Ra Jikotea Niaku’no Ruiz León and Taíno

Supernaturegirl
Jul 21
3 min read

Meet Ra Jikotea Niaku’no Ruiz León, a Kiwari (Queer), vegan, mixed Taíno-Borikua dancer, singer, poet, artist, and educator! From Boriken (Puerto Rico), her work focuses on celebrating and promoting Indigenous Caribbean identity. She founded the ‘Wuru Taíno Tekiro’uo’ or ‘Proud Taíno School’; leading workshops and teaching Taíno language courses, as well as making music and creative endevours in the Taíno language. Ra is an enrolled tribal member of Higuayagua. You can find a link for Higuayagua below. They run a non profit providing educational, cultural, and linguistic resources to the broader Taíno community and those seeking to connect with their Indigenous Caribbean ancestry. Their mission is to increase ancestral knowledge, abolish the myth of extinction, and restore their place in history. ‘Each one teach one, each one heal one’ is their motto.

There is also a GoFundMe link for Ra and her creative teaching mission! Support helps offer a Taíno Voices monthly showcase, an Anaba Taíno Poetry Workshop, a Kiwari (Queer) Taíno Voices panel event, classes on Taíno history, language, and culture, and Taíno language reclamation courses.

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Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Taíno:

Tachínago je guana aro'jatocá je aro'jarotánago juruco asaránago najemeigua. Apacana eincai je aincai natocá je aro'aine jaipaya nacacagua.~

Translation:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

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Language and General Info:

The Taíno were principal inhabitants of what is now Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Haiti, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, and the Northern Lesser Antilles. The Lucayan branch of the Taíno were the first New World people encountered by Christopher Columbus in 1492. They spoke a dialect of the Arawakan language group, lived in agricultural societies, and had a matrilineal system of kinship and inheritance. The name Taíno is not universally accepted, as it's not what the people called themselves but a name given meaning ‘good men’. In his diary, Columbus described a noble and kind people who were “very gentle, without knowledge of what is evil, can be no better people, they love their neighbors as themselves, have the sweetest talk in the world, and always laughing.” Despite these observations, countless atrocities occurred and within thirty years between 80% and 90% of the Taíno population was wiped out.

Today, there are dozens of activist Taíno descendant organizations stretching from Puerto Rico, Florida, New York, to California. These efforts are known as the "Taíno restoration" - a revival movement for Taíno culture that seeks official recognition of the survival of the Taíno People. This includes the language, with at least 30 people having learned a reconstructed version I believe called Taíno-Borikenaíki. This is a fusion of Taíno words, prefixes, and grammatical structures with words and grammatical structures of the Wayuu, Garífuna, and Arawak languages. The Naguaké Taíno Pictographic Alphabet was also created in 2005.

Below are a few Taíno words used in the English language: