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Accompanying Columbus on his second voyage to the New World in 1494 was a young Spanish friar named Ramón Pané. The friar's assignment was to live among the "Indians" whom Columbus had "discovered" on the island of Hispaniola (today the island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic), to learn their language, and to write a record of their lives and beliefs. While the culture of these indigenous people--who came to be known as the Taíno--is now extinct, the written record completed by Pané around 1498 has survived. This volume makes Pané's landmark Account --the first book written in a European language on American soil--available in an annotated English edition.

Edited by the noted Hispanist José Juan Arrom, Pané's report is the only surviving direct source of information about the myths, ceremonies, and lives of the New World inhabitants whom Columbus first encountered. The friar's text contains many linguistic and cultural observations, including descriptions of the Taíno people's healing rituals and their beliefs about their souls after death. Pané provides the first known description of the use of the hallucinogen cohoba , and he recounts the use of idols in ritual ceremonies. The names, functions, and attributes of native gods; the mythological origin of the aboriginal people's attitudes toward sex and gender; and their rich stories of creation are described as well.

Tabla de contenidos provista por Syndetics

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction to the English Edition
• Introductory Study
• An Account of the Antiquities of the Indians
• Appendix A Christopher Columbus
• Appendix B Pietro Martire d'Anghiera
• Appendix C Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas
• Bibliographic Note
• Index of Taino Words and Names

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

Fray Ramon Pane, a self-described "poor friar of the Order of Saint Jerome," arrived in Hispaniola with Christopher Columbus in 1494, where he spent the next two years living with and recording the lives of its indigenous inhabitants.