Seaview Barbuda
The prehistory of the Lesser Antilles has considerably changed over the last twenty years due to research made by the International Association for Caribbean Archaeology. Our prehistory may be divided into two periods, the Archaic and the Ceramic. We do not know the names of the first people living in the Eastern Caribbean Islands as there was no written word available in the west so far back in time as 3,000 years before the birth of Christ, the earliest known date of humankind in Antigua or Barbuda so far.
We, in Antigua, have been calling these first people the "Siboney" (Cibony). This is erroneous, as Archaic people by that name were only living in Cuba according to historic sources. The first people arrived in large ocean going canoes either from Central America via the Greater Antilles or from South America. Neither direction has yet been proved one way or the other, though the former seems more likely.
The Archaic people may be defined as a people whose economy was based on hunting, fishing and collecting wild resources, and organized themselves into small bands rather than settling in villages. They used the techniques of chipping and grinding to make tools of stone, bone, and shell, and indeed many of these artifacts have been found in Antigua and Barbuda and can be seen at the Museum.
The oldest and most substantial sites of human occupation in Antigua are to be found at Twenty Hill, Parham (c.2900 BC) and at Jolly Beach (c.1775 BC). In Barbuda, "River," near the Martello Tower, has a known date of 1875 BC. The Archaic tribes of Amerindians lived in Antigua and Barbuda up to about 100 BC, and as the next period started some time before this, there was an overlapping of the two periods.
The next period of prehistory is known as the Ceramic Age starting in a minor way about 775 BC. These Amerindians arrived in canoes using the Caribbean Islands as stepping stones as they expanded into the Lesser Antilles. It was in the rivers and estuaries of what is today Venezuela, that the Amerindians had acquired their knowledge of boating and later, around Trinidad, the skills of the sea.
As the name Ceramic Age suggests, the innovation in manufacturing techniques was the firing of the most practical and beautiful pottery, see also photo above. They brought with them as well some measure of agriculture with the cassava root as their main staple. Being farmers they were more sedentary, thus village settlements were established for the first time.
There are about one hundred and forty-nine prehistoric sites recorded for Antigua and Barbuda. Of these nineteen are in Barbuda. Seventeen sites in Antigua and Barbuda are ceramic, probably of the Archaic Period.
Within the Ceramic Period, different groups of Amerindians are distinguished archaeologically through different styles of pottery. The first group was of Arawakan origin and much later, at about 1500 AD, it is thought, but not proved, that "Island Caribs" worked their way up the islands. Materialistically, from historic records, and through archaeology, no difference can be found between the original and later people, except that styles of pottery change gradually in time. The later pottery is far less sophisticated and a possible religious symbolic artifact, the zemi, is less frequent.
At the end of the prehistoric period it seems there were no homogenous Caribs, for in the missionary's dictionary mentioned above, we note the women spoke Arawakan and the men 'Island Carib', making a homogenous people, thus agreeing with archaeology there is little or no difference between them. This brings Antigua and Barbuda's prehistory up to historic times.
If you had been a visitor to our islands not long before Columbus you would have travelled by canoe. The village elder would have sent a host to greet you. On arriving at the large central house (carbet) of the village you would have been provided with a seat and tobacco, or a bed if you were old. To show great friendship, you would have exchanged names with your hosts. If you were special, you would have been given a feast at which all would have made merry with much cassava wine.
If unfolded cassava bread was given you , it would have meant you could have taken the leftovers along with you when you left! You would have eaten in silence without drinking. Only one man spoke at a time, whilst listeners hummed if they had approved of his words.Visitors were provided with special hammocks (hamaca) and a woman would have been given to paint your body with a natural paint (roucou) and dress your hair in the morning.
Here is the book from which we learn that the Islands Amerindian name was
OUALADLI and Barbuda's OUA'OMONI
(French orthography). Some of Breton's entries are very picturesque, take for instance the Amerindian for little red ants. Haiuachel. These ants are the smallest but the most troublesome and are found everywhere, in rooms, in chests, in food-safes, in jams, in hay and often enough they penetrate into the most secret places, where they bite so promptly and lively, in whose company you may be, and before you can think, the bite makes you commit an incivility that creates the laughter of those present, but who well know the mystery!
WE LIVE IN WALADLI
When Columbus was near Redonda on November 11, 1593, he sighted the island theAmerindians
called "WALADLI" and named it "Santa Maria la Antigua" after a miracle working Virgin shrine in a chapel of Seville Cathedral, Spain. The Amerindian name of "Waladli" was found in a French missionary's Amerindian dictionary that can now be inspected at the Museum. Since we speak English the spelling has been changed from the French orthography to English, as can be seen in the accompanying illustration.
According to the writings of Ferdinand Columbus, the son of Christopher, the earlier name of Antigua used by the Arawakan speaking people was YARUMAQUI.This word is believed to be derived from "Yaruma", a plant from which canoes and rafts were made and "Qui" an island.
The word WALADLI was later refined toWADADLI which is now recodnized and comonly used by almost all modern antiguan. The name Wadadli was franchised in 1976 by a groupe of local musicians called Wadadli Experience Band, and has since been the legal copyright interlectual property of Wadadli Experience Enterprise 1976 LTD. Antigua and Barbuda first Rastafarian Reggae Band.
The Amerindians, that we know as the Arawaks and Caribs, at the time of European contact were of good stature, well proportioned, strong and robust. Their natural colour was a very bronzed olive. The Ameri ndians never wore clothes; they sometimes wore a belt that hung in front with windings attached to the men's private parts. The women wore a cotton band four fingers wide. Sometimes the unmarried women wore a skirt or apron.
HAIR
The hair was worn long with a fringe near the eyebrows. A parting was made across the head from temple to temple, leaving two small moustaches over the temples. Before the Amerindians
travelled, the women combed the men's hair and greased it with oil to make it shine and look
blacker. Coloured feathers were sometimes stuck into the bundled hair. At the back, their long
black hair fell freely in graceful negligence. Slaves were not allowed to wear long hair.
FACE
Often the forehead was flattened for good looks. Carib babies had their
head flattened with boards or cushions or by the mother placing her hand and
elbow on the head and sleeping on them. Ear-disks made from modified fish vertebrae were worn
in the lobes of the ears.
ADORNMENT
Necklaces were made of seashells and with transparent fish bones. Often
wings of various birds were worn around the neck, which they let dangle over their shoulders and over their bellies. Other times a whistle made from the bones of their enemies hung around the neck.
At the feet little bells of seashell were worn to ring while dancing and the women wore a little sash with bells attached. The rattle of snail shells accompanied dances on strings that dancers wore around their arms, hips, calves and heels.
BODY PAINTING
Every day Amerindians reddened their bodies with a
mixture of roucou and castor oil. It was believed this would please their enemies and that they would have nothing to fear if they took this precaution. After painting their husband's body with roucou the wife wiped her hands on her leggings to stiffen them.
For fine black paint to be used for facial painting, gum was burnt from the root of the gum tree. Men often stood for twelve hours while his wife drew curves and lines from shoulders to buttocks. She also covered the back, arms and chest with fanciful lines, which were not unpleasant to look at. This decoration was made for warfare and for feasts.
The first people that came to Antigua built no houses, for the Archaic people
roamed from place to place looking for their life sustaining natural resources.
Later when the Arawakan-speaking people arrived at about the time of Christ, they brought
horticulture to Antigua and Barbuda for the first time. To tend their cassava crops it
became necessary to settle. That was when houses and villages were first built in Antigua.
According to the first missionaries and to the results of archaeological excavations, Arawakan houses were round and measured about 12 feet across. Roofs were supported by a strong central post about 25ft high. This great height was necessary to make their roofs of thatch waterproof, for rainwater was able to run off fast with so steep a roof.
There were three main Gods of the Arawakan-speaking peoples. Yocahu was the supreme god, the God of Cassava. Atabeyra the Goddess of Fertility and Childbirth and Opiyel Wa'obiran was the Guardian of the spirits of the dead. This latter God usually took the form of a dog. A beautifully carved dog's head made from a Fighting Conch shell was found at Freetown in the 1960's.
Benevolent spirits were believed to have resided in Zemies. These were
images made of stone, shell, coral, cotton or ceramics. Zemies controlled and influenced daily activities.
Zemi.. They favoured crop growing, hunting and fishing.
Shamans or Medicine men worked with the supernatural as both priest and doctor.
These men were able to influence powerful spirits. Tobacco was used as a narcotic with
which they intimately conversed with the Gods. A leaf was dried by fire and crumpled
into a powder. This was mixed with white ash and seawater, dampened and placed
between lip and gum. At the Museum there are examples of pottery
incense burners found in the various village sites
of Antigua & Barbuda in which Cahoba, a narcotic plant of the Mimosa family was burned.
Drawings were carved into rock at special places, as at bathing places or cave shelters.
They were intended to guard against evil spirits. A petroglyph is the
present day term for a rock drawing. The only known petroglyph of Antigua and Barbuda
is to be found in a cave in Barbuda.back to Ceramic Period
At the Museum, a folder showing various designs found on pottery may be obtained. These designs can be used in modern day handcrafts. It is so much better to use our own native motifs rather than designs from Hoboken,Honolulu or Haifa!
Look at these, Mostly from Antigua & Barbuda. They are part of the brochure obtainable at the Museum of Antigua & Barbuda.
Dances differed in each tribe or family. In some, the body was moved in a slow and stately manner, with the head held in a grotesque position. Men stood in a long line with their arms linked and the women opposite, likewise. The lines then advanced and retreated, all the time singing a monotonous chant, with each individual stamping hard upon the ground. Occasionally they break up to drink and then resume the same dance.
Sometimes a man and a women would get together and link arms and strut about slowly together, bending their bodies forward and backward, this side and that, very grotesquely. Dances always ended with a loud and discordant uproar, which was a signal for renewed drinking.
One particular tribe danced with each dancer representing a different animal. Each held a stick with an image of their animal on the end. One dancer would imitate a wild animal and pounce on another dancer to take him out of the dancing. In the end, he would be alone to finish the dance.
A dance of the Warrau tribe was described by the early missionaries as follows: When the cassava was ripe, the men went to catch crabs and the women made a special kind of cassava cake. When the men returned there was a feast. A young man and woman was placed in a circle separated by an arrow pushed in the ground with a doll stuck on it.
The man locked his fingers together on his stomach and the woman likewise, on her apron. The dance consisted of a few single steps on the spot, different for man and woman. Both then stared at each other in the face, without any movement whatsoever of the mouth and eyes. The slightest sign of laughter disqualified either one. The offender was bundled out of the ring and the crowd shouted, "That man/woman is no good. He/she will never get a wife/husband.
FOOD GATHERING METHODS
Digging sticks were used for planting gardens and fire was used for forest clearance. Line fishing was carried out with shell and turtle shell hooks. The thread was made from pineapple, dagger tree and other fibres. Fish were shot with the bow and arrow from the rocks and then retrieved by diving. They were often inebriated first using a certain beaten up bark of a tree( Piscidia sp.) Nets were made of palm fibre or cotton. Rocks were taken to dive
for lobsters and for conchs.
Turtles were caught by slipping a cord around their flippers and by harpooning. Crabs were searched for at night by using torches made from Torchwood. Pelicans and kingfishers were tamed to fish for them. Hunted were: Rice-rat, birds, iguana, snakes, worms, insects, spiders. Birds were shot with an arrow with a wad of cotton on the end instead of a sharp head. Birds were trapped in small traps and also by a strong glue from resins. Parrots were gassed from fires lit under trees in which gum, green pimentos or peppers were burnt.
COOKING METHODS
Food was often roasted on a boucan, from which we get
the word 'barbecue'. Food was also roasted in the embers of a fire. The ash formed a
jacket that was later scraped off. Sometimes roasts were wrapped in clay and placed straight
in the fire. When the clay was broken open, feathers or scales came with it.
Boiling was not so common except for crabs. Crabs were cooked in a pot with little water and
much red pepper, the whole being covered with leaves. Fish, half gutted and with
scales left on, were also cooked this way. No salt was ever used.
CASSAVA
This root vegetable(Manihot esculentas) was the main staple of
the Amerindians. The Cassava plant grows easily, but is a factor of soil degradation. This is
probably the reason why the Amerindians moved slowly up the Lesser Antillean chain when they left South America at about the time of Christ. Cassava kept and travelled well in ocean-going canoes. After processing, it produced flour, bread loaf (6 ins thick) and several
other varieties, a sauce called cassareep and a wine. As a vegetable it was light on the
stomach. It was cooked over a fire on a griddle.
PROTEIN
Agouti (Dasyprocta aguti) was a dark brown rodent that lived in Antigua about the size of a rabbit, and was introduced from South America. Agouti were hunted by non-barking dogs. It was kept for a day as it was too gamy, then it was salted, smoked and boiled in cassava juice for a long time to tenderise it. The guinea pig
(Cavia porcellus) was another mammal occasionally used as food.
Larger birds, like Terns, had their wings cut half off and were turned in the fire to burn off the feathers. They were then left on a grill to smoke. Small birds were wrapped in leaves to cook slowly. The outer skin was peeled off and the guts taken out. They were eaten without a sauce. Sometimes small birds were boiled in cassava juice with peppers, they had been smoke-cured, then drawn and feathered. Flamingos and parrots were aboriginally present in Antigua and were prized for their flesh and colourful feathers.
Fish was boiled in fresh water, often half cleaned without being scaled. It was sometimes roasted on a spit. Fish was seasoned with peppers. Sea food was kept alive in corrals until needed, this was a common food storage method. Crabs were a delicacy. Many different species of crabs and shellfish have been found archaeologically in kitchen middens (garbage dumps). Conch and whelks appear to be the commonest in most village sites.
THE PEPPER POT
was called Tomali (Toma Sauce, ali
clay pot). This method of cooking was a ingenious type of food storage. A rich brown pungent
sauce was made by boiling any or all of the following available items. Fish heads, bones of fish, agouti, rice rat (Oryzomys spp.), iguana, birds, monkey, seashells (chip-chips, oysters, whelks) into a deep clay fire pot with peppers, sweet potatoes, cassava juice and fine cassava flour. Cassava bread and other meats were dipped into this stew. It was boiled continuously and added to next day. Father Breton noted that it was rather unhygienic (even by 17th century standards!) as often roucou (body paint) and old women's hair was always found in pepper pots.
VEGETABLES and FRUITS
Maize (corn) was roasted on coal
and maize cakes, Kayzu, were made by boiling. Green maize soup was also made. Other vegetables were. Yams Kuchu, beans Mankonti arrowroot baked, Carib Cabbage Taya was used as a seasoning. Peanuts were eaten with cassava. Some fruits were the pineapple, introduced from South America and the native coco plum (Chrysobalanus icaca L.) Native seaside grapes and the fruits of the prickly pear cactus were also eaten as well as many other introduced plants as avocado, soursop, guava, paw-paw and mamey.
DELICACIES
Delicacies were raw fish eyes and the entrails of the
sea-cucumber were sucked out. If food was short, these holothurians were rubbed in the ashes
of a fire to rid them of their slime and then cooked. Another delicacy was
lice, particularly those from the heads of their enemies, these were rolled between the teeth
for a quarter of an hour to savour. Toads (houa), snakes, worms and insects were also
eaten. The Amerindian thus exploited natural resources to the maximum. They were very fond of honey.
BEVERAGES
The main alcoholic drink was cassava wine, Wi'ku.
This was a heady drink made from cassava and sweet potatoes fermented in syrup and water. "Gossiping old women" chewed and spat out the cassava which was fermented in pots. A beer was made from maize Pallino, and pressed pineapples were used.
The juice was probably left to ferment as a wine. A soft drink was honey and water Maba, and another was made from the cooked roots of the Carib Cabbage. An unknown plant calledKarratas was used to make a drink to quench the thirst when far from water. During the European contact period, the Caribs pounded sugar cane in a pestle and boiled it to make a drink.
RECIPES Tacallalaca Throw into a pot the bones of a fish just eaten, add handfuls of red pepper, cassava water and very fine cassava flour and a few pieces of crab; stirring the whole with a flat-ended stick. Hot sauce - Make from boiled cassareep juice and squashed pimento. Limejuice was included after European contact. Plants played an essential part in the daily social and economic life of the early islanders.
A plant-based culture provided the early people with food, utensils, ornaments and drugs in fact materials of all kinds. To say the least, Antigua & Barbuda's environment was fully exploited. The early islanders brought with them from South America their principal useful plants, without which they would have had to rely on the scarce resources of the natural flora and fauna of the Lesser Antillean Islands.
Early boats of Antiguawere hollowed out tree trunks and may have been given extra freeboard by adding planks on either side. Arawakan speaking Amerindians that appeared from
South Americamade these boats. Firstly, a large tree was chosen and fire was set around
the base to kill it. Then it was left standing for a year or so to season.
A favourite boat-building village was probably on the hill east of Monk's Hill where the cell phone antenna is today. We know this because many conch-shell hand adzes, flint tools and pottery have been found at that spot. According to the missionaries, these adzes were used in conjunction with fire to hollow out the tree trunks. The trees were chosen from the interior of
Antigua behind the hill, cut down and hollowed on the spot. Then a team of men dragged the bare hull to the village for finishing. It would have been an easy matter to take the canoes to Falmouth Harbour, as the canoes were literally slipped down the side of the steep hill to the water for launching. Canoes were the automobiles of the early people. They were used for communications around the coasts, fishing and even inter-island trade, proof of which has been determined archaeologically. Back to Canoes
It is thought sail was not used until after 1605. In this year, three Spanish Galleys were wrecked on Guadeloupeand the Caribs murdered all the crews. One friar, a certain Father Blasius from the Low Countries was spared as he had shown the Indians how to make sails out of the linen cloth that had been a part of the ships' cargo.
He showed them how to make a fore and aft spritsail (common in the Low Countries, the innovation pleased the Caribs as the sails had saved them much labour. Incidentally, Father Blasius made his escape by using one of his sails one night when he saw a British merchantman the 'Henry Challons' approaching the lee of Guadeloupe.
From that time on, sail was reported in the Caribbean in historical records, and until recently, the Carib Canoes of the Eastern Caribbean used the same sprit rig, utilising flour sacks sewed together as sail cloth.
CARIB SEA LORE
Face from a Carib/French Dictionary published in 1660 by Father Breton.
During canoe building, if a woman had touched the boat with but the end of her
finger, the Caribs believed the canoe would split and be leaky.
ACHAIC PERIOD
The Amerindian Jolly Beach site belongs to the earliest age of human settlement in Antigua and Barbuda and is the best-known complete habitation site of the archaic age. Two radiocarbon dates of 1,775 and 1,589 BC show the site was occupied about 3,500 to 4,000 years ago. By the archaic age we mean the people's technology had not reached the stage of pottery making or even the practice of agriculture.
The Jolly Beach people had lived simply off marine resources and various native plants. Their toolswere made of volcanic stone, flint, shell and wood. Tools excavated archaeologically include hand tools or chisels formed by the grinding of thick conch shell lips, ground stone axes or celts for making canoes, pestles for preparing food, flint blades for cutting and scraping, and simple beads and pendants.
The JollyBeach site is situated between two small hills east of the hotel gate. On the eastern part of the site a large house has already been built. Unfortunately there is no legislation to preserve our istoric sites so that future Antiguan archaeologists may study them. When the site was originally occupied some 3,500 years ago, it would have been a peninsula, as sea levels were about 10 ft. higher than today. The rocky area on which the supermarket is situated was at the end of the peninsula. Indeed at the end, there is a cave water worn by the sea in former times.
The JollyBeach people may have originally come from South America as similar tools
have been found there. They have also been collected at Ortoire in Trinidad; hence
archaeologists call the Jolly Beach site "Ortoiroid". We have no idea of the name
of the tribe that lived there or the name of the language they spoke, unlike the later Tainos and Island Caribs who were observed by the European missionaries and explorers.
The Indian Creek village site can be found about half a mile up the Indian Creek inlet on the south-east of Antigua. The Amerindian village site is an internationally known prehistoric archaeological site and is the most important on Antigua. Just before the time of Christ, maritime Arawakan speaking people arrived by canoe from South America. These agricultural people cleared the valley to grow their main staple ,cassava. Their life was sustained by the many different types of natural resources to be found from the mangroves, the creek and the sea. Arawak art was of high aesthetic quality and their agronomy was most productive in the Caribbean's ancient world. The settlement, whose population was about 50, lasted until about 1200 AD.
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ADORNO FROM THE RIM OF A VESSEL |
MODELED FROG ON VESSEL WALL |
In 1973, Yale University made several excavations, where workers unearthed middens (garbage dumps) on this site where Arawak chiefs and shamans had apparently lived, bringing to light long buried religious artifacts so that the Historical Society could continue reconstructing the religious practices begun by earlier work. Only about 1% of the site was excavated; the idea being that the rest should be left for future Antiguan archaeologists and for when better and more advanced method will be developed.
Development
We believe this site would make an interesting eco-tourism
attraction. Amerindian houses are simple to build. Three full sized ones would make the
site come alive. One house would be a museum showing the many artifacts that have been found
there, another for facilities and the other for a caretaker and guide/lecturer. The
interiors of the latter two would be modern.
INTERNATIONAL REFERENCES
JONES, ALICK 1978 Dietary Changes of the Arawaks at Indian Creek, Antigua. Am. Antiquity,Vol.50:3 913.031'155'Z5
OLSEN, FRED 1974 Indian Creek: Arawak Site on Antigua, West Indies. Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press. 972.974'004'
OLSEN, FRED 1974 On the Trail of the Arawaks Univ. of Oklahoma Press,
408pp. 970.3 ROUSE, I.&
FABER MORSE BIRGIT 1999 Excavations at the Indian Creek Site, Antigua. Yale University Pubs in Anthro.No.82 1999,70 pp. 972.974'004'
STEADMAN 1980 Faunal Remains from Indian Creek. .See also Z2 Unpublished 913.031'155'Z2
GOVERNMENT MAP, PLAN
n.d. Plan of Piccadilly Lands at Indian Creek, with owners. Unpublished 972.974I2
Information Taken from the Museum of Antigua & Barbuda
