Caciques and Cemí idols the web spun by Taíno rulers between Hispaniola and Puerto Rico /
Cemís are both portable artifacts and embodiments of persons or spirit, which the Taínos and other natives of the Greater Antilles (ca. AD 1000-1550) regarded as numinous beings with supernatural or magic powers. This volume takes a close look at the relationship between humans and other (non-huma...
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Format: | Electronic |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Tuscaloosa :
University of Alabama Press,
c2009.
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Series: | Caribbean archaeology and ethnohistory.
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | View fulltext via EzAccess |
Table of Contents:
- Introduction
- Believers of Cemíism : who were the Taínos and where did they come from?
- Webs of interaction : human beings, other beings, and many things
- Personhood and the animistic Amerindian perspective
- Contrasting animistic and naturalistic worldviews
- The Cemí reveals its personhood and its body form
- Cemí idols and Taínoan idolatry
- Cemís and personal identities
- The power and potency of the Cemís
- The display of Cemís : personal vs. communal ownership, private vs. public function
- Face-to-face interactions : Cemís, idols, and the native political elite
- Hanging on to and losing the power of the Cemí idols
- The inheritance and reciprocal exchange of Cemí icons
- Cemís : alienable or inalienable; to give and to keep
- Stone collars, elbow stones, and caciques
- Ancestor Cemís and the Cemíification of the caciques
- The guaíza face masks : gifts of the living for the living
- The circulation of chief's names, women, and Cemís : between the greater and lesser Antilles
- Up in arms : Taíno freedom fighters in Higüey and Boriquén
- The virgin Mary icons and native Cemís : two cases of religious syncretism in Cuba
- Religious syncretism and transculturation : the crossroads toward new identities
- Final remarks.