Taíno Sun and Moon: The Cave of Iguanaboina

The Taíno were the Indigenous people of the Greater Antilles, the first people of the Americas to meet Columbus. One of their origin stories tells that the Sun and the Moon came out of a cave. It survives because a Spanish friar wrote it down in the 1490s.

Ramón Pané's account

At Columbus's request, the friar Ramón Pané lived among the Taíno of Hispaniola in the 1490s and recorded their beliefs, in the first European book written in the Americas about an Indigenous religion. Among the stories he recorded is that the Sun and the Moon emerged from a cave called Iguanaboina.

Boinayel and Márohu

Pané also recorded that the cave held two zemís, sacred images: Boinayel, associated with rain, and Márohu, associated with fair weather. People visited the cave with great devotion. The pairing of rain and sun was vital to a farming people.

The Taíno today

The Taíno did not vanish. Their words live on in English, in "hurricane", "hammock" and "canoe", their heritage survives in the Caribbean, and many people today identify as Taíno descendants. The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian has explored that continuing legacy.

A note on names

Designs sometimes label a Taíno figure a "Moon Goddess". Pané's account speaks of the Sun and Moon emerging from a cave and of the zemís Boinayel and Márohu; it does not describe a moon goddess in those terms, so such names are modern.

Taíno designs in jewellery

A Taíno-inspired design honours one of the first peoples of the Caribbean and a story preserved for more than five centuries. See the AURYN Taíno charm.