The Kalinago

The Kalinagos/Caribs

Physical Appearance
The Kalinagos were taller than the Tainos, but still only of medium height.
They were described as being strong and built due to the emphasis placed
on training for fighting. Their skin was brown and usually went naked. The
women painted their bodies with roucou (a red dye) and made fantastic
decorations in many colours. The men would also paint their bodies would
wear headdresses and jewellery. Very rarely you would also find them
wearing cotton clothes around their waist. They had short heads and, like the
Tainos, they flattened the foreheads of babies. They had a complete absence
of body hair.

Political Organization
The Tainos had no such organization as the Tainos with their caciques. In
peacetime they had only few laws, only those made by the tiubutuli
hauthe (village headman) who was the head of the family since each family
lived in a separate village. However, in war the Kalinagos became more
strictly organized. Each piraga (canoe) was captained by its owner and one
of the captains was chosen as Ubutu or Ouboutou (commander-in-chief). If
the raid was successful, he would keep this title for the rest of his life. The
ouboutou planned the raids, chose the captains and distributed the prizes.
He was greatly feared among his men for his power.
The ouboutou became chief either by right of birth or through being an
outstanding warrior. The village men along with the chief made plans for
fishing, trading and war or for organizing the settlement.
Kalinago men lived together in a large, rectangular house called carbet,
because they were undergoing warrior training. The women carried food to
the carbet but otherwise lived separately. The Kalinagos slept in hammocks,
but they also had a kind of bed called amais. Their utensils were not so well
made or polished as those of the Tainos.

Social Organization
The Kalinagos’ social organization was quite loose as their culture
emphasized physical prowess and individualism. A Kalinago village was
made up of a small number of houses, with a karbay or big meeting house
as the central building. The karbay was where the men assembled, but the
only way in was through a small door. There were many stout posts
supporting the roof, and from these posts the hammocks were slung. The
roof was thatched with palm fronds or cachibou leaves, which were tied
down by mahoe, or rope, or cords. These cords were made from the bark of
mahoe trees.
The houses which surrounded the karbay were oval in shape and much
smaller. The walls were made of reeds. There was only one room for the
family, which included the father, wives and unmarried children. There were
however, separate huts for cooking and storing precious objects such as
hammocks, bows and arrows. In the kitchen, there were utensils such as
pottery and calabashes, or couris. The rest of the furniture consisted of
cotton hammocks, small stools and four-legged tables of basket-work called
matoutou.

Duties of Kalinago men
The men cleared the forests to prepare gardens, they built houses and
collected the palms for thatching the roofs, and cut trees to build canoes.
Most of this work was done in the dry season and so this was the men’s time
during the first part of the year. Throughout the year they secured food for
the community.

Duties of Kalinago women

The women prepared and cooked the food. When the rainy season had
commenced, it was the women’s duty to plant crops. This is because it was
women who attended births and it was thought that all things that need
fertility to grown must come from women’s hands. The women also spun
thread, wove hammocks and made clay pots for holding food and liquid.

Economic Organization
Warfare was the Kalinago’s major interest. Internal conflicts were common;
there was no important chief, military organization, or hierarchical structure.
The men strove to be individualistic warriors and boasted of their heroic
exploits.
The Kalinagos produced several crops. Cassava or manioc was their main
crop just like the Tainos. They also grew yam, sweet potato and maize or
corn. They grew tobacco and cotton which they spun and wove into small
strips of cloth. They also made strings for fishing lines and nets for making
hammocks. With the islands free for all the tribe, the Kalinagos planted crops
wherever they pleased. Usually they made farming plots from the village.
The men cleared the lands using the slash-and-burn technique, while the
women planted the crops and tended them.
The Kalinagos hunted with bows and arrows, not just to get food but also for
sport. For this they used arrows made from slender reeds with tips made of
sharp wooden heads.
Fish were caught in many ways. The Kalinagos used bows and arrows to
shoot fish which came close to the surface. They also used nets, traps and
fishing lines with hooks made of shells. Lobsters were caught in the reefs
with harpoons. Conch and other shellfish were easily caught. The shells were
used to make tools. Many of the islands on which they Kalinago lived on had
streams full of fish. The Kalinagos knew how to poison the rivers by pounding
the leaves of certain plants and mixing them into the water. This would stun
the fish, which could then easily be caught by land.
The Tainos were much better farmers than the Kalinagos, but the Kalinagos
were better fishermen and hunters than the Tainos. The Kalinagos had more
protein in their diet than the Tainos due to them consuming more meat and
fish than the Tainos. The Tainos did not hunt or fish as much as the
Kalinagos.

Importance of canoes to the Kalinagos and how they were made
The Kalinagos were always travelling back and forth among the islands, and
were excellent seamen. The Kalinagos used their canoes to travel from
island to island, fish, trade, hunt, and go on raids. They made two different
types of canoes, and they were not very different from the canoes made by
the Tainos.
The smaller craft, the couliana, was at most about twenty feet long and was
pointed at both ends. This type was used for fishing close to the shore and
could only hold a few people.
The bigger boat was called canoua, the word we still use today. The largest
of these were up to fifty feet long and could carry thirty to forty people.
These vessels were dug out of logs and stretched by fire and soaked with
water to make the wood expand. It was in these larger canoes that the
Kalinago went to attack other islands or to make long fishing and trading
trips.
The canoes were rowed with flat paddles shaped like spades. A long pole was
used to guide the craft carefully over reefs. The bark of the mahoe tree was
used to tie the large stone archer. Rafts were also made from trunks of light
forest trees.

Religious Beliefs and Practices

The Kalinagos were polytheistic. They also believed in many gods. They
believed in evil spirits known as maboya. The priest had the power to pray
to the gods to turn back evil.
They believed
 In the forces of evil.
 In life after death.
 In the existence of Heaven and hell.
 That there is punishment and reward in the afterlife.
 That those who were brave warriors went to a place where they were
waited on by Tainos slaves.
 That the souls of cowards went to a dreary desert where they became
slaves to Tainos masters.
 The priest or boyez was the only one who could communicate with the
gods.
 In offering sacrifices to the gods especially when they went to sea.
 In using tobacco (incense) in the process of communicating with the
gods.
 In having festivals and celebrations in honour of the gods.
 In keeping the gods happy (appeasing the gods).
 In offering prayers to the gods for bravery.
Both the Tainos and the Kalinagos believed in nature and ancestor worship.

Village Customs
1. Men and women lived separately.
2. Painting of the body to look fierce especially when going on raids.
3. They did not eat turtle. They thought it would make them slow and stupid.
4. They ate a lot of pepper. It was believed that this would make them fierce.
5. They flattened their foreheads from an early age. This was to make the
arrow bounce off should they get hit in the forehead during battle.
6. They often hung the skull and or bones of their victims in their houses like
trophy.
7. All boys were required to undergo an initiation test when they reached
puberty.
8. They were scratched with an agouti claw and pepper rubbed in the
wound. If they bore it without flinching, they were chosen to be a warrior. If
they flinched, they would be numbered among the priests.
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