where do most taino and arawak live today. Native Americans from the Greater Antilles and South America who are known as the Arawak. The Taino were the first indigenous people Columbus encountered in Hispaniola. They are a subgroup of the Arawak. While it was previously believed that the Arawak of the Caribbean islands were exterminated due to their inability to resist Old World diseases brought by the Columbian Exchange, newer research attributes much of their demise to the brutality and oppression (including slavery) of the Spanish. Even more horrifying is the picture of Spanish depredation, slaughter, and sexual abuse painted by Bartolom de Las Casas in his 1542 book A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies. Mainland Arawak are now reduced to a tiny minority in South America. The majority of Native Americans (35% or more) are located in Guyana, where there are more than 15,000 of them. Suriname, French Guiana, and Venezuela all have smaller populations. They speak a language called Arawak, which is also spoken primarily by the elderly. This is a bad sign for the survival of the Arawak language.
The Antillean Arawak, also known as the Taino, were farmers who raised cassava and corn in slash-and-burn villages with populations reaching as high as three thousand (maize). They had a system of social ranks and accorded high respect to theocratic leaders. Nature spirits and ancestors were placed in a hierarchy similar to that of chiefs in religious practice. The Antillean Arawak had a sophisticated society, but they rarely engaged in violent conflict. Just before the Spanish arrived, they were driven out of the Lesser Antilles by the Caribs.
