1 Taino font — The Naguaké Taíno Pictographic Alphabet was created in 2005 by Dr. Yarey Meléndez to write a reconstructed version of the Taino language known as Taíno-Borikenaíki (or Tainonaíki). Website: Omniglot.com. The first Taino syllabary, created by Miguel Sague Jr. in 1985, using consonant glyphs and vowel symbols to avoid the Eurocentric alphabet of colonizers, is also available on this website.
2 Hairouna, “Land of the Blessed”: the Kalinago name for St. Vincent.
3 The Great Blue Hole: a giant marine sinkhole in the barrier reef on the coast of Belize, Central America.
4 Sobaoko Koromo, Miguel Sague Jr., The Taino Chronicles 2 & 4. Website: caneycircle.wordpress.com.
5 Fula proverb.
6 Chinua Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah (London: Heinemann, 1987).
7 Nigerian proverb.
8 Ziryãb, Abu al-Hasan “Ali ibn Nafi,” was a freed slave, singer, and musician of North Africa/Andalusia in the medieval era who founded a music school, is said to have known thousands of songs by heart, and revolutionized the design of the musical instrument that became the lute. He spread a new musical style around the Mediterranean, affecting the course of European music. Robert W. Lebling Jr., “Flight of the Blackbird,” Saudi Aramco World (2003).
9 (Including a citation on page 25) Ned Sublette, Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2007).
10 Algonquian language.
11 Choctaw language.
12 Cancún, derived from “Kàan kun,” Mayan language.
13 Alejo Carpentier, The Kingdom of This World (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006).
14 Edwidge Danticat, introduction to The Kingdom of This World by Alejo Carpentier (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006).
15 Edwidge Danticat, Anacaona, Golden Flower, Haiti, 1490 (The Royal Diaries) (New York: Scholastic, 2005).
16 Dr. Cayetano Coll y Toste, Prehistoria de Puerto Rico (Bilbao, Spain: Editorial Vasco Americana, 1967), originally published by Tip. Boletin mercantil, San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1907.
17 Kamau Brathwaite, Tidealectics: ConVERSations with Nathaniel Mackey (New York: We Press, 1999).
18 Geoffrey MacLean, “Chacachacare, the largest of the islands between Trinidad and Venezuela, was said to have been given its name by the Amerindians, an onomatopoeic word for the chatter of monkeys,” Citizens for Conservation Trinidad & Tobago website, citizensforconservationtt.org/home/sites/chacachacare/.
19 Alejo Carpentier, The Lost Steps (London: Minerva Press, 1956).
20 Guyanese folk song recordings by Peter Kempadoo, Marc Matthews, and Vibert Cambridge, Our Kind of Folk Guyana, Jarai, 1972.
21 Wilson Harris, Palace of the Peacock (London: Faber and Faber, 1960).
22 Original contribution by Surujanie Robinson, Kato Village, Potaro-Siparuni Region, Guyana, 2023.
23 Wilson Harris, Palace of the Peacock (London: Faber and Faber, 1960).
24 Al Creighton, Jenny Wishart, Samantha Samuels, Dr. Desrey Fox, Amerindian Research Unit, University of Guyana, “The Legends of Kaieteur,” Stabroek News, April 17, 2005.
25 Walter E. Roth, “Chapter 2: Tribal Heroes; The Sun, the Frog, and the Firesticks (Warrao),” The Animism and Folklore of the Guiana Indians, introduction by Janette Balkan, The Guyana Classics (Georgetown, Guyana: The Caribbean Press, 2011). First published in 1915.
26 Max Dashú, “Female Divinity in South America,” Suppressed Histories Archives, suppressedhistories.net/goddess/fdivsa.html, citing Otto Zerries, Pre-Columbian American Religions (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969).
27 Original contribution by Surujanie Robinson, Kato Village, Potaro-Siparuni Region, Guyana, 2023.
28 The Shaman’s Journey Across the Milky Way, a series of paintings by George Simon (Guyana).
29 Walter E. Roth, “Chapter 2: Tribal Heroes; The Sun, the Frog, and the Firesticks (Warrao),” The Animism and Folklore of the Guiana Indians, introduction by Janette Balkan, The Guyana Classics (Georgetown, Guyana: The Caribbean Press, 2011). First published in 1915.
30 Philip Sherlock, West Indian Folk Tales (London: Oxford University Press, 1966).