Sensorial and Transformative Qualities of Caves among the Lucayan-Taíno of the Bahamas

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Advances in the Archaeology of the Bahama Archipelago" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Caves act as the mythological archetype and physical portals that validate the cosmogony-cosmology-eschatology spectrum of many past and present human societies. Among the prehistoric Lucayan-Taíno of the Bahamas, caves played an important role in both validating perceptions of the cosmos, but also the maintenance of ancestral spirits. These roles were implemented through material objects, human remains, and in ritual performance to invoke and adulate particular deities (or cemis) as part of a pantheon known as cemiism. This presentation seeks to use the known mortuary record of the Lucayan-Taíno to examine the way in which caves provided ritual platforms for ancestral worship and the preservation and maintenance of the cosmos, including the sensorial and transformative qualities of caves and material culture to entreat and perpetuate cemiism.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Advances in the Archaeology of the Bahama Archipelago

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25508