Ciboney

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The Ciboney were pre-Columbian indigenous inhabitants of the Greater Antilles in the Caribbean Sea. Allegedly they also lived on some of the Lesser Antilles^{[citation needed]}. It has been proposed that they spoke an Arawakan language and that they originated from the Guajira Department of Colombia^{[citation needed]}, but the fact is that their linguistic affiliations and their origins are unknown.

Different phylogenetic analysis seem to suggest that the Caribbean most likely was populated from South America, although the data is still inconclusive, and Central American influences cannot be discarded.[1]

At the time of Columbus' arrival in 1492, there were twenty-nine principal Cacique (chieftain) territories on Cuba^{[citation needed]}, the largest Ciboney population being found in the chieftain of Habana. The Ciboney were historical neighbors of the Guanajatabeys and Tainos. When the Europeans arrived, the Ciboney had already been driven by their powerful Taino (Arawak) neighbours to Western Hispaniola (Haiti) and Cuba. As a matter of fact, the name Ciboney is Arawakan for cave dweller. The Ciboney of both Cuba and Hispaniola were culturally very different from each other. Within a century after European contact, the Ciboney were extinct. Nevertheless, allegedly there are 253 families of Ciboney ancestry in Florida still today^{[citation needed]} .

References

Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 3, p.313: "Ciboney" and p. 773: "Cuba (History)". Chicago, 1989.

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