The complex society of the Taíno fascinated the first Spanish conquerors of the Caribbean. They saw much of themselves in them: a rigidly hierarchical social structure, complex inter-tribal relations, and structured territorial villages (yucayeques) which acted as centres of trade and food production. And yet, the Taíno were unlike the Spanish in so many ways. Except for their caciques (chiefs), and perhaps a few of their nobles (nitaínos) and priests (bohíques), they went about their daily lives unclothed, an anathema to the Catholic notion that God taught Adam and Eve to be ashamed of their nakedness. They had no written language, and relied exclusively on oral transmission of the various meaningful stories that recounted their history. They had no money, and seemed not to recognise the intrinsic worth of goods, freely giving away gold despite its rarity, and yet jealously holding on to items fashioned from wood and stone. And, most bafflingly to Spanish eyes, the Taíno believed not in gods or deities disconnected from humankind, but rather in ancestors (zemí), some universal to the whole Taíno people, and some private to each family. Father Ramón Pané, an impoverished priest who accompanied Columbus on his expedition to the New World, was left behind on the island of Hispaniola for some months to learn what he could about this – to the Spanish – strange religion. His contemporaneous records of Taíno religious practices, while patronising and Eurocentric, are our best evidence for the religion of the Taíno as they themselves understood it.

Panê reported a number of things which have continued to baffle modern scholars. Often adduced as one of the most puzzling is the trigolonito, which is reported thus: ‘Most caciques have three stone objects of great devotion for them and their people: one, they say, is good for cereals and legumes; another one so that women can deliver babies without pain; and the third for sun and rain when they are needed’. Most scholars have taken this to be a description of the trigolonitos, but there is some debate over whether other sacred stones should be included in this mix. Trigolonitos come in a variety of forms. Some are plain three-pointed stones, usually a conical projection rising from a flat base. Others bear the features of a living human or a skull on one side, over which the conical projection usually bends. In still others, human or animal features actually form the third side, with the nose forming the point. Whether these different decorative schemes had different meanings remains unknown. The shape is an old one: pre-Taíno sites across the Caribbean, and Arawak sites on islands never inhabited by the Taíno, have offered up what archaeologists tentatively call proto-trigolonitos, three-pointers of a much simplified pattern. The adoption of the form by the Taíno resulted in what must be taken to be their characteristic art form. Of all the different representations of zemí (ancestor-deities) and of opía (forest spirits), the trigolonito is by far the most numerous. We must wonder whether Pané was mistaken, then, when he said that these objects were exclusively under the care of the cacique, or at least question how frequently they were replaced. The shape has been thought to numerous subjects of importance to the Taíno, most notably to the shape of the yucca root (the Taíno’s primary foodstuff) and to the mountains of Hispaniola, in the caves of which the Taíno believed the human race originated.

This exceptional trigolonito follows the classical form, known as Type 2, in which a human face is presented on the front of the conical projection. The features of the face merge those of a living human and a skull. This is a reference to the ancestors, who were the primary focus of Taíno devotion. It also, however, links to the ritual of cohoba, a finely ground hallucinogenic snuff which was snorted by devotees in the temples (bohíos) in order to commune with the ancestors. The experience of snorting cohoba resulted in a hallucinogenic trip which could last days; the individual would not eat or drink during this time, and would end up skeletal in appearance. As such, they became one with the ancestors – whose skeletal remains were also an important part of Taíno ritual and culture. The large vacant eyes of this figure are, nonetheless, full of life and personality, staring out at the viewer with a kind of sternness. Atop the cranium of this semi-skull is the so-called ‘Bird-Man’, a figure from Taíno myth which takes the form of a bird with the legs and toes (and perhaps other body-parts) of a man. This figure came to Western attention when, in AD 1799, three wooden Bird-Men appeared at the Society of Antiquaries in London. Their role is unknown; most commonly it is presumed that they represent shamans wearing bird costumes, though there is no evidence for such a practice among the writings of Ramón Pané, the only contemporary European witness of the Taíno. Instead, it is probable that the Bird-Man was some kind of hybrid spirit, somewhere between zemí and opía.