CHAMBAS, Ciego de Ávila.- Especialistas cubanos y del Reino Unido descubrieron, por primera vez en la historia, los restos de un aborigen en la zona arqueológica de Los Buchillones, y confirmaron la presencia de lo que pudo ser un cacicazgo taíno en la costa norte de Ciego de Ávila.

Los doctores Jorge Calvera y Gabino de la Rosa Corso, por el Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología y Medio Ambiente, y David Penthergast, por la Universidad de Londres, dirigieron la quinta expedición que halló estructuras casi completas de viviendas, algo jamás encontrado hasta el momento en el área del Caribe insular.

El equipo de 30 especialistas trabajó en un punto próximo a los explorados por ellos en búsquedas anteriores; para precisar, entre otros objetivos, si los restos encontrados pertenecían a grupos de casas aislados o a la finalmente comprobada sucesión de cabañas que conformaron la aldea taína.

Los hallazgos se realizaron después de vaciar un dique circular, construido en el mar, donde encontraron las bases de madera, las vigas en su disposición original, el sistema de ocujes (palos) para formar el techo y fragmentos del guano que cubrió a las viviendas, entre los años 1220 y 1685, según los registros de Carbono 14.

Con la localización del esqueleto taíno -confirmado por su estatura y deformación artificial, entre otros indicios- se reafirma el interés sobre Los Buchillones, al abrirse una nueva gama de estudios, encaminados a ubicar la presencia del cementerio, los hábitos alimenticios y las enfermedades padecidas por los aborígenes en el lugar.

La quinta expedición encontró, además, un centenar de piezas, entre las que sobresalen los restos de una canoa, cabezas de madera talladas, colgantes y fragmentos de vasijas, dispersos a lo largo de los 1 200 metros del área arqueológica, situada en las inmediaciones del poblado de Punta Alegre, al norte del municipio avileño de Chambas.

De acuerdo con los especialistas, desentrañar el misterio de la zona conducirá a décadas de estudios, los cuales deberán esclarecer -junto a otras incógnitas- cómo esa comunidad taína alcanzó su esplendor en los siglos XV y XVI y sobrevivió hasta el siglo XVII, en medio del proceso de conquista y colonización de Cuba.

Cuban Journal

© Indian Country Today October 13, 2005.

All Rights Reserved

Posted: October 13, 2005

by: Jose Barreiro / Indian Country Today

'In Cuba the cry was for water'

Part one

JIGUANI, Cuba - In Cuba, from the flat savannas of Camaguey and east to the foothills of the Sierra Maestra, the cry was for water. The worst drought in more than 50 years had killed hundreds of thousands of cattle and threatened to obliterate the country's ''bread basket.''

''Here the dryness has had us actually thirsty,'' said 90-year-old Anselmo Fajardo Quesada, elder of the neighborhood of Palmarito, in a hilly area of the town of Jiguani. ''Thirst among the people and thirst among our little plants and animals as well. The earth cracked so that you could put your whole arm in it. It brought tears to your eyes.''

We had stopped to visit with don Anselmo, who, as the elder of an extended group of Indian families in the region, had asked to greet us on behalf of his community. I was in Jiguani, in eastern Cuba, on a visit with Cuban historian Alejandro Hartmann. Hartmann's ongoing genealogical and cultural retention study among families of Indian descent in the region has been turning up the most interesting places and folks.

Jiguani, founded by the donation of land from an Indian pueblo in 1701, is only the latest place where Indian elders are happy to tell who they are. Don Anselmo, who asked his grandchildren to stand by him, still joins the local families in planting his own buniato (sweet potato) and corn crops. ''Our people are Indian,'' he said without hesitation. ''We are Cuban, and we are Indian.''

I had already traveled with Hartmann through old Camaguey. There, in a town called Najasa, we met with the heads of a family of some 50 extended relatives who still work on area farms. We enjoyed a lively discussion with elder Gumersindo Rojas about the old customs and beliefs still in use by Cuban ''guajiro people,'' particularly in regard to the ancient moon-cycle cropping and forestry systems. Later, I was happy to join Hartmann and Cuban Cacique Panchito Ramirez as we traveled to greet and document families of Cuban Indian descent over the four Eastern provinces of Camaguey, Las Tunas, Granma and Santiago de Cuba.

Hartmann's research of more than 30 years, and especially the past two years of comprehensive study, reveals a more widespread Cuban Indian identity in various mountain populations than previously reported. Particularly in the island's seven Eastern states, Hartmann is revisiting many places identified in the mountains and plains by the expeditions of Dr. Rivero de la Calle in the 1960s and forward.

As Hartmann ardently detailed, the physical characteristics of Taino descendants - short stature, strong physical stamina, copper skin color, long black hair, etc. - are present in dozens of these places. As well, many cultural elements such as the manufacture of traditional cassava torts; the cropping of the old-style ''conuco,'' or companion planting, usually guided by the phases of the moon; and the presence of types of altars and cyclical ceremonies with natural-world elements are associated with these mountain guajiro folks in the survey.

A mere two decades ago, this was a population dismissed out of hand by census-takers and even historians as presumably ''extinct'' by the mid-16th century. ''But the evidence to the contrary has mounted over recent years,'' said Hartmann, historian and museum director, who contends ''that the extensive Indian population of the region regrouped, in legal and outlaw (cimarron) areas, and threw long roots in a large number of families that survive to today.''

Since the 1940s, and the work of explorer Dr. Antonio Nunez Jimenez and anthropologist Dr. Manuel Rivero de la Calle, the existence of clusters of Native families has been accepted in scientific circles. These included the much-studied clans of the Rojas and Ramirez families of Caridad de los Indios, Guantanamo. These related and often inter-married families extend throughout several municipalities and are estimated at around 1,000 people.

In recent years - with the assistance of the Cuban Foundation for Nature and Humanity and the partnership of the Onaway Trust (England) and the Indigenous Legacies project by Plenty Canada - a series of seven conferences held in Baracoa, Cuba from 1997 to 2003 brought together Cuban Indians from the region with Native and academic representatives from Canada and Central and North America.

More recently, Hartmann has gathered a team of well-trained historians and other academics who are canvassing nearly 20 municipalities for oral tradition and documentary records tracing the continuous Indian-descended population, their land tenure and dispossession histories along with local traditions such as the jigues, or ''little people,'' and other natural world spiritual beliefs.

In tracking and interviewing the population of Indian descent, Hartmann found that the Eastern region's Indian genealogical and documentary base is sustained and widespread, as early work by Rivero de la Calle for Cuba's Academy of Sciences had indicated. The myth of extinction is quickly giving way to the light of scientific research and documentation.

Jiguani, a sleepy town with a beautiful old plaza and dense with Cuban history, is just one important enclave that yielded a surprise. Hartmann introduced me to some 10 members of an association of Indian families of Jiguani who assembled in the municipal library for our lively and enthusiastic three-hour discussion.

Two elders and the town historian, don Hugo Armas, also of Indian extraction, explained that their association of some 40 Indian families in the Jiguani area was formalized 16 years ago, in 1989. As to their objective, a second elder said: ''It is true for many years we have confronted many problems, which has taken our attention. But we are born of the Indian blood. Now we organize to rescue our roots and value our knowledge.''

The group described the Indian history of Jiguani, the only town in Cuba whose official shield depicts an Indian warrior in rebellious posture. A documented enclave of Indian population through the colonial period, Jiguani was always a highly rebellious place, much given to the wars of independence against Spain and expressly pro-revolution at this time in history.

Similar encounters in the Jiguani area, as well as in Camaguey, Najasa and, later, in Santiago, tended to confirm the growing strength of the research. A surprising range of indigenous cultural expression is turning up as people open up to the topic.

(Continued in part two)

Cuban journal

© Indian Country Today October 24, 2005. All Rights Reserved

Posted: October 24, 2005

by: Jose Barreiro / Indian Country Today

Indian roots of eastern Cuba

Part two

Editor's note: Indian Country Today Senior Editor Jose Barreiro traveled to his native Cuba in September. This is the second and final part of his journal, ''In Cuba the cry was for rain.''

JIGUANI, Cuba - Indigenous roots and identities in Cuba, as elsewhere in the Caribbean, were both assimilated and layered into the growth of national consciousness. Recent research by Alejandro Hartmann and others shows that it did not dissipate.

Jose Antonio Molina, of the National Library of Cuba, has recently published historical literary evidence of many early Taino practices that are still in use by the guajiro population. As Taino agricultural and medicinal practices transferred to the new campesinos, both Spanish and African, the families of Indian ancestry blended into various valleys in the extensive eastern mountains, a few small communities held together but mostly dispersed as regular country folk who still lived a great deal of their material culture and important pieces of their spiritual systems, but not noticeably so.

Families with long roots in the Taino pueblos of the early conquest - once thought extinct by the late 1600s - are now showing up, represented by caciques (leaders), in land disputes right into the 1840s. Areitos (dances), condemned and thought forgotten at the conquest, now show up in 19th-century records, apparently incorporated into spiritist cults dating from the same era.

In local church records in Camaguey, new research reveals cases of marriages of ''Indios'' to ''Blancos'' (whites), ''Negros'' (blacks) and other listed ''races,'' for instance, up to the 1880s - some 300 years beyond the supposed ''extinction'' of Indians. Curiously, once married to a white, an Indian no longer was listed as an Indian but was passed to the ''white'' designation.

Still, the families clearly value their ancestry and are inclined to engage the dialogue encouraged by the new research.

''For 50 square kilometers around us,'' said one of the diminutive elders who met with us at the Calixto Garcia Library in Jiguani, ''every other family has Indian roots; our families have oral tales and much knowledge of the land, a strong Cuban people.'' The old man remembered the public carnivals of the 1930s, when the ''Indians of Jiguani'' provided their own dancing and music groups.

The agriculture in the region, by guajiros of various ethnic backgrounds, has deep Indian roots. Among the most enduring sufferers of the horrendous drought are these natural farmers who still plant many crops by hand, who use the organized ''conuco'' concept - the traditional Indian science of inter-cropping. The ''coa,'' or ancient Taino planting stick, is much in use among farmers in the mountains.

Cycles of weather, as the United States so plainly has experienced, can do huge harm. Highly dependent on direct and market agriculture, the farmers of eastern Cuba saw three crop seasons disappear and two normally rain-laden seasons pass without a drop.

In Santiago, we met and visited with the old man, the cacique Panchito Ramirez, whose first topic was also water. ''The drought hit us hard, hard, hard. I thought, 'My Virgen, is this the end of us, the Indians of the mountain?''

In Cuba and even outside of Cuba, Ramirez, from the province of Guantanamo, is well-known for his participation in the international event ''Indigenous Legacies of the Caribbean,'' and through the book ''Panchito: Mountain Cacique,'' which was an ''as-told-to'' narrative. Panchito's mountain community of Caridad de los Indios is possibly the most-documented of the Indian enclaves. Guantanamo historian Jose Sanchez Guerra has traced the migration pattern of Panchito's community from the valley lowlands to the more remote mountain region.

At the altar of the Virgen del Cobre - the major Cuban Catholic deity also represented in Taino and African traditions - Panchito made a wonderful prayer. Panchito prayed for rain - water - to slake all the thirst in nature and he prayed for the waters of women in labor, an ancient intonation that gathered nearly everyone walking through the revered chapel before he was done.

Panchito was happy to hear about the Indian families of Jiguani. Hartmann got the old chief going by repeatedly praising the cassava torte produced at Jiguani, so a cassava bake-off appears in the works. Panchito was quite happy about the recent rains that had replenished his crops.

From all three regions, the Indian folks wished and sent each other good rains.