Carib
The Caribs, also known as the Kalina or Galibi, are an Indigenous American group originally from the north coast of South America, who migrated to the Lesser Antilles starting in the fifth century. By the end of the fourteenth century, they had either expelled or integrated the Arawaks in this region. Caribs primarily engaged in farming and fishing, establishing their villages on mountain slopes near fresh water, with communal land ownership and personal property in the form of canoes and ornaments. Their diet was diverse, consisting of fish and various cultivated crops, though certain foods like turtles were considered taboo.
Culturally, the Caribs shared similarities with the Arawaks, living in small villages organized around a communal plaza. Their social structure featured a leader, often the family head, who managed village activities and military affairs. The Caribs were renowned warriors and skilled sailors, known for their ability to construct large war canoes. Spiritual life included personal deities and rituals connected to various life events, alongside practices of ancestor worship. Although they faced displacement by European powers, a small population of Caribs, approximately 3,400 individuals known as the Kalingo, currently resides on the island of Dominica, where they maintain their cultural identity.
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Carib
- CATEGORY: Tribe
- CULTURE AREA: Mesoamerica
- LANGUAGE GROUP: Cariban
- PRIMARY LOCATION: Lesser Antilles
The Caribs, the third Indigenous American group to migrate from the north coast of South America through the Lesser Antilles, began their move northward in the fifth century. By the end of the fourteenth century, they had expelled or incorporated the Arawaks in the Lesser Antilles.
The Caribs, who were farmers and anglers, located their villages high on the windward slopes of mountains near running water. Land was largely communally owned, but canoes and ornaments were personal property. Tobacco, shells, and beads were used as money. The Caribs erected small, wood-framed, oval, or rectangular houses with thatched roofs around a plaza with a communal fireplace. The plaza served as the center of ceremonies and social life. Furnishings were few: small wooden tables, metates (grinding stones), griddles, stools, hammocks, gourds, and pottery. Their diet consisted of fish, lizards, crabs, agouti, corn, sweet potatoes, yams, beans, and peppers. Turtles and manatees were forbidden foods because of the fear that eating them would make a person slow. Men and women shared the tasks of making canoes, beer, baskets, and textiles. Both sexes shaped their skulls, wore amulets and charms, and decorated their bodies with flowers, coral or stone, gold dust, and red, white, and black paint. Persons of rank wore crescents of gold or copper.
The Caribs were closely related culturally to the Arawaks. Their villages were small and usually populated by an extended family. The leader, often the head of the family, supervised the village's activities and settled village disputes. He also served as military chief and led raiding parties.
War was one of the main activities of the Caribs, who were fierce fighters. Their Indigenous American weapons included bows, poisoned arrows, javelins, and clubs embedded with sharpened flint. The Caribs were excellent sailors and could construct a war canoe capable of carrying more than a hundred warriors from the trunk of a single tree. They also lashed canoes together to form rafts for longer voyages. The Caribs raided Arawak settlements, reaching Puerto Rico by the 1490s. Captured Arawak men were killed and sometimes cooked and eaten. Captured women and children were taken away as enslaved people.
Carib religion had some rituals related to birth, death, warfare, and agriculture. Each individual Carib had a personal deity that could take many forms, and to which the Carib sometimes offered cassava (a plant with a nutritious edible root). Good and evil spirits fought constantly, both within the body and everywhere in nature. Shamans attempted to ward off the evil spirits and to please the good ones. Ancestor worship was also practiced.
The Spaniards did not settle the Lesser Antilles, but the Caribs’ skill as fighters and their reputation as cannibals did not prevent other European nations from displacing them later. The Caribs were limited to the islands of St. Vincent and Dominica. On St. Vincent, they mixed with shipwrecked enslaved people and became known as the “Black Caribs,” who, in 1795, were transferred by the English to Roatán Island off Honduras. They spread onto the mainland and northward into Guatemala. A small Carib population lives on a reservation on Dominica. In the 2020s, approximately 3,400 Carib, or Indigenous Kalingo people, live on the island of Dominica.
Bibliography
"Caribs in Dominica." Minority Rights Group, minorityrights.org/communities/caribs. Accessed 20 Oct. 2024.
Hoose, Natalie van. "Study Puts the 'Carib' in 'Caribbean,' Boosting Credibility of Columbus' Cannibal Claims." Florida Museum, 10 Jan. 2020, www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/carib-skulls-boost-credibility-of-columbus-cannibal-claims. Accessed 20 Oct. 2024.
Lang, Anthony. "Cultural Summary: Island Carib." eHRAF World Cultures, ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/cultures/st13/summary. Accessed 20 Oct. 2024.
"Meet the Kalinago." Discover Dominica, discoverdominica.com/en/places/67/kalinago-territory. Accessed 20 Oct. 2024.