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Evidence Of Spanish And Native Religious Interaction Researchers discover Spanish and Native American spiritual iconography side by side in a Caribbean island cave.
Jago Cooper and Alice Samson
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hristian inscriptions and symbols etched next to extensive Native American spiritual iconography deep inside a remote Caribbean cave offer new insights about religious dialogue between indigenous people and the first generation of Europeans in the New World during the sixteenth century, according to a study published this August in the journal Antiquity. The unique markings were discovered in 2014 at Isla de Mona, one of the most cavernous areas in the world, by a team of British and Puerto Rican archaeologists led by Alice Samson of the University of Leicester and Jago Cooper of the British Museum. “There is nothing else like this in the Caribbean, and possibly nowhere else in the Americas,” says Samson. Located between Puerto Rico and Hispaniola, Isla de Mona was recorded by Christopher Columbus on his second New World voyage in 1494. More than 250 indigenous drawings of geometric motifs and complex scenes of anthrozoomorphic and ancestral beings cover the walls and ceilings of chambers and tunnels in the cave’s dark zone. Charcoal from two chambers was radiocarbon dated to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, indicating that they were in use shortly before the time of European colonization. Within the same area, there are more than thirty European inscriptions that include Christograms and phrases
american archaeology
Two of the seventeen crosses that were incised on the walls of the cave.
in Latin and Spanish such as Plura fecit deus (God made many things). Over half a dozen people signed and dated the walls including Capit´an Francisco Alegre, who was an administrator in charge of Isla de Mona and other royal estates during the sixteenth century. Analysis of the forms of letters, abbreviations, and other handwriting styles of the European inscriptions dates them to the sixteenth century. There were also seventeen crosses, including two crucifixion scenes, one of which includes two crosses flanking an indigenous Christ figure. Some of the other crosses could have been drawn by natives who were converted to Christianity, Samson says.
The cave is not easy to find and is difficult to reach.“You need to navigate through complete darkness to get to the chambers,” she says. The researchers think it is likely that the natives showed Europeans the cave on multiple occasions. The discovery reveals a European response to indigenous culture and beliefs that is not seen in documents. “The markings in the cave reflect an interest and engagement in another religion that counteract the official histories of a violent clash of belief systems,” Samson says. The Spanish didn’t ban visiting the cave, and rather than destroying the indigenous markings, they added to them. —Paula Neely
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