In other cases, they were used to entertain distinguished guests, such as early visitor Bartholomew Columbus, who was received by Bohechío and his sister Anacaona with a large areito in his honor.309 Similarly, several years later, in honor of Governor Nicolás de Ovando and his entourage - who accompanied him on his trip to the chiefdom of Jaragua - Anacaona organized a memorable areito in which three hundred maidens “adorned their heads with garlands of flowers and assorted herbs, some of them were naked and others festooned with shells, hitting the earth with their feet, jumping, singing and dancing”.310 But these demonstrations of hospitality by the Taínos were not reciprocated. An unjust war was waged against them, and that nation which was described as having “the sweetest way of speaking in the world, gentle and always laughing”311 was silenced forever by the overwhelming impact of the conquest. Musical instruments Musical instruments used in the areitos, as well as in the Cohoba ritual, included the mayohabao, a drum made from a hollowed trunk with a groove that was placed on the floor and beaten with a wooden mallet. Its rhythm followed the sequence of sound during the ceremonies, causing the celebrant to go into an ecstatic trance. Describing these drums, whose sound could carry over great distances enabling communication between villages, Pané notes the following: “And they play this instrument, which is so loud that you can hear it a league and a half away. They sing songs to its sound, which they learn by heart; and the main men play it, which they learn to play and to sing with it from a young age, according to their custom.”312 We have already mentioned the strings of seeds and shells (generally Oliva sp.) which, fastened to the bodies of the dancers, made a dramatic sound. Using large shells of gastropod mollusks (Strombus gigas, Cassis madagascariensis Lam. and Charoniavariegata), they made horns or trumpets by cutting off the tip to form the mouthpiece for blowing into the instrument. These horns were used by runaway slaves to warn of the presence of persecutors or slave traders near the maniels or palenques.313 To this day, shell horns are used in rural communities to
emit alerts, to announce a death, or to relay information about the type of meat available for sale in the butcher’s shop.314 Chroniclers also documented the use of wooden trumpets called “bocinas de palo”315 (wooden horns). They also used maracas or rattles that could be made of wood or gourds—the dried fruit of the calabash tree (Crescentia cujete L.)— into which small stones were placed to produce sounds, not unlike the way they are made today. Other musical instruments included reed flutes, clay ocarinas316 and whistles made from the corozo nut (Acrocomia quisqueyana Bailey).317 Monoxylic (Soft Wood) Maracas Maracas are regarded as the most significant pre-Hispanic contribution to our folk music. Since time immemorial they have been associated with the festivities and religious ceremonies of ancient peoples. In Shamanic ritual, they have a primary function in magical-curative practices; therefore, in many cases they have decorations with a symbolic value linked to attributes that favored auspicious rituals. They were also adorned with bundles of colorful feathers that symbolized properties derived from supernatural forces represented by birds, contributing to communication with the spirits that mediated in the healing of the sick. Until recently it was believed that all Taíno maracas were made with gourds and that they were very similar to the ones that are currently made by hand. But the appearance of wooden monoxylic maracas in Cuba, Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo reveals a new classification that reflects the expertise attained by the Taíno artisans in the carving of this material.318 The most distinctive feature of these monoxylic maracas is their peripheral upper section, with two loose rods inside the chamber, sculpted from the same piece from which the object was carved. When the instrument is shaken, it makes a sound that slips through the transversal grooves, emitting a very distinctive and highly resonant tone. In order to create the transversal grooves and release the inner bars that facilitate the instrument’s functional mechanics, the cutting procedure would have been to rub a cabuya or henequen rope (Furcraea hexapetala Jacq. Urb.), and adding silica sand as an abrasive for friction to produce a relatively fast cut. The two loose triangular rods that, like clappers, enclose the maracas inside were formed by six of these transverse
cuts.319 In some cases, the tops of these instruments are engraved with figures representing the spirits summoned by the celebrant during the Cohoba’s ecstasy. For this reason, when we closely examine these aboriginal maracas we experience the feeling of being in the presence of a very spiritual and intriguing object, because it contains a certain evocative magic that resonates like an echo of the past. The Sound of the Bells The native peoples of the Antilles were very fond of music. That is why the metal bells introduced by the Spaniards were very popular with them, as Fray Bartolomé de las Casas reveals in his History of the Indies: “While he [Guacanagarí] spoke with the Admiral, another canoe came from another place or town that brought some gold pieces, which he wanted to give for a bell, because they wanted it more than anything. The reason was because the Indians of this island, and even of all the Indies, are very inclined and accustomed to a lot of dancing, and to do so they are helping the voices or songs that they sing while dancing and the sounds that they make, they had very soft bells, made of wood, very artificially, with some small stones inside, which made a soft and rasping sound. When they saw such big and shiny bells that made such a good sound, more than anything else they were fond of, and as much as they wanted for them or as much as they had, they healed, for having given them, to give; arriving near the caravel, they held out the pieces of gold saying “Chuque, chuque, cascabeles,” which meant: “Take this and give us the bells.”320 As well as the sound of the Spanish bells, the natives also showed an interest in metal, especially bronze or brass objects, which they believed to have divine qualities, “like something coming from heaven.”321 That is why metal bells were one of the objects that were most commonly used in transactions or ransom during the period of Indo-Hispanic contact. They were also used as a means of payment for beads called cacona, which in the Taíno language meant “award,” and which were used to pay indigenous people their wages under the encomienda system.322 At the same time, these bells were used as a unit of measurement to collect the gold levy that Christopher Columbus imposed on the inhabitants of the chiefdom of Maguá. Thus they be-
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on the northern coast of Haiti, the chieftain Hatuey moved to Cuba, where he held a large areito to warn the Taínos of Maycí, in eastern Cuba, about the violence of the conquistadors.308