Zemi, front view, ca. 1510-15.
Archivo Fotografico del Museo Preistorico Etnografico “Luigi Pigorini,” Rome, Italy. Photograph by Lorenzo Demasi.

Zemi figures were common in the Caribbean in the pre-Hispanic period and continued to be used during the first decades after the arrival of the Europeans. They were associated with the sacred, and some served as reliquaries. Recent research on another zemi from the colonial period makes this clear: it was made of fiber wrapped around wood, stone and a human skull, forming an anthropomorphic figure. Realizing the powers attributed to zemis (they could travel at will, for instance), Spaniards in the New World often destroyed them, for they saw the honoring of zemis as impeding Taíno conversion to Catholicism.

This zemi is a Janus-faced figure: the side shown here presents a skull or a bat, wearing large mirror earrings and a beaded headdress and costume; the other side is a human face. The materials used to create the piece suggest the flexibility and creativity of Taíno craftsmen. Native Caribbean materials (the pink and white shell beads) were integrated with green glass beads and mirrors of Venetian glass from Europe and rhinoceros horn (used for the human face, on the other side) from Africa. This figure was probably commissioned by a cacique who dealt with Spaniards in Hispaniola. For only high-status individuals would have had access to the prized European trade goods directly incorporated into, and indirectly inspiring, this piece.

From what is known of the Taíno, the absorption of diverse elements to create new forms seems to have been a cultural feature well before the arrival of the Spanish. Living on islands within the Caribbean Sea offered access to products and goods from both Central and South America. In fact, the patterns along the middle of this zemi might have been adopted from designs created in the Amazon basin, and conveyed to the Taíno through trade. In this zemi, the “foreign” elements had European, African and indigenous American origins; their combination, however, was fully and uniquely Taíno.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bercht, Fatima, et. al. 1997. Taíno: Pre-Columbian Art and Culture from the Caribbean. New York: The Monacelli Press and El Museo del Barrio.

Oliver, José R. 2009. Caciques and Cemí Idols: The Web Spun by Taíno Rulers Between Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.

Ostapkowicz, Joanna and Lee Newsom. 2012. " 'Gods...Adorned with the Embroiderer's Needle': The Materials, Making and Meaning of a Taíno Cotton Reliquary." Latin American Antiquity 23 (3): 300-326.

Pané, Ramón. 1974. Relación acerca de las antigüedades de los indios. El primer tratado escrito en América por Fray Ramón Pané. Nueva versión, con notas, mapa y apéndices por José Juan Arrom. Mexico: Siglo XXI Editores.

Vega de Boyrie, Bernardo. 1973. “Un cinturon tejido y una careta de Madera de Santo Domingo, del periodo de transculturación taíno-español.” Boletín del Museo del Hombre Dominicano 3: 199-256.

	Cacique: (Taíno) An indigenous male ruler. The term originates in the pre-Hispanic Caribbean, and came to be used throughout Spain's colonies. Cacica is the female form. back to text
	Hispaniola: (English) English version of La Española, the name given by Spanish conquistadors to the Caribbean island that is now the Dominican Republic and Haiti. back to text
	Pre-Hispanic: (English) The time before America's discovery and conquest by Spain; synonymous with pre-Columbian (before Columbus). back to text
	Taíno: (Taíno) A group of Amerindians inhabiting the Caribbean at the time of the Spanish conquest. back to text
	Zemi: (Taíno) A deified ancestor revered in the Caribbean. Zemis were among the first indigenous objects collected by Europeans in the New World and sent back as curiosities. back to text

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