Heritage, Tradition And Cultural Identity
BORICUA
3 pillars of Taino heritage.
Blood Heritage
Taino structures, Customs and Traditions
Traditional Taino Spiritual Practices
The Term Boricua and Blood Heritage are one and the same. Modern Admixtures of Taino descent from the Island of Boriken (Bori’ken) proudly call themselves Boricua (Bo’ri Kua) Boricua is a word formation that uses 3 sets of Taino words and links them together to form a Taino word chain, not just with meaning but with history and purpose.
Understanding the word chain Bo’Ri’Kua
Bo’ - The Taino word Bo’ (according to Caribbean Indigenous Networks) means Great, Big (In the context of generosity and bravery).
Ri’ - The Taino word Ri’ (according to linked definition between Taino and Ignei’ri people) means Men And Brave Spirits.
Kua - The Taino word Kua’ simply acts as a suffix to mean tied to something (land or place) in an essential and organic way. (The term Bori’kua therefore turns into a birthright claim that through genetic heritage the Bo’Ri’Kua is forever tied to the land (Boriken.)
When you put this Taino word chain together to understand its definition and meaning it reads as such, Bo’ (Great, Big and Generous) Ri’ (Men and brave spirits) Kua (tied to the land (Boriken) in an essential and organic way)
Claims Of Blood Heritage
For almost 2 centuries the people of Boriken were told by the (Boba’no) that their people (Tai’no) had gone extinct, and that all that remained were admixtures of European and African descent. The Taino Borikua people did not believe in this claim since a large number from the 1600 to the early 1800’s had inherited oral history from either a mother or grandmother that confirmed direct ties to the Taino and the remaining tribes stationed in central Puerto Rico where many retreated into social isolation after the Taino rebellion of 1511. these fragments of oral history would later go on to be used to debunk the historic claims of the Boba’no that the Taino people had gone extinct, and expose their plan to systemically erase the Taino people from history.
Official historical documents from 1780 shows that the Taino were being systemically forced to misrepresent and reclassify themselves as descendents of European and African slaves.
Paper Genocide: The Systemic Erasure of the taino
By the 1780’s the Boba’no had realized that the Taino spirit could not be broken and that most, if not all, would rather die in battle than share the subjugation and the dehumanized treatment experienced by African slaves under their rule. Boba’no then began a campaign to systemically erase the Taino people from history.
Boba’no as many Taino came to learn are great deceivers and managed to coerce the simpler thinkers among Taino society into reclassifying themselves as European and African slave Admixtures, so that through this (Boba’no) could systemically erase the Taino Identity from history and sustain their rule over a reclassified and forgotten people.
The boba’no then used its systems of governance such as the population and social statistics Bureau to force the first step of erasure, a census option that only included White, Black or Admixture and Omitted Taino, but many intelligent members of Taino society who understood the boba’no way of thinking refused to participate or simply wrote Da’ka Taino (I am Taino)
