came the first improvised unit of measurement used by the Spanish conquistadors in the New World.323 On the question of this usage, Las Casas says:
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“The Admiral imposed a payment on all the inhabitants of the province of Cibao and La Vega Real, and on all those close to the mines, all those fourteen years old and up, every three months, of a Flemish-style bell, I mean the hollow of a bell, full of gold, and only King Manicaotex gave a half gourd of full gold every month, weighing three marks, which combined are worth 150 gold or Castilian pesos; all the other people who do not live near the mines would contribute one arroba [weight measurement] of cotton per person. […]: Afterwards, the Admiral, knowing that the most of the Indians could not really afford to pay it, agreed to split the bell in half and they would pay the levy that from that half full [...].”324 Mythology and Religion Mythological Beliefs In primitive societies, myths are a reflection of beliefs about the origins of the universe and the relationship between the real world and the supernatural realm. Thus, the mythological accounts of the Taínos reflect their cosmogony, i.e. their beliefs about the origin of the universe and the human race, as well as about the spiritual forces that ruled life in the afterlife and intervened in the occurrence of natural phenomena and in the fertility of the earth. The Taínos believed in the existence of a supreme, immortal and invisible protective being,
which they called Yocahu Bagua Maórocoti, a powerful lord of fertility and of the reproductive forces of the earth and the sea, invisible to all and living in the sky. His mother was Atabeyo Attabeira, although she also had other names depending on her powers. She was a lady of the moon, the goddess of waters and protector of childbirth. They also conceived other deities or Zemís that inhabited the sky or Turey.325 Taíno mythological beliefs were compiled by Ramón Pané, a friar from the order of Saint Jerome who was commissioned in 1494 by Christopher Columbus, as governor of Hispaniola, due to his knowledge of some of the languages spoken by the indigenous people of the island, to “learn and understand the Indian beliefs and idolatry.” Pané’s research was included in his account of the ancient Indians, the first ethnographic compendium written by Europeans in the Americas. When Columbus received the Relación [account] manuscript from its author, he took it to Spain when he returned from his third trip. The document was studied by Pedro Mártir, who compiled it into an extensive Latin epistle addressed to Cardinal Ludovico de Aragón and which went on to become part of the first Década [report]. Pané’s notes were also studied by Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, who obtained extensive information about the ancestral beliefs of the Taínos for chapters CXX, CLXVI and CLXVII of his Apologetic History of the Indies. Subsequently, Fray Ramón Pané’s full account was included in the LXI chapter of the History of Admiral Christopher Columbus, written in Spanish by his son Hernando Colón [Ferdinand Columbus]. Pané’s manuscript has been lost, with no trace of its whereabouts, and Hernando Colón’s work had not been published when its author died in 1539, although an Italian translation by Alfonso de Ulloa was printed in Venice in 1571. Consequently, Arrom’s research shows that the only thing known so far from Pané’s account is the Latin summary by Pedro Mártir, the Spanish extract by Las Casas and the Italian translation of Hernando Colón’s book by Ulloa. Nevertheless, Fray Ramón Pané’s compilation is essential for understanding the Taíno worldview and their mythological accounts of the birth of the earth and the sea, the occurrence of atmospheric phenomena, the advent of human beings and the existence of supernatural life, and even for identifying the images and features of several of their icons or Zemís.326 These myths include the creation of the sun and the moon, which according to their beliefs came out of a cave called Mautiatihuel, inhabited by twin Zemís made of stone, Boinayel and Máro-
hu, viewed as protective gods who would be invoked to attract the rain they needed for their crops. Similarly, the Taínos appealed to the goddess Guabancex, who lived in the domain of a great Cacique called Aumatex, to quell the winds. Guabancex made herself visible by unleashing the fury of the hurricanes, which ravaged the trees and demolished the huts. Her herald was Guatauba, who would announce her arrival with the flash of lightning rays and crashing thunderbolts. A Zemí called Coatrisquie would burst the riverbanks, causing destructive flooding. Other chapters of Pané’s account tell the story of Yaya, who killed his son Yayael and put his bones in a gourd and hung it inside his house. After some time, Yaya, in order to please his wife, who wanted to see her son’s bones, tried to pull down the gourd, but it fell to the ground and the bones turned into fish. Later, four twin brothers, sons of Itiba-Cahubaba, arrived and while they were eating the fish, they were surprised by Yaya. Then, when they tried to hang the gourd in haste, it broke, and so much water and fish gushed out of it that the whole earth was filled up, thus creating the sea. They believed that certain animals had played a part in the creation of humankind. For example, the inririo woodpecker (Melanerpesstraitus) was believed to have used its beak to create the female sexual organs, in the same way as it drilled holes in tree trunks. The same thing happened with the Indian Yuhubaba, who, when he picked an herb called digo, that the Indians used to scrub their bodies when bathing, was surprised by the sun after dawn and turned into a bird that sings in the mornings, just like the Northern Mocking Bird (Mimus polyglottos), which is called Yahubabayael. Another case of these mutations between human beings and animals involved newborn babies who cried out toatoa pleading to be breastfed and were turned into frogs or tonas so that they did not cry for their missing mothers, who had been deceived by the Cacique Guahayona and taken to the island of Matinó in search of guanin [an alloy of copper, gold and silver, similar to red gold] jewels. In turn, Opiyelguobirán was a Zemí carved out of wood with an animal’s body with four “doglike” legs, but with a human head. According to Pané’s account, he was in the care of the Cacique Sabananiobabo and he left the hut at night to go into the jungle. Thus, as the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss points out, in mythological thought humans are