Pre-Columbian style , Hispaniola, Arawak Peoples, Taino Native Indians

This is a finely carved Taino Cacique Chief’s hand carved hard wood seat -Duho- a superb ancestor style ceremonial sculpture from the Arawak Peoples of the Greater Antilles Islands. It comes from a Florida collection.

This Duho or seat made from a single piece of wood, representing an anthropomorphic figure with sculptured head and finely engraved with a large Cacique face and linear motifs on the main flat top, and in ancient times similar would have been used by the principal practitioner of the cohoba ritual. In ancient times, Duhos were used by the Cacique while observing the ball games commonly played by the Taino’s. circa 1200-1550 A.D.

While the precise ancient function of such objects remains somewhat a mystery- they continue to impress us with their bold abstract form and magical associations.

In the seminal book Taino, Pre-Columbian Art & Culture from the Caribbean published by the El Museo del Barrio, ancient duho are discussed at length as private power-objects used in egalitarian tribes and used in public ritual to legitimize the hierarchical social structure of complex chiefdoms. Please also refer to the excellent publication March 1994 seminal article Tribal Arts: The Sculptural Ancestry of the Taino- masterpieces from the Pre-Columbian West Indies. (photos).

This remarkable sculpture includes a Zemi figure face which was meticulously incised with round deep-socketed eyes, prominent nasal cavities, drilled ear lobes possibly for feather fetishes, wide open mouth, and lobed ears. On the seat top are finely incised stylized geometric motifs representing tattooing or scarification, adding to the impressive aesthetic presence of this piece. Some scholars find these scarifications relate to ancestral and/or fertility myths.

An ancient carved version of this complexity, quality and size would have belonged to a chieftain -caciques- or ranking member of the royal household. Although Taino left no written documents, Spanish settlers did record native practices and one account refers to special structures in which chieftains stored their Trove of important ceremonial carvings. The Taino believed in existence of afterlife and Shamanic ability to communicate with the dead. This sculpture may well have been present and on display in such a ceremony, presented and used as a functional seat at ball games, or perhaps a focus of ancestor worship. This remarkably evocative work reminds us to peak into ancient splendors of Taino civilization.

Dimensions: 6 inches high and 17.5 inches wide and 5 inches deep

Hand carved.

Provenance: Old Florida collection.

Taino history:
The Taino flourished from 1200-1500.
When Columbus arrived in America, the first people he encountered were the Taino People- inhabitants of the islands of the northern Caribbean Sea, known as Hispaniola. They were Arawakan-speaking people who at the time of Christopher Columbus’s exploration inhabited Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic), Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Once the most numerous indigenous people of the Caribbean, the Taino may have numbered several million at the time of the Spanish conquest in the late 15th century.
Their highly developed belief system focused on zemi ancestor or god worship. A zemi was the physical manifestation of a god, spirit or ancestor. The chieftain -caciques- encouraged ancestor worship and were often deified after death. The religious leaders or shamans were thought to be able to communicate with the souls of the dead when intoxicated by the hallucinogenic cohoba. A preoccupation with death is evident in many Taino art-forms and partly explains the prevalence of zoomorphic images. Bats, owls and frogs were all popular motifs and were regarded as harbingers of life after death. The Taino believed that the dead could be reborn in animal form and some believe animals were their earliest ancestors in Taino creation myth. hence we find their zoomorphic sculptures as combinations of human and animal forms particularly provocative and great conversational art. The creator god was known as Yúcahu Maórocoti, encouraging growth of staple foods, like cassava. The goddess was Attabeira, who regulated and dominated over water, rivers, and seas.

Their contribution to the Spanish includes Indian corn, tobacco, rubber balls to unique art and artifacts, plus a new vocabulary. Importantly, the Taino lasting effects on Western civilization, though through brief contact, was an important and lasting one.

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