According to the Tainos of the Caribbean Islands, zemí (plural zemís) are objects which embedded different spiritual powers. In general, zemis are representation of deities, the forces embedded in the natural world as well as ancestors.
Artifacts representing zemís were made from wood, stone, shell, coral, cotton, gold, clay and human bones. Some had human shape, others were three-pointed stones. These have the shape of a mountain silhouette, whose final tips are usually decorated with human faces, animals, and other mythical beings. Three-pointed zemís are said to imitate the shape of the cassava tuber, which was an essential food staple but also symbolic element of Taíno life.
Among the preferred material to make zemís were wood of specific trees such as mahogany (caoba), cedar, blue mahoe, the lignum vitae, or guyacan, which is also referred to as “holy wood” or “wood of life”.
Wooden anthropomorphic zemís have been found all over the Greater Antilles, especially Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. These figures often bore gold or shell inlays within the eye-inlets.
Zemí images were also carved on rocks and cave walls, and these images could also transferred supernatural power to landscape elements.
Role of zemis in Taíno culture appears to have one of contact with the spiritual world. It has been suggested that the possession of zemis by chiefs was a sign of his/her privileged relations with the supernatural world. Zemís had different powers such as safeguarding childbirth, agricultural fertility, success in war. Zemis objects were associated with the cosmic power, ancestral spirits, as well as the acquisition and maintenance of political power by elites
Zemis were guarded, venerated and regularly fed. They were kept in special buildings and ceremonies took place every year where zemís images were draped with cotton clothing and offered baked cassava bread. During areitos ceremonies, zemí origins, histories and power were recited through songs and music.
Sources
This glossary entry is a part of the About.com guide to Northwest Coast, and the Dictionary of Archaeology.
Atkinson Lesley-Gail, (ed.), 2006, The Earliest Inhabitants: The Dynamics of the Jamaica Taíno, University of the West Indies Press, Jamaica.
Saunders Nicholas J., 2005, The Peoples of the Caribbean. An Encyclopedia of Archaeology and Traditional Culture. ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, California.