Kalingo

• Kalinago people

  Indigenous to the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean
• Kalinago people

  • Skilled farmers
  • Skilled hunters
  • Skilled fishermen
• Kalinago diet

  • Cassava
  • Sweet potatoes
  • Maize
  • Yams
  • Peppers
  • Pineapples
  • Plums
  • Guavas
  • Mammee apples
  • Star apples
  • Fish
  • Agouti
  • Manicou
  • Birds
  • Lobsters
  • Crabs
• Cassava beer

  Called ouicou
• Kalinago craftsmanship

  • Pottery
  • Baskets
  • Ropes
  • Nets
  • Canoes
• Body paint and dyes

  Made from the annatto plant
• Kalinago religion

  • Belief in a supreme creator
  • Belief in an afterlife
  • Belief in ancestral spirits
  • Belief in evil spirits called maboya
• Boyez


  A priest who played an important role in Kalinago society
• Kalinago villages


  • Built around a square or plaza
  • Houses made of wood and thatched roofs
• Kalinago society

  • Patriarchal
  • Land owned communally
• Karbay

  Meeting house where men assembled
• Oboutou

  Kalinago chief
• Roucou

  Dye from the annatto tree
• Matapi

  Long tube of basket-work
• Tomali

  Juice from the manioc or cassava plant
• Ouicou


  Type of beer made from the manioc
• Canalli, boutalli, rovara


  Bowls and jars made from pottery
• Couliana

  One of the canoes made by the Kalinago, pointed at both ends and used for fishing close to the shore, could only hold a few people
• Canoua


  The bigger boats of the Kalinago, could carry about thirty to forty people
• Maboya

  Evil spirits
• Boyez

  Priest or medicine men
• Kalinago artform

  • Simple
  • Houses made of wood with thatched roofs
  • Carbet built with foundation pillars, strong with thatched roof
  • Made pottery out of terracotta
  • Made baskets, ropes and nets from vines, stalks and leaves from the coconut palm
  • Made loin cloth from cotton
• Body paints and dyes

  • Very important
  • Used roucou, red and orange dyes from the annatto plant
  • Dye used in pottery, weaving and body decorations
  • Dyes used for protection against the sun and for camouflage
  • Considered a disgrace to not wear body paint
• Making cassava and sweet potato beer

  1. Used a hanging basket called matapis to squeeze the juice out of the cassava and sweet potato

  2. Juice left to ferment to create an intoxicating beer
• Art of war

  • Well developed
  • From puberty, boys underwent training in pain and endurance and fighting in preparation for battle
• Celebrations

  • Birth of children
  • First cutting of a child's hair
  • Manhood initiation
  • Burial
  • Included eating, drinking and smoking
  • Used drums
• They had oral traditions, where stories were told. Many of their stories were religious
• Tools and weapons

  • Similar to the Taino, but created superior weapons
  • Skillfully made bows and arrows
  • Knew how to apply poison and fire to arrow heads
  • Skilled canoe builders
  • Built sophisticated pirogues which were fast canoes that could carry up to one hundred people
  • Made rafts from the trunks of light forest trees