Lucayan people

The Lucayan people (/luːˈkaɪən/ loo-KY-ən) were the original residents of The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands before the European colonisation of the Americas.

The Lucayans were distinguished from the Taínos of Cuba and Hispaniola in the size of their houses, the organization and location of their villages, the resources they used, and the materials used in their pottery.

Granberry and Vescelius also state that around 1200 the Turks and Caicos Islands were resettled from Hispaniola and were thereafter part of the Classical Taíno culture and language area, and no longer Lucayan.

Keegan describes any distinctions between Lucayans and Classical Taínos of Hispaniola and eastern Cuba as largely arbitrary.

A piece of jadeite found on San Salvador Island appears to have originated in Guatemala, based on a trace element analysis.

[7] Columbus thought the Lucayans resembled the Guanche of the Canary Islands, in part because they were intermediate in skin color between Europeans and Africans.

He described the Lucayans as handsome, graceful, well-proportioned, gentle, generous and peaceful, and customarily going almost completely naked.

[citation needed] Peter Martyr d'Anghiera said that the Lucayan women were so beautiful that men from "other countries" moved to the islands to be near them.

Columbus reported seeing scars on the bodies of some of the men, which were explained to him as resulting from attempts by people from other islands to capture them.

Luis Marden's identification of Samaná Key as Guanahani is the strongest contender with the former Watling Island theory.

[9] Columbus spent a few days visiting other islands in the vicinity: Santa María de la Concepción, Fernandina, and Saomete.

Lucayans on San Salvador had told Columbus that he could find a "king" who had a lot of gold at the village of Samaot, also spelled Samoet, Saomete or Saometo.

Maps published between 1500 and 1508 appear to show details of the Bahamas, Cuba and the North American mainland that were not officially reported until later.

[11] Columbus kidnapped several Lucayans on San Salvador and Santa María de la Concepción.

[12] Carl O. Sauer described Ponce de León's 1513 expedition in which he encountered Florida as simply "an extension of slave hunting beyond the empty islands.

[13] In 2018, researchers successfully extracted DNA from a tooth found in a burial context in Preacher's Cave on Eleuthera Island.

Classic Taíno villages in Hispaniola and eastern Cuba typically had houses arranged around a central plaza, and often located along rivers with access to good agricultural land.

Bitter manioc, which has a dangerous amount of hydrogen cyanide, was prepared by peeling, grinding, and mashing.

The filtered mash was dried and sieved for flour, which was used to make pancake-like bread cooked on a flat clay griddle.

[17] The Spanish also reported that the Lucayans grew sweet potatoes, cocoyams, arrowroot, leren, yampee, peanuts, beans and cucurbits.

Sea turtles and marine mammals (West Indian monk seal and porpoise) provided a very small portion of the meat in the Lucayan diet.

[17] Maize was a recent introduction to the Greater Antilles when the Spanish arrived, and was only a minor component of the Taíno and, presumably, Lucayan diets.

[18] The Lucayans grew cotton (Gossypium barbadense) and tobacco, and used other plants such as agave, furcraea and hibiscus for fiber in fishing nets.

One of Columbus's sailors received 12 kilograms (26 lb) of cotton in trade from a single Lucayan on Guanahani.

[21] Conch shells (pronounced as "konk", known as cobo in Taino) were a hard material in plentiful supply on the islands.

Lucayans used them to make tools such as canoe gouges, hoes, hammers, picks, net mesh gauges, and fishhooks.

There are intact wooden duhos in the collections of the Musée de l'Homme in Paris and British Museum in London (the latter found on the island of Eleuthera).

[26] They include fruitfulness spirits Yocahu, the male giver of manioc, and Attabeira, the mother goddess.

Attending to them were the twin spirits Maquetaurie Guayaba, the lord of the dead, and Guabancex, the mistress of the hurricane.

[25] During arieto ceremonies, food was offered to the zemi, and shamans (behique) would give a piece of cassava bread to participants, which were kept preserved until the following year.