Tainos in the DR?

[Baracutay]

I remember when I was young my mother would say "Cuando mi taita llegaba aciguatao dei conoco habia que traeile una maima de agua y carne curi timbita"! I believe this is a very good example of Taino/Afro Spanish.
The word Taita, alhtough I have heard it may be African, appears in many Native languages from the Andes such "Taita Inti" (father sun) or in Yoreme (Mayo-Yaqui) from Mexico where one hears Taita yorem (grandfather of the yoreme people. Aciguatao comes from ciguato, which means rotten in Taino, conuco is field in taino, Maima is a big higuera which is sometimes called jicara as well, also Taino. And of course there is Curi which is a rodent which also has A Taino name. The word that makes me wonder is "timbita" which sounds more African. But its all good!
I come from Jaibon/Laguna Salada. My grandmother who taught me most of what I know about the campo and died at 104 years of age, insisted till her last days that her grandmother was a pure Indian and that most of the people in the region when she was a girl, were Indian. In fact she had these wild stories of remembering when the Spanish landed on the island! We would joke with her about this of course, telling her that she could not be 500 years old!! But you know it was not until she was in her coffin, and I was looking at her and thinking about all the things she said, that it occured to me that as young girl, she must have witnessed the arrival of many people of Spanish descent to the cibao after the Spanish American War. She clearly remembered for example when the first hatians started crossing over our part of the country. My mother recalls how our family hid Haitian women when they were being killed by Dominican soldiers and how these women would cry out "compai aye compai no me mate con cuchillo mate me con palo". They seem to have a tabboo against dying by the knife. Stories like these still bring tears to my mothers eyes and she is so proud that our family hid these people. This is one reason I have always taken it so personally when someone critiques me as being anti-African just because I am pro-taino. If you could look into my mothers eyes you can still feel the pain she felt that long ago to watch another person of color die for it, by people of the same color no doubt. Truly amazing.
I am sorry, but I guess I digress! I think that the Spanish elite in most Latin American countries ephasized the correct usage of the Spanish language and maybe that is why they speak with so many sss, sometimes more than neccessary!

[Mirador]

Originally Posted by Baracutay

...The word that makes me wonder is "timbita" which sounds more African. But its all good!...

"timbita"? maybe you heard "tibita", which is an expression (in the diminutive) for the Spanish word "tibio", as in "agua tibita".

[SuperConejo]

That is a beautiful story, I know from my mothers side, my great grandmother (her mothers mother) is a Zamba, high cheekbones, mid-brown-reddish skin, thick very curly hair, they had some spanish too, not much though. The story of your grandmother remembering the arrival of the mass immigation of spanish into the Cibao is very accurate! Because i am part of this story myself, most of my family who lived in the countryside of and near San Francisco de Macoris and Santiago were mostly Full African or Zambos with very little to no spanish blood. Most of the spanish blood in my family actually came later around late 1800s to early 1900s. For example my mothers grandfather came from Cuba, and his Father came from Spain. He came to D.R and married my mothers black dominican grandmother. Its similar on my fathers side too, it seems that alot of whites came into the cibao around the late 1800s to 1900s. This coincides with the spanish american war, and with the blanquecimiento in cuba, which occured around the same time. It is interesting that Taita Inti means father sun. Is Taita father and Inti Sun? Because in Kongo Tata means father. Words seem to be close in pronounciation and meaning. Oh and Guarapo strikes me as Taino word from hearing it, but i'm not sure. as Far as Timbita, it could very well be a Kongo variation, or a spanish variation of Tibia like Mirador says. But in Kongo theres words Timba, Timbalaye, Tumbadora, Timbales. Some of the others one i havent heard of they do sound very Taino.

I think some people might see you as anti-african because the spanish have used the Taino to put down the African. So theres this un-necessary backlash by some people against the Indigenistas. Even though it isn't that way at all, they both co-exist and blend together, as in the case of your family and in the case of mines.

[Baracutay]

To Mirador:
Could very well be Mirador, except that my mother used it to mean quickly.
Like sometimes, if youre running an errand for her, she will jokingly say "voy a escupir en en el piso, y si tu no llegas timbita y se ah secao la salibita te voy a dar duro"!

To SuperConejo:
Regarding the "ei" in other Native groups. I dated a girl who is Lokono from Surinam. The Lokono speak the closet language to the Taino and this is the language that many Tainistas are using to re-construct our ancient tongue. Anyway when I first met her she was speaking to her mother in Loko and I was amazed at how many "i" largas they use.
Also the Garifuna people of Belize who are commonly called "black Caribs" speak a language that is similar to Taino. They have the Gua and "ei" as well.
For those that dont know the Garifuna are a people that are mixed African and Carib Indian. Their language it seems is more Taino due to the fact that Carib warriors raided the bigger islands in search of women whom they kept on small islands while they went off raiding. When the women gave birth to male children the Warriors would take these with them and bring them up as such. When the women gave birth to girls, the women would keep them. After all the rainding of Taino villages, in time most Carib women spoke Taino whereas the men spoke Cariban.

[NALs]

Baracutay, if its not too intrusive to ask, in what year did your grandmother passed away?

-NALs

[Baracutay]

She died in February 2003.

[NALs]

Originally Posted by Baracutay

She died in February 2003.

That means that she was born in 1899 and her memory probably extended as far back as 1904, assuming she was like myself who can hardly remember anything from age 5 and prior, but obviously memory becomes better with things/facts learned after age 5 to today.

If she remembered when the first Haitians crossed into the DR (or atleast to the Laguna Salada area - assuming she lived her entire life there), it coincides with historical documentation which is readily available in various history books and on the net which claim that Haitian migration to the DR was almost non-existant during the Haitian occupation and is more a phenomenon of the 20th century. Did she ever told you around what year she began to see the first influx of Haitians into the DR? I would guess it was around 1920s onward, based on my own research into this subject.

Do you know if she ever said in what year she witnessed the influx of Spaniards? Given the year she was born in, I would assume she was referring to Spaniards fleeing the Spanish civil war and not descendants of Spaniards who arrived the DR via Cuba and Puerto Rico in the mid- to late-1800s. Constant migration to and from Cuba/Puerto Rico were quite common up until the Americans took control of both islands and began to impose travel restrictions as the 20th century progressed.

Did she ever mention anything about Syrians or Lebanese people, commonly referred to as Turcos? If so, what year if possible?

Also, the story about hiding the Haitians, was that during the Trujillo dictatorship, around the time of the massacre?

I know many, if not all of these questions are unanswerable due to the fact that source is no longer with us, but please provide whatever bit of info you may know about this.

Thanks.
-NALs

BTW, the total national population for the DR in 1850 was 200,000; by 1900 it had grown to 700,000; and didn't broke the one million mark until the late 1920s, by 1960s was 3 million, by 1980 was 5 million, by 2000 was 7 million, and today is 9 million. Amazing how a country can go from 200,000 in 1850 to 9 million by 2007; with much of that growth occuring after the 1950s. Considering birth rate, mortality rates all have been on a decline and immigration rates have been on an increase (but on par with the emigration rate), it's amazing how much the country has changed in a century vs the preceding 400 years.

[morenita inglesa]

I've been following this thread for the past couple of days but until now have not posted anything as I don't feel that I'm particulary clued up on the subject. I will say that I have found it very interesting though, especially being that my daughter is half dominican and that I hope to one day be able to educate her on all aspects of her very mixed heritage, my family are from the island of Dominica or wait'tu kubuli (it's carib name) and we are also a mix of african, indian and european. My knowledge of the Tainos is very minimal so I am finding this to be very informative.

Baracutay: wow, you are full of so much knowledge and information about your heritage. Keep it coming!

btw, I'm glad to see that this thread is back on track, I was worried earlier that it would get closed.

[Mirador]

My father swears he doesn’t have one drop of African genes (notwithstanding he was born in 1907 in Tomasique (previouly DR territory, lost by the Treaty signed by Presidents Rafael L. Trujillo and Stenio Vincent, which set the border in its present day position). I don't believe it, but who knows! My father lived most of his early years in San Juan de la Maguana and Azua, and he says he never saw an African man until he moved to San Pedro de Macoris, circa 1916. Take a look at his picture and see if you can detect any Zambo or Mulato features (I’d rather be called a Mulato than a Zambo ;-). My father is the first from the left, the others are my uncle Angel, and my aunt Altagracia. By the way, we celebrated yesterday my fathers 100th birthday. He now lives in Murcia, Spain. Here’s an article on him that appeared last week in HOY.

Bienvenidos al Hoy Digital

[Exxtol]

Originally Posted by Mirador

My father swears he doesn’t have one drop of African genes (notwithstanding he was born in 1907 in Tomasique (previouly DR territory, lost by the Treaty signed by Presidents Rafael L. Trujillo and Stenio Vincent, which set the border in its present day position). I don't believe it, but who knows! My father lived most of his early years in San Juan de la Maguana and Azua, and he says he never saw an African man until he moved to San Pedro de Macoris, circa 1916. Take a look at his picture and see if you can detect any Zambo or Mulato features (I’d rather be called a Mulato than a Zambo ;-). My father is the first from the left, the others are my uncle Angel, and my aunt Altagracia. By the way, we celebrated yesterday my fathers 100th birthday. He now lives in Murcia, Spain. Here’s an article on him that appeared last week in HOY.

Bienvenidos al Hoy Digital

Yes, the admixture is apparent (particularly in your father and aunt)--they look like light-skinned "mulattos". But phenotype and genotype are always tricky. Happy belated to your father--100 yrs huh, those are good genes!