Birds of a Feather: Tainos y Mayas

The article below is dedicated to all my 'Mexica' family, or as the oppressor calls them, "Mexican". Who, as all of us of the Indio y Africano diaspora have, have been subjected to the conditioning and destructive cultural transformations brough about by colonization. And have thus internalized the negativity and destruction projected upon us, only to turn and project it towards our own brothers and sisters. For when we can not love ourselves, we can not love our brothers and sisters. This is for those of my Mexica family, whom, upon taken great pride in their Mexica and Mayan lineage, haven't yet totality left behind the aroma of 'Cortez'. This is for my Mexica family, whom adamantly uphold the false notion that they have 'no African blood'. This is for my brothers and sisters 'south of the border' whom have bought the lie, that we are different. And have called me a "Puto-Rican". This is for my brothers and sisters.

"He wants us to think we are all different..."- 7th degree, Lost Found Muslim Lesson No. 1, 1-14

"The Taino people arrived in the Caribbean islands several thousand years ago. Our ancient ancestral homeland is the South American headwaters of the Orinoco river, the northern coasts, rain forests and the plains of Guyana and Venezuela where our ethnic relatives, the modern Arawak people still live. Our ancestors brought with them the core of that South American forest culture. It tenaciously clung to them in the intonation of their Arawak dialects, the agricultural tradition of yuca cultivation and the manufacture of Casava bread, the style of their pottery.

Our people also brought with them an advanced canoe-building technology. It allowed them to negotiate the treacherous straights between the islands of the Caribbean as they made their way northwest colonizing them one by one.

Once the area of the large islands was reached and colonized our ancestors came under the influence of an ancient and majestic culture that emanated from Mexico and the Central American mainland. Many of the traditions of this culture were new and strange to our ancestors but, although it took a long time, their ways were inexorably changed and enriched by it.

Our ancestors learned to eat maize and chili peppers from these technologically advanced new neighbors. And the Central American neighbors learned to eat yuca from the strange South American newcomers. The cultures of the two peoples remained fundamentally distinct and different but after this encounter each one was enhanced by its contact with the other.
The people of this Mesoamerican region who influenced the ancient Tainos most profoundly were the Mayas of the Yucatan penninsula southeast of Mexico. Maya culture was extremely advanced and they reached a level of spiritual understanding that our Taino ancestors understood was thoroughly enlightened. The Taino ancestors realized that the wisdom of the Mayas was in harmony with the equally profound spirituality that they themselves possessed and so the two people traded and adopted aspects of each other's spirituality and mystical belief just like they did with foods and other cultural exchange. Evidence of Taino cultural characteristics which were obviously borrowed from the Mayas include the well-documented head-elongation custom, use of litters to carry head chiefs, hirearchic stratification of society uncharacteristic to the ancestral South American Arawaks, the Taino ball game of Batey which closely parallels the Maya ball game of Pok a Pok ,and much more.

Modern archeologists are begining to recognize that the interchange of ideas and culture between the Mayas and the Tainos was more extensive than was previously suspected by them.
We in the Caney have always been aware of the intimate connections between the spirituality of the Tainos and the Mayas. Since the 1960's Beike Bo Sobaoko Koromo was inspired by his father to develop a deep respect and admiration for the wisdom of the Mayas, their spiritual mathematics, their magical calendar and their enlightened astronomy. This happened as a result of the fact that it became apparent that a number of Maya indians were kidnapped by the Spanish conquistadores from Yucatan during the grim era of the conquest and were brought as slaves to Cuba. The blood and ethnicity of these Mayas became mixed with that of some of the Tainos that lived in Oriente province where Beike Sobakoko was born. Some of his ancestors are actually Yucatecan Mayas.

Beike Bo Sobaoko Koromo was initiated as a Maya calendar daykeeper in the

mid 1990's and conducts workshops and seminars on the profound message of the Mayan calendar.

The Teaching Center in Verona Pennsylvania

Miguel Sobaoko Koromo (Black Ribs) Sague, founder of the Caney Indian Spiritual Circle maintains a teaching center in the Pittsburgh Pennsylvania suburb of Verona. This center is associated with his family dwelling and is composed of various indoor and outdoor work spaces. There is a small meditation room inside his home which is used for personal contemplation as well as private consultation, readings and healing ceremonies. There is a modest outdoor area, sorrounded with fencing and tall mature trees that provide great privacy. This outdoor area contains a healing lodge that doubles as a sweat lodge, a large healing hamock in the tradition of Taino and South American Amazon rainforest Indian shamanic healing hamocks. It also contains a small shrine to the two main Taino Indian sacred spirits Yoka Hu and Ata Bey.

Contact Beike Miguel Sobaoko Koromo Sague(Black Ribs) to schedule personal or group consultation, reading, shamanic healing ritual or teaching session

- from The Caney http://hometown.aol.com/sobaokokoromo1/intro.html

PEACE!