Guaízas part II: "Guaízas are a cacique's best friend."

Part two of the triptych on the guaízas. Last week I explored some of the material properties of the guaíza, but what was the object used for? I think there are multiple answers to this question, but I will focus on two for this week’s episode of Angus’s Artefacts.

You might have guessed correctly that the guaíza (with or without gold or guanín inlays) was some sort of ornament. We know of its ornamental function from the perforations on many of the guaízas, similar artefacts, available ethnohistorical information and a rare depiction of a guaíza on a petroglyph at Caguana, Puerto Rico (see picture above). Although exceptions would have existed guaízas would have been worn in one of three ways: (1) as pectoral pendants probably together with feathers and other beads, (2) as part of cotton belts together with other beads and (3) as part of headbands. You can imagine that these bright objects were conspicuous centrepieces of a rich set of adornments that consisted of body paint, feathers, cotton, precious stones and perhaps some precious metals.

In our mind such a costly display of riches immediately conjures the notion of a powerful man or woman and therefore the guaíza has always been seen as one of the regalia of a cacique. Only one excerpt of the ethnohistoric records — once again by Las Casas — speaks about the high status of the guaíza (paraphrased here): “They took these faces that they called guaízas out from their colliers to place them over the heads of their lords and kings, suspending them with two strings like in the manner we suspend the mitres of our bishops.” We should be careful, though, to base too much on this one statement: the first Spanish chroniclers were often blind for  uses of “elite objects” by people of the supposed indigenous lower classes. There is an additional argument if one wants to connect the guaíza to persons of higher status. Through a structural analysis of the placements of the different petroglyphs at the Caguana ballcourt José Oliver has argued that the petroglyph above depicts a mythical prototype of a cacique. This would indeed lend more credibility to an interpretation of guaíza-like ornaments as a marker of high status in the Greater Antilles.

Guaíza from the Dominican Republic

In my Master thesis I used the historic descriptions of interactions between indigenous caciques and Columbus to suggest that aside from their use as conspicuous, possibly elite ornaments they have a, to me much more interesting, social function: as gifts from one powerful individual to another. The historic descriptions make mention of a wealth of different objects being exchanged between the indigenous people and the Spaniards, especially those from the First and Second journey to the Caribbean while the relations where still relatively peaceful. However, the guaíza is one of the only objects that is mentioned continuously in exchanges from the indigenous people to Columbus. Perhaps the most telling is how the exchange of guaízas seems to have structured the relationship between Columbus and Guacanagarí (Wa-ka-na-ga-RI) who was a cacique on the north-coast of Haiti with an ambivalent role in the ethnohistorical narrative of the early years of contact.

Courtesy of K. Deagan

According to the chroniclers Las Casas and Oviedo, Admiral Colombus has several friendly encounters with Guacanagarí in the final days of 1492, just before Christmas. When, in the night before Christmas Day Colombus’s flagship the “Santa Maria” comes aground on a reef and has to be abandoned, Guacanagarí helps Columbus rescue the cargo of the ship and offers him shelter in his village. Also, on Christmas day a huge feast is held in honour of Columbus and the other Spaniards and at this feast the first guaíza is ceremoniously presented to Colombus, which he and the chroniclers have interpreted as a sign of respect and friendship. The following day the “Pinta,” one of the other ships, comes back to collect the Spaniards and continue the journey. Columbus gives the orders to use the flotsam of the wreck of the Santa María to build a small fort in the vicinity of Guacanagarí’s village that he calls “La Navidad” — “Christmas” in remembrance of the fateful shipwreck on Christmas day. He leaves a small group of his men to man the fort.

Dominican Republic

When Columbus returns on his second journey in November 1493 with a larger fleet he finds that La Navidad is burnt to the ground and his men are nowhere to be found. Of course, Colombus goes to Guacanagarí who is at rest in his hammock in his village to demand an explanation. As an explanation Guacanagarí states that a rival cacique came and attacked the Spaniards and that he himself tried to help them but got wounded in the attack, which is why he needs to rest. The documents are unclear on whether the Admiral believed his story or not and neither has it become clear through archaeology what exactly happened at La Navidad between December 1492 and the return of the Spaniards in late 1493 — in fact we do not even know its exact location, but read Kathleen Deagan's excellent book on Puerto Real if you want to know more about this. What we do know from the historic sources is that after this “little hiccup” Columbus and Guacanagarí’s bond of friendship continues.

This is exemplified by the large number of guaízas that he receives mainly from Guacanagarí but also from other caciques at the new Spanish settlement of Isabela. We know exactly when Columbus received these guaizas and what their appearance was because all the gifts received at Isabela have been catalogued by Queen Isabella I’s treasurer, Sebastián de Olaño, who accompanied Columbus on his second journey. The image I get from this is that Guacanagarí and other caciques continuously doted Colón with gifts, among which many guaízas, with the goal to bind him to their cause as their ally. Especially the guaízas were well loved by the Spanish crown because many of them contained gold-like inlays.

Quantities and different types of objects presented to Columbus at La Isabela

When these objects were brought to Europe they were probably destroyed and their inlays were smelted to be minted into coins. From an art-historial and archeological standpoint it is a great shame that so many guaízas and  similar objects were destroyed just for their gold-like inlays. However, I can’t help but feel a strange sense of vindication that when many of these gold-like inlays and objects were smelted they proved to be worthless for minting: a good quantity of the indigenous objects that were smelted turned out to be of the guanín gold-copper alloy and the Spanish smelters were not able to separate the copper to obtain the pure gold.

Even though many guaízas would have been destroyed there is still much to learn from the objects that are on display in museums and are recovered by archaeologist's in the field. One of these things is the question why guaízas featured so centrally in indigenous-outsider exchange relations such as those between Columbus, Guacanagarí and many other caciques? Why did they make such excellent gifts from an indigenous perspective? I’ll delve deeper into this complex issue in next week’s post.