All about the ancient tribes
The citizens of the Bahamas are known as Bahamians.
However, unlike the aborigines, the Lucayan people no longer exist. Between 700 and 1500, Lucayan culture flourished.
The Lucayans painted their bodies for beauty and religious reasons.
They spoke the Taíno language, one of the Arawakan languages. The highly developed Lucayan culture boasted its own language, government, religion, craft traditions, and extensive trade routes. Christopher Columbus’s diario is the only source of first-hand observations of the Lucayans.
Ethnic groups are: black 85%, white 12%, Asian and Hispanic 3%.
The Bahamas
Commonwealth of The Bahamas | |
---|---|
Vernacular language | Bahamian English |
Ethnic groups (2010) | 90.6% Afro- Bahamian 4.7% European 2.1% Mulatto 1.9% Other 0.7% Unspecified |
Religion (2010) | 95.8% Christianity —80.0% Protestantism —15.8% Other Christian 3.1% None 1.1% Others |
Demonym(s) | Bahamian |
It is noted that the Arawak people (indigenous people of the Caribbean, northern South America, Central America, and southern North America) are generally viewed to be extinct.
The Lucayans grew corn, sweet potatoes/yams. They caught fish and hunted for small animals, like the iguana, and birds to add fish and meat to their diet. They cooked food on fires in clay pots. Their furniture and tools were very simple and made from wood and stone.
Cuba is the largest island country in the Caribbean sea, with a total area of almost 111 thousand square kilometers, followed by the Dominican Republic, with nearly 49 thousand square kilometers.
Their heads were flattened at the foreheads as babies when the skull was bound between two boards. This elongated head was considered as a mark of beauty. This may have been done to thicken the skull thus it could withstand heavy blows. Tales were told of Spaniards who broke their swords on Arawak heads.
Body painting was common among Arawakan peoples, partly for the sake of aesthetics but mostly as an act of spirituality.
Columbus described the houses of the Lucayans as clean and well-swept. The houses were furnished with cotton nets (some kind of hammocks) for beds and furnishings, and were used mainly for sleeping.
The Lucayans were the original inhabitants of the Bahamas before the arrival of Europeans. They were a branch of the Taínos who inhabited most of the Caribbean islands at the time. The name ” Lucayan ” is an Anglicization of the Spanish Lucayos, derived in turn from the Taino Lukku-Cairi, meaning “people of the islands”.
The Arawak are a group of indigenous peoples of South America and of the Caribbean. Specifically, the term “Arawak” has been applied at various times to the Lokono of South America and the Taíno, who historically lived in the Greater Antilles and northern Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean.
They were sedentary farmers who hunted and fished, lived in small autonomous settlements, and had little hierarchical organization. The Arawak were found as far west as the foothills of the Andes.