Ramón Pané’s Account of the Antiquities of the Indians

Spanish friar Ramón Pané maintained a manuscript he created in the late 1490s after Columbus’s arrival in 1492 on the practices and beliefs of the indigenous people of the island that he dubbed “Hispaniola.” In this text, Pané offers us valuable descriptions of the way indigenous groups narrated their history, as well as their spiritual and religious beliefs and practices, 

Like the rest of Latin America, Haitian indigenous populations were very negatively impacted through war, disease, and enslavement, after Europeans came to colonize. Their population dropped from around 750,000 to 500,000 to just tens of thousands. Sadly, by the time that the French came to form the colony of Saint-Domingue in the late seventeenth century, there only remained small scattered indigenous communities in the mountains. 

“I, Fray Ramón, a humble friar of the Order of Saint Jerome, am writing what

I have been able to discover and understand of the beliefs and Idolatries of

the Indians, and of how they worship their gods. . . . 

In worshiping the idols they keep at home, which they call zemis, each

one observes a particular manner and superstition. They believe that he is

in heaven and is immortal, and that no one can see him, and that he has a

mother. But He has no beginning, and they call him Yúcahu Bagua Marocoti,

and they call his mother Atabey, Yermao, Guacar, Apito, and Zuimaco, which

are five names. . . . They know likewise from whence they came, and where

the sun and the moon had their beginning, and how the Sea was made, and

where the dead go. And they believe the dead appear to them along the road

when they travel alone because they do not appear when many of them travel

together. Their ancestors have made them believe all this, for they do not

know how to read, nor can they count except up to ten.”

Pané’s point of view here is a little bit problematic because he is coming from a place of bias on this subject in particular since he is a friar and is examining an indigenous religion here. It is for this reason that in many places it seems as though he is talking down about the groups. An example of this can be seen in the quote above, near the end when he says that they do not know how to read and cannot count above ten. Logic like this was common in Europeans and was used to justify their racism as they saw indigenous groups as inferior. 

Regardless of Pané’s side of history, this text is vital in understanding the indigenous religious and spiritual beliefs and cultures that once thrived on Haiti, as maintaining their history should be of utmost importance. It’s importance should be reminded to us each day, because, as each day goes by we lose more and more history. It is also important in understanding current-day Haiti as large groups of Haitians practice a mix of both Catholic and Indigenous spiritual practices.

Bibliography
Pané, Ramón. “An Account of the Antiquities of the Indians.” In The Haiti Reader: History, Culture, Politics, edited by Dubois Laurent, Glover Kaiama L., Ménard Nadève, Polyné Millery, and Verna Chantalle F., 8-12. Durham; London: Duke University Press, 2020. Accessed March 13, 2021. doi:10.2307/j.ctv1220qc0.5.