SOCIAL LIFE

The Kalinagos’ social organization was quite loose as their culture emphasized physical prowess and individualism. A

Kalinago village was made up of a small number of houses, with a karbay or big meeting house as the central building.

The karbay was where the men assembled, but the only way in was through a small door. The houses which surrounded

the karbay were oval in shape and much smaller. The walls were made of reeds. There was only one room for the

family, which included the father, wives and unmarried children. There were however, separate huts for cooking and

storing precious objects such as hammocks, bows and arrows. Most of this work was done in the dry season and so this

was the men’s time during the first part of the year. Throughout the year they secured food for the community..The

women prepared and cooked the food. When the rainy season had commenced, it was the women’s duty to plant crops.
 PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

The Kalinagos were taller than the Tainos, but still only of medium height. They were described as being strong and built due to the emphasis

placed on training for fighting. Their skin was brown and usually went naked. The women painted their bodies with roucou and made

fantastic decorations in many colours. The men would also paint their bodies would wear headdresses and jewellery. Very rarely you

would also find them wearing cotton clothes around their waist. They had short heads and, like the Tainos, they flattened the foreheads

of babies.
 WARRIOR TRAINING

Warrior training At the age of four, Carib boys were taken from their mothers to live in the karbay. The poison was deadly and the victim

died in great pain. Courage was considered the greatest virtue by the Caribs, and the boys were taught to bear pain without flinching.

Part of the test was to endure pain by being scratched with agouti claws and having salt rubbed into the wounds without crying out.

Another test was to shoot a bird off the top of a tree with a bow and arrow. Carib warriors were good swimmers and Columbus

mentions seeing a warrior fire his bow while swimming in the sea. Carib raids were made in canouas. The Caribs often put to sea in

bad weather and paddled for long distances. The women, too, knew how to fight and use a bow and arrow. Caribs liked to make

surprise attacks by sea in their canoes. Their raids were very vicious and destructive. Arawak men who were not killed were taken

away to be integrated into the Kalinago kinship network as poitos (sons-in-law), and the women were taken as wives for the younger

warriors. Seagoing, fishing and trading were more important to the Kalinago men than hunting or agriculture. The bigger craft, the

canouas, could be up to 50 feet (15 m) in length, and capable of carrying 30 or 40 people. They were dug out of the solid trunks of
 LANGUAGE
The language verbally expressed by the Caribs was a part of the Arawakan language. The Taino and the Kalinago dialects both

began from that spoken in the central area regions from which they came. Varieties of their dialects were found in various

pieces of the West Indies, yet they all originated from similar Arawakan source. The idea that the women of the Kalinago

communicated in a totally unique language from the men has no establishment indeed. Numerous women, being of Arawak

beginning, would have held a lot of their unique language, and this would acco,,, for pariahs hearing various names being

utilized by people for similar articles. me pidgin language which Kalinago men utilized anion°' 1) themselves, created as a

'exchanging language' to , comprehended in any piece of the Lesser Antilles, could likewise have had an impact in the making

of what is to a great extent a originality