7 Indigenous Taino Words You Probably Already Know – Part 5: Hammock

Of course everybody knows the word 'Hammock', after you barbequed the bachata it is the favorite place to relax. The previous post about the Taino words we all know was about the word 'Cannibal. Check this post.

 

Hammock

 

Upon seeing how the Taino lived on his first voyage to the New World, Columbus wrote in his journal, "..for beds, they had nets of cotton, extended between two posts." Later in his journal he wrote, "...a great many Indians in canoes came to the ship today for the purpose of bartering their cotton and hamacas or nets in which they sleep." There is little dispute that the English word "hammock" is an anglicized version of the Taino word, "hamacas," as the Spaniards phonetically spelled it in Spanish.

 

Before Columbus' arrival in the New World, cotton was little known. It is thought that seeing how strong and durable the hammocks were that woven out of cotton twine sparked their interest in cotton for clothing and other goods that soon followed.

Fancy Hammocks

This is what we made of it: