The Place, the People and the Wife: the Common Key to Three Arawak Names

In this paper we will examine the etymology of three Arawak words that have the same sequence of morphemes in a segment of their structure, which shows some correlation between their meanings: guanahatabibes, guanahatabey and guanahatabenequena. The first is a toponym, the second an ethnic denomination, and the third an anthroponym. While the relationship between the first and the second is quite clear, the link between the third and the previous ones is a mystery.

Guanahatabibes

This is the name of a “province of Indians” located on the peninsula that forms the westernmost tip of Cuba. Diego Velázquez, in his Letter to the King of Spain in April 1514, writes: “…two provinces of Indians, which are on the western side of the island, one called Guaniguanico and the other Guanahatabibes, which are the last Indian of them…”¹.

Bartolomé de las Casas in his Memorial of remedies for the Indies of 1516-1517 states: “…let it also be understood about some Indians who are in Cuba, in a province at the end of the island, who are like savages, who do nothing to deal with the islanders, nor do they have houses, but are in caves all the time, except when they go out to fish; they are called Guanahatabeyes…”².

Therefore, Guanahatabibes is the name by which this region was first known to the Spaniards. The current name, Guanahacabibes, could be another variant of the Island Arawak name of the place, or it could also be a corruption of the first term. Zayas, in his Antillean lexicography, refers to: “Guanahacabibes: Name by which today a peninsula in the western part of the island of Cuba is known, and which in ancient works and documents, in addition to this name, has been called Guanacabibes and Guanacahibes“³. It is noticeable that the toponym has undergone various modifications over time.

In this paper we will limit ourselves to analysing the etymology of Guanahatabibes because we consider this to be the original Island Arawak form of the word, which is based on the early and “less contaminated” reference by Velásquez cited above and on the correspondence between the morphemes that form the structure of the toponym and the ethnic denomination.

In Velázquez’s letter it is clear that the final phoneme /s/ is a corruption of the original word with the intention of naming “the last Indian of them” in the plural. The original word must have been Guanahatabibe.

In this word we can distinguish the morphemes guana, hata and bibe. The first one is already known from previous analyses published on this website and means ‘place’, land’. As for hata, it is a cognate of the Lokono, hatta. Its meanings are presented in Table 1.

Table 1

Meaning of hatta in Lokono

From the root hatta, numerous other Lokono words are formed, thirteen of which are shown in Appendix 1. The meanings of the Lokono words and their relation to the root hatta make it easier to understand the senses with which it is used in different contexts. Let us recall that the pronunciation of the phoneme /h/ is optional in many Lokono words.

Among the words included in Appendix 1, the most important for the purposes of this analysis are atunoa, ‘first’, ‘in first place’, ‘for first time’. In Island Arawak, the word formed by guana, ‘place’ + hata, ‘to stick’ = guanahata, ‘place that sticks’, ‘tip’. As in the case of Lokono atunoa, it can also possess the meanings, ‘first’, ‘in first place’, ‘for first time’, because it is the front part of any object (the tip of an assegai, or the prow of a canoe, for example) that arrives first and ‘sticks’.  Such metaphor-based meanings are common in both languages and several examples are presented in Appendix 1.

Finally, the third morpheme that makes up the toponym Guanahatabibe is bibe, which corresponds to the words lokono, bébe and ebébe, whose meanings are presented in Table 2.

Table 2

Meanings of bébe and ebébe in Lokono

Thus, guanahata, ‘first’, ‘in first place’ + bibe, ‘elder brother’ = guanahatabibe, ‘first elder brother’, ‘ancient elder brother’. 

Guanahatabey

Guanahatabey is an ethnonym derived from Guanahatabibe that incorporates the suffix -ey in its structure. This morpheme can also be found in the structure of the Island Arawak word ey-eri, ‘human being’ and is a cognate form of the lokono oyo, iyu, ‘mother’. Ancient Arawak society was subdivided into matrilineal families and clans, where “a child is considered to belong to his mother’s clan, and a man who marries becomes subject to his father-in-law”¹⁰. In that sense, ey means ‘of the family’, of the lineage’, ‘of the tribe’, ‘ of the class’.

Note the similarity of these meanings of ey-eri with those documented by C. H. de Goeje for the word lokono o-io-ci, ‘friend, neighbour, relative, people’¹¹.

So, guanahatabibe, ‘ancient elder brother’ + ey, ‘of the tribe’, ‘of the lineage’ = guanahatabey, ‘of the tribe of the ancient elder brother’, ‘of the lineage of the ancient elder brother’.

It is possible that the meanings of guanahatabibe and guanahatabey are related to those of ‘ancestor’. Compare with the Lokono word hebeyono, documented as ‘ancestors’ by John Peter Bennet (quoted by Patte, M. F.)¹¹, in the structure of which the morphemes hebe, -yo and -no are distinguished. The first means ‘old’, ‘ancient’, ‘full’, ‘mature’^12,13; the suffix -yo, as discussed above, is a form of oyo, ‘mother’, a non-idetic cognate of the Island Arawak -ey. Finally, the suffix -no is used to form the plural when the referents are rational beings¹⁴. Thus, hebeyono literally means ‘of the lineage of the ancients’.

Become clear that Guanahatabey is not the name that this ethnic group applied to itself, but an exonym assigned by a different aboriginal group. At present, scholarly opinions do not agree on the origin, ethnic affiliation and language of the Guanahatabeyes. In this sense, the etymology of the word we propose, due to the ethnic closeness it suggests between the Guanahatabeyes and the aborigines of Arawak roots, supports the criteria of Sergio Valdés Bernal, who points to the South American origin, as well as the ethnic affiliation and Arawak language of this people, based on the results of genetic studies, the linguistic analysis of toponymy and considerations on the influence of the Gulf Stream on migratory movements¹⁵.

Guanahatabenequena

Peter Martyr D’Anghera recounts in his “Decades of the New World”:

They take as many wives as they please. The most beloved of them consent to be buried with the cacique. Anacaona, the sister of Beuchío, king of Xaragua, who was reputed to be among the most distinguished bards for composing areitos or rhythms, ordered that the most beautiful of her brother’s wives and concubines, called Guanahattabenechena, with two companions, should be buried alive with her husband. She had arranged that there should be more, if it had not been prevented by the entreaties of some sandal-shod Franciscan friars, who happened to be there. Of this Guanahattabenechena they say that there was no other so beautiful in the whole island; she buried her jewellery and the ornaments she loved in life with her¹⁶.

The phoneme /a/ at the end of the name is evidently a corruption associated with the intention of denoting the feminine gender of the named subject. Since Martyr wrote in Latin, the name of the wife buried alive must have been Guanahatabenequén.

In Guanahatabenequén, the segments guanahatabe, ne and quen can be seen. We are already familiar with the first one. In this case it means ‘first elder sister’. Let us recall that John Peter Bennett, a native speaker of Lokono, specifies that the vocative bébe can be used to address a woman (see Table 2).

For his part, -ne in Lokono is an emphatic suffix¹⁷ which, as C. H. de Goeje points out, adds to the meaning of the word the principle of “something that really is or shall be”¹⁸. We consider that in Island Arawak it keeps the same meaning.

Finally, –quen is a cognate suffix of the Lokono –ken, which is an “intensifier “¹⁹ and which, according to José Juan Arrom, forms superlatives and its meaning can correspond to that of the suffix -isimo (‘very’) in Spanish²⁰.

Thus, Guanahatabe, ‘first elder sister’ + –ne, ‘actually’, ‘absolutely’ + –quén, suffix forming superlatives = Guanahatabenequén, ‘very first absolute elder sister’, reminiscent of the well-known term of Italian origin used in the world of ballet (prima ballerina assoluta).

It is most likely that Guanahatabenequén was the title and not the original name of the consort of the cacique Behequio. This title would have recognised her as the main wife. The chronicler Fernández de Oviedo, in his General and Natural History of the Indies, explains that the caciques of Hispaniola “had six and seven wives and all those they wanted to have, one was the most important and the one the cacique most wanted and to whom he paid most attention “²¹.

Although it is also very likely that Guanahatabenequén was indeed beautiful, when it is said that she was considered the most beautiful, they could be confusing her title. Remember that the conquistadors did not know the Arawak language well, and in the effort to try to understand what was going on, they may have interpreted “the most beautiful”, where they were told “the principal of wives”.

Discussion

Linguistic analysis based on comparison with Lokono revealed the meaning of these three Island Arawak words, which have the same morphemes in their structure, but name different types of referents (a place, an ethnic group and a person).

The usefulness of this type of linguistic studies to complement historical, archaeological and ethnological research is confirmed.

Appendix 1

Lokono words derived from the root hatta with their meanings²²

Notes:

1. Velázquez, Diego. Carta al Rey de España de abril de 1514 [Letter to the King of Spain in April 1514]. En Pichardo Viñals, Hortensia. 2000. Documentos para la historia de Cuba. Editorial Pueblo y Educación. La Habana. Páginas 56-67.
2. Las Casas, Bartolomé de. “Memorial sobre remedios de las Indias” [Memorial of remedies for the Indies]. En Pichardo Viñals, Hortensia. 2000. Documentos para la historia de Cuba. Editorial Pueblo y Educación. La Habana. Páginas 46-49.
3. Zayas, Alfredo. 1914. Lexicografía Antillana: diccionario de voces usadas por los aborígenes de las Antillas mayores y de algunas menores y consideraciones acerca de su significado y de su formación [Antillean Lexicography: a dictionary of the voices used by the aborigines of the Greater Antilles and some lesser Antilles and considerations about their meaning and formation]. La Habana. Página 257.
4. Goeje, C. H. de.1928. The Arawak Languaje of Guiana. Cambridge University Press. cambridge.org. Página 23.
5. Moravian Brothers. 1882. “Arawakisch-Deutches Wörterbuch, Abschrift eines im Besitze der Herrnhuter Bruder-Unität bei Zittau sich befindlichen-Manuscriptes”. En Grammaires et Vocabulaires Roucouyene, Arrouague, Piapoco et D’autre Langues de la Région des Guyanes, par MM. J. Crevaux, P. Sagot, L. Adam. Paris, Maisonneuve et Cie, Libraries-Editeurs. http://books.google.com. Página 116.
6. Misterios aruacos en el español hablado en Cuba: Guana [Arawak mysteries in the Spanish spoken in Cuba: Guana]. laotraraiz.cu.
7. Moravian Brothers. 1882. Op. cit. Página 110.
8. Goeje, C. H. de.1928. Op. cit. Páginas 196, 238.
9. Bennett, John Peter. 1995. Twenty-Eigth Lessons in Loko (Arawak). A teaching guide, Walter Roth Museum of Anthropology, Georgetown, Guyana. Página 26.
10. Goeje, C. H. de.1928. Op. cit. Página 197.
11. Goeje, C. H. de.1928. Op. cit. Página 196.
12. Hermanos Moravos. Op. cit. Página 117.
13. Goeje, C. H. de.1928. Op. cit. Páginas 23, 148, 196.
14. Goeje, C. H. de.1928. Op. cit. Páginas 119, 188.
15. Valdés Bernal, Sergio. “La conquista lingüística aruaca de Cuba” [”The Arawak linguistic conquest of Cuba”]. En Revista de la Biblioteca Nacional de Cuba José Martí. Año 104, No. 1.
16. Mártir de Anglería, Pedro. 1892. “Décadas del Nuevo Mundo” [“Decades of the New World”]. En Fuentes históricas sobre Colón y América. Tomo Segundo. Madrid. Páginas 443-444.
17. Pet, Willem J. A. 2011. A Grammar Sketch and Lexicon of Arawak (Lokono Dian). SIL e-Books. Página 120.
18. Goeje, C. H. de.1928. Op. cit. Páginas 35, 77.
19. Goeje, C. H. Op. cit. Páginas 26, 92.
20. Arrom, José Juan. 2011. “Baneque y Borinquen: apostillas a un enigma colombino” [“Baneque and Boriquen: “apostilles to a Colombian enigma”]. En José Juan Arrom y la búsqueda de nuestras raíces. Editorial Oriente y Fundación García Arévalo. Página 56.
21. Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, Gonzalo. 1853. Historia general y natural de las Indias, islas y tierra-firme del mar óceano [General and natural history of the Indies, Islands and Mainland of the Ocean]. Real Academia de Historia. Madrid. Parte Primera. Libro V. Capítulo III. http://books.google.com.
22. Tomados de:
    1. 1928. Goeje, C. H. de. 1928. Op. cit;
       1929. Moravian Brothers. 1882. Op. cit;
       1930. Patte, Marie France. 2011. Op. cit.