The Taíno thought that they originated in the caves of Hispaniola, having been created directly from the soil of the land. Indeed, they had lived on the islands of the Greater and Lesser Antilles, in the Caribbean, for some two millennia by the time Columbus arrived in AD 1492. But while they considered themselves the original inhabitants of the Caribbean, their origins in fact lay in the Amazon Basin. The Arawak-speaking forebears of the Taíno set out from the coast of South America in canoes some time around 600 BC. When they arrived in the Caribbean, they encountered the native hunter-gatherer peoples, displacing them by means of warfare, cultural colonisation, and the spread of disease. Thereafter, the Taíno developed the first complex society in the Caribbean. Strictly hierarchical, Taíno life centred on the chief, known by the Spanish name cacique. Each cacique ruled over a confederation of villages (yucayeques), and their attendant territory. The cacique held a special responsibility for interceding between the living and the ancestors. He was assisted in his duties by the priests or shamans, the bohíques, and by the noble class (nitaínos). The chief and the nobles owned all of the land; it was up to the nitaínos to ensure that it was being worked appropriately by the lowest social class, the naborias. Taíno people survived by farming, a task undertaken primarily by the women, and through hunting, the archetypal masculine duty. The Taíno brought with them from the Amazon the knowledge of using poison darts, and this made them especially successful hunters and particularly feared warriors.

The Taíno were not alone in the Caribbean; the Kalinago, or Island Caribs as they were once known, competed with the Taínos for space in the small world of the Antillean islands. The Kalinago were a fierce people, accused by the Spanish conquistadors of cannibalism, and their conflicts with the Taíno were notoriously bloody. But the Taíno also suffered internal competition for resources. A lucky cacique might rule an entire small island, but the larger islands (Hispaniola, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, for example) were home to a number of village confederations. The risk of incessant warfare between Taíno confederations was very real, but there was a novel solution. At the fringes of a cacique’s territory, courts were built for the Taíno’s characteristic ball-game, batey. Played with a ball of solid rubber, about the size of a football (soccer ball), batey was open to both sexes, but was predominantly played by men. The idea was to keep the ball off the ground; if you forced your opponent to drop the ball, you scored a point. The ball could only be struck with the shoulder, elbow, head, hips, buttocks or knees, and never with the hand. While this entertaining-sounding game may appear as mere frivolity to us, to the Taíno, it was a solemn and important religious and social ceremony. Ball courts were constructed especially at the borders between the territories of chiefs; in the event of disputes between them, the game could be played to come to a peaceful resolution.

One of the most peculiar items associated with batey courts are the ‘elbow stones’, which are often found in contexts along with stone ‘yokes’. These appear to be lithic versions of body adornments, worn around the neck or waist, or across the body like a sash. Why they should be so closely linked to the ball courts is unknown. One theory is that the cacique adorned himself with stone girdles, belts and sashes during the ball games, to distinguish himself. A question remains over why the chief needed to set himself apart in this cumbersome way, when there was already another category of personal adornment – gold jewellery (guanin) – which was reserved for him alone. Alternatively, it has been suggested that these were stone versions of the protective padding which was sometimes worn by the players. Some have suggested that these ‘elbow stones’ were, therefore, some kind of trophy won by successful players. This ‘elbow stone’ follows the more developed format, which probably dates it to late in the Taíno’s independent period. A decorated boss, or central round area, curves to two arms. The arms taper to a blunt round edge, through which are holes for the suspension of the ‘elbow stone’ from a string. The arms are fluted or girt with grooves, and down the lateral face of each arm is a deeper and wider groove, known as a sulcus. While the surface of ‘elbow stones’ is usually rough, this rare example is well-polished, leaving a smooth, almost sensuous surface. The central boss of the stone depicts a zemí, one of the ancestral spirits of the Taíno. She crouches with her hands holding her knees, in the position associated with the shamans when they participated in the use of the cohiba hallucinogen. Her eyes are large, vacant, sockets, which assimilate her to the skulls which the Taíno kept to venerate their ancestors, as week as the skeletal visage of users of cohiba, who often went days without food or drink. She wears a large headdress, which comes down over her ears, which bear large ear spools. It is most likely that she represents Atabey, one of the universal ancestors of all Taíno, whose spirit embodied fresh water and fertility. While she was a motherly figure – indeed the literal mother of Yúcahu, the principal deity of the Taíno – she could have a fearsome aspect, known as Guabancex, the embodiment of the storms which ravaged exposed Caribbean islands.

References: a very close analogue of this ‘elbow stone’ can be found in Madrid (Museo de América 03303).