Kalinago

Kalinago

Carib family (by John Gabriel Stedman 1818)
Total population
Dominica: 3,000[1] Saint Vincent and the Grenadines: 3,000[2] Saint Lucia: Small number[3] Trinidad and Tobago: Small number[4]
Regions with significant populations
Dominica, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago; formerly throughout the Lesser Antilles
Languages
English, Dominican Creole French, formerly Island Carib
Related ethnic groups
Garifuna (Black Carib), Taíno

The Kalinago, formerly known as Island Caribs^[5] or simply Caribs, are an Indigenous people of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean. They may have been related to the Mainland Caribs (Kalina) of South America, but they spoke an unrelated language known as Island Carib.^[6] They also spoke a pidgin language associated with the Mainland Caribs.^[6]

At the time of Spanish contact, the Kalinago were one of the dominant groups in the Caribbean (the name of which is derived from "Carib", as the Kalinago were once called). They lived throughout north-eastern South America, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, the Windward Islands, Dominica, and possibly the southern Leeward Islands. Historically, it was thought their ancestors were mainland peoples who had conquered the islands from their previous inhabitants, the Igneri. However, linguistic and archaeological evidence contradicts the notion of a mass emigration and conquest; the Kalinago language appears not to have been Cariban, but like that of their neighbors, the Taíno. Irving Rouse and others suggest that a smaller group of mainland peoples migrated to the islands without displacing their inhabitants, eventually adopting the local language but retaining their traditions of a South American origin.^[7]

In the early colonial period, the Kalinago had a reputation as warriors who raided neighboring islands. According to the tales of Spanish conquistadors, the Kalinago were cannibals who regularly ate roasted human flesh,^[8] although this is considered by the community to be an offensive myth. There is no hard evidence of Caribs eating human flesh, though one historian points out it might be useful to frighten enemy Arawak.^[9][10] The Kalinago and their descendants continue to live in the Antilles, notably on the island of Dominica. The Garifuna, who share common ancestry with the Kalinago, also live principally in Central America.