The staple crop of the Taíno was the cassava (Manihot esculenta), also known as yucca or manioc, a fibrous tuber rich in carbohydrates and calories.100 g (3 1/2 oz) of cassava provides 160 kilocalories of energy, and about a quarter of the daily requirement of vitamin C. If consumed alongside a healthy supply of protein, in which cassava is lacking, cassava is considered an excellent food source. Additionally, it can be preserved for an extended period of time, and requires little agricultural man-hours to grow successfully. One of the early chroniclers of the indigenous Caribbean, the Franciscan monk Bartholome de la Casas, reported that twenty people working for six hours a day for one month producing cassava could feed a population of 200 for two years. The main problem with cassava, however, is that it is highly toxic if unprocessed. Cyanogenic glucosides within the fibres of the root release significant amounts of hydrogen cyanide (HCN), which can cause intoxication, swelling of the thyroid, ataxia, paralysis or death. It was vital, then, that the cassava root was processed properly. In the Taíno case, this began with a mortar board, a guayo, also known by the archaeological term metate, borrowed from the traditions of Central and South America. Usually made of wood with embedded sharp stones, or occasionally from stone itself, Peeled cassava root would be laid on the guayo, and pulverised with a stone pestle in a dragging motion from top to bottom, which would loosen the fibres of the cassava root. The toxic juices would be poured off, and kept separately. Sufficiently boiled, the juice could be used as the base for a nutritious and still-popular pepperpot stew. The pulverised flesh would then also be boiled and strained, before being dried and used as the basis for a bread known as casabe.

A second important use of metate among the Taíno was in the production of the hallucinogenic snuff cohoba, which was central part of religious ancestor rites. During this ritual, the dried berries of the cojóbana tree (Anadenanthera peregrina) are pulverised and the resulting grains are mixed with the ashes of the tree’s bark. A line of this snuff is then prepared, usually on the head of a figure of a zemí, which is snorted by the participant through a tube. The resulting hallucinogenic trip might last for days; indeed, when the individual came to, they had not eaten or drank for days at a time. Their body was emaciated and skeletal, thus assimilating them to the condition of the ancestors. Their experiences under the influence of the drug, which were reported back to the bohíques (priests, shamans), were taken to be messages from the spirit realm, or even experiences gained by transcending the realms themselves. The bohíques would then presumably translate the outlandish and bizarre experiences caused by the hallucinogen, according to some pre-established tradition of interpretation, and use these translations to offer guidance or predictions to the participants. Both the cassava and the cohoba, then, required the use of a pestle and mortar. It is possible that this elaborately decorated example was used for either.

Standing on four squat round feet, the mortar bowl consists of a curved main surface, which has a rim decorated with swirls and rectilinear patterns which must bring to mind the ritual tattooing of the Taíno. At each end of the grinding surface, which has been worked smooth, are two small round heads of turtles. In one version of the Taíno creation myth, recorded by Columbus’ companion Ramón Pané on the island of Hispaniola, a mother turtle is the ultimate ancestor to all humankind. Turtles were hugely significant to the Taíno. When they first arrived in the Caribbean around 600 BC, some 30 to 40 million mostly green turtles (Chelonia mydas) and hawksbill turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata) were thought to inhabit the coasts of the Antilles. Their importance to the Taíno diet was such that by the time of Columbus’ arrival, only the uninhabited islands of the Tortugas (literally ‘Turtle Land’, the modern Cayman Islands) hosted significant breeding populations. Alongside the larger and less numerous loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta), they were of huge cultural significance, reflected in their regular depictions in Taíno art. There are two possible interpretations of this ritual object.

Certainly, it was not used as an everyday cassava guaio; these were, after all, usually wooden, and were rarely decorated. Instead, this metate may have been used in some sort of ritual preparation of the cassava, perhaps to demonstrate to young Taíno how their staple food was best prepared without poisoning the village. Certainly, regulation around the preparation of cassava was strict, and there was even a zemí responsible for the cosmic punishment of those who mis-prepared the root, named Baibrama. The preparation of cassava, then, was a matter of ritual as well as social significance, and this mortar may have had a place in the transmission of this knowledge. Alternatively, it may be related to the grinding of cohoba in advance of these rituals, thereby becoming a living object and participant in the window between the living and the deceased.