By Steven Scarpa
Stephanie Bailey grew up living with her grandparents in New York. Her Taíno culture, indigenous to the Caribbean, felt alive and deeply present in her daily life. The objects in her grandparents’ home carried astrong sense of spirituality about them. The Taíno language, much of which has been lost, was used around her through surviving words specific to Borikén, the language of modern-day Puerto Rico. Her grandmother practiced traditional ways of healing.
“She also did a lot of medicine, plant medicine, which she learned from her mother and her mother from San Lorenzo. She was known within our barrio, so in our town, as the person to go to anytime you were sick, if you needed a meal, if you needed community, that was where you would go,” Bailey said.
The hallmarks of her culture were alive and well. So, from a very young age, Bailey had a sense of what she described as Indigenous values. “It wasn’t until after my grandfather passed that I really wanted to honor who we are and verbalize, yeah, I am a Native,” she said.
Those values helped her find a path to the study of archeology. They prompt her to speak on behalf of her culture. And those values became a guiding principle behind the Yale Peabody Museum’s latest exhibition, Caribbean Indigenous Resistance ¡Taíno Vive¡, presented in conjunction with the Smithsonian Exhibition.
The bilingual exhibition, on display through June 21, brings to life the story of a people whom traditional scholarship once labeled as “extinct,” disproving the narrative through examining the history of resistance and survival in the Caribbean, and the current Taíno movement in the United States.
“By centering the work of cultural practitioners who examine the history of the islands and the impact of Caribbean Indigenous knowledge throughout the world, we hope to help them convey the story of legacy and endurance,” said Kailen Rogers, associate director of exhibitions.
Bailey, an archaeologist, worked as a cultural collaborator, helping to select objects, and shape its narrative.
“It was reassuring to see objects like the ones in my grandmother’s home in the Peabody collection,” Bailey said. “It was assuring to the overall identity that I had as a young adult and trying to really identify who Iwas.”
Rogers said this community-centered approach will inform the Peabody’s efforts when sharing stories of cultural heritage.
In a recent interview, Bailey discussed why it is important for the Taíno story to continue to be told. The interview, continued under the photo, was edited for length and for clarity.
Stephanie Bailey
Why is advocacy an important part of your work?
Advocacy is important because one of the biggest misconceptions regarding Caribbean Indigenous culture is the extinction myth. A lot of people think that Caribbean indigenous identities don't exist … that by identifying as the Taíno, we eradicate or don’t use the actual lineage of where we come from. It’s not necessarily true. We can use [this identity] in the diaspora to link us back to our homeland.
If we don't talk about [our culture] then it will not exist. So being able to share spaces, communication, and conversation about how we've evolved, that's the defining factor continuing the lineage of who we are as indigenous people of the Caribbean.
How does this exhibition help with that advocacy? What is it about this story that you've helped to tell that advances that work?
The story that we tell in this exhibition is the beginning of our future. It provides the timeline of how it all started, how we were through the migration, who we were in the past, and who we became, and how we silently evolve. Even throughout colonization, we were able to find ways to keep pieces and aspects of our culture and transition them into modern aspects. They may not seem like the most traditional indigenous ideas, values. They just come off as who we are as Caribbean people.
Having this exhibit show from the beginning to where we are today allows us to eradicate the idea of extinction. The pieces on display show cultural continuity, so we have the opportunity to talk about who we were and how we evolved.
How has it felt for you as the curator of this exhibit to see people's reactions to it?
It's been so humbling.
I know that [visitors] walked in, absorbed and applied some of the information. There's a spark. There was a little flame that was lit that you were able to retain something and take it out of here. Who knows that might take you?
It’s been nice to see how people's eyes will glisten a little bit when they look at certain pieces. How some people clutch their chests in admiration. Some people will see relatives or friends theirs on the panels, and it brings them a sense of identification and community.
That is the most important part because you can't have that indigenous identity without community. Our community is one of the biggest definitions of who we are as people. Without our communities, we’re just everybody else.
How would you define that community?
Community is a group of people who share ideas, background, culture, space, priorities, morals, and ethics, and values, who come together to ensure the safety and the progression of one another, the advocacy of each other and to provide a consistent form of appreciation and education for those within that shared space.
If there was one object in this room from the Peabody’s collection that you helped to pick that encapsulates the community you just described, what would you pick?
The marriage bowl from Haiti. It encompasses the idea of gathering. It encompasses the idea of sharing food, of sharing space, of commemoration, of happy times, of building together, of allowing one another to be in a safe space with relatives, with friends, in community, giving, taking, and receiving. It creates the message of stability and safety.
What is special about doing a project in this way?
By allowing the community to have input, it provides a unique and directly reflective voice of the actual people from the culture. It provides the space and the opportunity for lived experience to stand besideacademic understanding.
It allows lived and cultural experience to be able to cooperate with academic findings, archaeological history, and historical text, and it puts us in a position to continue to legitimize the need for advocacy for indigenous people.