concept:era medieval
Taíno Zemí (Three-Pointed Stone Figure)
Carved stone or wooden three-pointed ritual figure (zemí) from the Taíno people of the Greater Antilles (Hispaniola, Cuba, Puerto Rico), c. 1000–1500 CE. Zemís were embodiments of supernatural forces or ancestor spirits used in cohoba (hallucinogenic ritual), healing, and political ceremony. Multiple examples in the British Museum, Museo del Hombre Dominicano, and other collections.
Scholarly Significance
Type-representative anchor for Caribbean pre-Columbian art via the Taíno zemí — the primary ritual object class of the most significant pre-Columbian Caribbean culture.
Notes
- ·The zemí was the central ritual object of Taíno religion. Each zemí was a vessel or manifestation of a particular supernatural force (also called zemí), ranging from ancestral spirits to nature deities.
- ·Three-pointed forms (trigonolitos) are one of the most archaeologically common zemí types; they may represent the spirit of agricultural fertility, particularly cassava.
- ·Zemís were kept in elite households, in the bohío (chief's house), and in special structures; they were used in cohoba ceremonies involving hallucinogenic snuff and direct communication with supernatural forces.
- ·The Taíno were the first Indigenous people Columbus encountered (1492); epidemic disease and colonial violence reduced their population catastrophically within decades. The continuity of Taíno culture is contested among historians and descendant communities.
- ·Repatriation context: Taíno objects are claimed by Indigenous revival movements in the Caribbean (Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Cuba); formal repatriation claims are nascent as of 2026.
- ·The term 'Taíno' itself is a scholarly construct from 19th-century ethnography; contemporary Indigenous rights advocates in the Caribbean sometimes prefer alternative self-designations.