siècle dans les caraïbes indigènes
Une des plus importantes collisions interculturelles s’est produite en 1492 dans les caraïbes,
annonçant une période de rapide changement au sein du Nouveau et de l’Ancien Monde. Pendant
les premières années de la période coloniale, quand les nouvelles relations s’établissaient, les
biens matériels devinrent des agents actifs au sein des relations entre les indigènes Taïno et les
Espagnols. Les Taïnos ont donné aux Espagnols des objets qui avaient une signification dans leur
monde dans le but d’emmener les Espagnols dans les systèmes socio-politique et économique
Taïno. A leur tour, les objets espagnols entrèrent au sein des systèmes socio-politiques et
économique Taïno. Les perles en jais et en verre, les miroirs et les ornements en laiton furent
intégrés comme des objets prestigieux à l’image des deux sculptures de coton Taïno qui sont
l’objet de cet article: une ceinture issue des collections du Musée du Monde de Vienne et une
sculpture composite dans le Musée National de Préhistoire et d’Ethnographie ‘Luigi Pigorini’,
Rome. Ces pièces donnent un aperçu de la façon dont les produits exotiques de l’Ancien Monde
ont été réinterprétés et intégrés dans les systèmes de valeur indigènes pendant une période de
transition culturelle et de changement.
153
154
Mots-clés: Caraïbe, début de la période coloniale (AD 1492–1550), Taïnos/Lucayens, produits
exotiques européens, systèmes de valeur indigène
Zusammenfassung
Neue Reichtümer aus der Alten Welt: Glas, Gagat und Spiegel am Ende des 15. und Beginn des 16.
Jahrhunderts in der indigenen Karibik
Zu einer der folgenträchtigsten Kollisionen zwischen verschiedenen Kulturen kam es 1492 in
der Karibik, womit eine Zeit rapiden Wandels sowohl in der „Neuen“ als auch in der „Alten“
Welt eingeleitet wurde. In den Anfangsjahren der Kolonialzeit, als neue Beziehungen Gestalt
annahmen, wurden materielle Gegenstände zu aktiven Medien im gegenseitigen Umgang
zwischen indigenen Taíno und Spaniern. Die Taíno beschenkten die Spanier mit Gegenständen,
die in ihrer eigenen Welt als Bedeutungsträger agierten; damit versuchten sie, die Spanier in ihre
eigenen soziopolitischen und wirtschaftlichen Netzwerke zu verstricken. Im Gegenzug hielten
spanische Gegenstände Einzug in die Wertsysteme der Taíno. Perlen aus Glas und Gagat, Spiegel
und Messingschmuck wurden in Prestigeobjekte eingearbeitet, wie zum Beispiel in die beiden
erhaltenen Taíno Baumwollskulpturen, die im Mittelpunkt dieses Beitrags stehen: ein Gürtel
in den Sammlungen des Weltmuseums Wien und eine Kompositskulptur im Museo Nazionale
Preistorico Etnografico ‘Luigi Pigorini’, Rom. Diese Gegenstände gewähren einen Einblick in
die Praxis der Reinterpretation und Integration altweltlicher Exotika in indigene Wertsysteme
während einer Zeit kulturellen Übergangs und Wandels.
Schlüsselwörter: Karibik, frühe Kolonialzeit (1492–1550 n. Chr.), Taíno/ Lucayan, europäische
Exotika, inidigene Wertsysteme
Introduction
1492 marked a critical turning point in history, when two worlds collided and a
truly global economy began. During the early years of this new trans-Atlantic
world, when languages failed to connect people, material culture was an
immediate means of communication and negotiation, initially carried out via
mutually beneficial transactions. The ‘Taíno’ (the problematic umbrella term
that has come to represent the indigenous people of the Caribbean Greater
Antilles, but glosses over their cultural and linguistic diversity; Curet 2014) were
enthusiastic in their acquisition of introduced Spanish goods such as brass,
glass beads and mirrors. Crucially, these ‘exotics’ had resonance with their own
valuables, such as the lustrous surfaces of gold and guanín (a gold-copper alloy),
the iridescent qualities of shell and bird feather ornaments, the rich tones of
hardwoods and the deep greens of jadeites. The allure of such materials has
been termed the ‘aesthetic of brilliance’ (Oliver 2000; Saunders 1998; 1999; 2003),
binding circum-Caribbean cultures in a network of exchanges that spanned the
vast region and stretched into the surrounding mainland. Vibrancy, brilliance
and iridescence — whether in materials, artefacts or natural phenomena
Joanna Ostapkowicz: New wealth from the Old World 155
— were qualities understood to have cosmological force, tapping into the
numinous. Valuables central to Taíno elite status, such as guiazas, or masks,
ceremonial chairs known as duhos and elaborate cotton belts, were specifically
gifted to the Spanish by caciques, or chiefs, in efforts to draw the foreigners
into indigenous socio-political and economic networks, and in so doing build
long-term reciprocal relationships. In turn, the objects the Spanish exchanged
entered into Taíno systems of value. Glass beads, mirrors and brass ornaments
were integrated into high-value objects, such as the two surviving Taíno cotton
pieces that form the focus of this paper: a composite zoo/anthropomorphic
sculpture in the Museo Nazionale Preistorico Etnografico ‘L. Pigorini’ in Rome
(Figure 1), and a belt in the collections of the Weltmuseum Wien (Figure 2),
both attributed on stylistic grounds to Hispaniola (Haiti/Dominican Republic;
for ease of reference, the two pieces will be referred to in the remainder of the
text as the ‘Pigorini cemi’ and ‘Vienna belt’).
Figure 1. Three views of the Pigorini cemí, showing the two faces of this janus-like figurine:
the human side featuring a rhinoceros horn mask, and the animal face — possibly that of a bat
— covered lavishly with green glass beads. This composite sculpture consists of an elaborate,
figural top (cemí) positioned over an adult-sized belt, wrapped around a wood base (a later
display mount). Its history in Europe can be traced back to the 1680 inventory of Fernando
Cospi’s collection in Bologna. Cotton, shell and glass beads, mirrors, gold, vegetable fibre,
feathers(?), resin, pigment, wood base; AD 1492–1524 (Bayesian modelled), Hispaniola. H:
31.5cm; Diam: 20.5cm (max). Photograph: Ostapkowicz; courtesy of the Polo Museale del Lazio Museo Nazionale Preistorico Etnografico “L.Pigorini”, su concessione del Mibact, acc no. 4190.
156
These objects provide insight into the value systems of the indigenous Caribbean
during the early years of contact, and this paper serves as an introduction to
ongoing work on their manufacture, context and meaning.1
The early colonial period, when interactions between the Spanish and Taíno
were at their most sustained and intense, is generally thought to have ended c.
1520 on Hispaniola, with Taíno demographic and cultural collapse due to forced
labour, disease and religious conversion (e.g. Deagan 1987b: 343). However, there
are suggestions that some cultural traditions persisted: in 1517, many indios were
escaping into the mountains and other regions outside Spanish control (Guitar
1998: 249) and, left ‘unsupervised’, were reverting back to traditional ways, to
‘do those things that their parents and ancestors had done’ (Guitar 1998: 226–7).
By 1534 the Spanish were reporting the return of some indios to ‘idolatry, vices,
sins and other abominable customs’ (Guitar 1998: 132). Archival documentation
suggests that indigenous rebellions, with cimarron (escaped African slaves)
support, continued into the 1540s (Guitar 1998: 391), that some cultural practices,
such as areítos (ceremonies involving dance and songs), were still being practised
at this time, and that cacical authority was still recognised by the Spanish as late
as 1547 (though not on the scale of influence seen during the first two decades
of the colonial encounter; Guitar 1998: 115, 207). However, the use of elite
accoutrements, such as belts and elaborate cemís (a representation of a spirit,
deity or ancestor), which required skilled, intensive labour and an intact cultural
context, could not be maintained for long. As Guitar (1998: 423) acknowledges,
‘after 1492, the privileged groups of Classic Taíno artistic specialists who designed
and produced prestige goods for caciques […] disappeared’ and only domestic
artistry survived (see also Deagan 2004). Given the above, and the uncertainties
pertaining to this turbulent period of indigenous history, a date of 1550 seems
a reasonable chronological marker for the demise of Taíno ‘traditional’ elite
material culture (Ostapkowicz 2013). However, this in no way implies an end
point to colonial interactions, nor to the ongoing merging of cultural traditions
(cf. Guitar et al. 2006; Hayes and Cipolla 2015).
As the study of these pieces is as yet incomplete, one caveat is necessary: there is still some
uncertainty over the security of association between the European materials on the Vienna belt,
given that they are not fully integrated into the belt’s weave (Ostapkowicz 2013). In contrast, while
the Pigorini cemí features European beads woven tightly into its structure, some have questioned
whether the entire piece is an early sixteenth century pastiche made for a princely Kunstkammer
rather than an indigenous creation (Scalini 2001: 129–32, 142). While there are clear interventions
— the cotton structure being nailed to an early wooden display mount — there are many other
features that argue for both the Pigorini and Vienna pieces being the work of indigenous hands,
conforming to Taíno aesthetics and demonstrating stylistic parallels with depictions of such
artefacts in other media (i.e. ceramics). Given this, while suggestions raised in this paper are in
some instances speculative and must await confirmation through further work, they are based on
a firm foundation of comparative studies and contextual ethnographic documentation.
1
Joanna Ostapkowicz: New wealth from the Old World 157
Figure 2. Cotton belt with indigenous shell beads and European jet, brass and mirror
additions, featuring a central zoomorphic cemí with upturned hands, AD 1475–1635 (95.4%
probability; three radiocarbon dates combined). Full length, with straps, 116.5 cm (beaded strap
only, 85.5cm), height 70mm. Photograph: Ostapkowicz; courtesy of the Weltmuseum Wien,
inv. no. 10.443.
The two artefacts described in this paper are the only surviving Taíno elite objects
from this relatively short period of initial interaction currently known. As such
they are a critical starting point for assessing how ‘valuables’ such as European
exotics resonated with the value systems of the peoples of the New World.
Capturing foreign wealth
From their very first encounters, the Spanish and the Taíno were bound
together by gift giving, exchange and barter (Keehnen 2011; 2012; Mol 2007;
Oliver 2000; 2009). Each had ample experience in far-flung trade — the Spanish
within Europe, North Africa and, albeit less directly, Asia (indeed, the aims
of the Columbian enterprise were to establish direct trade with Japan and
China; Kagan 1991: 56; Kamen 2005) and the Taíno (as well as other Caribbean
peoples) throughout the length of the Caribbean chain (Siegel 2011), into the
South American mainland (Hofman et al. 2007; 2011) and possibly the IsthmoColombian region (Rodriguez 2011). Neither, therefore, was new to the allure
of the exotic (Helms 1988). Worth was quickly established by both parties,
initially fuelled by the desirability of the new, but as interaction increased,
there was a growing understanding of what the ‘Other’ valued most: gold was
clearly the focus of Spanish interest while for the Taíno (who also valued gold),
it was other highly coveted luminous materials (whether glass or brass). These
valuables — or rather their qualities — were long appreciated on both sides of
the Atlantic and each side interpreted the transactions in terms of their own
value systems, setting the terms of trade accordingly (cf. Keehnen 2012). The
Taíno were not, as often implied, ignorant of worth (a highly biased view that
158
privileges Western aesthetics and value systems above all others); they simply
had their own concepts of what was important, desirable and valuable. And it is
this context that is of interest here.
On 12 October 1492, Columbus’s first day on San Salvador, Bahamas, the
admiral’s log noted a multitude of transactions: ‘they brought us parrots, spun
cotton […] javelins, and many other things; and they traded them to us for
other things that we gave them, such as small glass beads and bells’ (Lardicci
1999: 48). Columbus used his trade commodities from the start as gifts: ‘in
order that they might feel great amity towards us [I] gave to some among
them some red caps and some glass beads, which they hung round their necks,
and many other things […]. At this they were greatly pleased and became so
entirely our friends that it was a wonder to see’ (Parry and Keith 1984: 29). To
the Lucayans (inhabitants of the Bahamas, and culturally linked to the Taíno),
this magnanimity was expected given Columbus’s role as leader — or cacique
— whose high status required generosity and reciprocity. In this way, Spanish
exotics quickly entered into indigenous trade networks: only three days after
their initial exchanges on San Salvador, Columbus encountered a man travelling
in a canoe between the Bahamian islands of Rum Key and Long Island, carrying
with him a basket containing a string of small glass beads and two Spanish coins
(Dunn and Kelley 1989: 85). News of the foreigners — and their trade goods —
was preceding them via the long-established indigenous networks that bound
these island communities together.
But it was not until his arrival in Hispaniola in December 1492 that Columbus
entered into the realm of politicised gift exchanges with the local caciques.
Indigenous wealth in the form of belts, stone bead necklaces and gold were
presented to Columbus in a series of formalised offerings. As recorded by the
early cronistas (Spanish chroniclers), belts were among the first gifts offered
by Taíno elite to Columbus. On 18 December 1492, for example, a Hispaniolan
cacique presented Columbus with his first native belt, prompting Columbus
to reciprocate with a variety of gifts, including red shoes, amber beads and
a flask of flower water (Parry and Keith 1984: 40–1). Four days later, on 22
December, Columbus was sent a belt featuring a mask inlaid with gold by cacique
Guacanagari’s emissaries. It is this example that the historian Bartolome de Las
Casas delights in describing, clearly having handled the original:
the ambassador was sent with a belt that, instead of a purse, had a mask,
which had two large ears, a tongue and nose of hammered gold; this belt
was made with something like fine stones, very small and pearl-like, made
of white fish bones [shells], interspersed with some coloured ones, like a
kind of needlework; [it was] worked in such a way, with the cotton thread so
Joanna Ostapkowicz: New wealth from the Old World 159
tightly sewn and with such beautiful skill, that both the front and back of the
belt appeared beautifully made […] all in white, that it was a pleasure to see,
as if it was woven on a frame and in the way that the weavers make the edges
of chasubles in Castile; and [it] was so hard and so strong that without doubt
I believe an arquebus could not shoot through it, or only with difficulty; it
was four fingers in width, in the manner of those used by the kings and great
lords of Castile, embroidered or made of gold thread (de las Casas 1951: 272).
It is noteworthy that belts were the first official presents to the Admiral in
recognition of his status, as they were among a select group of objects that
distinguished members of the Taíno elite. Their production was labourintensive — from the manufacture of the shell beads to the weaving of the
cotton — reflecting the wealth and affluence of the cacique in being able to
accrue these valuable materials and in securing the labour of skilled artisans to
transform them into wearable works of ‘art’ (Ostapkowicz 2013).
The Vienna belt
One such belt is held in the collections of Weltmuseum Wien (Figure 2). It was
originally part of the Schatzkammer, the imperial treasury of Vienna established
in 1556, though it is not known when the belt first entered the collection
(Ostapkowicz 2013: 295–6). Framed by a band of geometric designs and executed
in nearly 11,000 drilled conch (Strombus gigas) and jewel box (Chama sarda)
beads, it features a central maskette depicting the hands and face of a cemí. The
sheer quantity of shell beads underscores the labour that went into this belt,
when one considers that each tiny bead (c. 5mm diameter) was made using
stone tools — from cutting, grinding down and drilling to the final polishing.
One seventeenth-century account of bead manufacture by the neighbouring
Carib/Kalinago notes that they ‘could not make one [bead] to perfection and
pierce it with the tools that they use in less than three days’ (de la Borde in Roth
1924: 119). Replication studies suggest that a skilled specialist may have made
as many as five beads in a day, with 300 over a period of two months (Carlson
1993: 70); at this rate, 11,000 beads would represent six months’ labour for ten
specialists. This does not take into account the labour involved in making the
cotton framework — from picking, processing and spinning to weaving. If this
one belt entailed such work, then Guacanagari’s gift of 12 belts to Columbus on
his return voyage in 1493 not only highlighted the affluence of the cacique, but
his desire in forging links with the Spanish (Ostapkowicz 2013).
Amidst the wealth of indigenous shell beads featured on the Vienna belt are
a number of European imports: two flat mirrors for eyes, a pair of jet beads at
the top of the head secured with brass pins, as well as one small facetted jet
160
bead in the right earflare. These have been placed precisely where traditional
inlays of gold or shell would normally be featured, echoing the qualities of these
bright, reflective surfaces and maintaining the Taíno aesthetic while extending
it to include foreign materials. However, these items appear to be surface
additions rather than directly woven into the framework of the belt, suggesting
that they were added some time after the belt was woven, possibly when it
was repaired or modified to accommodate the new foreign valuables (for more
detailed discussion, see Ostapkowicz 2013). As the symbol of cacical authority,
belts offered an appropriate medium for capturing the reflective allure of new
materials in the service of indigenous symbolism and meaning.
The Pigorini cemí
If the Vienna belt selectively features a few choice foreign valuables, integrating
them subtly and in accordance with traditional Taíno aesthetics, then the
Pigorini cemí is a tour-de-force (Figure 1). Often presented as a single object, it
is actually made of two entirely separate pieces: a full-sized adult belt (Biscione
1997: 158), made entirely of indigenous shell beads, and a separate Janus-figure
cemí that could have been worn as an elaborate headpiece. One side of the cemí
features a prognathic face, variously identified as a bat (Biscione 1997: 162) or a
human skull (Roe 1997: 165); the other shows a human face. The Pigorini belt and
cemí share the same geometric designs, materials and manufacture techniques,
suggesting that they were made as a set. They also exhibit many similarities
with the Vienna belt, and these three objects have long been linked, potentially
suggesting the same source, or even the same maker, as well as a shared history
in European collections prior to being separated (Biscione 1997; Feest 1991; Roe
1997; Schweeger-Hefel 1952; Vega 1987).
Nearly 1700 glass beads have been incorporated into the design of the Pigorini
cemí: approximately 1200 small green beads are used on the face and back of the
head, roughly 450 deep blue corner-faceted beads are featured at the shoulders
and originally 10 small turquoise/white Nueva Cadiz beads, of which only one
remains, would have adorned the head. When these European beads are added to
the sheer volume of indigenous beads, the piece exudes sixteenth century Taíno
wealth. Over 20,000 shell beads are woven into the surface, suggesting a year’s full
time work for ten specialists. In addition, six cut mirrors feature in the eyes and
ear flares. But the most exceptional aspect of this astonishing sculpture is the use
of rhinoceros horn for the human mask (Biscione 1997: 162) — whether of Asian or
African origin is the subject of future investigation. Yet the mask again conforms
to Taíno aesthetics. The Pigorini cemí is thus a lavish display of Old World exotics
harnessed within the confines of an indigenous prism, in the service of the cemí it
represents and the cacique who had the power to wield it.
Joanna Ostapkowicz: New wealth from the Old World 161
‘Dividuals’: defining the web of connections
In the following discussion, the Vienna belt and Pigorini cemí are deconstructed
to their component parts in an effort to understand how their different
materials were perceived, appreciated and valued, and particularly how the
European materials may have echoed or complemented indigenous valuables.
The aim is not to treat them so much as isolated objects but as nodes in a
web of interaction between the Taíno and the Spanish. They are, in a sense,
the material equivalents of Strathern’s dividuals (1988), in which persons are
not discrete entities, but rather are extended in space and time through their
interactions and connections with others, and indeed are defined by them. In
order to engage with these aspects, and using these two objects as the foci, six
early colonial period materials are explored through cronista references to their
use, combined with archaeological evidence:
1) Spanish cuentas/abalorios (glass beads) and indigenous shell and stone beads
(the latter known by the Taíno term cibas or sibas);
2) jet (Spanish: azabache) and lignite/fossil woods, a less well-known indigenous
valuable that nevertheless likely had a deep history in the circum-Caribbean
region;
3–5) metals, both indigenous and Spanish: caona, the Taíno term for gold;
guanín, the indigenous name for a gold-copper-silver-alloy; turey, a term used
by the Taíno to refer to the sky but which also came to identify brass (copperzinc) imports;
6) espejos, a Spanish term denoting mirrors, which were highly prized by
the Taíno, both in their indigenous form (gold/guanín) and in their new
manifestation: European glass mirrors.
These materials were undoubtedly graded both within and between each
category; nevertheless the parallels between them provide a point of departure
for discussion. One aspect to their value was their colour and brilliance: green,
black and warm gold, together with their shining, reflective surfaces coalesced
in objects that were not only aesthetic and desirable, but spiritually charged.
Individually and collectively these categories of objects provide a clearer
picture of indigenous value systems, and of the role of exchange in the process
of social change in the indigenous Caribbean (cf. Appadurai 1986; Gosden 2004).
The approach taken here focuses on the role of the Vienna belt and Pigorini cemí
as active intermediaries in social relationships (Appadurai 1986; Gell 1998) and
investigates how their materiality may have shaped identity and social action
162
(Gosden 2004). Their divisible nature (cf. Strathern 1988) reflects the socio-political
and economic interconnections being forged in early colonial Caribbean history,
a perspective refreshingly ‘scripted’ by the Taíno, as opposed to the reliance
on historical documents that provide an overwhelmingly Eurocentric view of
this period. These objects also reflect social ontologies, the webs of connection
between materials and people (Gosden 2008), specifically through an active focus
on both indigenous and introduced valuables. In integrating foreign goods into
the structure, the creator/s of the Pigorni cemí interwove the Spanish into the
history of not only the piece, but into every future use, display and interaction
with it: the foreigners were thus assimilated into the community’s perceptions
and understanding of this object. In this capacity, the European ‘Other’ became
intimately entangled with Taíno representations of their own ideology, and
ultimately themselves (cf. Gosden 2004), influencing people’s understandings of
this shifting, transitional period and their place within it (cf. Gell 1998).
Cuentas for cibas and the allure of emerald colours
Both shell and stone beads (cibas) were prized by the Taíno as personal
ornaments and as exchange valuables. Early cronista accounts document their
use: from strands worn at the neck, arms and/or wrists, to the hundreds, if not
thousands, woven into elite belts, caps and naguas, or women’s skirts (Alegria
1995; Bernaldez in Jane 1967: 162). The large quantities of beads required for
the Pigorini cemí and Vienna belt meant that shell was the dominant medium,
given that stone beads were far more laborious to make. Necklaces of stone
cibas strung with gold or guanín were the prerogative of caciques and were
understood to have a mythical source, originally gifted by the ancestress
Guabonito to the culture hero Guahayona at the sacred mountain Cauta, where
the first people emerged (Colón 1992: 155; see Oliver 2000: 205–13). Martyr
D’Anghera, recounting this myth in the early sixteenth century, notes that ‘the
kings [caciques] hold these necklaces sacred even today’ (in Arrom 1999: 48).
Stone cibas, which had the appearance of marble (Colón 1992: 155), were thus
fitting gifts between high-ranking individuals, such as the ‘eight hundred small,
figured white, green and red stone beads together with one hundred figured
gold beads’ presented by the cacique Guacanagari to Columbus upon his return
to Hispaniola in 1493 (Colón 1992: 120). Particularly significant examples were
incorporated into high-status artefacts, such as the stone ciba inlaid into the
chest cavity of a wooden Jamaican duho (Ostapkowicz 2015: 98, fig. 5). Yet others
were gifted or traded across the archipelago: such sites as Hope Estate, St Martin
and La Hueca, Vieques, Puerto Rico feature exotic stone beads and pendants that
suggest long-distance networks stretching to South America (Chanlatte-Baik
2013: 179; Haviser 1999: 202). In this sense, imported beads were in circulation
in the Caribbean well before 1492.
Joanna Ostapkowicz: New wealth from the Old World 163
Quantities of shell beads have been recovered from Caribbean archaeological
sites, including the manufacturing site at Governor’s Beach (GT-2), Grand Turk,
where 1600 complete and 7000 incomplete beads were recovered together with
13,000 pieces of production waste (Carlson 1995). As burial offerings, beads
could also be taken out of circulation completely, as seen for example in the
1100 conch (Strombus gigas) shell beads found on the pelvis of a female skeleton
in a burial at Anse à la Gourde, Guadeloupe (Hofman and Hoogland 2004: 51),
suggesting a nagua. It is likely that beads were graded on a scale of increasing
value, based on the material, investment of labour, acquisition history (e.g. via
long-distance exchange) and other aspects of their biography (e.g. the renown
of previous owners).
The Pigorini cemí and Vienna belt both feature small shell beads of 3–5mm
diameter and 0.6–2.5mm thickness (Figure 3), comparable in size to those found
at such sites as GT-2, suggesting a fairly standardised system of manufacture
within the region. This distinctive shape — a small, perforated disk with slightly
bulging sides — is also seen in the gold microbeads (2mm diameter) from the site
of Chorro de Maita, Cuba (Martinón-Torres 2012: fig. 8), suggesting a preference
for this specific shape, regardless of raw material. Thus, when European
glass beads — particularly the small, wire-wound beads, with their doughnut
shape and bulging sides — were introduced in 1492, they fit neatly within the
established canons of indigenous beadwork. Other early glass beads, such as
Nueva Cadiz, were more similar to the stone cibas, with their longer, cylindrical
shapes, and so also had an indigenous precedent. Within this context, glass
beads had an immediate impact: not only were they exotic yet familiar in form,
but their unfading colours and reflective properties had deep resonance, as will
be seen below.
The indigenous reception of beads during the earliest exchanges cemented
their popularity as a trade commodity in the Caribbean. To Spanish eyes, the
exchanges appeared most favourable. Columbus himself noted that ‘[they]
would barter with some pieces of gold hanging from the nose […] which they
would willingly give […] for glass beads’ (in García-Arevalo 1990: 271). Glass
— and particularly glass beads — were sought out in trade, as documented by
Foresti da Bergamo: ‘[the Indians] exchange gold for glass, because nothing
is more valuable among them than glass’ (Symcox 2002: 30). The Taíno also
viewed this as a favourable transaction in terms of their own value systems:
as noted in the myth, cibas originated from distant lands (and were certainly
circulated over long distances in trade), and so the exoticness of Spanish beads
was fitting, and, coupled with their brilliant appearance, highly desirable. Las
Casas notes their swift incorporation into local ornaments: ‘The beads, having
the further merit of novelty and rarity, were added to the conch disks and to the
164
Figure 3. Stylistic and material similarities in the layout and use of indigenous shell beads on
the Pigorini cemí (left) and Vienna belt (right). Note the raised, double-layered ridge of white
shell beads in both and the black framework around the white geometric designs (two deep in
the Pigorini, vs. three deep in the Vienna belt). Photograph: Ostapkowicz; courtesy of the Polo
Museale del Lazio - Museo Nazionale Preistorico Etnografico “L.Pigorini”, su concessione del
Mibact, acc no. 4190; courtesy of the Weltmuseum Wien, inv. no. 10.443.
cibas, colored stones, [the latter] held in high regard, a gift worthy of a cacique’
(Biscione 1997: 163, italics added).
Surviving shipping records indicate that between 1511 and 1526 roughly
179,000 beads were exported to the Spanish colonies, as compared to 10 million
in 1583–1613. The comparatively small quantities available in the first decades
of contact suggests that glass beads were not as common as often assumed,
and their absence from such important indigenous colonial period sites as
En Bas Saline in Haiti2 appears to confirm this: the site was occupied by the
Taíno to about 1515 (Deagan 1987b; 2004: 613). Only a few examples have been
recovered from early colonial indigenous sites, such as the three compound
(blue/green/white) Nueva Cadiz and two cobalt blue faceted beads from El
Cabo, Dominican Republic, occupied until 1504 (Samson 2010: 284), or a tubular
cobalt bead from Playa Grande, DR, a site abandoned in 1505 (Keehnan 2012:
150). Deagan (2004: 621) suggests that the paucity of such artefacts might reflect
a Taíno ‘indifference to and rejection of Spanish cultural elements and values’;
conversely, the rarity of these beads in the archaeological record may reflect
both their relative scarcity and their value during the early colonial period, and
hence their curation.
Abalorios — a Spanish term for small beads ‘of little value’ (Deagan 1987: 157)
— feature abundantly on the Pigorini cemí (Figure 4). Columbus himself gifted
Guacanagari’s village, close to La Navidad, the first Spanish colonial outpost, established 1492,
and 2km away from Puerto Real, established 1503.
2
Joanna Ostapkowicz: New wealth from the Old World 165
Figure 4. The ‘bat’ face of the Pigorini cemí, featuring 1200 green glass beads, and cut mirrors for
the eyes. Photograph: Ostapkowicz; courtesy of the Polo Museale del Lazio - Museo Nazionale
Preistorico Etnografico “L.Pigorini”, su concessione del Mibact, acc no. 4190.
the Táino with green and yellow abalorios during his first voyage, and over
100,000 beads in these specific hues were sent to the Caribbean during the
early voyages between 1511 and 1526, though they are not listed in subsequent
inventories (Deagan 1987: 110, 157). Thus, they are understood to be reliable
chronological markers for the first quarter (M. Smith in Hoffman 1987: 242)
or, more conservatively, the first half of the sixteenth century (Deagan 1987:
169). Of course, their ‘currency’ (use/circulation) could have extended past this.
Six complete and three fragmentary green abalorios have been recovered from
the site of Long Bay, San Salvador, Bahamas, along with several other European
goods, including a blanca coin dating between 1471 and 1474 (Hoffman 1987: 241).
These wirewound beads (c. 3.5mm in maximum diameter) are distinguished
by their emerald green colour, and have an unusually high lead oxide content
(65–75%). This is higher than any other category of early European lead glass
and suggests a specific region and tradition of manufacture (Brill 1987: 251),
although no source has yet been identified. Another set of small green beads
were recovered from a cave in Quebradillas, Puerto Rico in the 1980s, held within
an intricately carved wooden bowl (Figure 5). Analysis of one of these beads
166
showed strong parallels to the San Salvador abalorios in terms of size, colour and
lead content (Brill 2012: 544–8). Puerto Rico was ‘discovered’ in 1493, but the
Spanish only settled the island 15 years later, in 1508. It is not clear whether the
Quebradillas beads were in circulation on the island prior to Spanish settlement
— potentially traded from Hispaniola via indigenous channels — or whether
they were acquired subsequently, directly from the newly settled foreigners,
though their material parallels to the Bahamian examples suggest a potentially
early date.
The more than 1200 green abalorios on the face and back of the head of the
Pigorini cemí not only support a pre-1550 manufacture of the cemí (Roe 1997:
164; Vega 1987: 28) and highlight the investment of beads in a single artefact,
but also raise the question of specific colour preferences within indigenous
value systems. The colour green had a deep resonance among the Taíno,
from the iridescent splendour of green parrot feathers to the highly prized
‘greenstone’ artefacts circulating via exchange routes spanning the circumCaribbean (Boomert 1987; Rodriguez Ramos 2011). The vibrant emerald glass
Figure 5. Wooden vessel recovered from a cave in Quebradillas, Puerto Rico, containing 30 deep
green, three blue and two yellow glass beads, together with two dog canines. Vessel: Guaiacum
sp., AD 1297–1406, L: 12.2cm; W: 80mm; H: 70mm (max). Photograph: Ostapkowicz; courtesy of
the Museo de Historia, Antropología y Arte, Universidad de Puerto Rico,
Recinto de Río Piedras, 1.2008.0671-2.
Joanna Ostapkowicz: New wealth from the Old World 167
beads must have echoed this quality.3 Further, they came in a diminutive size
(c. 3.5mm diameter) that would have been almost impossible to replicate in
greenstone: jadeites, for example, are extremely difficult to work, and objects
made from these materials were frequently on a larger scale as a result. Small,
drilled greenstone cibas (<10mm in diameter) are rarely encountered in the
archaeological record (Figure 6) and, given the work needed to shape and
drill them, must have been of significant value. They would have been the
purview of caciques and were likely the focal points of pendants or other body
ornaments. One account of Columbus’s first visit to Jamaica in 1494 notes that
amidst the spectacle of regalia worn by the welcoming Taíno envoys sent out
in three canoes to the ship, a cacique wore stones of ‘high value’ and on his head
a ‘garland of small stones, green and red, arranged in order, and intermingled
with some larger white stones, producing a pleasing effect’; he also wore a
matching belt ‘of the same workmanship as the garland’ (Bernaldez in Jane
1967: 162). But given the level of difficulty in producing small greenstone
cibas and the need for large quantities of beads for belts and headdresses, it
is possible that the ‘green stones’ were in fact green shell beads, specifically
selected for their desirable, natural colour.
Given the cachet of such prized green materials, glass beads of emerald hues,
gifted or traded from the start of Columbus’s initial voyages (and part of the
cargo on subsequent voyages of the first half of the sixteenth century; Deagan
1987: 156–7), must have had an immediate resonance within indigenous value
systems. Undoubtedly, their use — whether strung on a necklace or integrated
into a composite artefact — followed swiftly on from initial exchange. Caciques
with access to large quantities of beads would have had them integrated into
objects befitting their status. A belt belonging to Caonabó with a ‘green face
and two leaves of gold’ may be a case in point. This belt was inventoried by the
Spanish on 9 July 1495 (Torres 1868), shortly after they captured Caonabó and
imprisoned him at La Isabela. This was over two years after Caonabó’s purported
sacking of the first Spanish settlement, La Navidad, and his (unsubstantiated)
threats on Fort Santo Tomás which lead to the Spanish march on the Vega Real in
3
Certainly, this was the case in the wider circum-Caribbean: during the Spanish expeditions into
Mexico, green glass beads were also distributed in great quantity (Smith and Good 1982: 3) and in
their specific choice of green, the Spanish had stumbled upon a colour resonant with one of the
prime valuables in the region. Montezuma himself ordered that his governors welcome Spanish
interests in bartering indigenous gold for green beads, because they were similar to chalchihuites
(jadeites), which are valued ‘as highly as emeralds’ (Smith and Good 1982: 4). In just one example,
the expedition led by Juan de Grijalva reached Rio de Tabasco in 1518, where it was greeted by
canoes full of warriors: ‘...and we showed them strings of green beads and small mirrors and
blue cut glass beads, and soon as they saw them they assumed a more friendly manner, for they
thought they were chalcihuites […] which they value greatly’ (Smith and Good 1982: 4).
168
an effort to pacify the situation (Colón
1992: 127; Wilson 1990: 83) — events
that made him a notorious enemy of
the Spanish. Whether the green face
of Caonabó’s belt was made from a
single piece of carved greenstone,
quantities of greenstone (or shell)
beads — as worn by the Jamaican
cacique — or, potentially, newly
imported green glass beads is not clear
from the records, but given Caonabó’s
status as one of the principal caciques
of Hispaniola, it is likely that he had
access to glass beads. Although an
enemy of the Spanish, he may not
have rejected their imports. Indeed,
the inventory, on 19 February 1496,
intriguingly links him to a stone cross
and two latón (brass) pieces (Torres
1868), which were only acquired via
Figure 6. A small, broken jadeite (?)
the Spanish — and the legend of his
bead, recovered from the site of Morel,
capture recounts how his interest
Guadeloupe. Diameter: 9mm; thickness:
in turey (in this instance, foreign
4mm; hole diameter: c. 4mm. Photograph:
metals) led to the Spanish offering
Ostapkowicz; courtesy of the Direction des
him a ‘gift’ of metal handcuffs, which
Affaires culturelles, Guadeloupe, 5801.
were quickly snapped shut as he tried
them on (Wilson 1990: 84–7). Given
the green glass beads incorporated into the bat face of the Pigorini cemí, it is
an intriguing possibility that the centrepiece of Caonabó’s belt may have been
similarly constructed.
It is clear from the above that Spanish cuentas were but an addition to a longestablished category of ornament within the Caribbean: shell beads and cibas.
These new imports, in a range of vibrant and unfading colours, were easily
appropriated in the existing framework. Fortuitously, some of them, such as
the small green abalorios, also echoed the colours and qualities of ‘greenstone’
ornaments — some of the most spiritually and socio-politically important
indigenous valuables, and often themselves exotic. It is small wonder that
cuentas were so successfully adopted in the circum-Caribbean, and what the
Spanish thought were favourable exchange terms (beads for gold), the Taíno
likely also viewed as equally satisfactory, given the qualities of these new-yetfamiliar valuables and the distance they had travelled.
Joanna Ostapkowicz: New wealth from the Old World 169
Dark materials: jet and rhinoceros horn
Glass beads were not the only imports valued by the Taíno: the dark matt finish
of jet also held allure. Black beads, ornaments and ceremonial items have a deep
history within the circum-Caribbean region; dark, fossilised terrestrial plant
material (e.g. lignite) was used prior to European contact, though this is largely
an unstudied medium of artistic expression. Carvings in these materials tend
to be on a small scale, ranging from c. 3 to 15cm. One example is the composite
snuff tube in the form of a bird and monkey recovered from Charlotte Parish,
St Vincent, prior to 1870 (Figure 7) (see also Arroyo et al. 1971: 233 for two
similarly complex carvings found along the Arauca river, Venezuela). At
least six small (<3cm), dark brown/black pendants with stylistically similar
anthropo/zoomorphic imagery have previously been identified as wood, but
may actually be carved of lignite, a soft stone related to coal and similar to
jet (Ostapkowicz 2016; in press). Three are from the sites of Morel and L’Allée
Dumanoir, Guadeloupe (Etrich et al. 2002: 26; Petitjean Roget 1995) and three
from Sorcé, Vieques, Puerto Rico (Chanlatte Baik and Narganes Storde 1984:
fig. 24c); those with good contextual information all appear to fall within the
Early Ceramic Age period (c. 400 BC – AD 600) and come from deposits rich in
exotics (e.g. amethyst beads; Chanlatte Baik and Narganes Storde 1984; Etrich
et al. 2002). Another small carving recovered from St Vincent features a ventral
surface in the form of a frog and has long been assumed to be made from
manjack or pitch (analyses are under way).
The wide-ranging use of these black materials in the circum-Caribbean, their
association with other valuables and their use in ceremonial contexts (e.g.
snuff tubes for the ingestion of hallucinogens) suggest significance beyond the
merely decorative. Black — like the colour green — may have had complex and
deeply rooted meanings (cf. Helms 1986). The use of black by the Taíno was
frequently commented on by the cronistas: Taíno wood sculpture — particularly
elite, ceremonial artefacts — was to Spanish eyes ‘black as jet’ (Las Casas 1967b:
174; Helms 1986; Martyr D’Anghera 1970: 125). Black was also used in body
painting, to enhance features on carvings (such as the black pigment outlining
the mouth, nostrils and eyes of the Pigorini cemí’s rhinoceros horn mask) and
as a dye for cotton and basketry weaving (Las Casas 1967a: 75; Cuneo in Symcox
2002: 58). Indeed, it is possible that the black beads that frame the red and white
designs on the Vienna belt had been specifically dyed that colour to enhance
the patterns (Figure 8; Ostapkowicz 2013: note 55).
Within this indigenous context, imported Spanish jet may have fortuitously
echoed established local values for black materials, like the greenstones/green
abalorios explored above. The three surviving jet beads on the Vienna belt may
170
Figure 7. A composite snuff tube from St
Vincent, depicting a bird above a monkey.
Accession records note that it was ‘[f]ound
(prior to 1870) in a cane piece [plantation]
in Charlotte parish to the N.E. of the Id. of
St Vincent, W. Indies’. Height: 86mm; width:
53mm; diameter: 67mm.
Photograph: Ostapkowicz; courtesy and
copyright of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University
of Oxford, 1900.44.1
have originally been part of religious Spanish ornaments: two six-sided beads
placed at the top of the central cemí’s head may have served as veneras (literarily,
items of ‘veneration’; symbols of saints, religious orders etc.) and a single small,
faceted jet bead placed in the right earflare may have come from a rosary (Figure
9; cf. Deagan 1987a: 72–4, 182–3). Though jet is not documented as an exchange
commodity during the early colonial period, the use of jet for veneras, amulets
and rosaries by the Spanish is known from at least the thirteenth century,
and personal jet ornaments likely featured from the first voyages, as amulets,
religious objects and rosaries (Deagan 1987a: 73). Unlike glass beads, which the
Spanish viewed purely as a trade item and brought with them in bulk, jet was
understood to have strong protective and magical qualities, and as such may
not have been so easily parted with in what were primarily viewed as economic
transactions (though diplomatic negotiations may have been different, see
below). Indeed, at its height in the sixteenth century, the church had the
monopoly on jet production via guilds in Compostela, Spain (Deagan 2002: 73);
jet carving was in the service of, and sanctioned by, the church. Where records
exist, they document that only small quantities of jet were imported into the
colonies prior to 1526, in contrast to the late sixteenth and early seventeenth
Joanna Ostapkowicz: New wealth from the Old World 171
Figure 8. A damaged black bead (inset right), in the context of where it is located on the
Vienna belt. It features a black surface, but white interior, suggesting a possible surface dye or
colourant. Photograph: Ostapkowicz; courtesy of the Weltmuseum Wien, inv. no. 10.443.
century (Deagan 1987a: tab. 6.1). But even the cumulative quantities of jet
imports over the first century of the colonial enterprise were insignificant
in comparison to the glass bead imports for the years 1511–1526 alone (Table
1). Jet was therefore an extremely rare material in the early colonial period,
making the incorporation of three jet beads into the Vienna belt exceptional.
What is not known is whether the Spanish belief that jet had protective and
magical qualities held any significance for the Taíno. It is intriguing in this
respect that the jet beads at the top of the cemí’s head are in the style of Dominican
crosses (cf. Deagan 2002: 73), with St. Dominic being frequently represented in
Catholic iconography by a star on his forehead or above his head. Assuming
that the jet was incorporated into the belt within an indigenous context (see
footnote 1), then might the placement of these particular jet beads on top of
the cemí’s head reflect Taíno awareness of their meaning to the Spanish, and
an integration of some elements of Christianity into their own belief systems
172
Figure 9. The two styles of jet beads featured on the Vienna belt. Left: one of two large, six-sided
beads (length: 12.5mm; width: 7.3mm), secured with a brass pin (possibly from a belt buckle)
placed at the top of the cemí’s head. Right: a single small faceted bead (max. diameter: 4mm)
inserted into the cemí’s right earflare. Photograph: Ostapkowicz; courtesy of the Weltmuseum
Wien, inv. no. 10.443.
Date
Jet
Quantity
1511–1526
200 finger rings of jet
200
1583–1613
7365 jet rings; 38,000 cut stones of jet; 12 strings of jet; 578
strings of jet rings; 928 necklaces of jet; 7,000 pieces of jet for
necklaces; 600 necklaces of jet medallions; 648 earrings of jet and
glass; 44,000 small jet beads; 24 small jet chains
99,515
Date
Glass beads
Quantity
1511–1526
102,000 green and yellow beads; 60,000 necklace beads; 17,000
bunches of beads; 9 strings of necklace beads; 18 strings of glass
bangle bracelets
179,027
Table 1. Jet (azabache) imported to the Spanish Colonies, 1511–1526 (compiled from Deagan
1987: tab. 6.1. Note the disparity between jet and glass imports for 1511–1526).
Joanna Ostapkowicz: New wealth from the Old World 173
and iconography? Could this belt be part of a ‘fluid world of spiritual exchange’
(Tuer 2003: 78)? Although speculative, there are a number of aspects of the
early colonial period that could support this scenario. As well as the presence
of missionaries in the colonies from 1493 (with the first Native baptism taking
place in 1496), the Spanish encomienda system, established in 1503, was an
overt policy to acculturate indigenous populations by teaching them Christian
doctrine in exchange for their labour. Indeed, the early cronistas documented
that the Taino selectively adopted Christian elements, including certain saints,
whose lives, replete with miracles and explicit material symbolism, may have
sat comfortably alongside equally legendary and powerful cemis (Oliver 2009:
221–44). That the belt may embody the transition between traditional Taíno
iconography and an emerging religious syncretism opens new avenues of
exploring its meaning and this critical period in the New World.
Another dark material is — quite remarkably — rhinoceros horn, carved
as the human face of the Pigorini cemí (Figure 10; Biscione 1997: 162). Its
incorporation into the sculpture raises many questions: how did rhinoceros
horn, an extremely valuable commodity in sixteenth century Europe and Asia,
enter into the Caribbean, when even basic supplies (clothing, food and wine,
livestock) for the fledgling colonies were hard to come by? If indeed the horn is
original to the piece (rather than a later addition by a European artisan), it may
have entered the Caribbean from Europe, or alternatively via the slaving routes
that post-1502 brought occasional African materials via the colonies, ultimately
destined as luxury goods for the European ports.4 Contrary to those who —
understandably given the material — would see the Pigorini cemí as heavily
influenced by west African rather than Taíno conventions (Roe 1997: 165), to
the degree that it is an ‘adumbration of the cultural and spiritual significance
of African forms in the shaping of American art’ (Sullivan 2006: 40), the facial
features are entirely compatible with Taíno aesthetics (Biscione 1997: 162–3;
Vega 1987: 26), and certainly wood and shell masks — or guaízas as the Taíno
called them — were important elite accoutrements, so this resonates with
Caribbean traditions in more ways than one. At the same time, it expands these
traditions in the use of a unique and exceptional material. Ongoing research
aims to resolve these questions, addressing the significance and provenance of
this material.
4
The rhinoceros horn may not be the only potentially African exotic featured on the Pigorini
cemí: it has also been suggested that the shells used for the cemí’s teeth are west African Prunum
monilis (Feest 1991: 581, based on the original identification by Strouhal in Schweeger-Hefel 1952:
210, 214–5), although it is unclear on what basis this attribution was made. Comparable small
white shells also occur in the Caribbean (such as Volvarina lacteal, Hyalina lucinda), hence it will be
necessary to revisit this issue.
174
Figure 10. Left profile of the Pigorini cemí’s human face, carved of rhinoceros horn, with shell
eye inlay and facial lines enhanced with black pigment. Photograph: Ostapkowicz; courtesy
of the Polo Museale del Lazio - Museo Nazionale Preistorico Etnografico “L.Pigorini”, su
concessione del Mibact, acc no. 4190.
Brilliant surfaces, heavenly entities: caona (gold), guanín (gold-coppersilver alloy) and European brass (turey)
Two indigenous metals were highly valued in the Caribbean prior to European
contact: caona (alluvial, unrefined gold), typically used as inlay for ritual
artefacts or attachments to cacical cotton belts or caps, and guanín (a goldcopper-silver alloy), used as a high-status trade item and body ornament
(Martinón-Torres et al. 2012: 442; Oliver 2000).5 High-temperature metallurgy
(smelting and alloying) was unknown in the Caribbean; the manufacture of gold
ornaments involved cold-hammering nuggets into small, flat sheets, enhanced
occasionally through repoussé. Guanín was imported into the Caribbean from
South America via the Lesser Antilles, and possibly via more direct links (Oliver
2000: 199–200; Valcárcel Royas and Martinón-Torres 2013: 506, 516, 518).
5
Indigenous silver was also known — first described by Columbus after seeing a nose-ring
ornament while in northern Cuba — but no artefacts have been recovered to date, and it was
likely not as important as gold or guanín (Oliver 2000: 198).
Joanna Ostapkowicz: New wealth from the Old World 175
Gold was a recognised valuable across the Caribbean, referred to by various
indigenous names — from nozay in the Bahamas and Cuba, to tuob in the northeast to caona in the west, the Taíno heartland (Lardicci 1999: 116; Valcárcel
Royas and Martinón-Torres 2013: 505). The practice of collecting gold involved
ritual purification, including physical deprivation such as fasting and sexual
abstinence (Oviedo 1959). This imparts a social significance to the material
extending far beyond its surface aesthetic. Such ritual preparation was a
requirement for other potent substances, such as cohoba, a hallucinogenic
drug that was only ingested once participants had purged themselves (Las
Casas 1967b: 174). Gold was to become the eyes of a cemí, the ornament of a
cacique and the desired treasure of the Europeans — yet it also transcended
these charged loci as a substance of both culturally inherent value and
numinous power.
Gold soon became the focus of mediations between the Taíno and the Spanish:
it was both a means of engaging with and appeasing the strangers, as well as
accessing their trade valuables (Martinón-Torres et al. 2012: 507; Oliver 2007:
47). Spanish inventories, compiled after the Taíno uprisings of 1494/1495 and
detailing objects brought in tribute (and possibly as ransom, Ostapkowicz
2013) provide insight into the diversity of items lavishly inlaid with gold —
particularly those that mediated between the natural and supernatural worlds
(vomiting spatulas, cemís, guaízas etc.; Torres 1868). These inlays did not last
long once in Spanish hands: the amount of gold present was carefully described
and weighed, suggesting that shortly after their collection, they were prised
away (e.g. nine gold leaf inlays from two masks collected on 19 February 1496
weighed 4 1/8 ounces, five tomines and six grains; Torres 1868: 9). There are only
a handful of wood and cotton artefacts now in museum collections that still
retain their gold inlays, most famously the Hispaniolan high-back duho in the
British Museum (Figure 11).
Given their highly charged potency, and their ancestral links to the
mythical cultural hero and primordial cacique Guayayona, gold and guanín
were a chiefly prerogative and a divine symbol of chiefly power (Oliver
2000: 205). Caona was literarily the root of chiefly names: Caonabó (‘He who
is like gold’) and the honorific title of Bohechio (Tureygua Hobin — ‘King
as dazzling and heavenly as guanín’) echo the qualities of the materials
(Oliver 2000: 205; Whitehead 1999: 881). It is clear that chiefs had control
over its distribution, including organising the payment of gold tribute to
the Spanish. They wore it as nose rings, or had it inlaid into high-status
items (Caonabó’s belt featured two gold inlays and his vomiting spatula had
29 pieces of gold; Torres 1868: 9). The sixteenth century Italian historian
Scillacio notes that among Guacanagari’s gifts to Columbus upon the latter’s
176
return in 1493 were twelve belts ‘of marvellous workmanship […] several
of them were notable for nuggets of gold worked very artistically into the
[cotton]’ (Symcox 2002: 43).
Gold was prized for all these properties, but it was not as esteemed as the goldcopper alloy guanín (Martinón-Torres et al. 2007: 202). Guanín had a distinct,
reddish hue and, reportedly, a unique scent that the Taíno prized highly (Oliver
2000: 198). This, combined with its mythic associations and distant South
American origins, made it the preeminent valuable (Oliver 2000; Valcárcel
Royas and Martinón-Torres 2013: 506). Las Casas notes that guanín was used
as bride price (Oliver 2000: 198–9), and in the early days of colonial expansion
on Hispaniola it was used as a type of currency (Valcárcel Royas and MartinónTorres 2013: 508). The Spanish were quick to manipulate the local desire for
guanín to their advantage, importing it directly from South America to leverage
favourable exchange rates for higher-karat gold: at one stage, the going rate
for one piece of guanín was 200 pieces of gold (Bray 1997: 49; Martinón-Torres
et al. 2012: 446). Sued-Badillo notes that archival documents in the Casa de
Contratación in Sevilla document the presence of guanín ornaments in the form
of eagles and frogs (suggesting South American sources) held in storehouses in
Santo Domingo, DR, specifically for exchange with the local natives for gold dust
and nuggets (in Bray 1997: 50). Its sale was prohibited by royal degree in 1501, so
that it could be used specifically in bartering with the Taíno, as it yielded such
favourable rates (Valcárcel Royas and Martinón-Torres 2013: 508). Guanín is
listed in Spanish inventories, such as that compiled by Cristóbal de Santa Clara,
of material brought in by the Taíno, potentially as tribute, between 1505 and
1508 (Mira Caballos 2000: 81–104). By 1527, however, it was being melted down
by the Spanish, presumably to extract the gold due to the declining amount of
the metal being produced on the islands (Valcárcel Royas and Martinón-Torres
2013: 509).
Guanín is rarely encountered in sites of the Caribbean’s pre-contact and early
colonial period: of the over 60 examples of precious metals found across both the
Greater and Lesser Antilles only 15 are guanín (Valcárcel Royas and MartinónTorres 2013: 509–14; Vega in Oliver 2000: 200). The earliest known example,
found at the Puerto Rican site of Maisabel, dates to c. AD 70–374 (Oliver 2000:
197), though it is possible that guanín may have been among the other items
of South American material culture imported into the islands as early as 400
BC (Valcárcel Royas and Martinón-Torres 2013: 517). The majority of pieces,
however, broadly date between AD 1200 and 1500 (Martinón-Torres 2012: 440).
Thin sheets tended to be the preferred medium, some with embossed designs,
though rare anthropo- and zoomorphic figures have also been recovered,
suggesting a Colombian origin (Martinón-Torres 2012: 514).
Joanna Ostapkowicz: New wealth from the Old World 177
Figure 11. Hispaniolan duho (ceremonial seat) featuring gold inlay at the mouth, eyes, ear and
shoulders. In Caribbean sculptures, body orifices and joints were frequently embellished with
inlays, emphasising their importance. Photograph: Ostapkowicz; by kind permission of the
British Museum, Am1949, 22.118.
178
To this repertoire of indigenous metal valuables were added the most highly
prized European imports: copper and zinc alloys (brass) — what the Spanish
called latón; to the Taíno, it was turey — literally ‘of the bright sky’, a heavenly
entity. Las Casas notes: ‘Anything made of latón was esteemed more than any
other [metal]. They call it turey, as a thing from the sky, because their name
for sky was turey [or tureyro, tureygua]; they smelled it as if by doing so they
could sense it came from the heavens’ (Oliver 2000: 198). The first mention of
the exchange of European metals is via Columbus, who, after being lavished
with gifts by Guacanagari, reciprocated by presenting the cacique with ‘a large
hand-basin made of yellow copper, and several tin rings’ (late fifteenth/early
sixteenth century Italian historian Scillacio, cited in Symcox 2002: 43). During
this exchange, Scillacio continues:
it was not permitted for all the Spaniards indiscriminately to take gifts
from the Indians, but only those who could give back gifts in return: little
gifts like pins, glass objects, bronze bells like the ones which are tied to
the tinkling talons of hawks (indeed, Ethiopians and Arabs have been very
taken with these kinds of gifts, and we often read in histories of their being
exchanged in commerce). So it happened that, in exchange for very cheap
gifts, the Spaniards received more than thirty besses6 of gold that day. The
Indians laughed at how cheaply they got bronze, and our people laughed
at exchanging yellow copper for gold, since the Indians would part with an
immense quantity of gold for each bronze pendant. This should surprise no
one, since rarity dictates price (in Symcox 2002: 43–4, italics added).
Scillacio’s insight — unlike those of many other historians who documented the
indigenous groups as ignorant of value — ascribes as much agency to the Taíno
as it does to the Spanish: each got what they desired most — that which was,
in their eyes, the most rare and hence, valuable. Scales of value are invariably
subjective and culturally prescribed.
This indigenous desire for European metals was not something anticipated
during the earliest voyages, but to accommodate trade, even brass aglets from
clothing (used to stop lace ends from fraying) were traded. Over 30 examples
are known from archaeological contexts, particularly from Chorro de Maita,
Cuba, where they are associated with elite burials and would have been worn
as ornaments in life (Martinón-Torres et al. 2007: 199, 203). In the Vienna belt,
two brass pins are used to secure the jet beads on the head of the cemí. These
may have come from belt buckles, perhaps of the ‘ring and pin’ buckle style
that was common in the first half of the sixteenth century on Spanish colonial
6
A bes was a measure of eight ounces, and 30 besses would imply 240 ounces of gold.
Joanna Ostapkowicz: New wealth from the Old World 179
sites (see Figure 9; Deagan 1987: 180–1). The jet beads held by the pins appear
to cover areas of previous damage, where the belt originally may have held
another material, perhaps gold (as the Spanish clearly documented in other
belts). Given that the Taíno were known to refurbish important curated objects
(Ostapkowicz et al. 2012; 2013), it is possible that the jet and brass pins replaced
gold or some other material. If so, the original context (the belt) and its use as
an elite accoutrement remained unaffected, it was simply modified to facilitate
the display of new forms of wealth and status.
Interest in foreign metals stemmed in part from how easily they fit into
indigenous understandings of value, not simply their newness or exoticness, but
how they integrated into a pre-existing scale of worth, subscribing as they did
to the ‘aesthetic of brilliance’, linking to distant lands and people, and touching
upon the numinous. Gold, the most coveted of European materials, while still
highly valued by the Taíno, did not have the same resonance as guanín, and
especially turey.
Reflective worlds: espejos (mirrors)
Indigenous Caribbean ‘mirrors’ (espejos in Spanish) of highly polished gold or
guanín sheets (see Martinón-Torres et al. 2007: 202) are known from the Spanish
inventories (Torres 1865), with 24 listed in that of 1495/1496 (Table 2), clearly
distinguished from the gold sheets (hojuelas), pieces of gold leaf (hoja de oro) and/
or gold (pintas) also collected from the Taíno at this time. They are described as
espejos de oro or ‘espejos, las lumbres de hoja de oro’, with clear reference to gold or
a gold-like material — the term lumbres referring to a reflective surface, and so
analogous with mirrors. Lumbres also refers in some contexts to the embers of
a dying fire (Fernández-Crespo 2015, pers. comm.), perhaps evoking the warm
glow of the material in a double meaning. The reference to reflective surfaces
indicates that the material must have been polished to a high degree. In some
instances espejos are noted as being backed by cotton, suggesting that they were
worn, possibly as neck or head ornaments. There are numerous early references
to the presence of gold sheets on cotton body ornaments, including belts and
caps, but these are described using other terms, such as hoja de oro.
The use of the word espejos is significant here: these objects are not simply
described in Spanish as disks of gold or flat gold sheets, but are instead identified
as mirrors. Though the term may have been used to distinguish large ornaments
of flattened gold, it may also reflect nascent Spanish understandings of the
Taíno worldview and value systems. As discussed above, gold was associated
with cacical power while guanín and turey were considered gifts of the sky
(Saunders 2011: 96) and hence embodied spiritual power (Oliver 2000). Across
180
Date
Description
10 March 1495
‘dos espejos, las lumbres de hoja de oro […] que trujo un hermano de Cahonabo’
[sic]; i.e. ‘two mirrors, [with] reflective surface[s] of gold leaf […] that a
brother of Caonabó brought’
18 December 1495
‘tres espejos de oro’, i.e. ‘three gold mirrors’
2 February 1496
‘é diez y seis espejos de oro’, i.e. ‘16 gold mirrors’
19 February 1496
‘tres espejos de algodon, las lumbres de hoja de oro’, i.e. ‘tree mirrors of
cotton, the reflective surface(s) of gold leaf ’
Table 2. Gold espejos (‘mirrors’) listed in the 1495/1496 inventory.
the Americas, mirrors were viewed as conduits to a supernatural realm and
as such were spiritually active entities that maintained the world, capturing
cosmic energy in solid form (Saunders 1998; 2011: 95). By trapping light in their
reflective surfaces, they possessed healing, energising and fertilising qualities
(Saunders 2005; 115). These surfaces did not need to provide a clear reflection,
as the use of the term mirror might imply; rather, recognisable but distorted
images provided views into the otherworld (Saunders 1998: 18). For the Tukano
of Colombia, for example, a thin shell (gahsíru) separates the physical and
spiritual worlds, a gateway that can only be breached through hallucinogeninduced altered states of consciousness (Saunders 1998: 7). Shells, with their
links to water (standing pools which provide natural mirrors), may have been
conceptually linked (Saunders 1998: 15), and these naturally brilliant, reflective
surfaces paralleled the qualities of those of other (super-)natural materials
such as gold and guanín. Shells and gold were used by the Taíno as inlays for
the eyes of cemís, emphasising the links between vision, reflective surfaces
and the numinous. European mirrors (which themselves had only recently
become capable of faithfully reflecting an image) were simply an extension of
this understanding. Perhaps it is in this sense that the layering of reflective
materials in the eyes of the Pigorini cemí bat face can be understood: the gold
underlying the mirrors may well underscore the connection between the two
in Taíno thought and how both were understood as mirrors/espejos of other
worlds (Figure 12, left).
When gold mirrors were worn, the sunlight reflected in them was dramatically
intensified, setting the metal alight. At night, firelight would catch in their
Joanna Ostapkowicz: New wealth from the Old World 181
surfaces, accentuated by the movements of the wearer. These ornaments
were part of the pomp and circumstance of major events, focusing spectator
attention on those who had privileged access to them, marking their every
movement. Among circum-Caribbean groups, wearing such gold ornaments in
quantity was particularly important for chiefs during raiding parties or battles
‘in order to be known to their own men and also by their enemies’ as Oviedo
noted (in Saunders 2011: 109). Perhaps this offers another perspective on the
Jamaican cacique’s regalia during the momentous meeting with Columbus in
1494, particularly his large guanín pectoral: during the tense moments of initial
encounter, the Jamaican cacique donned his finest espejos in order to intimidate
his potential adversary or impress a possible ally. European mirrors may have
come to fill this role, held within the cotton belts, caps and ornaments worn by
caciques, as seen in the Pigorini cemí and Vienna belt.
Mirrors were introduced as items of exchange from the time of Columbus’s
first voyage, when the Admiral himself presented the cacique Guacanagari
with ‘many things from Spain, such as glass beads […] and mirrors’ (Biscione
1997: 163). Mirrors are exceptionally rare in the archaeological record from
sixteenth century sites in the Americas, suggesting that not only was their
export relatively limited, but that they were carefully curated items (Jeffrey
M. Mitchem 2012, pers. comm.). The Pigorini cemí incorporates six relatively
large circular disks featured in the eyes of the bat mask and in the earflares of
both faces. In the eyes of the bat, the backing of the mirrors has been scraped
back, revealing a secondary eye and pupil, highlighted in hammered gold sheet
and dark resin. This parallels the shape of the human eyes on the opposing
rhinoceros horn mask, suggesting a link between both animal and human masks
and possibly a transformative element between the two (as often seen in Taíno
art). The Vienna belt also features cut circular mirrors as the eyes of its central
cemí maskette (Figure 12, right). This prominent placement of mirrors in both
pieces — substituting gold and shell inlays in the eyes and ears of the cemís —
suggests that mirrors may have been viewed as portals through which to be
seen and heard by the numinous (as well as the means to see and hear them),
much as the original indigenous substances may have been viewed. Further,
their presence in these elite objects quite literarily reflected upon the wearer’s
ability to harness the tried and tested foundations of power in the form of cemís
through new sources and materials.
Discussion and conclusions: the role of exchange in processes of social
transformation
Until recently, little was known about how European valuables were adopted,
adapted and incorporated into indigenous contexts in the Caribbean: the
182
Figure 12. Glass mirrors in the eyes and earflares of the Pigorini cemí (left) and the eyes of the
Vienna belt (right). The edges of the disks remain quite rough and are clearly made to the exact
dimensions of each aperture. The concoidal damage to the mirrors in both pieces was likely
sustained during the cutting process and suggests that cuts were made along the upper side of
the mirror, likely to avoid the thin veneer of lead or mercury at the back.
Photograph: Ostapkowicz; courtesy of the Polo Museale del Lazio - Museo Nazionale Preistorico
Etnografico “L.Pigorini”, su concessione del Mibact, acc no. 4190.
favoured, ahistorical view perpetuated the myth of traditional, unadulterated
and unchanging indigenous society (cf. Wolf 1982). The peoples first
encountered in the New World — the Lucayans, the Taíno and Carib described in
sensational accounts and depicted in illustrations thanks to newly established
printing presses — remained frozen in perpetual nakedness (Figure 13), be it
‘noble chieftain’ or ‘savage cannibal’, lacking any but the most stereotypical
accoutrements: feather headdress, war club or a bow and arrow. Although
early accounts describe how indigenous people actively bartered for European
trade goods such as glass beads, mirrors or metals, the suggestion that they
incorporated these into their own material culture, or adapted them for their
own purposes, rarely enters the equation (but see Keehnen 2012; Valcárcel Rojas
and Martinón Torres 2013).7 The assumption of a swift demise in the face of
European encroachment and newly introduced diseases, and a complete social
and cultural collapse in the face of enforced assimilation practices, perpetuated
the impression of a people unable to adapt to change. This long-held myth has
For example, both the Vienna belt and Pigorini cemí were not identified as Caribbean artefacts
until the 1950s (Schweeger-Hefel 1952) and it was not until the 1990s, particularly as a result
of the exhibits and events marking the Columbus quincentenary, that researchers began to
engage with the materiality of the Pigorini cemí and its interconnections to both European and
potentially African sources (Biscione 1997; Feest 1991; Roe 1997).
7
Joanna Ostapkowicz: New wealth from the Old World 183
Figure 13. The first European depiction of ‘New World’ inhabitants, one of whom offers a gold
nugget to Columbus. The illustration accompanied Columbus’ letter announcing his discoveries.
From Columbus, De Insulis nuper in mari Indico repertis, Basel, 1494 (fol. IV), woodcut.
Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University.
184
in many ways hindered work on early contact period indigenous (as opposed
to Spanish colonial) archaeology in the Caribbean until recent years (for an
overview see Deagan 2004: 601–5), though excellent archival studies have
provided a more nuanced picture (Anderson Córdova 1990; Guitar 1998) and
recent archaeological work on post-contact indigenous sites is set to challenge
these assumptions (e.g. Valcárcel Rojas 2012). Now, a broad-scale study of
this critical period — Nexus 1492, led by Corinne Hofman, Leiden University
(http://nexus1492.eu) — aims to look specifically at this ‘historical divide’ to
better understand indigenous responses and adaptations to the fifteenth to
seventeenth century Caribbean.
Artefacts bridging this divide are rare and all the more important for their
contribution to the emerging emphasis on indigenous agency at a time of
tremendous cultural change and upheaval. The two artefacts anchoring this
discussion — the Pigorini cemí and Vienna belt — have enabled us to explore
Taíno use and perceptions of newly introduced goods such as glass and
jet beads, mirrors and brass pins. It is clear that the Taíno were intrigued
by Spanish imports and desired their luminous qualities for their own
purposes. It is not, as is often perceived, that the Taíno were overwhelmed
by the ‘sophistication’ of European goods; rather, they recognised them as
exhibiting qualities paralleling those of their own valuables, and this recontextualisation speaks to their active involvement in the transformative
process of social change.
There may be several levels to Taíno appreciation of the value of European
materials. Initially, their exoticness — the distance they had travelled and
embodied and their links to the newly arrived foreigners — ensured an
audience (cf. Helms 1988). Many were bright, shiny objects that fortuitously
recalled indigenous valuables, smoothly aligning with the latter’s pre-existing
significance (e.g. green glass beads/jadeite ornaments). To gain greater
meaning and value, these new materials needed to be integrated into local
socio-political and economic systems. Once captured within native networks
and incorporated into ornaments or high-status objects — such as seen on the
Pigorini cemí, for example — the value of these materials transcended the merely
‘exotic’, absorbed into the service of indigenous meanings and aesthetics. In
this sense, meaning and value were accretional and transformative (cf. Gosden
and Marshall 1999: 172), ever deepening in New World significance the further
integrated the Old World goods became.
Body ornaments were few and select among the Taíno, each carrying
information about the wearer’s connections and social position, their cultural
affiliation, and status. The language of these social signifiers would be carried
Joanna Ostapkowicz: New wealth from the Old World 185
in a variety of subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways — from the style of woven cotton
ornaments to the placement and quantity of shell and stone beads or the size
and shape of a gold or guanín pendant. One can well imagine the impact of
Old World goods on this repertoire of refined, well-understood classifications
and meanings: it was the allure of the new, embodied in vibrant, un-fading
materials, brought by foreigners from distant lands. Beyond this, it echoed
the qualities of materials difficult to acquire, and more difficult to work
(jadeites), or captured the elusive, ever-brilliant iridescence of the sun, with
its links to the numinous.
The ‘aesthetics of brilliance’ ruled the world of the Europeans as well — perhaps
consumed them is a more appropriate term, given the circumstances and
exploitation of indigenous groups post-1492. Quite apart from the use of gold,
pearls and precious stones in their own body ornaments, they were far from
averse to using gold, mirrors and ornamentation to adorn their own religious
icons. The Virgen de la Estrella, displayed in the very centre of the massive
cathedral of Sevilla, is a case in point: already lavishly ‘dressed’ in gold leaf when
she was created in 1566, the figure was then encased in an ornate Rococo retablo
in 1770, replete with mirror inlays of various sizes and shapes (Figure 14). This
display, in the heart of Catholic Spain and in the very cathedral to which the
Taíno were brought during Columbus’s triumphant return in 1493 (Las Casas
1951: 332; Parry and Keith 1984: 66), suggests that the use of such ornaments to
visually enhance objects of religious veneration was not so different between
the Old World and the New.
On the one hand, the Vienna belt and Pigorini cemí reflect Taíno traditional
aesthetics, valuables and sources of indigenous power; on the other, they
ingeniously interweave newly introduced European, and potentially African or
Asian, wealth into that powerbase. It is a marriage of worlds, consummately
harnessed through an indigenous prism. Here, the ‘aesthetics of brilliance’
tradition seamlessly substitutes newly introduced mirrors, jet and glass beads
for traditional gold, guanín and polished shell beads and inlays. It appears
to embrace the foreign, yet integrate it within its own milieu, structure and
agency. The strategy may have been to tap into this new source of wealth,
to link across to foreign lands and peoples and to understand these ‘others’,
ideally integrating them into local social and political systems and thereby
gaining insight, power and affluence. As far as we know, this is the first — and
last — glimpse of hybrid elite objects made on Taíno terms, before Spanish
assimilation policies undermined the cacical authority that was the impetus
for such cultural masterpieces.
186
Figure 14. The Virgen de la Estrella (1566) is encased in an ornate Rococo retablo (1770), heavily
inlaid with mirrors. Photograph: Ostapkowicz; Sevilla Cathedral.
Joanna Ostapkowicz: New wealth from the Old World 187
Acknowledgements
This study of the Pigorini cemí and Vienna belt was originally part of the PreHispanic Caribbean Sculptural Arts project, supported by grants from the
Leverhulme Trust (2005–6) and the Getty Foundation (2007–10). I am grateful to
the museums involved for facilitating access to their collections and enabling
detailed photography and various analytical studies (some of which are still
ongoing) — particularly the kind assistance of Donatella Saviola, curator of the
Americas at the Museo Nazionale Preistorico Etnografico ‘L. Pigorini’, Rome and
Gerard van Bussel, curator of North and Central American collections at the
Weltmuseum Wien. I would like to thank colleagues at these institutions, as
well as the Museo de Historia, Antropología y Arte, Universidad de Puerto Rico
(particularly Directora Flavia Marichal Lugo and the late Iván Méndez, Curator,
who was always a wealth of information during my visits to the Museo); the
Direction des Affaires Culturelles, Guadeloupe; the British Museum, London; and
the Pitt Rivers, Oxford for permissions to use my research images in this article.
The John Carter Brown Library, Providence (RI), kindly allowed the use of Figure
11. Teresa Fernández-Crespo and Javier Ordoño assisted with translating some
key sections of sixteenth century Spanish text. Daniela Hofmann and Nicholas
Wells are thanked for welcoming an Americas perspective in their ‘Crystal
Formed of Necessity’ EAA session in Istanbul (2014), and José Oliver and Rick
Schulting for their comments on an earlier version of this paper.
Bibliography
Alegría, R. 1981. El uso de la incrustación en la escultura de los Indios Antillanos.
Santo Domingo, Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Puerto Rico y El Caribe y
Fundación García Arévalo.
Alegría, R. 1995. Apuntes sobre la vestimenta y los adornos de los caciques
Taínos de las Antillas y de la paraphernalia asociada a sus funciones
mágico-religiosas. In M. Rodríguez and R. Alegría (eds), Actas del XV Congreso
Internacional de Arqueología de Caribe: 295–309. San Juan, Centro de Estudios
Avanzados de Puerto Rico y el Caribe.
Anderson-Córdova, K. 1990. Hispaniola and Puerto Rico: Indian acculturation and
heterogeneity, 1492–1550. PhD thesis, Department of Anthropology, Yale
University.
Appadurai, A. 1986. Introduction: commodities and the politics of value. In A.
Appadurai (ed.), The social life of things: commodities in cultural perspective: 3–63.
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Arrom, J. J. 1999. An account of the antiquities of the Indians: a new edition, with an
introductory study, notes and appendixes by José Juan Arrom. Translated by Susan
C. Griswold. Durham, Duke University Press.
Arroyo, C., Miguel, G., Cruxent, J. M. and Perez Soto de Atencio, S. 1971. Arte
Prehispanico de Venezuela. Caracas, Fundación Eugenio Mendoza.
188
Bernaldez, A. 1967. History of the Catholic sovereigns, Don Ferdinand and
Dona Isabella. In C. Jane (ed.), Selected documents illustrating the four voyages
of Columbus. Volume 1: the first and second voyages: 114–67. Millwood, Krause
Reprint.
Biscione, M. 1997. Epilogue: the beaded zemi in the Pigorini Museum: history
and problems of interpretation. In F. Brecht, E. Brodsky, J. A. Farmer and D.
Taylor (eds), Taíno: pre-Columbian art and culture from the Caribbean: 158–63.
New York, The Monacelli Press.
Boomert, A. 1987. Gifts of the Amazon: ‘green stone’ pendants and beads as
items of ceremonial exchange in Amazonia and the Caribbean. Antropológica
67: 33–54.
Bray, W. 1997. Metallurgy and anthropology: two studies from Prehispanic
America. Boletín del Museo del Oro 42: 37–55.
Brill, R. H. 2012. San Salvador and related glasses (Puerto Rico). In R. H. Brill
and C. P. Stapleton (eds), Chemical analyses of early glasses. Volume 3. The years
2000–2011, reports and essays: 544–8. Corning, The Corning Glass Museum.
Brill, R H., Tong, S. S. C., Barnes, I. L., Joel, E. C. and Murtagh, M. J. 1987.
Laboratory studies of some European artifacts excavated on San Salvador
Island. In D. T. Gerace (ed.), Columbus and his world: proceedings of the First San
Salvador Conference: 247–92. Ft. Lauderdale, The Station.
Carlson, L. A. 1995. Strings of command: manufacture and utilization of shell
beads among the Taíno. In M. Rodríguez and R. Alegría (eds), Actas del XV
Congreso Internacional de Arqueología de Caribe: 97–109. San Juan, Centro de
Estudios Avanzados de Puerto Rico y el Caribe.
Chanlatte-Baik, L. A. 2013. Huecoid culture and the Antillean Agroalfarero
(Farmer-Potter) period. In W. F. Keegan, C. L. Hofman and R. Rodríguez
Ramos (eds), The Oxford handbook of Caribbean archaeology: 171–83. Oxford,
Oxford University Press.
Chanlatte Baik, L. and Narganes Storde, Y. 1984. Arqueología de Vieques. Second
edition. Río Piedras, Universidad de Puerto Rico.
Colón, F. 1992. The life of the Admiral Columbus by his son, Ferdinand. Translated
and annotated by Benjamin Keen. New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press.
Curet, A. 2014. The Taíno: phenomena, concepts and terms. Ethnohistory 61(3):
467–95.
Deagan, K. 1987a. Artifacts of the Spanish colonies of Florida and the Caribbean, 1500–
1800. Vol 1: ceramics, glassware and beads. Washington, Smithsonian Institution
Press.
Deagan, K. 1987b. Initial encounters: Arawak responses to European contact
at the En Bas Saline site, Haiti. In D. T. Gerace (ed.), Columbus and his world:
proceedings of the First San Salvador Conference: 341–59. Ft. Lauderdale, The
Station.
Deagan, K. 2002. Artifacts of the Spanish colonies of Florida and the Caribbean,
1500–1800. Volume 2: portable personal possessions. Washington, Smithsonian
Institution Press.
Deagan, K. 2004. Reconsidering Taíno social dynamics after conquest: gender
and class in culture contact studies. American Antiquity 69(4): 597–626.
Joanna Ostapkowicz: New wealth from the Old World 189
Dunn, O. and Kelly, Jr., J. E. 1989. The Diario of Christopher Columbus’s first voyage to
America, 1492–1493. Norman, University of Oklahoma Press.
Etrich, C. 2002. Deviation de Capesterre Belle-Eau, Allée Dumanoir. Bilan
Scientifique 2002: 23–8.
Feest, C. F. 1991. Beaded belt. In J. A. Levenson (ed.), Circa 1492: art in the age of
exploration: 580–1. Washington, National Gallery of Art.
García Arévalo, M. A. 1990. Transculturation in contact period and contemporary
Hispaniola. In D. H. Thomas (ed.), Columbian consequences: archaeological and
historical perspectives on the Spanish borderlands east. Vol 2: 269–80. Washington,
Smithsonian Institution Press.
Gosden, C. 2004. Archaeology and colonialism: culture contact from 5000 BC to the
present. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Gosden, C. 2008. Social ontologies. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
363: 2003–10.
Gosden, C. and Marshall, Y. 1999. The cultural biography of objects. World
Archaeology 31(2): 169–78.
Guitar, L. A. 1998. Cultural genesis: relationships among Indians, Africans and
Spaniards in rural Hispaniola, first half of the sixteenth century. Ph.D. thesis,
Vanderbilt University.
Guitar, L., Ferbel, P. and Estevez, J. 2006. Ocama-Daca Taíno (Hear me, I am Taíno):
Taíno survival on Hispaniola, focusing on the Dominican Republic. In M.
Forte (ed), Indigenous resurgence in the contemporary Caribbean: Amerindian
survival and revival: 41–68. New York: Peter Lang.
Haviser, J. B. 1999. Lithics. In C. L. Hofman and M. L. P. Hoogland (eds),
Archaeological investigations on St Martin (Lesser Antilles): 189–213. Leiden,
Leiden University.
Hayes, K. and Cipolla, C. 2015. Introduction: re-imagining colonial pasts,
influencing colonial futures. In C. Cipolla and Hayes, K. (eds), Rethinking
colonialism: comparative archaeological approaches, 1–14. Gainsville, University
Press of Florida.
Helms, M. 1986. Art styles and interaction spheres in central America and
the Caribbean: polished black wood in the Greater Antilles. Journal of Latin
American Lore 12(1): 25–43.
Helms, M. 1988. Ulysses’ sail: an ethnographic Odyssey of power, knowledge and
geographical distance. Princeton, Princeton University Press.
Hoffman, C. A. 1987. Archaeological investigations at the Long Bay site, San
Salvador, Bahamas. In D. T. Gerace (ed.), Columbus and his world: proceedings of
the First San Salvador Conference: 237–45. Ft. Lauderdale, The Station.
Hofman, C. L. and Hoogland, M. L. P. 2004. Social dynamics and change in the
northern Lesser Antilles. In A. Delpuech and C. L. Hofman (eds), Late Ceramic
Age societies in the eastern Caribbean: 49–57. Oxford, Archaeopress (British
Archaeological Reports International Series 1273).
Hofman, C. L., Bright, A. J., Boomert, A. and Knippenberg, S. 2007. Island
rhythms: the web of social relationships and interaction networks in the
Lesser Antillean archipelago between 400 B.C.–A.D.1492. Latin American
Antiquity 18(3): 243–68.
190
Hofman, C. L, Boomert, A., Bright, A. J., Hoogland, M. L. P., Knippenberg, S. and
Samson, A. V. M. 2011. Ties with the homelands: archipelagic interaction
and enduring role of the south and central American mainlands in the
pre-Columbian Lesser Antilles. In A. Curet and M. W. Hauser (eds), Islands
at the crossroads: migration, seafaring, and interaction in the Caribbean: 73–86.
Tuscaloosa, The University of Alabama Press.
Jane, C. 1967. Select documents illustrating the four Voyages of Columbus, reprint.
New York, Kraus.
Jansen, R. 1999. Shell. In C. L. Hofman and M. L. P. Hoogland (eds), Archaeological
investigations on St Martin (Lesser Antilles): 215–28. Leiden, Leiden University.
Kagan, R. L. 1991. The Spain of Ferdinand and Isabella. In A. Levenson (ed.), Circa
1492: art in the age of exploration: 55–61. Washington, National Gallery of Art.
Kamen, H. 2005. Spain 1469–1714: a society of conflict. Harlow, Pearson.
Keehnen, F. W. M. 2011. Conflicting cosmologies: the exchange of brilliant objects
between the Taíno of Hispaniola and the Spanish. In C. L. Hofman and A. van
Duijvenbode (eds), Communities in contact: essays in archaeology, ethnohistory
and ethnography of the Amerindian circum-Caribbean: 253–68. Leiden: Sidestone
Press.
Keehnen, F. W. M. 2012. Trinkets (f)or treasure: the role of European material culture
in intercultural contacts in Hispaniola during early colonial times. Masters thesis,
University of Leiden.
Las Casas, B. de 1951. Historia de las Indias. Volume 1. Mexico City, Fondo de Cultura
Economica (Biblioteca Americana 1).
Las Casas, B. de 1967a. Apologética historia sumaria. Volume 1. Mexico, Universidad
Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas.
Las Casas, B. de 1967b. Apologética historia sumaria. Volume 2. Mexico, Universidad
Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas.
Lardicci, F. (ed.). 1999. A synoptic edition of the log of Columbus’s first voyage.
Reportorium Columbianum, Vol VI. Turnhout, Brepols.
Martinón-Torres, M., Valcárcel Rojas, R., Cooper, J. and Rehren, T. 2007. Metals,
microanalysis and meaning: a study of metal objects excavated from the
indigenous cemetery of El Chorro de Maíta, Cuba. Journal of Archaeological
Science 34: 194–204.
Martinón-Torres, M., Valcárcel Rojas, R., Sáenz Samper, J. and Guerra, M. 2012.
Metallic encounters in Cuba: the technology, exchange and meaning of
metals before and after Columbus. Journal of Archaeological Science 31: 439–54.
Martyr D’Anghera, P. 1970. De orbe novo: the eight decades of Peter Martyr D’Anghera.
Translated by Francis August MacNutt. New York, Burt Franklin.
Mira Caballos, E. 2000. Las Antillas Mayores, 1492–1550 (Ensayos y documentos).
Vervuert, Iberoamericana.
Mol, A. A. A. 2007. Costly giving, giving Guaízas: towards an organic model of the
exchange of social valuables in the Late Ceramic Age Caribbean. Leiden, Sidestone
Press.
Oliver, J. R. 2009. Caciques and cemí idols: the web spun by Taíno rulers between
Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. Tuscaloosa, Unversity of Alabama Press.
Joanna Ostapkowicz: New wealth from the Old World 191
Oliver, J. R. 2000. Gold symbolism among Caribbean chiefdoms. In C. McEwan
(ed.), Precolumbian gold: technology, style and iconography: 196–219. London:
British Museum.
Oliver, J. R. 1999. The ‘La Hueca problem’ in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean:
old problems, new perspectives, possible solutions. In C. L. Hofman and M.
L. P. Hoogland (eds), Archaeological investigations on St Martin (Lesser Antilles):
253–97. Leiden, Leiden University.
Ostapkowicz, J. 2013. ‘Made…with admirable artistry’. The context, manufacture
and meaning of a Taíno belt. The Antiquaries Journal 93: 287–317.
Ostapkowicz, J. 2015. The sculptural legacy of the Jamaican Taíno. Part II: 18th–
21st century discoveries. Jamaica Journal 36(1): 94–106.
Ostapkowicz, J. 2016. Étude sur les figurines en «bois». Bilan Scientifique: Direction
Régionale des Affaires Culturelles Guadeloupe 2014: 58–61.
Ostapkowicz, J. in press. L’Allée Dumanoir ‘bois’ pendeloque en form de visage.
Paris, Institut national de recherches archéologiques preventives (INRAP/
CNRS).
Ostapkowicz, J., Wiedenhoeft, A. C., Ramsey, C. B., Ribechini, E., Wilson, S., Brock,
F. and Higham, T. 2011. ‘Treasures… of black wood, brilliantly polished’: five
examples of Guaiacum sculpture from the 10th–16th century Caribbean.
Antiquity 85: 942–59.
Ostapkowicz, J., Ramsey, C.B., Brock, F., Higham, T., Wiedenhoeft, A. C., Ribechini,
E., Lucejko, J. J. and Wilson, S. 2012. Chronologies in wood and resin: AMS
14
C dating of pre-Hispanic Caribbean wood sculpture. Journal of Archaeological
Science 39: 2238–51.
Ostapkowicz, J., Ramsey, C. B., Brock, F., Cartwright, C., Stacey, R. and Richards,
M. 2013. Birdmen, cemís and duhos: material studies and AMS 14C dating of
pre-Hispanic Caribbean wood sculptures in the British Museum. Journal of
Archaeological Science 40: 4675–87.
Oviedo y Valdés, G. F. de 1959. Historia general y natural de las Indias. Biblioteca de
Autores Españoles. Madrid, Ediciones Atlas.
Parry, J. H. and Keith, R. G. 1984. New Iberian world: a documentary history of the
discovery and settlement of Latin America to the early 17th century: the Caribbean.
Vol II. New York, Times Books.
Petitjean-Roget, H. 1995. Note sur deux amulettes de boix trouvées á Morel,
Guadeloupe. In M. Rodríguez and R. Alegría (eds), Actas del XV Congreso
Internacional de Arqueología de Caribe: 417–22. San Juan, Centro de Estudios
Avanzados de Puerto Rico y el Caribe.
Rodríguez Ramos, R. 2011. Close encounters of the Caribbean kind. In L. A.
Curet and M. W. Hauser (eds), Islands at the crossroads: migration, seafaring, and
interaction in the Caribbean: 164–92. Tuscaloosa, The University of Alabama
Press.
Roe, P. 1997. Epilogue: the beaded zemi in the Pigorini Museum. In F. Brecht, E.
Brodsky, J. A. Farmer and D. Taylor (eds), Taíno: pre-Columbian art and culture
from the Caribbean: 164–9. New York, The Monacelli Press.
192
Roth, W. E. 1924. An introductory study of the arts, crafts and customs of
the Guiana Indians. In F. W. Hodge (ed.), 38th Annual Report of the Bureau of
American Ethnology 1916–17: 27–745. Washington, Smithsonian Institution.
Samson, A. 2010. Renewing the house: trajectories of social life in the yucayeque
(community) of El Cabo, Higüey, Dominican Republic, AD 800 to 1504. Leiden,
Sidestone Press.
Saunders, N. 2011. Shimmering worlds: brilliance, power, and gold in preColumbian Panama. In J. W. Hoopes, J. Quilter, N. J. Saunders and R. G. Cooke
(eds), To capture the sun: gold of ancient Panama: 78–113. Tulsa, Gilcrease
Museum and University of Tulsa.
Saunders, N. 1998. Stealers of light, traders in brilliance: Amerindian metaphysics
in the mirror of conquest. RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 33: 225–52.
Saunders, N. 1999. Biographies of brilliance: pearls, transformations of matter
and being, ca. 1492. World Archaeology 31(20): 243–57.
Saunders, N. 2003. ‘Catching the light’: technologies of power and enchantment
in pre-Columbian goldworking. In J. Quilter and J. W. Hoopes (eds), Gold
and power in ancient Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia: 15–47. Washington,
Dumbarton Oaks.
Saunders, N. 2005. Peoples of the Caribbean. San Diego, ABC-Clio.
Schweeger-Hefel, A. 1952. Ein rätselhaftes Stück aus der alten Ambraser
Sammlung. Archiv für Völkerkunde 6–7: 209–28.
Siegel, P. E. 2011. Competitive polities and territorial expansion in the Caribbean.
In L. A. Curet and M. W. Hauser (eds), Islands at the crossroads: migration,
seafaring, and interaction in the Caribbean: 193–218. Tuscaloosa, The University
of Alabama Press.
Smith, M. T. and Good, M. E. 1982. Early sixteenth century glass beads in the Spanish
colonial trade. Greenwood, Cottonlandia Museum Publications.
Strathern, M. 1988. The gender of the gift: problems with women and problems with
society in Melanesia. Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press
(Studies in Melanesian Anthropology, no. 6).
Sullivan, E. 2006. The black hand: notes on the African presence in the visual
arts of Brazil and the Caribbean. In J. J. Rischel and S. Stratton-Pruitt (eds),
The arts in Latin America, 1492–1820: 39–55. New Haven, Yale University Press.
Symcox, G. 2002. Repertorium Columbianum. Volume X: Italian reports on America,
1493–1522: letters, dispatches and Papal bulls. Turnhout, Brepols Publishers.
Torres de Mendoza, D. L. 1868. Relacion del oro y joyas que recibió el Almirante
despues que el Receptor Sebastian de Olaño partió de la isla Española para
Castilla, desde 10 de Marzo de 1495. In J. F. Pacheco, D. F. de Cárdenas and
D. L. Torres de Mendoza (eds), Colección de documentos inéditos relativos al
descubrimiento, conquista y organización de las Antiguas possessiones Españolas de
América y Oceanía sacados de los Archivos del Reino, y muy especialmente del de
Indias. Tomo X: 5–9. Madrid, J. Perez.
Tuer, D. 2003. Old bones and beautiful words: the spiritual contestation between
Shaman and Jesuit in the Guaraní missions. In A. Greer and J. Bilinkoff (eds),
Colonial Saints: discovering the holy in the Americas, 1500–1800: 77–97. New York,
Routledge.
Joanna Ostapkowicz: New wealth from the Old World 193
Valcárcel Rojas, R. 2012. Interaccíon colonial en un pueblo de indios encomendados: El
Chorro de Maíta, Cuba. PhD thesis, Leiden University.
Valcárcel Rojas, R. and Martinón Torres, M. 2013. Metals in the indigenous
societies of the insular Caribbean. In W. F. Keegan, C. L. Hofman and R.
Rodríguez Ramos (eds), The Oxford handbook of Caribbean archaeology: 504–22.
Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Vega, B. 1987. Un cinturón tejido y una careta de madera de Santo Domingo,
del períodio de transculturación Taíno-Español. In B. Vega (ed.), Santos,
Shamanes y Zemíes: 17–29. Santo Domingo, Fundacion Cultural Dominicana.
Whitehead, N. L. 1999. The crises and transformations of invaded societies: the
Caribbean (1492–1580). In F. Salomon and S. B. Schwartz (eds), The Cambridge
history of the native peoples of the Americas. Volume 3, South America. Part 1: 864–
903. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Wilson, S. 1990. Hispaniola: Caribbean chiefdoms in the age of Columbus. Tuscaloosa,
University of Alabama Press.
Wolf, E. R. 1982. Europe and the people without history. Berkley, University of
California Press.