Kalinago

The Kalinago, also historically known by the exonyms Island Caribs or simply Caribs, are an Indigenous people of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean. They may have been related to the Kalina of South America (historically called "Mainland Caribs"), but they spoke an unrelated language known as Kalinago or Island Carib. They also spoke a pidgin language associated with the Kalina. While various Indigenous peoples of the Lesser Antilles are sometimes referred to as "Kalinago" because that is the preferred terminology of certain Indigenous communities in Dominica and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, it may not be accurate to refer to all of the Indigenous peoples of the Lesser Antilles throughout history as "Kalinago". 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 by Europeans). They lived throughout the Windward Islands, Dominica, and southern Leeward Islands, including Guadeloupe, and possibly Barbados. 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 neighbours, 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. Recent archaeological research in Grenada has further refined this understanding, suggesting that the "Island Caribs" of the historic period may have been composed of two distinct groups: the "Caraïbe" (likely the long-term Indigenous inhabitants who produced Suazan Troumassoid pottery) and the "Galibis" (newer arrivals from the mainland who produced Cayo pottery). In...