cacique

1. An Indian chief, especially in the Spanish West Indies and other parts of Latin America during colonial and postcolonial times.
2. A local political boss in Spain or Latin America.

[American Spanish, from Arawak kassequa, chieftain.]

Among the first American peoples encountered by Columbus and his successors in the Caribbean were the Arawak. They and their linguistic cousins the Taino, now extinct, called their leaders by the name that has come to us via Spanish as cacique (with the pronunciation ka-seek). The word was noted in English as early as 1555. Since the North American Indians used different titles for their chiefs, cacique is not commonly heard in the United States or Canada, but it still is common in the Caribbean. The Bahamas, for example, have annual Cacique Awards for leadership in promoting tourism.

And cacique has become more than just the title of an Indian chief. Where Spanish is spoken, both in Spain and elsewhere, cacique was imported as a name for a nearly autonomous local political boss under a feudal national government. In Mexico down to the present day, power has frequently been in the hands of local self-appointed bosses, often wealthy landowners, who are called caciques. In the Philippines, some analysts have argued that the American occupation of the early twentieth century fostered "cacique democracy."

Meanwhile, back in North America, in 1988 the Limited Company began a chain of boutiques known as Lingerie Cacique, "a world of singular, sensual lingerie and gifts with a distinctly Parisian point of view." Unable to compete with the company's Victoria's Secret division, Lingerie Cacique's 118 stores were closed in 1998.

In earlier times, Arawak was spoken in the Bahamas and Trinidad as well as on the north coast of South America, but it is now limited to a few thousand speakers in Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, and Venezuela. Arawak belongs to the Caribbean branch of the Maipúrean language family. Another English word from Arawak, also via Spanish in 1555, is iguana.

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: black-and-red or black-and-yellow orioles of the American tropics
  Synonym: cazique

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For other uses, see Cacique (disambiguation).

Look up cacique in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Cacique or Cazique (female form: Cacica) is a title derived from the Taíno word for the pre-Columbian chiefs or leaders of tribes in the Bahamas, Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles. Following their first encounters with the Taino upon their arrival in the New World, the Spanish used the word as a title for the leaders of the other American tribes they encountered predominantly in Latin America. The term is still used in the Portuguese language to describe the leaders of indigenous communities in Brazil. The term cazique is also often used in contemporary American literature (for example, Momaday's House Made of Dawn) to refer to Native American group leaders in the United States.

See also

• Lonko
• Kalku
• Machi (shaman)

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