Historical Indigenous Sites in the Antilles

The so-called Carib problem (Allaire Reference Allaire1977:5) has dominated research in the Lesser Antilles and beyond and may have sparked archaeologists’ interest in this region (see, for example, the work of Fred Olson, Eugène Revert, Maurice Barbotin, Edgar Clerc, and Mario Mattioni). From the earliest excavations, the precolumbian material culture, notably its ceramics, was interpreted as being of Arawak and Carib origin. According to local tradition and interpretation of the early sources, the older pottery of fine quality (Saladoid ceramic series) was made by the friendly and civilized Arawak, whereas the less attractive pottery (Troumassoid and Suazoid ceramic series) was produced by the fierce and unfriendly Caribs, who had replaced the unfortunate Arawak. Louis Allaire, a student of B. Irving Rouse, was probably the first to address this categorization when he excavated numerous Late Ceramic Age (LCA) sites on Martinique in the 1970s: he concluded that the Martinican LCA ceramic series were the product of local development, despite influences from Venezuela and the Greater Antilles, “but none or little from the coast of the Guianas” (Allaire Reference Allaire1977:ii). To define the nature of their ethnic identity, he attempted to correlate precolumbian peoples with historical groups through oral traditions and the linguistic origins of the Island Caribs. These questions still pervade the archaeological debate on the Island Caribs. However, the paucity of archaeological data—the glass bead–inlaid sherd from Saint Vincent is a noteworthy exception; see Allaire Reference Allaire1994)—led researchers to undertake linguistic analysis of the modern Garifuna and Creole languages, Island Carib gender indexicality, and seventeenth-century vocabularies, as well as to reinterpret the early French reports (Allaire Reference Allaire1980, Reference Allaire1984, Reference Allaire1991, Reference Louis and Samuel1997; Boomert Reference Boomert1986; Davis and Goodwin Reference Davis and Goodwin1990; Dreyfus Reference Dreyfus1983–1984, Reference Dreyfus1992; Taylor and Hoff Reference Taylor and Hoff1980; Whitehead Reference Whitehead1984, Reference Whitehead1995a, Reference Whitehead1995b).

Allaire (Reference Allaire1980) continued his research and opened another avenue for research by comparing historical Galibi and modern-day Kalina pottery production from French Guiana with the pottery manufacture of the Island Caribs and the LCA ceramic registers from Martinique, such as the Macabou site. Although incomplete, the nomenclature and descriptions recorded by Europeans of these ceramic registers showed a clear connection between the Guianas and Lesser Antilles but not with the LCA series of the Lesser Antilles, leading to the conclusion that the mainland ceramics were a very recent introduction (Allaire Reference Allaire1984:128–131). Allaire cited Boomert’s recent work on LCA ceramic assemblages from Trinidad, where the latter found that the Guayaguayare complex (Mayoid series) shared specific vessel shapes with modern Kalina and Arawak pottery, as well as with that of the historic Island Caribs; according to Boomert (Reference Boomert1985:120), it “suggest[ed] migration from the mainland to Trinidad during final-prehistoric times.” Interestingly, Boomert also argued for the importance of caraipé or kwepi (burnt tree bark) as a tempering material for LCA ceramic complexes, such as the Mayoid and later the Cayoid series.

Indeed, shortly thereafter, Boomert (Reference Boomert1986) defined the Cayo complex of Saint Vincent. His analysis was based on his own inventories of Koriabo ceramics from Suriname, the work of I. A. Earl Kirby, and a reading of the historical sources. Boomert presented eight vessel shapes for the Cayo and 13 for Koriabo; by describing their modes of decoration and temper, he established a clear reference system for both complexes and elucidated their evident affinities (Figure 2a). Like Allaire, Boomert not only noted the similarities in nomenclature between Island and Mainland Carib productions but also added linguistic connections with the Arawak lexicon for two vessel shapes (Reference Boomert1986:41). He presented many Kalina, Palikur, and Lokono vessel shapes based on the works of Father Willem G. Ahlbrinck (Reference Ahlbrinck1931) and Curt Unkel aka Nimuendajú (Reference Nimuendajú1926), who collected and described them in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Boomert concluded that the pottery used for ritual purposes bears Carib names, whereas the domestic ware has Arawak names, supporting the idea of an invasion of the Lesser Antilles that would have entailed the killing of all adult males and abduction of the women. Although he did not present any radiocarbon dates, Boomert suggested that the first Cayo ceramics were produced around AD 1250 and were imbued with cultural influences from the mainland (Venezuela) and Greater Antilles (Taino), contradicting Allaire’s inception date of around AD 1450. However, Boomert did agree with Allaire’s conclusions on the evident absence of Suazoid ceramic traits and the pottery’s affinity with the Cayo register, attributed to the disease-borne depopulation of the Windward Islands on the eve of the colonial encounter or just after it.Footnote ⁴ Interestingly, this seminal article was followed by another in the same series about muiraquitãs, or greenstone frog-shaped pendants, from the Lesser Antilles, Venezuela, Guianas, and Lower Amazon River, which described an extended exchange network embracing these areas (Boomert Reference Boomert1987).Footnote ⁵

Figure 2.

(a) Cayo forms identified by Arie Boomert (Reference Boomert1986); (b) Koriabo forms identified by Evans and Meggers (Reference Evans and Meggers1960).

The Island Carib debate was reignited by Gérard Richard’s discovery of Cayo ware at the site of Roseau, Guadeloupe (Bochaton et al. Reference Bochaton, Ephrem, Bérard, David, Gala, Richert, Alice, Sylvain and Arnaud2021; Richard Reference Richard2004, Reference Richard, Tavarez and Arévalo2005). In local folklore, the beach at Roseau is where Columbus set foot on land when he arrived for the second time in the Americas (Vauchelet Reference Vauchelet1892:94n1). The site has yielded mainly Troumassoid ceramics dated to the LCA that show some Taino influence; a few items date to the fifteenth century, but most are older. I led a large-scale excavation on the same plateau in 2015 that confirmed the largely Troumassoid occupation but also yielded a few Cayo ceramics, some Spanish pottery, and a few glass beads (van den Bel Reference van den Bel2022; van den Bel et al. Reference van den Bel, Belarbi, Casagrande, Dickau, Fronteau, Grouard and Jorda2018). From a rectangular pit with rounded edges, we retrieved a complete Cayo vessel that had been placed upside down and may have come from the mainland (Figure 3).Footnote ⁶ Other LCA sites in Guadeloupe have been excavated recently, but no European or Cayo ware has been found.

Figure 3.

(a) Vessel with coffee-bean eyes found at Roseau, Guadeloupe; (b) vessel with nicked pellets found by Hofman and Hoogland at Argyle (Hofman and Hoogland Reference Hofman and Hoogland2012:Figure 31). (Color online)

The combination of European and Cayo ware is key and suggests a late sixteenth- to seventeenth-century occupation such as at Argyle. This site was excavated extensively in 2009 and 2010 by Corinne Hofman and Menno Hoogland, researchers at the University of Leiden, in collaboration with the Saint Vincent and the Grenadines National Trust (Hofman and Hoogland Reference Hofman and Hoogland2012). Most of the material was recovered from an eroding slope or trash heap, and its ceramics were attributed to the Cayoid series, characterized as “a mosaic-like cultural aggregate with mainland Koriabo and Greater Antillean Chicoid affiliations” (Hofman and Hoogland Reference Hofman and Hoogland2012:65; see Boomert Reference Boomert, Corinne and van Duijvenbode2011; Jacobson Reference Jacobson2023). The excavations also revealed the floor plans of many wooden structures, suggesting an Indigenous settlement of the sixteenth to eighteenth century attributed to the Island Caribs. Hofman and Hoogland (Reference Hofman and Hoogland2012:73) stressed in their conclusion that correlation of the archaeological data with historical information aided interpretations of the village layout and that the site offered a unique opportunity to study continuity and change in Amerindian culture.

Historical Indigenous Sites in French Guiana

The first historical sites in the eastern Guianas were excavated by Emilío Goeldi at Cunaní in 1895. He found European glass beads in urns that were deposited in deep shaft pits, or poços, representing an Amerindian burial site (Goeldi Reference Goeldi1900:33). Today these beautifully painted ceramics, most notably the anthropomorphic urns, are attributed to the Aristé ceramic complex of northern Amapá and eastern French Guiana (Evans Reference Evans1950:80; Hilbert Reference Hilbert1957:13, 36; Nimuendajú Reference Nimuendajú, Stenborg, Sandahl, Rydén and Stenborg2004:19, Figures 4–7). Nimuendajú, as well as Meggers and Evans (Reference Meggers and Evans1957), found many Amerindian burial sites in Amapá containing metal tools and glass beads in connection with several ceramic phases such as Aristé, Mazagão, and Aruã. Interestingly, Nimuendajú (Reference Nimuendajú, Stenborg, Sandahl, Rydén and Stenborg2004:18) claimed that the (precolumbian?) burial urns were recycled by the local population: “Beads, Muyrakytãs, etc. had been carried away to be used as ornaments by the women, and the urns themselves had been removed in great numbers to be used as flowerpots and water jars.” Recent analysis has revealed that the majority of these glass beads date to the late seventeenth century (Nimuendajú Reference Nimuendajú, Stenborg, Sandahl, Rydén and Stenborg2004:22; see Billeck and Luze Reference Billeck and Luze2019). During this period, the coast of Amapá was frequently visited by Portuguese priests and slave traders, as well as by Dutch and French merchants, who came to this area not only to hunt manatees but also to capture Amerindians they could sell to the European planters in the Antilles (Hurault Reference Hurault1972).

The first historical sites in French Guiana were uncovered in the late 1970s by Dominique Roy and Hugues Petitjean Roget during an exploration of five cavities in the Ouanary Mountains between the mouths of the Ouanary and Oyapock Rivers (Petitjean Roget Reference Petitjean Roget, Bullen, Arenas and Mayer1978, Reference Petitjean Roget1980, Reference Petitjean Roget1983; Roy Reference Roy1978). They found two cavities containing Aristé ceramics (Gros Montagne and Trou Biche) without European ware and four cave sites—Jarre Indien, Trou Delft, Trou Reliquaire, and Trou AGAE—with glass beads, metal tools, and faience in urns and on the floor. Polychrome pottery sherds were found at all these sites, suggesting an attribution to the Amazonian Polychrome Tradition and the Aristé Phase. Petitjean Roget also suggested that because the Amerindians did not paint their urns, the polychrome urns were of precolumbian manufacture. He further stated that the Palikur, who are known to have inhabited this area since the late sixteenth century, still practice secondary burials (Petitjean Roget Reference Petitjean Roget1983:188–189; see also Green et al. Reference Green, Green and Góes Neves2003:378; Grenand and Grenand Reference Grenand and Grenand1987:49, 54; Rostain Reference Rostain1994:annex 3).

The middle Sinnamary River is another region in French Guiana where Amerindian sites—mostly identified by their large quantities of handmade pottery—that contain European artifacts (Poudoupoudouli, Maya, Marcelin, etc.) have been discovered. These sites were detected during an archaeological project undertaken before the construction of a dam at the Petit-Saut rapids (Puaux and Philippe Reference Puaux and Philippe1997:Chapter 1; Vacher et al. Reference Vacher, Jérémie and Briand1998). Only Poudoupoudouli was excavated. Having been abandoned by the Amerindians in the nineteenth century, the river site was occupied again when the gold rush arrived in French Guiana.

The lower reaches of the Sinnamary River were inhabited during the catastrophic mission of Kourou in 1763, but that area had been visited by Jesuits earlier who were seeking to conquer the souls of the Amerindians along the littoral. After a few decades of frequent visits, the priests decided to found missions in Kourou and Sinnamary (Figure 4; Hurault Reference Hurault1972).

Figure 4.

Small crucifix (length 2.5 cm) made of lead found at Eva, Malmanoury, French Guiana. (Color online)

Two Amerindian sites from this early Jesuit period during the late seventeenth century—Eva 2 and Luna 1—were situated at the edge of the coastal savanna near Malmanoury Creek to the west of Kourou and were excavated in 2005 and 2017 (Figure 5; Delpech et al. Reference Delpech, Bruxelles, Casagrande, Coulaud, Durand, Hildebrand, Leblanc, Poissonnier and Martijn M.2019; van den Bel et al. Reference van den Bel, Hildebrand, Delpech, Romon and Vallet2006).Footnote ⁷ The ceramic production encountered at these Guianese sites is more or less identical and was termed the Malmanoury ceramic complex (van den Bel et al. Reference van den Bel, Romon, Vallet and Delpech2015). Raw clay was mixed with sand, grog, or burned vegetal matter (gray or black) to produce a mixture that is mostly known as kwepi (Licania sp.) by modern-day potters (Collomb Reference Collomb2006:52–53; Grenand et al. Reference Grenand, Moretti, Jacquemin and Prévot2004:308). The repertoire varies in size from very small cups to enormous basins and urns (Figure 6). Small open bowls have mostly red slip on the inside, although there are a few with white slip and some have four notches on the lip. The white-slipped bowl has polychrome designs on the inside, but they were mostly worn away. There are also large open bowls and a few carinated ones. The majority of pieces, however, are necked pots of all sizes, ranging from pots and large bowls to basins and large jars. Interestingly, there are no griddles for baking cakes (tortilla or cassava), nor were there any iron fragments, which could have replaced the ceramic griddles. Except for the slipped and notched bowls, forms of decoration, particularly incisions and appliqués such as (incised) handles and nubbins, are notable for their absence.

Figure 5.

Large vessel with secondary burial containing many glass beads, fragments of a Bartmann jug (a German salt-glazed stone ware), and iron axe found at Eva, Malmanoury, French Guiana. (Color online)

Figure 6.

Ceramic repertoire of Luna, Kourou, French Guiana. (Color online)

The urn found at Eva 2 is of particular interest because it has the same unusual shape as a large vessel found at Grenada, indicating a cultural link between the Galibi or Calina of Malmanoury and the Island Caribs or Callinago of the Windward Islands (Figures 5 and 7; see Hofman et al. Reference Hofman, Martin, Arie Boomert, Jacobson and Hoogland2022:Figure 3). This connection was already observed by Lawrence Keymis, Walter Raleigh’s captain, when he visited what he called the “Manmanory” River of the Guianas and the island of Dominica in 1596. He noted that the inhabitants of this part of the mainland “speake the language of the Indians of Dominica” (Keymis Reference Keymis1968 [1596]:F6–G).

Figure 7.

Large vessel containing secondary burial with many glass beads, fragments of the said Bartmann jug (see Figure 5), and iron axe found at Eva, Malmanoury, French Guiana.

Historical Movements

Just as historical documents are lacking for Amerindians in the Lesser Antilles in the sixteenth century, so too are they scarce for the Guianas. Except for some general information about the “useless islands” by Spanish chroniclers and a few rare mentions in Spanish archives, as noted by Neil Whitehead (Reference Whitehead2011), the Costa Brava, or Wild Coast, is ignored in European documentation. The first detailed descriptions were made at the end of the sixteenth century and reveal a region in turmoil, reeling from wars waged by Amerindians and being “infested” by English and Dutch factors representing private merchant companies. The situation in the Lesser Antilles was more or less the same two decades later when European settlers tried their luck in the Leeward Islands, Barbados, and Tobago.

The descriptions written by the English who bartered mostly on the Oyapock River note the presence of a local Yao “king” or chief called Anacaioury, who reigned over many nations in the eastern Guianas. The Yao were originally from Trinidad, which they had fled to escape the oppression wielded by the Spanish-Arawak/Nepoio alliance in that area. Anacaioury can be considered a “Stranger King” who played a pivotal role as a mediator between the Calina of Cayenne and the Aricouros (Palikur) of the Uaça and Cassiporé Rivers to the east of the Oyapock, negotiating with the Europeans (van den Bel and Collomb Reference van den Bel, Collomb, Corinne L and Keehnen2019). The rivalry and constant conflict between the Calina and Aricouros over control of the trade with the Europeans may have escalated when Anacaioury died in the 1630s. The case of the Yao is of interest here because it shows that Amerindian movement and territorial drift were related to colonial pressure and Amerindian rivalry. Their wars differed from “regular” Amazonian warfare, in which attackers burned the enemy’s village and took prisoners; instead, the Amerindians occupied the conquered settlements and killed all their inhabitants (see, for example, Hemming Reference Hemming1978; Métraux Reference Métraux1927; Santos-Granero Reference Santos-Granero2009; Schwerin Reference Schwerin2003; Sued Badillo Reference Sued Badillo1978; Viveiros Castro and Carneiro de Cunha Reference Castro and Eduardo1985; Whitehead Reference Whitehead1988).

The Yao’s movement from their homeland to the eastern Guianas can be considered analogous to the movement of the Callinago’s ancestors from the Guianas to the Lesser Antilles recounted by the European sources—but in the opposite direction. From the late nineteenth century until the 1990s, most of the scholarship accepted the migration theory (Adam Reference Adam1879; Aikhenvald Reference Aikhenvald2016; Boomert Reference Boomert1984, Reference Boomert1986; Brinton Reference Brinton1871; de Goeje Reference Goeje1909, Reference Goeje1939; Robiou Lamarche Reference Robiou Lamarche2003; Santos-Granero Reference Santos-Granero2002, Reference Santos-Granero2009; Sued Badillo Reference Sued Badillo2007; Taylor Reference Taylor1954, Reference Taylor1977). This theory was advocated by linguists who argued that Cariban-speaking men from the Guianas invaded the Lesser Antilles, killed all the male inhabitants, and claimed the women who spoke an Arawakan language; in this manner, these so-called Island Caribs founded a bicultural society. The women and children continued to speak their Arawakan language, and the men spoke Cariban, the language of the mainland Caribs or Galibi.

The Island Carib language has attracted particular interest from linguists because Island Carib men and women used different speech registers, called genderlect or gender indexicality (Bakker Reference Bakker and Prescod2026; Jansen Reference Jansen, Knauer and Phaf-Rheinberger2020), a phenomenon that is quite common in South America (Rose Reference Rose2015:502). It is believed that the Island Carib neither inherited gender indexicality from Arawakan nor copied it from Kalina; rather, it was developed by the Island Caribs themselves in precolumbian times (Jansen Reference Jansen, Knauer and Phaf-Rheinberger2020:152). The Island Caribs probably also spoke a trade language or pidgin to communicate with other groups.

Recently, linguistic and historical research approaches to understanding the Island Carib problem have been superseded by various archaeological discoveries in the Caribbean that call into question the traditional invasion theory. Archaeologists emphasize the importance of political and economic alliances and the continuous mobility of people, goods, and ideas in a wider circum-Caribbean network since prehistoric times (Boomert Reference Boomert, Corinne and van Duijvenbode2011:302; Hofman et al. Reference Hofman, Bright, Boomert and Knippenberg2007; Whitehead Reference Whitehead1995b:93; Wilson Reference Wilson1993, Reference Wilson2007). As noted four decades ago by Dreyfus (Reference Dreyfus1983–1984:41), “Social life and socio-political organizations are transforming continuously” in Amerindian society, representing a myriad of different reactions and solutions to changing political situations, changing alliances, new forms of leadership and warfare, the introduction of new goods, ideas and trading partners, and new diseases decimating the Amerindian population (Curet Reference Curet2005; Dobyns Reference Dobyns1993).

In such a situation of upheaval, Calina from the Guianas may have reached the Windward Islands in the sixteenth century to fill the vacuum created there by Spanish and Amerindian slave raiding, the decimation of the Lesser Antillean population by European diseases, and political pressure in the Guianas. The Calina continued to exchange goods with their allies, who were called banaré (personal friend) on an individual level, in the Lesser Antilles and took control of the islands in a few decades. Whether such relations of exchange between the Antilles and what is now Venezuela/Colombia were already established in precolumbian times is difficult to determine, but there is no archaeological evidence for such movement, at the moment. However, further investigation is necessary, notably of the ceramics from Roseau with coffee-bean eyes that may reveal a link between the two regions (see Figure 3). It is also evident that the “Caribes” encountered by Columbus were not a discrete ethnic group but an enemy of the Spanish Crown to be subdued and reduced to slavery. The Callinago as described by Father Raymond Breton were also “Caribes.” They were doubtless assumed to be the same despised population dwelling in the Lesser Antilles, even though they spoke a different language: “Once a Carib, always a Carib.”

Origins of the Malmanoury Complex

There is very little archaeological evidence that Cayo is an offshoot of the Suazan Troumassoid series; however, there is a clear link between the contemporaneous Cayo and Malmanoury ceramic registers. Boomert (Reference Boomert1986, Reference Boomert, Delpuech and Hofman2004) had established a viable link between Cayo and Koriabo, but he did not have sufficient radiocarbon dates for Koriabo in Suriname or the Guianas in general to propose a clear-cut timeframe for both archaeological complexes: therefore, he suggested a rough period of AD 900–1500 for the entire LCA in the Antilles and the Guianas. Today many radiocarbon dates are available for Koriabo ceramics, but its dating remains problematic because those pieces are most often found alongside artifacts of other (previous) occupations.

Koriabo sites in French Guiana (Crique Serpent, Macoua, Sainte-Agathe, Vieux Chemin, Poncel, and Pointe Morne) generally are considered to have a later inception date toward the end of the fourteenth century or about 100 years before the colonial encounter (Figure 8; Mestre et al. Reference Mestre, Hildebrand, Bruxelles and Jarry2025; Poissonnier and Bel Reference Poissonnier and van den Bel2019; Poissonnier et al. Reference Poissonnier, Dandurand, Rousseau and van den Bel2023; Samuelian Reference Samuelian2009; van den Bel et al. Reference van den Bel, Hildebrand, Mestre, Barreto, Lima, Rostain and Hofman2020). Koriabo wares in the former British Guiana have been defined by Evans and Meggers (Reference Evans and Meggers1960:Figures 52–54), in Suriname by Boomert (Reference Boomert1986:Figures 12–14), and in French Guiana by Rostain (Reference Rostain1994:Figures 104–108), although Rostain dubbed them “Chaton fantastique” (see Figure 2b). Boomert identified about 13 vessel shapes, but the necked and so-called flower bowl are generally considered key elements of Koriabo ware. Lobed lips and eared/chambered rims are other typical features. Many of the necked jars are finely incised or scraped with complex (mostly fourfold) compartmental designs accompanied by small handles and clay papules. The flower bowls may have scraped motifs on the inside but usually have polychrome painting (black, brown, orange, red) applied on a white monochrome slip; the lips can be notched or lobed, sometimes in a fourfold pattern. In addition to these forms, there are also large carinated bowls or platters with polychrome painting on the outside, some of which are adorned with indented clay fillets and biomorphic modeling (Figures 9 and 10b; Boomert Reference Boomert, Delpuech and Hofman2004:Figure 3; Goeldi Reference Goeldi1900:Plates 3-2a, 4, 8; van den Bel Reference van den Bel2015:Figure 9.18–56, 124). However, examples of these decorated forms are rare; most have no decoration, and necked jars of various sizes remain a predominant form. The register of the Malmanoury complex shows morphological similarities with the French Guiana Koriabo sites, particularly the red-painted bowls with notches and the multitude of necked jars.

Figure 8.

Ceramic register from Vieux Chemin, Cayenne. (Color online)

Figure 9.

Ceramics found at Goliathkreek, Suriname. (Color online)

This Koriabo register is completely different from previous and contemporaneous ceramic complexes in the Guianas, such as the Mabaruma, Kwatta, Barbakoeba, and Thémire; only Aristé urns present similarities in morphology (chambered rims) and (polychrome) painting to Koriabo painted ware, as pointed out by Boomert (Reference Boomert1986:27–36). However, although the Aristé and Mazagão ceramic complexes are predominantly known through funerary vessels, all the LCA ceramic complexes share a predominance of grog as a tempering material, except for Koriabo wares. The latter are mostly sand- or grit-tempered but also feature vegetal admixtures such as charcoal and ashes, presumably of powdered kwepi. The Polychrome influences, temper, and necked vessel shapes, as well as many late LCA radiocarbon dates, suggest a distinction between Early and Late Thémire on Cayenne Island (van den Bel Reference van den Bel2018), the latter now being considered the ancestor of Malmanoury. Another ceramic item of interest here is the incised ceramic stool in the Late Thémire style that could represent a new cultural item related to the arrival of new ideas, new people, or both (Figure 10a). The origins of Early Thémire, or the Île de Cayenne Style, remain unknown, but it is evident that a very late prehistoric movement was ongoing before the effects of the colonial encounter swept through the Guianas and the Lesser Antilles. The encounter modified and intensified this large migration, which is thought to have been related to the establishment of a new political order and possibly warfare, as exemplified by the site at Pointe Morne on the Oyapock River, where Koriabo wares simply replaced Aristé ceramics (van den Bel et al. Reference van den Bel2020).

Figure 10.

(a) Complete bowl found in a rural cemetery at the top of the place called Poncel; (b) funerary urn found by Goeldi at Mont Curú, Amapá (Goeldi Reference Goeldi1900:Plate 3, no. 8). (Color online)

Another Wave

The Lesser Antilles and the Guianas represent an intermediate or “middle ground” between Iberian empires; consequently, it became a playground for other European nations and Amerindian groups who fled or had been rejected from the Iberian realm. The Callinago, like the Galibi and Yao, were middlemen in this early colonial world and played important political and economic roles in this network of trade alliances (see also Collomb and van den Bel Reference Collomb and van den Bel2014; Hofman et al. Reference Hofman, Mol, Hoogland and Valcárcel Rojas2014, Reference Hofman, Borck, Laffoon, Slayton, Scott, Breukel and Falci2021; van den Bel and Collomb Reference van den Bel, Collomb, Corinne L and Keehnen2019). This new wave based on exchange between the Antilles and the mainland was shaped by both the permanent and temporary movement of people driven by ideologies; it may already have started in the Guianas with Koriabo and the diffusion of new ideas as materialized in the ceramic register. Feasting, (new) leadership, alliances (the banaré system), burial rites, warfare, and the long-distance exchange patterns that we can see today through the historical sources were key features of this new Amerindian world or cultural package. Greenstones, necked jars, kwepi temper, quirípa, and ceramic stools are representative artifacts connected to this development, in combination with bilingualism, pidginization, and cross-linguistic influences (see Bakker et al. Reference Bakker, Gretenkort and Parkvall2018; Jansen Reference Jansen, Knauer and Phaf-Rheinberger2020:157; Taylor and Hoff Reference Taylor and Hoff1980:308–309).

But linguistic analysis cannot answer all our questions. Therefore, cultural and social factors must be considered, particularly warfare, which is omnipresent in the historical documents; in the Guianas, even Europeans took part in war parties that destroyed enemy villages. The Galibi were in constant conflict with the Arawak or “Allouagues” (today the Lokono) people from the mainland, and the Island Carib were apparently also party to this feud, because they were Galibi allies (see Breton Reference Breton1665:229–231; Rochefort Reference Rochefort1658:328). Taylor (Reference Taylor1977:98) pointed out that the male contingent of the Callinago cultivated a certain “machismo” or male bonding, organizing raiding parties that were possibly a means to exclude “foreign” women who would call the men eyéri.Footnote ⁸ The Anonymous of Carpentras reports that boys became “caraïbe” once they underwent a rite of passage at 15 or 16 years old (Moreau Reference Moreau1987:169).

Whether this migration was entirely the product of early colonialism is uncertain because the Koriabo movement appears just before the historical divide. The Koriabo origins of Cayo are evident in the material culture, but Callinago society also reflects an Amazonian culture type—more precisely, Galibi or Kalina—in terms of political organization and kinship systems (Allaire Reference Allaire1980:243, Reference Allaire and Sued-Badillo2003:217; Boomert Reference Boomert, Delpuech and Hofman2004:257–261). From this point onward, hypotheses diverge: the traditional view that Island Carib society is the result of various migrations from the mainland versus the idea that Island Caribs developed a hybrid identity by adopting or incorporating Kalina cultural elements into their self-identification and by applying a strict gendered division of work (Jansen Reference Jansen, Knauer and Phaf-Rheinberger2020:161). The latter, more fluid process would probably have been based on alliances and frequent interaction or multiple visits. It explains how peoples met and maintained contact but not what such relations were founded on. According to the “enemy’s point of view” propounded by Brazilian anthropologists, war and exchange are not simply a matter of transfer but also the “consumption” of the other and the “production” of people; that is, of becoming another (see Fausto Reference Fausto2000, Reference Fausto2006; Seeger et al. Reference Seeger, Da Matta and Vivieros de Castro1979; Viveiros Castro Reference Castro, Eduardo and Howard1992). This transformation is clearly illustrated by the Anonymous de Carpentras, which records the explanation the author was given for banaré, the Amerindian concept of friendship and alliance: one became the other by wearing the name and clothes of the European merchant to seal their friendship (Moreau Reference Moreau1987:96).

The concept of banaré, or xerimbabo—the related Tupinambá term that applied to animals (see Fausto Reference Fausto2006)—fits the transformation of Island Carib society better as an adoption, alliance, or “domestication” of Amerindians by other Amerindians in a warlike environment mainly caused by the new colonial situation. The Cayo ceramics complex does not reveal the incorporation of new elements or vessel shapes but rather a copying of the Malmanoury ceramic register, the presence of Galibi (potters) among the Island Caribs, or both. The ceramic evidence shows a clear link between the Guianas (Malmanoury) and the Lesser Antilles (Cayo) in the seventeenth century. In contrast, there is no evident link between the precolumbian Troumassoid and Suazoid ceramic series and the Cayo material, except for the pottery at the precolumbian sites of Morne Cybèle, Red Bay, Salt River, Heywoods, and La Poterie. As noted earlier, this very late preconquest pottery could have been made by newcomers from the mainland (Venezuela?) during the century before Europeans arrived. These newcomers came face to face with the population of the Lesser Antilles but are not necessarily the ancestors of the seventeenth-century Callinago, who told Breton (Reference Breton1978 [1647]:52) that they did not know when the first Callinago arrived from the mainland.Footnote ⁹ Therefore, the remnants of the precolumbian peoples in the Lesser Antilles called “Caribes” by Columbus perhaps comprised several ethnic groups that had suffered heavy losses to disease, slave raids, and warfare; they made alliances with the mainland population, who crossed the water on multiple occasions to stand against the Spaniards and their allies (Wilson Reference Wilson2007:4–6). These mainlanders took control of the land and intermarried with their allies but also profited from the European presence in the region by raiding the Spanish and bartering with pirates and privateers. In the Caribbean and the Guianas, any enemy of the Spanish Crown was called a Carib, regardless of ethnicity or language, creating one clearly identifiable enemy opposed to the Spanish and the friendly Arawak.