纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 065泰诺仪式用椅（8）（在线收听）

In the Caribbean today Taino identity is the subject of much public debate, but it's a contentious subject. In his book 'Taino Revival', the author Gabriel Haslip-Viera considers the claims of those who say they are of Taino descent:

"The Taino people as a pure ethnic group - shall we say 'uncontaminated' with other populations - that population essentially came to an end by 1600, about a hundred years after the arrival of the Spaniards. The small number of survivors essentially mixed in with the Spanish colonists and the Africans that were bought into the Caribbean to replace them as the main labour-force. Because primarily the mixture in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean is an African-European mix, that's what has been coming out in the recent studies that have been done. The so-called admixture tests that geneticists have been doing in recent years, those tests have demonstrated overwhelmingly that the peoples of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, of the Greater Antilles, are people of mixed background and that the mixture is primarily European and African."

The Taino may have been virtually wiped out hundreds of years ago, but we still have echoes of the lost Taino world in a few words familiar to us, words that reflect Taino experience and culture. 'Hurricane' is one, and so are 'barbecue', 'hammock', 'canoe' and 'tobacco'. These are prosaic, everyday things, but the physical survivals of the Taino world, like the duho stool, speak of the universal human need to connect with what is beyond the mundane, with the world of spirits and gods. Next week is all about this constant human need. It's about religion across the world, from Constantinople to Easter Island . . . and we'll be beginning with the Crown of Thorns.

到底有多少泰诺遗产或身份被保留了下来？这至今仍是加勒比海地区争论不休的公共议题。著有《泰诺复兴》一书的加夫列尔赫斯利普-维拉教授就那些自称为泰诺人后代的人的声明表示：

至公元一千六百年西班牙人到来百年之后，作为纯粹种族的泰诺人已不复存在。为数不多的幸存者基本先后与西班牙殖民者以及被运送过来充当主要劳动力的非洲黑人进行了交合。近期科研成果，即遗传学家所做的混血测试表明，在以说西班牙语为主的加勒比海地区，最主要的混血形式是非欧混血。实验的压倒性结果表明，大安的列斯群岛的这些说西班牙语的加勒比人都有混血背景，且主要是非欧混血。

泰诺人也许在几百年前就彻底灭绝了，但我们仍然可以通过一些熟悉的词与失落的泰诺世界产生共鸣。这些反映了他们的经验与文化的词—一暴风、烧烤、吊床、独木舟和烟草—一属于加勒比人的日常生活。而泰诺世界所留下的物质遗产，如都何凳，道出了人类普遍的、与超脱现实的灵魂世界交流的需求。这种未曾中断过的需求将是贯穿以下多件文物的主题。