Ciguayos

The Ciguayos (Spanish: Ciguayos) were a group of Indigenous people who inhabited the Samaná Peninsula and its adjoining regions in the present-day Dominican Republic. The Ciguayos appear to have predated the agricultural Taíno who inhabited much of the island. Ciguayo was spoken on the northeastern coast of the Magua region from Nagua southward to at least the Yuna River, and throughout all of the Samana Peninsula.

Since the moment of contact early Spanish writers perceived them as a threat and portrayed them flaunting long hair and brandishing bows with poisoned arrows.^[1] Their archery tradition is linked to the Kalinago, or Island Caribs.^[2] Their legacy has spawned folktales, and since the 19th century, their memory has been at the center of the Dominican indigenist movement.^[3]