What is "taino"

from Taino nitayno "the first, the good."

The Taíno were an indigenous people of the Caribbean.

Taino may also refer to:

• The Taíno language
• Taino, Lombardy, a town in the Italian Province of Varese
• Taínos (film), a Puerto Rican film released in 2006
• Taino, a rapper featured on T-Pain's album Rappa Ternt Sanga

The Taíno are an Arawak people who were the indigenous people of the Caribbean and Florida. At the time of European contact in the late 15th century, they were the principal inhabitants of most of Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola ( Haiti and the Dominican Republic), and Puerto Rico. In the Greater Antilles, the northern Lesser Antilles, and the Bahamas, they were known as the Lucayans. They speak the Taíno language, one of the Arawakan languages.

The ancestors of the Taíno entered the Caribbean from South America and their culture is closely linked to that of Mesoamericans. At the time of contact, the Taíno were divided into three broad groups, known as the Western Taíno (Jamaica, most of Cuba, and the Bahamas), the Classic Taíno (Hispaniola and Puerto Rico) and the Eastern Taíno (northern Lesser Antilles), and other groups of Taíno nations of Florida, such as the Tequesta, Calusa, Jaega, Ais, and others. Taíno groups were in conflict with the Caribs of the southern Lesser Antilles.

At the time of Columbus' arrival in 1492, there were five Taíno chiefdoms and territories on Hispaniola, each led by a principal Cacique ( chieftain), to whom tribute was paid. Ayiti ("land of high mountains") was the indigenous Taíno name for the island of Hispaniola, which (on the Western side) has retained its name as Haïti in French.

Cuba, the largest island of the Antilles, was originally divided into 29 chiefdoms. Most of the native settlements later became the site of Spanish colonial cities retaining the original Taíno names, including Havana, Batabanó, Camagüey, Baracoa, and Bayamo. The name Cuba comes from the Taíno language, although the exact meaning of the name is unclear. It can be translated as "where fertile land is abundant" (cubao), or a "great place" (coabana).

Puerto Rico also was divided into chiefdoms. As the hereditary head chief of Taíno nation, the cacique received significant tribute. At the time of the Spanish conquest, the largest Taíno population centers may have had more than 3,000 people each.

The Taíno were historically enemies of the neighboring Carib nations, a different group which also had its origins in South America and lived mainly in the Lesser Antilles. The relationship between the rival groups has been the subject of many studies. For much of the 15th century, the Taíno tribe was being driven to the northeast in the Caribbean because of raids by the Carib. Women were taken as captives, resulting in many Carib women speaking Taíno.

The Spaniards who arrived in the Bahamas, Cuba, and Hispaniola in 1492, and later in Puerto Rico, did not bring women on their first expeditions. Instead, they cohabited with Taíno women, resulting in mestizo children. The rape of Taino women in Hispaniola by the Spanish was also common. Scholars suggest there was also substantial mestizaje (racial and cultural mixing) in Cuba, and several Indian pueblos survived into the 19th century.

The Taíno became nearly extinct as a culture following settlement by Spanish colonists, primarily due to infectious diseases which they had no immunity to. The first recorded smallpox outbreak in Hispaniola was in either December 1518 or January 1519. This smallpox epidemic killed almost 90% of the Native Americans who had not already perished. Warfare and harsh enslavement by the colonists also caused many deaths. By 1548, the Taino population had declined to fewer than 500. Starting in about 1840, there have been attempts to create a quasi-indigenous Taino identity in rural areas of Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. This trend accelerated among the Puerto Rican community in the United States in the 1960s.