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Beautiful Taino women swimming nude in forest pools

By Larry Daley <daleyl@PEAK.ORG>
7 September 1999

Mike:

Almost all old families in the area of Bayamo are part Taino, especial when like us they lived in the mountains. This is always denied in the old Spanish certificates of purity of blood. However, the trouble with the old certificates is that:

(1) these documents were generated by asking the neighbors. And since the neighbors families intermarried a great deal, so "who is talking"

(2) In the medieval tradition the man was considered the only carrier of the blood line, the sperm was considered to be homicule (sp?) or little man and the receptacule of the soul. That by the way is supposed to be the reason why sexual liberation of sperm was so important in "devil" worship, talk about mass production of souls for the devil to take (;>))>>. Thus the mother's "line" could be considered not to matter.

Other factors are:

(a) Most important men had mistresses as well as wives, the mistresses were the more attractive women of the "lower" classes which were known to have Taino blood. Often the offspring of these mistresses were adapted by the legitimate wife or the mother of the father. For instance Lucia I~niguez Landin adapted her some of her son's, illegitimate children.

(b) Especially in early periods, the Spanish immigration was primarily male, and the women were "taken" into mancebia or even matrimony were Taina

Family always denies it (;>)>> but physonomically, hair (pelo chino), skin color (the local tradition was that the Siboney's had light skin) , and stature, build, and by blood type some contribution seems likely for all of us. I can see it in the faces of the family, but I remain quiet so not to offend some of the older ladies. And, most of the workers in the area were part Taino, and told us stories of the family.. Don Benjamin used to sing of being 'Siboney' but that is just a song. Some of Tio Ming's (Benjamin son of Don Benjamin) children are recognizabled as part Taino, as are some of my grand nieces.

Heck the Taino women bathed, and even when I was there, still bathing nude in the rivers. See in your mind, a beautiful Taino women all soft curves, smooth wet skin over rounded hips, curving backs covered only with long, straight black hair, swimming in a tree shaded part of the cristal clear rivers of the foot hills of the sierras, at the end of hot tropical day, (e.g. as described by Gerardo Castellanos 1927 Tierras y Glorias de Oriente (Calixto Garcia I~niguez) p. 155 third paragraph, "ver pasar centenares de desnudas mujeres... en el rio Miel") Hermes, Havana). Then tell me about how lonely Spanish men living in Cuba for 400 years maintained their "purity of blood".

Thus any descent of an old Cuban family can probably make a good claim to Taino blood. If a family lived in Havana and were of more recent immigration that is entirely a different kettle of fish.

However, it looks like I will have have some DNA work done then we will talk.

Larry