In Hispaniola both Indians and Spaniards have two kinds of bread.
One sort is made of maíz, which is a grain, and the other of cassava.
Maize is grain that is borne on an ear about six to eight inches long.
This ear or spike is covered with grains almost as large as chickpeas.
Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, 1526

When I first met Simon Forbes he was dancing to scratched Reggae and Calypso records at Emanuel Hall’s store in Bambarra. And man, can that man dance! In those days, Hall had one of the few stand-alone generators on the island. It may seem surprising, but electricity didn’t arrive on Middle Caicos until the early 1980s — (a fact that fuels romanticized archaeological remembrances of working at night by kerosene lantern.)

Simon would never claim to be of Taíno descent. So what could my research possibly have to do with him? What does Simon’s dancing have to do with global climate change? And why eat the grits? Simply stated, what most fascinates me is tracing historical connections; teasing out those aspects of the past that have created the present, and are likely to influence the future.

Legacy maize field near Bas Limbe, Haiti

The reason that this particular plot of land was so productive is because the original inhabitants of the island lived there for about 200 years (circa AD 1300–1500) and their refuse (garbage, night soils, etc.) had greatly enriched the fertility of the otherwise sandy soil (called “whitelands” due to its light color and lack of fertility). The site has over a meter of very dark, organically enriched soil (along with artifacts from the original inhabitants) that extends to a depth of over one meter. Although it may be hard to envision, there is a definite connection between the remote past and the present. On other islands, Mayaguana for example, we have found that the “native” vegetation is far more luxuriant on Indian sites. Furthermore, throughout the Turks & Caicos, Shaun Sullivan found that archaeological sites are almost always found in Guinea grass patches (a grass introduced from Africa as cattle fodder) because this grass pioneers disturbed (formerly agricultural) landscapes. In essence, the modern landscape is the product of human activities going back thousands of years.

The historical thread is that the land Simon farmed was superior to the surrounding whitelands because the garbage of native peoples had enriched the soil. In addition, it was Amerindians who first cultivated many of his crops. This is a classic example of how much of what we do today is a legacy of the past. About 20 years ago the Florida Museum of Natural History developed a museum exhibit called “Better than Gold.” The point was that Amerindian plants transformed European cultures in more profound ways than did shiny metal.

Maize (Zea mays) is perhaps the most important crop in history. The British called it “Indian” or “Guinea” corn because the word corn means “small bit.” The Taínos called it maíz. The ancestors of maize are apparently wild grains related to teosinte and tripsacum, with small ears the size of a person’s thumb. It is possible that modern corn developed when humans carried this grain south from Mexico into Central and Andean South America where those related species crossbred. Cobs found in caves inhabited by people southeast of Mexico City date to 5,000 BC. Recent evidence from the study of pollen, phytoliths and starch grains suggests that humans in Central America began managing maize up to 10,000 years ago, and that it was brought into the Caribbean islands about 4,000 years ago.

The early races did not look much like modern varieties, and it may seem odd that people focused their attention on a plant that produced a small number of grains that required special collection methods and processing. Yet we now know that a wide variety of small-seeded grains (including wheat, rice, millet, sorghum, chenopodium, and amaranth) were cultivated at early dates to supplement what were otherwise foraging economies (more popularly known as hunter-gatherers). In the early variety of maize each kernel was covered by a cupule so it was necessary to winnow the collected seed to remove this inedible covering. Through human manipulation the kernels eventually became “naked” with only a surrounding husk.

Despite its humble beginnings, maize has transformed our world. When you go to the cinema or watch a movie at home you must eat popcorn. High fructose corn syrup is used to sweeten foods and soft drinks, and along with the corn oil used to fry foods, are major contributors to obesity. When you put gasoline in your car, up to 10% is ethanol distilled from maize. The steaks you just grilled are probably corn-fed beef, and cattle are significant contributors to global warming (methane). Cornstarch and corn meal are used to produce a wide variety of products, and maize agriculture receives billions of tax dollars in subsidies from the U.S. government every year. Maize can produce incredible yields per acre, but also requires enormous inputs of water (irrigation), fertilizer (nitrates) and pesticides, all of which degrade our environment. Moreover, maize yields were increased by creating a sterile hybrid, so farmers must buy their seed every year from the companies that hold the patents. In sum, maize has become the perfect storm.

We cannot blame the crop for its unintended consequences. Few plants have been so amenable to human manipulation. Maize now serves a vast number of purposes, is grown in a wide variety of environments, comes in a bewildering number of colors (check out blue corn tortilla chips), and is a component of almost everything we eat, drink or drive. Moreover, it has even been converted to entertainment. Because it can be grown at such a high density, corn mazes, more properly maize mazes, have become hugely popular during the Halloween season.

There are more than 300 races of maize. The plants range in size from two to twenty feet tall, with eight to 48 leaves, one to fifteen stalks from a single seed, and ears that range from thumb-sized to two feet in length. The basic classification recognizes “dents” with a softer kernel (95% of all maize), “flints” with a hard starch, “sweet” with a higher sugar content, “floury” with soft and mealy starch, “waxy” composed entirely of amelopectin, and “pop” which is a very hard flint — the water in the starch steam-pressures the endosperm to explode when heated.

Maize is a highly nutritious food, and contains more protein than any other cultigen. It has essentially the same nutritional content as breast milk, and has long served as a weaning food. It contributed to the rapid growth of human populations throughout much of the Americas, and was the staple crop for the Maya and Aztec. The one missing amino acid is lysine, which is found in beans. In Mexico, at the time of the European invasion, most gardens contained the perfect food combination; the “three Mary’s”: corn (maíz), beans and squash.

In the past, maize was people food. Today, nearly 80% of the harvest goes to feed cattle and fuel automobiles. Both of these uses have contributed substantially to global warming. Boy and girl cows have stomachs that evolved to digest grasses. You can feed them corn, and they will mature faster and she produces more milk, but they cannot completely digest the proteins in maize. The resulting “cow patties” are loaded with methane gas. Methane is the most egregious of greenhouse gasses, and cattle, not cars, are the main contributor to global warming. Maybe we should follow the advice of Chick-Fil-A and “eat mor chiken” (but this raises a whole number of other issues). In addition, the U.S. government has promoted the use of ethanol as an alternative fuel for cars, and corn growers now benefit from a number of subsidies. Yet, ethanol is a far less efficient fuel than gasoline, and the quantities of water, fertilizer, fuel for farm vehicles and the processing required to produce this fuel have never been fully disclosed. The use of ethanol may actually contribute to global warming. And recent commentaries have asked whether we should grow corn to feed cars or to feed people?

Enough gloom and doom; there is nothing quite like the original product. While conducting a survey of North Caicos years ago, our local guide stopped in his family farm and roasted several ears of corn on an open fire. When I peeled back the husk I found that several rows had popped. This was the only time I was ever treated to popcorn on the cob! Had this corn been allowed to fully ripen it would have been ground into the porridge that we call grits.

There are only a few places in the world where you can still get “legacy” corn. Middle and North Caicos are two of those places (we have colleagues doing DNA studies to trace the heritage). There is a world of difference in taste and nutritional value between legacy and modern varieties. We suggest you be a “locavore” (eat locally grown foods). Visit Daniel’s Café in Conch Bar, Middle Caicos, for a traditional grits breakfast on Saturdays, or buy these locally grown and hand-ground grits at the Middle Caicos Co-op on the second Saturday of each month at the Graceway Supermarket in Provo. You will experience a unique connection to the past, not to mention that there is nothing quite as tasty as Middle Caicos grits.

Dr. William Keegan is Curator of Caribbean Archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL.

Middle Caicos Grits

Landscaping is an almost unknown term in Middle Caicos, but small “farms” are found throughout the island where crops of cassava, okra, sweet potato, pigeon peas and corn still flourish. Home is where the heart is when it comes to Caicos corn . . . it is a beloved treat at all stages with new corn roasted on open fires and the favourful local grits sparking up all kinds of home cooking.

North Caicos kitchen

Once cleaned and fanned, the grits are kept cool and fresh, ready to purchase at the Conch Bar Artisan Studio & Outlet. Local chefs use these grits to the delight of patrons. Daniel Forbes’ special, at Daniel’s Café in Middle Caicos is Conch and Grits, a treat that brings the flavor of the ocean to this simple dish. In a world of fast food, these wonderful grits, a labour of love and time, offer a taste sensation that is long remembered.

Miss Joycelyn’s Plain Grits Recipe

Use 3 cups water, salt to taste, 2 teaspoons butter, and 1 cup grits. Put water, salt and butter in medium pot and bring to a full boil. Add grits and stir thoroughly. Cover and cook over medium heat for 15 – 20 minutes. Check grits after 10 minutes – if too stiff, add more water (¼ cup – ½ cup). When cooked grits will be smooth and even. Serve as a side dish with more butter, salt and pepper.

Popular local options: Cook local beans, fry with butter and onion, and add to grits while cooking or chop and wash salt beef and add to pot with water, then boil with grits.

Courtesy, Sara Forbes – Conch Bar Artisan Studio and Outlet
649 946 4132 or middlecaicos@tciway.tc

By Suzanne Gerber
Photos By Barbara Shiveley

No, you’re not confused: There are anemones in your garden, and there are sea anemones in the ocean. In fact, the ornately colored sea anemone (uh-NEM-uh-nee) is so called because of the striking resemblance it bears to its colorful terrestrial namesake.

As beautiful and delicate as they may be, anemones are actually highly poisonous predatory creatures. These marine animals, which attach to rocks or corals by an adhesive pedal disc, or foot, spend most of their life laying in wait for unsuspecting fish to swim close enough to get ensnared in their venom-filled tentacles. Of the 1,000 species of anemones found in shallow coastal waters (and occasionally in deeper water) across the globe, a handful has the ability to move — though they’ll never set any speed records. At best they can travel four inches an hour. Some creep along on their suction foot. Others appear to be somersaulting. Still others locomote by flexing their bodies.

Watching them in motion can be fun. Barbara recalls seeing a golden crinoid traversing the side of a nearly vertical wall one night last summer on Grand Turk. “I knew anemones could move,” she says, “but I didn’t realize they could change neighborhoods!”

Giant anemone on Turks & Caicos reef

Sea anemones come in all sizes, shapes and colors, but in the waters surrounding the TCI, we tend to see the tubular-tentacled species that Barbara has so beautifully captured for this story. The tentacles serve two purposes. Not only do they protect the animal, but they are what it uses to catch food. Those undulating “fingers” that we divers and snorkelers admire from a distance are studded with microscopic stinging capsules (called nematocysts), and at the slightest touch or provocation will eject a harpoon-like filament that paralyzes its prey with a poisonous neurotoxin. (This is what gives the anemone that sticky feeling.) Favorite victims — er, meals — include fish, mussels, zooplankton, shrimp and worms. On the flip side of the food chain, sea anemones have very few predators themselves: mostly just nudibranchs, snails, sea stars and certain fish, like the Tompot Blenny.

Green-tipped giant anemone on Turks & Caicos reef

Solid purple giant anemone on Turks & Caicos reef

The late Claude Lévi-Strauss dispeled the notion of “us” and “them”.

By Bill Keegan and Betsy Carlson

I have sought a human society reduced to its most basic expression.  Claude Levi-Strauss, Triste Tropiques, 1955

Keegan was a teaching assistant for “Introduction to Biological Anthropology” at Florida Atlantic University in 1980.  At the time the university was attempting to boost admissions by offering special tuition to the burgeoning retiree population around Boca Raton. The first day of class there were about 80 people in the room, all listening intently as the professor explained that we would be studying genetics, human evolution, and biological diversity in our species. Eventually, one of the older women in the class raised her hand and asked, “When are we going to study primitive behavior, bizarre marriage practices and mating rituals?” The professor gently explained that this was not our subject. “But I thought this was an anthropology class!” The next class had only about 20 students, and the blue hair adorned a decidedly younger audience.

The Taino frog goddess

The older crowd apparently didn’t get the memo. By this time, the French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss had spent nearly 50 years attempting to dispel the notion of the “primitive mind,” and he did so by studying myths (The Savage Mind, 1962, University of Chicago Press).  We decided to write this essay because he was one of the most important figures in anthropology for the past century. He passed away on October 20, 2009 at the age of 100.

The majority of Lévi-Strauss’ work focused on the stories related to him by the native peoples of the Amazonian rainforest in Brazil. When he began his field research in the 1930s, the prevailing attitude was that the primitive mind was different from our own. These simple people faced a daily struggle for survival, and therefore lacked our appreciation of logic and formal thought. There were strong paternalistic and colonialist attitudes at work, especially in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These savages needed Western civilization to drag them into the modern era. Yet by looking just below the surface, we find that they are in every way as sophisticated intellectually, and the notion of Thomas Hobbes (The Leviathan, 1660) that their lives are “nasty, brutish and short” is just not correct. There is a richness in their arts that rivals our own.

Monsieur le professeur Lévi-Strauss pioneered a philosophical approach in anthropology known as “Structuralism” (Structural Anthropology, 1958, Penguin Press). Structuralism proposed that there are universal structures, pairs of opposites that underlie all human thought and are common to all human societies. In other words, there is no “us” vs. “them.” there is only “us.” Because of this, Lévi-Strauss rejected the notion that so-called “primitive” peoples were any less sophisticated than us, and that their belief systems (“myths”) are the product of rational thinking and subtle logic. This may not appear to be the same logic that we use, but that is because our interpretations often are based on superficial characteristics of which we have little direct knowledge.

The instances of universal structures seem to far outweigh the notion that all people think differently (especially “primitive” people). Is not the Taíno origin story in which the human hero (Deminán) stole yucca and fishes (human foods) from the supreme deity (Yaya) repeated in most mythologies? We are very fortunate that Christopher Columbus sent the Jeronomite friar Ramón Pané to study the religion of the Macorix peoples who lived on the north coast of Hispaniola. Pané’s account has been taken as representative of all Taíno beliefs. These myths have been interpreted using Structuralist principles (see Cave of the Jagua, Antonio Stevens-Arroyo, 2006, University of Scranton Press).

One aspect of Structuralism deals with “totemism,” in which human social groups identify themselves by certain animals (think sports teams). A favorite saying attributed to Lévi-Strauss with regard to animals is that “some animals are good to think, while others are good to eat.” Taíno beliefs are replete with imagery and stories that capture animals that “are good to think. Macocel, a lizard whose eyes did not blink, guarded the cave from which humans emerged in Taíno mythology. A supreme Taíno deity is Anacaona — the “frog-lady” — and the frog, which is a symbol of female fertility, is pervasive in Taíno decorative arts.

We recognize a three-part division of the Taíno world into sky, land and subterranean waters. Creatures and features that bridge these realms are given particular importance in the mythology. Thus, seabirds that pass from sky to land and water (e.g., pelicans), reptiles that pass from water to land (e.g., sea turtles), and caves that form a portal from the land to subterranean waters all figure prominently. According to the Taínos, the first humans emerged from caves, and often were returned there at death. The three realms of sky, land and water are united by an invisible “tree of life” that springs forth as the axis mundi in the center of the village.

Wooden seat shaped like sea turtle

Lévi-Strauss recognized that the way that a village was arranged could hold clues to human consciousness. The circular arrangement of Taíno villages can be likened to the ripples on a pond; the central plaza is a charged political space, the surrounding houses (caneye) are a closed domestic space, the adjacent fields (conuco) represent man’s control over nature, and the encompassing forest (abeybuco) is the non-cultural world of nature and at night the domain of the spirits (opía).

The archaeologists who excavated the Golden Rock site on St. Eustatius in the Lesser Antilles (circa AD 900) noted very distinctive stains in the ground that outlined the structure of the houses. They concluded that the houses were shaped to look like the carapace of a sea turtle, which fits with the symbolic identity of turtles with life.  Such interpretations may at times seem fanciful, but they add to the richness in interpretation proposed for past societies.

In later life Lévi-Strauss argued that music had largely replaced mythology in the modern world. Music tells the same stories and we enjoy hearing them over and over again. The story is reinforced by a repeating melody and harmonics, and everyone knows that it is time to get out of the water when Dvorak’s first symphony starts to play (the theme music from the movie “Jaws”). We see, read and hear the same themes (structures) repeated in cinema, books, and music, and often these are very basic human constructs:  good vs. evil, life vs. death, love vs. hate, nature vs. culture (this last dichotomy was described in Lévi-Straussian terminology as “raw” vs. “cooked”). The image can be as subtle as who is wearing the white hat, and the passages are often decidedly predictable — the action hero always gets beat to a pulp, and is on the verge of death, before overcoming their antagonist in the final scene.

Lévi-Strauss’ critics claimed that he did not pay enough attention to local history and experience. Their “poststructuralism” rejected the idea that universal laws were what shaped human consciousness. His reply would be that much of what we think is subconscious. But even his critics admit that there are underlying structures to all art. A notable recent example is The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown, 2003, Doubleday). The key is finding the hidden messages, and having the skills to interpret them. What we hope is that there are sufficient similarities between us and them (structuralism), that we can detect the underlying meanings as they intended or subconsciously transmitted according to their particular representational system (poststructuralism).

So let us pause for the moment and mark the passing of one of the greatest intellectuals of the 20th century. A man who was equally comfortable in the ivory tower and in the Brazilian rainforest. In our Western religious traditions death marks a transition of “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” Although Lévi-Strauss has passed to ashes, he left us the honey.

1 Claude Lévi-Strauss, From Honey to Ashes, Harper and Row, 1973.

Dr. Bill Keegan is Curator of Caribbean Archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida. Dr. Betsy Carlson is Senior Archaeologist with Southeastern Archaeological Research, Inc. (SEARCH) in Jonesville, Florida, and affiliate faculty at the Florida Museum of Natural History. They are the authors of Talking Taino, published by The University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, ISBN – 13: 978-0-8173-5508-1.

The large, colorful, sociable Angelfish is on the “A” list in fish popularity.

Story By Suzanne Gerber ~ Photos & Captions By Barbara Shiveley

When your dive or snorkeling buddy draws an imaginary ring over his head, he’s not telling you that he’s lost — or gone cuckoo. He’s signaling one of the most popular reef fish in the ocean, the flamboyant angelfish. Some fish master the art of camouflage for protection; if angelfish had to rely on that trick to survive, they’d be dead fast. With their bright, vibrant color patterns and big, round, skinny bodies, they’re among the most delightfully conspicuous residents of the coral reef. Found throughout the Caribbean, Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans, they are also one of the most popular among underwater visitors of every nationality. And because they’re approachable, photogenic, and often curious about us, Barbara and I often find ourselves hot on their trail.

A Queen Angelfish peeks out from behind a coral head.

Here in the Caribbean we are most familiar with six varieties — the Queen, Blue, Gray, Pygmy and French Angelfish, as well as the dramatic black-and-yellow Rock Beauty — yet there are 75 to 85 different species in the rest of the world. When I first started diving the western Pacific and Indian oceans and compiled a “fish wish list,” at least five of my most-sought-after critters were exotic and stunning angels, like the Emperor.

It’s easy to spot most varieties of Angelfish: they’re basically round in appearance (sometimes playfully described as pancake-like), with eyes that seem to see, register and follow us. And most have small but full, almost puckered lips, often painted a prominent gray or white.

Why are they called Angels? I’ve heard a few explanations: The ring on some species’ heads resembles a halo; their fins spread in all directions, like an angel’s wings; and they drift through the water in an almost heavenly way. The Queen derives her royal appellation from the blue-ringed black spot on her head that resembles a crown. They are closely related to Butterflyfish, another “flashy” reef fish with scores of varieties. But scientists distinguish Angelfish from Butterflyfish by their rough spines, which cover their gill and help explain their Greek name, Pomacanthidae (poma meaning “cover,” and akantha for “thorn”).

French Angelfish

The three Caribbean species have some similarities, as well as distinct differences. Pygmy Angels, as you’d likely guess, are the smallest, averaging just three inches, and the largest specimens, the French and Gray, can be up to 24 inches. The Pygmy, also called the Cherubfish, is deep blue in color with pale yellow fins and is the rarest in these waters because they live in considerably deeper quarters than their larger cousins. The regal Queen, who can grow up to 18 inches, is usually an intense blue with yellow markings on her fins and that black and blue spot on the top of her head. She is always just begging for a photo op. Blue Angelfish looks a lot like Queens but are a lighter shade of blue and yellow and don’t have the “crown.” (But they are uppity, frequently mating with Queens.) The Gray Angelfish is indeed gray, with yellow fins. People sometimes confused Grays with French Angelfish, who looks like someone hit the color-enhancer button and painted the drab Gray a much deeper shade of black and added more hue to his yellow scale tips and the yellow around its eye. And then, in the “which of these things is not like the other” category, there’s the sweet Rock Beauty: black with a yellow head, chest and underbelly. Not only does she look markedly different, but her behavior stands out in contrast: where the French, Gray, Blue and Queen have been called everything from friendly and fearless to pests and hams, the Rock Beauty is adorably shy (though when they curl their bodies around a crack in the reef and face you, they make fantastic photos!).

Angelfish normally form pairs or small groups. Some mate for life; others form “harems,” with one male presiding over several females. And as with many fish species, Angelfish are hermaphrodites, and if the dominant male of a harem is removed, one of the “wives” will morph into a functional male to take his place.

Terrific munchers — you can actually hear them chomping in the water — Angels enjoy a diverse diet, at least by fish standards. They dine on sponges, algae, small crustaceans, sea fans, soft corals, and even the occasional unlucky jellyfish. Mostly, though, they prefer sponges, a menu selection that is fairly uncommon for fish (as opposed to turtles), owing to sponges’ indigestible innards and nasty-tasting outside layer. Perhaps as an adaptive measure, Angelfish have evolved a protracted jaw with specialized teeth as well as the talent to secrete a thick mucus coating around bits of sponge. This ability gives them an edge in the highly competitive eco-system.

Gray Angelfish

In the Caribbean, French Angelfish (Pomacanthus paru) are favorites among snorkelers and divers, both for their good looks and great personality. They, too, feed mainly on sponges, as well as the occasional gorgonian, tunicate and algae. Divers get a kick out of watching them as they take deep gouges out of sponges, leaving V-shaped scars with their rabbit-like teeth. On the flip side of the food chain, their large size, as well as their ability to dart defensively into narrow crevices, prevents all but the largest reef predators, like big grouper and sharks, from attacking.

Frenchies mate for life, and together the fiercely territorial pair will patrol their turf, which can be an area as big as a football field. Potential space invaders are chased off by an enraged Frenchie. It’s a sight to behold, as the fish leans to one side and charges like a tipsy bull. The couple spends half their time foraging for food and the other half “carouseling” — circling each other head to tail, an act that both resolidifies their bond after time apart and wards off couple-busting rogue bachelors. Though they are admirably monogamous, Frenchies aren’t overly romantic. Their mating ritual is anything but flirtatious: toward dusk during mating season (April to September, usually peaking in July), they form an arc and rise up in the water column, pressing their bellies together until they reach an angelic climax, at which time sperm and between 25,000 and 75,000 eggs are released. Many won’t make it, however, because of many plankton-munching predators.

Juveniles who do survive are put to work early, working in cleaning stations. Young’uns attract clients by setting up shop at prominent outcroppings, small patch reefs, or depressions in a rocky area. They let other fish know they’re open for business by wriggling their brightly colored bodies like a flag and either hovering just above the reef or settling onto it. The juvies’ job is to inspect their clients for parasites and then remove them by eating them. It makes for compelling video to capture fish waiting in turn for their cleaning, like the line at the carwash on the first warm spring day. Occasionally fish-fights break out over who’s where in the queue, so keep your camera at the ready.

While it is a universal underwater hand sign to indicate Angelfish with the “halo” signal mentioned earlier, I came up with my own sign for Frenchies a number of years ago. A beautiful pair was carouseling just outside my buddy’s periphery, and my halo signal wasn’t doing the trick, probably because he was looking for the blue and yellow glow of a Queen. Thinking fast, I pressed my index and middle fingers to my lips, waved them away, blew out through my regulator, then returned my fingers to my mouth and flicked them again. Back on the boat, I asked him if he saw those two big Frenchies. “I did,” he said, “but what in the world was that hand signal?” “Well,” I responded, “there’s no sign for French Angelfish, so I invented one: I was smoking.” He thought I was nuts, but to this day, we use that same sign when we as a couple bump into a couple of them.

By Bill Keegan and Betsy Carlson

Mr. Christopher Columbus

Sailed the sea without a compass

Well, when his men began a rumpus

Up spoke Christopher Columbus

He said, “There is land somewhere

So until we get there we will not go wrong

If we sing a swing song

Since the world is round, we’ll be safe and sound

’Till our goal is found we’ll just keep the rhythm bound”

Fats Waller

Columbus' "toilet seat" was the bones of a large tortoise

We are writing this in October, a time when Caribbean archaeologists’ fancy turns to Columbus. But it’s not our fault. For some reason the press cannot get enough of him, even after more than 500 years. Columbus was resurrected in 1892 as a symbol of the American dream. A man of simple means, very religious, and of Italian birth who set out to overthrow the science of his day and who stumbled upon a New World. In those days, America (more correctly, the United States of America) was attempting to become the new world power. The legitimacy of this claim was embodied in the Columbian Exposition, the World’s Fair held in Chicago in 1893 (a great read is The Devil in the White City by Erik Larsen, Vintage Books, 2004).

The timing of the Exposition is important. It was the eve of the Spanish-American War (the USS Maine was sunk in Havana harbor on February 15, 1898). The selection of Columbus as a symbol has infuriated Native American communities, but he was chosen to serve very particular political purposes. At the time the U.S. was attempting to deny all Spanish claims to the Americas. Columbus was an Italian who was forced to sail with a crew of prisoners and mutineers. Therefore, Spain deserved no credit for the “discovery” of America.

We should probably add religion to the mix. In his Papal decree ratified in 1498 as the “Treaty of Tordesilla” (or Tordesilha, if you prefer Portuguese), Pope Alexander VI ceded all of the lands 370º west of the Cape Verde Islands (east coast of Africa) to Spain. This gave Spain a “legitimate” claim to virtually all of the Americas. The fact that Spain’s claims were justified by the Pope did not sit well with the Protestant Christians who controlled the U.S. government. In their minds the Pope held no authority, and Spain also had no authority because an Italian was the responsible party. Scholars would later formalize this rejection of Spain by renaming Spanish America, Ibero-America or Hispanic America to “Latin America.”

With the exception of annual Columbus Day parades in New York (fueled mostly by Italian pride), the fire died to embers until just prior to the Quincentenary. The National Geographic Society stoked the flames in 1986 by proclaiming to the world that they had “discovered” the true place where Columbus “discovered” America. It was not modern day San Salvador as Samuel Eliot Morison had decided, but rather an island to the south known as Samana Cay. Not everyone was convinced. And after several years of public debates among proponents for San Salvador (Watlings Island), Samana Cay (National Geographic) and Grand Turk, the final debate was the Turks Island Landfall Conference held on Grand Turk in 1989. The Grand Turk protagonists — Robert Power, Josiah Marvel and Bertie Sadler — were loaded for bear. Unfortunately, none of the other main debaters (Mauricio Obregon for Morison and Joseph Judge for National Geographic) wanted to continue the show (“scheduling conflicts”).

Bob Power and Josiah Marvel deserve a lot of credit for putting their money where their mouth is. The crucial problem for the Grand Turk proponents was that no Indian sites had been found on Grand Turk despite prior archaeological surveys. They engaged an archaeologist to survey the island during the conference, and two Indian sites were found. “Champagne for everyone!” Unfortunately, further research has shown that the main site was abandoned centuries before Columbus sailed, and the site was in the wrong place. Minor details, especially when a new Indian site was found on the north end of Grand Turk thanks to the diligence of Brian Riggs, now Curator of the National Environmental Centre.

These extinct tortoise bones were found during excavations at Grand Turk.

We were conducting test excavations at the new site of GT-3, located on the west side of North Creek, on the eve of the Columbus Quincentenary when Josiah Marvel arrived with a crew from a fledgling Provo cable television station. They were making a film to show that Grand Turk was Columbus’ first landfall, and wanted to include our archaeological investigations. Digging standard 50 by 50 cm shovel test pits we had just exposed a circular arrangement of bone from the carapace of a large tortoise. As the crew began filming, Keegan reminded them that in the past week John Noble Wilford, science editor for the New York Times, had written about excavations by Kathleen Deagan at La Isabela, Columbus’s first colony in the Dominican Republic. Dr. Deagan (of the Florida Museum of Natural History) had identified a portion of a ceramic vessel as a fragment of Columbus’ chamber pot. Pointing to the circular arrangement of tortoise shell bone that completely filled the excavation unit, Keegan jokingly proclaimed, “If Deagan found Columbus’ chamber pot, then we have found Columbus’ toilet seat!” The size and shape of the bone ring were evocative. “But, how can you be sure?” was the response. Brushing aside some loose sand, a turtle arm bone (humerus) was exposed to the outside of the bone ring. Keegan continued, “Because here is the flushing lever!” For some reason journalists seem to think that scientists have no sense of humor, but this is rarely true of archaeologists.

On the subject of wilderness toilets, some years later while working on a very tiny cay off the north coast of Haiti (Île à Rat) we constructed a latrine in a remote location and built a frame on which we attached a toilet seat; a real, honest to goodness, wooden toilet seat. The fishermen who visited the island daily thought that this was the funniest thing they had ever seen — a toilet seat in the bushes! Through the entire month of excavation the seat and frame remained intact; the only thing that disappeared was a toilet paper roll.

In our last essay for “Talking Taino,” we talked about sloths in the Caribbean islands, which disappeared soon after the pre-Taínos arrived about 5,000 years ago. Similarly, Columbus’ “toilet seat” was the bones of a large tortoise (think Galapagos-type tortoise) that disappeared from the Turks & Caicos Islands at least 400 years before the Spanish arrived, apparently driven to extinction by human predation. This leads us to a discussion of another large reptile that used to commonly inhabit the Bahamian archipelago — the crocodile (which the Taíno called caiman).

On the fourth Bahamian island that Columbus visited during his first voyage he encountered a strange creature that fled into a saltwater pond. He described it as five palmas in length (about six feet), and reported that the natives killed it with spears and collected the carcass for Columbus to carry back to Spain. This “lagarto de las aguas” (literally, water lizard) was something that Columbus had never seen before. Based on its size and behavior he seems to be describing a saltwater American crocodile (Crocodylus acutus). Crocodiles are today rarely found in The Bahamas, but they do still live in Cuba and Jamaica (take the “Black River Safari” when you are there, and bring chicken parts).

We do know that crocodiles lived in the Bahama Islands until fairly recently. Their bones have been found at Taíno (Lucayan) sites on Crooked Island and Acklins Island, and Daniel McKinnon reported in his 1804 travelogue that he was fed “alligator” meat at Lovely Bay, Acklins Island. The Caicos Bank would have been an ideal habitat for the crocodile, although no crocodile bones have yet been found in any archaeological sites in the Turks & Caicos Islands. Crocodile remains have even been recovered from remote Grand Cayman where there is no evidence that humans set foot there until Europeans arrived.

The remains of an extinct tortoise lie exposed in Sawmill Sink, Abaco.

Our knowledge of the past distributions of animals is changing as our ability to collect samples from previously inaccessible locations improves. One of the most informative new environments is blue holes because they frequently have submerged sediments that are not exposed to oxygen and thus facilitate the preservation of organic materials. Drs. David Steadman and Richard Franz (of the Florida Museum of Natural History) have been investigating the Sawmill Sink blue hole on Abaco Island in The Bahamas. In this underwater setting they recently recovered 18 crocodile skeletons, tortoises, birds, and other plants and animals that lived in the islands. These new discoveries will be highlighted in a forthcoming National Geographic television program on Bahamian blue holes. Blue holes were also important and sacred locations for the Taíno, where occasionally they buried their dead, and there is a sinkhole on Providenciales in which five Taíno burials were observed. According to the Spanish chroniclers, the Taíno word for sink hole or blue hole was xaguey.

It would be impossible for us to “talk Taíno” without the assistance of the Spanish. The Taínos had no written language, so only those animals that were observed by the Spanish in the presence of the Taíno have recorded Taíno names. The tortoise and many other species were extinct before the Spanish arrived. It is important to remember that written history has a funny way of tricking us into believing that we have all the answers about the past. However, often what we “know” was written by the victors and after centuries of unrecorded events. Some records even contain intentional misrepresentation, much like the story of Columbus and the tortoise shell toilet seat. The true stories (if we may be so bold) of history are complex, fascinating, and open to multiple interpretations. Fats Waller was right, “One never knows, do one?”

Dr. Bill Keegan is Curator of Caribbean Archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida. Dr. Betsy Carlson is Senior Archaeologist with Southeastern Archaeological Research, Inc. (SEARCH) in Jonesville, Florida, and affiliate faculty at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

They are the authors of Talking Taino, published by The University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, ISBN – 13: 978-0-8173-5508-1.

This emblematic mammal did not survive to Taíno times.

By Bill Keegan and Betsy Carlson

The sloth is the stupidest animal that can be found in the world, and is so awkward and slow in movement that it would require a whole day to go fifty paces. 1

Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, 1526

This is not the preface to a novel by Lawrence Sanders. Instead, we are going to discuss the mammals of the Caribbean. Previously we have noted that animals often are used as symbols for both positive and negative characteristics among humans (for example, “King Richard the Lionhearted”). In the islands we often see human and animal figurines on pottery vessels that are either “zoomorphic” (animal features) or “anthropomorphic” (human features ascribed to animals). We focused on the sloth because here we seem to have a negative human characteristic ascribed to the beast.

In the sixth century, Pope Gregory I (“The Great”) identified the seven deadly sins as lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride. These sins have since received greater notoriety in Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” and more recently in the movies “Bedazzled” and “Seven.” The word “sloth” comes from the Latin “acedia,” which means an absence of caring. For the Pope, sloth was spiritual and/or actual apathy, putting off what God asks you to do, or not doing it at all. The slow and determined efforts of this large mammal, first encountered in Central and South America, made them the perfect poster child for this sin.

The sloth was extirpated before Taino societies developed.

Sloths have inhabited the Americas for millennia. In Florida there are fossil sloths that stood over 20 feet tall! Sloths (biological families Megalonychidae and Bradypodidae) are today found only in Central and South America, but they also occupied the larger Caribbean islands up to about 4,400 years ago. The fact that sloths survived in the Antilles long after they disappeared from most of the Americas (approximately 11,000 years ago) is an indication that humans had a hand in their extinction. Just as the giant sloths of Florida were exterminated shortly after the arrival of humans, new evidence from the insular Caribbean indicates that they suffered a similar fate (recently published by our colleague Dr. David Steadman). There has been 13 different species of sloths identified so far across the Caribbean islands (living on Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and Curaçao), none of which survived the encounter with the first hunters to enter this region. Thus, there is no Taíno word for the gentle and slow-moving sloth because their populations were extirpated long before the Taíno societies developed. A similar extinction occurred with monkeys living on Jamaica, Cuba, and Hispaniola.

There seems to be an early Spanish fascination with the sloths of Tierra Firme (Central America). Oviedo wrote, “they are quadrupeds, and on each small foot they have four long claws webbed together like those of a bird, but neither the claws nor the feet will support the animal. The legs are so small and the body so heavy, that the animal almost drags its belly on the ground. At the end of the [tall and straight neck] it has a face very round, very much like that of an owl. Its eyes are small and round; its nose like that of a monkey. Its mouth is very small and it moves its neck from one side to another like a stupid thing. Its voice, heard only at night, is quite different of any other animal in the world. It can be heard singing six tones, one higher and louder than the next, and always in descending order: la, sol, fa, mi, re, ut.” The “Sound of Music” sung in reverse!

Oviedo also reported, “No one can find out what this animal eats. I had one in my home, and from my observations I have come to believe that this animal lives on air. The sloth has never been seen to eat anything, but it turns its head and mouth into the wind more than any other direction, from which one can see that it is very fond of air.” We now know that sloths are omnivores that eat insects, small lizards and carrion, but their main diet is buds, tender shoots and leaves, primarily of the Cecropia tree. Leaves provide very little energy. Sloths have very complex stomachs to digest these plant foods, and maintain a very low metabolic rate and low body temperature. They were the largest package of meat available to the earliest human hunters in the Caribbean, and their slow demeanor made them easy to capture.

The Caribbean islands have been described as having a depauperate terrestrial fauna (a fancy way of saying that there are not a lot of land animals). Recent paleontological studies have shown that this was not always the case. Crocodiles, iguanas, tortoises, and dozens of birds disappeared from many islands soon after humans arrived. With regard to mammals, Charles Woods and Gary Morgan (formerly with the Florida Museum of Natural History) have identified what they call the 12% solution. Only 12% of the mammals that lived in the Caribbean in the past still survive today; the other 88% were driven to extinction, while new mammals have been introduced during historic times. The Taínos only had 11 names for mammals — four are for different kinds of dogs, five are rodents, and the last two live in the sea.

The main mammals of interest during Taíno times were the hutía and the cori (guinea pig). Hutía are a cat-size rodent that was endemic to many Caribbean islands, but there is also evidence that the Taínos and their ancestors moved them to other islands where they were penned and managed as a food source. There is evidence that guinea pigs were introduced from South America and moved around the islands in a similar way. Oviedo described the guinea pigs as similar to rabbits or young conies, noting, “they are not vicious and are very pretty. Some are entirely white, while others are white spotted with red and other colors.”

By the time Europeans arrived these animals were in such short supply that they were reserved as food for the chiefs. Although one might assume that only the chiefs were allowed to eat them, they played a more important role in the redistribution of foods during periodic feasts. In other words, the chiefs may have controlled their distribution, but everyone who attended the feast was allowed to eat them.

Populations of hutía can still be found in Jamaica (where they are called “coneys”) and Cuba. In fact, the U.S. Naval Station at Guantanámo Bay has a huge problem with these furry critters. Populations have grown dramatically within the boundaries of the base where they have no natural predators. One complication for the naval personnel is that these rodents commonly gnaw through the brake and coolant lines of their vehicles, so all of the cars and trucks have chicken wire attached to the chasse. Despite population control efforts, the “banana rat” (so named for their banana-shaped scat) is thriving.

There is a similar problem in the Bahamas. About 20 years ago the Bahamas National Trust decided to relocate hutías from the last natural population on the Plana Cays (near Acklins Island) to a cay in the Exumas called Warderick Wells. The favored food of hutía seems to be the bark of young trees, and the result has been nearly complete deforestation of the cay. Population studies have shown that in spite of the fact that hutía produce few offspring per year, the adults apparently never die! The population has grown at an exponential rate for the past 20 years. A further complication is that originally it was believed that hutía couldn’t swim and that it would be possible to confine them to a single island. Yet today there are hutía living on two cays adjacent to Warderick Wells and their voracious appetite is having similar devastating consequences for the vegetation. The Bahamas National Trust Scientific Advisory Committee is now discussing the challenge of saving an endangered species while preserving the local vegetation.

Rodents have long been part of the human diet. For the Taínos the hutía was a tasty treat reserved for special occasions. Today we view rodents as disgusting and distasteful (as lampooned in the Monty Python skit where “rat” was every other item on the menu, not to mention Spam). Our disgust with rats (rodents) comes from our experiences with the Norwegian rat (Rattus rattus). Not only do they pilfer crops, they also carry a variety of diseases, including the bubonic plague. Eating our food supply is one thing, but killing millions of people is quite another. [But we like mice, especially in Florida, where Mickey contributes millions of dollars per year to the state’s economy.]

The Norwegian rat was a stowaway on Columbus’ first voyage. During the excavation of the archaeological site at En Bas Saline, Haiti, Dr. Kathleen Deagan found that many of the animal bones in this site attributed to Columbus’ first settlement in the New World were from rats and pigs. Current evidence suggests that the Spanish contingent at En Bas Saline is Fort La Navidad, which was established after the sinking of the Santa Maria. As Kathy describes it, she found the evidence for the first rat to abandon a sinking ship in the Americas!

Archaeological and paleontological studies have shown that there was never a great diversity of mammals in the Caribbean islands. The one exception may be bats. This situation changed with the arrival of Europeans who brought horses, pigs, donkeys, new types of dogs, cats, rats, etc. These new mammals have had a huge impact on the local cultures and environments. Lacking competitors, and preying on animals that had lacked other predators for centuries, they transformed the Caribbean landscape. In many places they are now considered pests, and local governments are looking for humane ways to eradicate them. In essence we are looking at the potential for a new wave of mass extinction in the islands.

Returning to the underappreciated sloth, Oviedo wrote, “I have never seen such an ugly animal or one that is more useless.” But we think sloths actually have a sort of “Teddy bear” appearance, and are surprised that they have not achieved the same status as koalas, baby seals, and lemurs in the cute, cuddly, stuffed animal market.

Even though the sloth was literally “eaten off” of these islands over 4,000 years ago, this animal reminds us of what many of us love about life in the islands, particular the ritual of slowing down, turning to face the eastern tradewinds, and slowly digesting your evening meal. The animal may be gone, but they remain emblematic. The modern attraction to the Caribbean islands can at times be pretty well summed up by the seven deadly sins.  Sloth, while on vacation, is the least objectionable.

(We would be remiss if we did not also mention the seven heavenly virtues:  chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility. We will leave the Boy Scout law out of this for the time being.)

1Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, Natural History of the West Indies (translated and edited by Sterling A. Stoudemire), Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1959 [original 1526].

Dr. Bill Keegan is Curator of Caribbean Archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida. Dr. Betsy Carlson is Senior Archaeologist with Southeastern Archaeological Research, Inc. (SEARCH) in Jonesville, Florida, and affiliate faculty at the Florida Museum of Natural History. They are the authors of Talking Taino, published by The University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, ISBN – 13: 978-0-8173-5508-1.

Developing a sea ethic.

By Richard Plate and Marta Calosso ~ Photos By Marta Calosso

In 2008 we wrote an article for Times of the Islands providing an introduction to Aldo Leopold’s land ethic. Briefly, Leopold suggested that humans increase their sense of ethics to include “soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.” The article suggested ways in which we might translate Leopold’s ideas into a sea ethic. In this article, we look more closely at one specific aspect of Leopold’s ethic — what he called “thinking like a mountain.”

Leopold introduces this idea by describing an experience he had in the early 1900s as a forest ranger, coming upon a wolf mother and several cubs. “In those days,” he explains, “we had never heard of passing up a chance to kill a wolf. I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise.”

Wolves remain one of the most feared predators for many in the western United States because of their ability to harm humans and human property (e.g., cattle). But wolves also seem to evoke fear that goes beyond these potential threats and have a long history in human perception as the archetypal monster in the wilderness.

Can you think of any marine species that evoke a similar fear? If you were asked this question, say 150 years ago, you likely would have answered “whales.” While whales have benefitted for several decades from public awareness campaigns and as the center of many marine shows and major motion pictures, their sheer size prompted stories from sailors about the flesh-hungry leviathans that awaited humans in the deep sea.

Encounters between whaling ships and their prey fueled these ideas. Turks & Caicos Islands historian H.E. Sadler describes an encounter in which a TCI whaling ship failed to avoid a tail strike from the hunted whale, “Some of the men jumped overboard in time, but others were scattered by the blow which smashed the boat in half.”

But whales probably weren’t the first animals to come to mind when I mentioned “monster in the wilderness.” Today a different class of animals holds the title of most feared creatures of the sea: sharks.

Thinking like an ocean

After emptying his rifle into the pack of wolves, Leopold walked down to the wolf mother just in time to “watch the fierce green fire dying in her eyes.” He realized then that wolves too had an important role to play in the larger picture, thinking about the ecological function of those wolves — controlling the deer population.

Without the top-down control from the wolves, the deer population would continue to grow until there was eventually nothing left to eat. The result would be a forest largely defoliated by deer and deer dying of starvation. Leopold came to suspect that “just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer.”

Today we know that not only do wolves act as a top-down control on deer populations, but they also pick out the weak, the sick, or the old as their targets. Analogous functions can be seen in many apex predators, the term used to describe species whose adults are generally not preyed upon by other species. Typically, apex predators sit at the end of long food chains, so population changes in apex predators cascade through the rest of the ecosystem.

As you may have guessed, many species of sharks are apex predators. Like wolves, they tend to feed on easy-to-capture prey, such as weak, sick, very old or very young individuals. By feeding on sick or weak fish, sharks not only help keep diseases under control, but also allow more fit individuals to survive and reproduce. More fit adults will produce more fit young, and so on.

Sharks also play a role in maintaining biodiversity in the ocean, by preventing explosion of single species that might cause other species to die out. So when we make changes to their populations, we can expect to see further changes in the ecosystems where they hunt. These changes are unpredictable, but here’s an example of what the effects can look like.

A study published in Science magazine in 2007 showed that major reductions in large shark species in the North Atlantic resulted in increased populations of their prey species, including cownose rays (a type of stingray). With the depletion of several large shark species in the North Atlantic, cownose ray populations have been shown to have increased as much as 1,000% in some places.

Cownose rays feed largely on mollusks, including scallops. Scientists have suggested that the collapse of the scallop industry in Chesapeake Bay can be attributed to the increased predation pressure from cownose rays. This is what is meant by the cascading effect: a decrease in large sharks leads to an increase in their common prey (cownose rays) which then leads to a decrease in scallops. Other scientists have linked the decline in mollusks to decreased water quality in coastal systems. Mollusks are filter feeders, meaning they filter their food out of the water. With fewer mollusks around, less water gets filtered.

So it is not only the marine ecosystems that benefit from sharks. Humans benefit too. We might say, following Leopold, that while cownose rays may live in mortal fear of sharks, coastal systems live in mortal fear of too many cownose rays.

From fear to fascination

Dr. John Claydon observes a pregnant nurse shark resting on the seagrass.

Sharks are impressive predators, powerful and elegant as they swim through their domain with absolute confidence. But these days that confidence is misplaced. In truth, sharks are not apex predators any longer. They have yielded that role, like so many other apex predators, to humans.

Many species of sharks have declined rapidly over the last few decades, some declining by more than 80% in 20 years due to overfishing. Unlike other fish, sharks are particularly vulnerable to exploitation because they grow slowly, mature late in life, and reproduce infrequently, giving birth to only a few pups each time.

If sharks continue to be killed at the present rate, many shark populations may be permanently damaged or even disappear. But sharks lack the furry cuteness of a harbor seal or the playful charisma of a dolphin. They are seen as killing machines despite the fact that humans are very rarely their targets. Consequently, shark conservationists have a difficult time garnering public support for their cause. In fact, sharks are not the “killing machines” that have been portrayed in movies and books. They are simply predators who have managed to persist since before the dinosaurs.

Sharks in the Turks & Caicos Islands

The Turks & Caicos Islands are home to a number of shark species, including reef, nurse, lemon, tiger, hammerhead, and bull sharks. There are no regulations that formally protect sharks in TCI waters. However, sharks are not the primary target of any fisheries.

The Caribbean reef shark (Carcharhinus perezii) is the most commonly seen on reefs, where it can be found swimming gracefully in the water column. Measuring up to 3 metres (10 feet) long, it is one of the largest apex predators in the reef ecosystem.

The nurse shark (Ginglymostoma cirratum) usually sleeps under ledges during the day, and it is active in the night. The name comes from the feeding habit of biting down and slowly sucking the prey (generally crabs, lobsters, and mollusks). During mating season, adult nurse sharks aggregate in large numbers (up to 50 individuals) over seagrass flats off some TCI cays.

Marta Calosso holds a young lemon shark prior to tagging in the waters off South Caicos.

While adult lemon sharks (Negaprion brevirostris) mostly live on reefs and are rarely encountered, baby lemon sharks are commonly found in mangrove habitats all over TCI. Lemon shark populations are dependent on shallow coastal habitat, often fringed by the red mangroves that act as “nursery areas.” Advantages of nurseries include abundance of food and protection from larger predators. Unfortunately, nursery areas are often vulnerable habitats due to their proximity to land and exposure to human activities (e.g. increase of coastal development). Appropriate management of these important areas is a conservation priority and more information on the use of nurseries by apex predators such as lemon shark is needed.

Juvenile lemon sharks have been a research focus at the School for Field Studies, Center for Marine Resource Studies in South Caicos for several years. Our aim is to look at potential nursery areas for lemon sharks around South Caicos. Specifically, we are assessing the distribution of juvenile lemon sharks, their sizes, their growth rates and residency over time. Finally, we are looking at all of these factors in comparison to other lemon shark study sites in the world.

Present knowledge of lemon sharks originates from only a few locations and therefore may not be representative of a species with such a wide distribution (western Atlantic, eastern Pacific, and west coast of Africa). For a more comprehensive understanding of lemon sharks, further research in alternative locations such as the TCI is needed. This would enhance our ability to conserve this threatened species, especially in the face of rapid development occurring worldwide.

Putting it into practice

We are not suggesting that you attempt to befriend the next shark you see. We hope that seeing them elicits caution and awe, not fear. Leopold’s epiphany did not lead him to go live with wolves. But he did stop shooting them. And he became a proponent of ecosystem level wildlife management (i.e., valuing species for their contribution to the health of the ecosystem).

Developing a sea ethic means seeing sharks not as menacing monsters, but as valuable members of the marine community. There are some who think that a sharkless ocean would mean a swimmer’s paradise. That is because they base their views on fear and misperceptions, and they have not learned to think like an ocean.

Scholars disagree about whether our fear of sharks stems from deep-seated psychological tendencies or mass-media coverage of sharks that has largely emphasized sensationalism over accuracy. In truth both probably play a role.

Whatever the cause, these fears are based largely on misperceptions. We might take a lesson from Leopold for hints about getting past these fears and understanding sharks for what they are: important members of marine ecosystems.

It’s worth noting here that there are over 350 species of sharks, most of which do not fit the fear-inspiring vision that most people picture. For example, the cigar shark tops out at six inches, hardly material for the next Hollywood thriller. Globally, we’ve averaged about five fatal shark attacks per year for the last several years. According to the International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida this means that you are about 100 times more likely to die from a lightning strike than from a shark attack.  However, you are only slightly more likely to die from a sand-hole cave-in at the beach than a shark attack. For more interesting statistics, see www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks/attacks/relarisk.htm.

Adventures in the TCI’s Salt Islands.

Admit it. You arrive on Providenciales, get one breathtaking glimpse of Grace Bay Beach, and feel like you’ll stay put. You think it can’t get better than this. Other than an excursion to one of the cays, you won’t venture far.  I can tell you that’s a missed opportunity. For such a small archipelago, the Turks & Caicos offers much diversity; each island has a unique personality.

Why venture off the beaten path? You’ll be rewarded with stunning beaches that are truly secluded. You’ll view landscapes that take your breath away. You’ll meet local people that may become your friends for life. You’ll learn how creative people can be when they live in an isolated place.  And best of all, you’ll step back in time to a more laid back era with old Caribbean charm. Let the adventures begin!

Grand Turk, South Caicos and Salt Cay are often referred to as TCI’s “Salt Islands” because each was part of the country’s important salt industry. It is known that salt was collected from the Turks & Caicos Islands before the 17th century, on until the 1960s. The remnants of this industry are seen on these islands in the form of abandoned salinas, tattered windmills, historic Bermudian buildings and water-beaten docks, providing a “living history” lesson for visitors that is not found elsewhere.

Most of Turks & Caicos’ outer islands are easy to reach from Provo. Some do require some creativity; but all are worth exploring. Once you arrive, you’ll find some islands you can walk, some you can travel via golf cart, some require rental cars and some require boats. Sometimes part of the adventure is just getting there.

Numerous times I have organized my own day trip to Grand Turk. Cockburn Town is here, the country’s capital. Being only 8 miles long and about 1 mile wide, Grand Turk is much smaller than Provo, with a lower population. There are a number of scheduled daily flights on Air Turks & Caicos, so it’s easy to plan a day in Grand Turk and return in time for dinner.

My first trip to Grand Turk started off rather ominously. Already a nervous flyer, my palms grew even sweatier when the plane stopped at South Caicos to pick up a prisoner. He was on his way to court, but thankfully was well behaved during the 10 minute flight. I was picked up by Tony Clarke, who owns a local taxi service and car rental company, for a tour of the island. We visited the lighthouse, Her Majesty’s Prison, even “Nookie Hill” (which is exactly what you think it is). As we passed the airport, I saw a replica of Senator John Glenn’s space capsule, remembered for his landing in these waters after being the first American to orbit the earth. The astronaut noted from space that the Turks & Caicos waters looked like the most beautiful in the world.

During the tour, Tony explained that on a small island, places often have “obvious” names, and sometimes multiple names. For instance, names make sense: Front Street is the first street that faces the ocean; Prison Folly is where the prison is located and Back Salina is the area behind the old salinas, natch. He showed me a restaurant that had an “official” name of Sap’s Fish Fry, but it commonly known as “Chubbies,” and that’s how everyone referred to it. Places and even beaches have names like this, and it finally made sense — with streets not always marked and multiple names for the same places — why it was always hard to get directions on an island.

Tony dropped me off at Front Street, which is quiet and colorful, with old colonial buildings painted many different colors, all faded by the sun. Most of the original buildings were built from pieces of timber from shipwrecked boats that had washed ashore. Grand Turk is like stepping back in time to an easier life, with no one hurrying or rushing from place to place.  Some folks travel by bike, and everyone must stop for chickens, donkeys, cows, horses and land crabs crossing the road. Everyone says “Hello” to passersby and seems to know each other. The churches open their doors and let organ music spill out to the street. Some of the buildings have bright red roofs of corrugated iron which contrast spectacularly with the turquoise sea. At the end of Front Street, I stopped at the Turks & Caicos National Museum, one of the Caribbean’s best. For such a small country, the museum contains many different types of artifacts, representing everything from pirates’ treasures, to the remains of Spanish galleons, souvenirs of visits from the Queen, a display about John Glenn’s space splashdown and a collection of “messages” from bottles that have washed up on these shores.

On one of my many trips to Grand Turk I met Tim Dunn from Oasis Divers. He took me on an excursion to Gibbs Cay where I could feed and swim with stingrays. I was nervous, yet excited with the rays swimming around me in those crystal clear waters; I took many pictures that day. This adventure typically includes a BBQ lunch complete with conch salad made from conch freshly harvested from surrounding waters.

On another trip, I decided to stay for several days to better experience the Grand Turk vibe. I met many locals that I now consider friends. Jenny Smith from Osprey Beach Hotel told me tales of surviving hurricanes. Mitch Rolling, the veteran operator from Blue Water Divers, not only could tell stories of the sea, but at night was in a band that was the island’s entertainment.

This was part of my lesson in learning that Islanders are multi-talented, and often “jacks-of-all-trades.” Your taxi driver can also be the island’s best electrician; a restaurant owner can find you a boat to Salt Cay; a power company linesman was instrumental in starting a library. It’s always worth having a conversation to dig beneath the surface of first impressions.

During one of my visits, there was a cruise ship at the multi-million dollar Grand Turk Cruise Center and the shops and restaurant was open. Although only three miles from Cockburn Town, going to the cruise port terminal is like being in another world . . . Disney World, that is. You can buy duty free liquor, jewelry, watches and perfumes or search for tourist trinkets as places like Ron Jon’s Surf Shop and Piranha Joe’s. I sat by the pool at the world’s largest Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville, where the people-watching was terrific and cruise-ship activities continued on land. I ended that day back in town at The Sand Bar, a friendly local watering hole. The two sisters that own it told me they had seen the elusive “Green Flash” just prior to sunset numerous times on Grand Turk. (I thought it was just a myth.) I had just enough time to go back to the airport and return on the 25 minute flight to Provo, where I enjoyed an elegant dinner overlooking Grace Bay Beach.

Another day, because I was researching for a guidebook, I was invited to visit Ambergris Cay. A private, upscale island southwest of Grand Turk, it is home to the Turks & Caicos Sporting Club, a millionaire escapist’s dream. This upscale residential community offers home sites ranging from $650,000 to $6.5 million with members enjoying world-class fishing, a deep water marina, environmental learning center, spa, and fine-dining. To get there, I was whisked away on a private plane, the kind with all leather seats and headphones that drown out airplane noise. The runway was totally unique and seemed to float over the shimmering blue-green ocean; I later learned it is the longest lighted paved private airstrip in the Caribbean. Not only is Ambergris Cay a sportsman’s paradise, but it has fields of Turks Head Cacti, a surprising sight. Ambergris Cay gets its name from the whale’s secretion ambergris, quantities of which frequently washed up on the cay. Years ago, it was a valuable substance for its use in perfume and medicines, and many a Bermudian made a small fortune from its discovery. During my day at the cay, we boated to uninhabited Little Ambergris Cay for the most superb bonefishing I could imagine. (At one point, the guide estimated there were about 200 bonefish in the water!)

Also in the guise of researching my guidebook, I traveled by boat to explore West Caicos. (Although development of the project is currently on hold, a portion of the island is set aside as the West Caicos Reserve, an exclusive retreat centering around a Ritz-Carlton boutique hotel and marina harbour town, with villas and custom homesites available.) The sheer, coral-encrusted underwater wall off West Caicos, separating the shallows from a dramatic 7,000 ft. drop into the ocean bottom, is a favorite site for dive trips from Provo. Although divers rave at the spectacular underwater scenery there, I love West Caicos’ topside, too. It’s fairly lush, with scores of native palms. Lake Catherine, in the middle of the island, has brilliant turquoise water and is home to even brighter pink flamingos. I was so excited to get closer to the flamingos that I tried to walk in the pond water; I didn’t know the underwater sand was more like quicksand. My feet buried quickly in it and I got stuck. It was just ankle deep, but the sand was wet and heavy, and I had to relinquish my favorite flip-flops to escape. Now barefooted, I saw the ruins of an old 1800s town, and learned that pirates used to frequent the island’s many rocky inlets. I also experienced the Turks & Caicos version of cliff diving!

Finally, I ventured to South Caicos, which in the 1960s was one of the busiest places in the country, due to the international airport’s status as a prime refuelling station for private aircraft and pleasure yachts. While tourism has slowed from those heydays, there are daily flights on Air Turks & Caicos, and South Caicos Ocean and Beach Resort is a comfortable place to stay. While further development has stalled over the years, plans for a new resort, with a clubhouse, casino and marina, are expected to come to fruition soon.

South Caicos can rightfully boast some of the best diving in the world. The consistent visibility of more than 200 feet is among the clearest water I’ve seen, and the dramatic wall drop-offs had dozens of creatures swimming around me, including whales in the winter months. Greg Wasik  from South Caicos Divers took me out on his boat to the outer reef with two other divers. The most amazing dive was a huge plane wreck, a Covair 29A, which ran out of gas when it was trying to land. The plane had been used for drug running in the 1970s, and the pilot actually survived. The main hull of the plane with the full wings is still intact, and the tail and nose are separate, making for three different dive spots. There is even a resident barracuda who accompanied me during the dive.

Later on, Greg set me up with Mr. Holton Lightbourne for a taxi tour of the island. We drove through the town of Cockburn Harbour, with its clapboard, pastel colored houses and bright red iron roofs. Unfortunately, since my visit, Hurricane Ike unleashed its fury on South Caicos, and the town is still in need of some repair. Fortunately, the reefs sustained no damage, and the waters are just as clear as ever. The waters are so pristine that South Caicos is the location for the School for Field Studies, a US-based institution which offers hands-on environmental studies abroad.

While I wasn’t able to attend, the South Caicos Regatta is held the last weekend in May every year since its beginning in 1967. Festivities include a sailing regatta, boat races, a beauty pageant, float parades, junkanoo, donkey races, May pole platting, gospel music and big name entertainment.

Also known as East Harbour, South Caicos can boast the country’s finest natural harbour. Once a bustling port for the thriving salt industry, divers can see the granite ballast that was thrown overboard to lighten the ships as they approached the harbour to pick up their loads. Today the once-famous port serves as the base for the island’s thriving conch and lobster fishery.

I highly recommend spending the night on South Caicos so you can take advantage of the diving, and not have  to worry about flying afterwards. Besides the resort, you can eat dinner at one of several restaurants based out of people’s houses, usually serving whatever the catch of the day happens to be. The restaurants’ names — Mama Love’s,  Darryl’s or Dolphin Pub — serve as a reminder that you are definitely far from cookie-cutter fast food establishments.

I like to save the best for last. Salt Cay, with its epithet, “The Land that Time Forgot,” did seem that way. It took some effort to plan a day trip from Provo. In years past, either the water was too choppy to boat over from Grand Turk, or flights would be cancelled or changed with no warning.  In August 2008 (just prior to Hurricane Ike’s devastation) I learned that Friday is the best day to make the trip.

Salt Cay is really tiny, only three miles long and about one mile wide. From the air it looks like a giant salt pond, and, quite honestly, did not seem that appealing to me. Yet, after spending the day I completely changed my mind and fell in love.

I knew Salt Cay was small enough to walk around, but I also knew it would be a lot more fun renting a golf cart to explore. The “airport” is really a one room building, so small that there are no taxi drivers waiting for planes to land to take you anywhere. So I walked past the salt ponds with a parade of donkeys following me to the purple building with yellow and turquoise trim — Island Thyme Bistro. The owner, Porter Williams, was the first person I met. He, in turn, called Candy Herwin, the owner of Pirate’s Hideaway Guesthouse, for a golf cart rental. Island Thyme is one of THE places to hang out; Porter is the unofficial “everything Salt Cay” promoter. The bistro is a great place to start, decorated with Haitian art on the walls and colorful trinkets on the bar. I walked down to Pirate’s Hideaway to pick up the golf cart, and Candy showed me her guest house. Her brother Nick gave me a tour along the no-name, packed-sand side streets of Balfour Town. (It seemed that only Victoria Street, the main street, has an “official” name.) Of course, everyone knows where everything is — locations are “next to Pat’s house” or “past the old governor’s home” or “beside the purple shack” Pat’s, one of three places to eat on the island, only cooks what was caught fresh that day . . . and only if you call ahead and make reservations.

Nick showed me the White House, a stately salt proprietor’s manor built in 1835 with ballast stone and from the ship’s timbers that brought the family to Salt Cay. The salt house is an example of classic Bermudan architecture with the living quarters on the upper level and salt storage underneath. In the 1800s, salt was as valuable as gold and at one point, Salt Cay provided 90% of the world’s salt. In its heyday, over 100 vessels a year left the island with their cargo of “white gold,” a valuable trade commodity, important in food preservation to the colonies in the north. I followed Nick through paths along the salt ponds, and we went further down Victoria Street, past the colorful library and government building. At the other end of the street were two (rumored to be) pirate’s graves. What was surprising was how small the rock “caskets” seemed.

Because Nick had the golf cart equivalent of an SUV, I hopped on his and we visited a section of North Beach that most people don’t venture to. It was breathtaking. You could see a shark swim by the shoreline and the water was so turquoise it glowed.

Back on my own cart, I went to another stretch of North Beach on which two donkeys were hanging out — what a sight! I walked the length of the beach, which I had all to myself most of the day. It was one of the most stunning strands of sand on which I have ever laid eyes. I was hypnotized by the different hues of blues and the bright white, powder-soft sand. Across the way, Grand Turk was in sight and I could see a cruise ship parked at the port. I walked down to the Windmills Plantation; closed to make way for a proposed golf course/resort development. I regretted never having stayed at this Salt Cay gem. The colors of its roofs — bright turquoise, yellow and red —represented its magical atmosphere, with a touch of whimsy. The owner, Guy Lovelace, wrote The Carnival Never Got Started, a tale of the trials and tribulations of building a resort in paradise. I read the book after returning to Provo, and could picture everything he wrote about. (Note: Hurricane Ike destroyed the Windmills and, due to its sale, there are no plans to rebuild this fantastical paradise.)

Eventually breaking away from the beach’s beauty, I made my way to the Coral Reef Bar and Grill for a beer and to chat with locals. There I met Willingham and Stedman, divers by day, musicians by night. I really wanted to meet Debbie Manos, owner of Salt Cay Divers, after speaking to her many times by phone over the years. Of course I picked the day she decided to go shopping to Grand Turk. Everyone said, “Don’t worry; you can meet her when she gets off the plane and when you get on, unless they cancel the flight.” Funny! The beachfront Green Flash Café was another colorful place to have a drink and catch up on gossip. (Unfortunately, it was destroyed by Hurricane Ike.)

I decided to end my day back where I started, at Island Thyme Bistro, this time with my new friends.  Walking back, I was approached by numerous locals that had to say “Hi” to the new visitor with the big camera. Porter told me nights are lively here, with pizza specials and karaoke. He could even set up pedicures, massages and cooking classes. I know I’d return soon, with whale sightings in the Columbus Passage during the winter season being some of the best in the world.

As promised, I met Debbie coming off the plane as I was boarding. What I discovered about my day on Salt Cay is that the place gets under your skin and into your blood. It has character, and seems full of characters. It was special to see how people get along with the quirks of island life, and I feel that I made friends for life.

I constantly revel that a small archipelago can be so upscale and modern, yet rustic and charming. I found ambience and tranquility, things to do or nothing to do, gorgeous beaches and wonderful people. I’ve become a Turks & Caicos devotee for life and I am so glad I decided to explore the variety it has to offer. The more I see, the more I love.

If there be any earthly Paradyse in the worlde, it can not be farre from these regions of the south, where the heaven is so beneficiall and the elements so temperate that they are neither bitten with the coulde in winter, nor molested with heate in summer.

Amerigo Vespucci, 1499

It was the fourth voyage that Christopher Columbus made to the New World. In 1498 he was sailing along the northeast coast of South America near Trinidad when he started getting strange navigational readings, which he took to indicate that he was sailing uphill. Being a devout Catholic, he interpreted this situation as evidence that there was a prominence on the earth shaped like a woman’s breast, on which would be found the “Terrestrial Paradise” (Garden of Eden). And since no man could go there without God’s permission, he changed course and sailed to the west.

As unbelievable as this story may sound, it is absolutely true.  Columbus understood the concept of sea “level,” so how could he imagine that he was sailing up a hill? His interpretation may have been based on his religious beliefs, but they also suggest that he had been at sea (and away from his wife) for far too long. From our vantage point, we can surmise that what Columbus failed to recognize was that he was sailing through the very strong, and largely freshwater, current that flows north through the Gulf of Paría (separating Trinidad from Venezuela) – a product of the enormous discharge of the Orinoco River. When it comes to traveling, sometimes it can be a real challenge to get where you are going.

It is hard not to be reminded of that old Bob & Ray comedy routine: A tourist in Maine approaches an old man on the side of the road and asks directions. The old man gives a complicated set of directions and then concludes, “no, that won’t work.” He then gives an even more complicated set of directions and again concludes, “No, that won’t work either.” Then yet again . . . and finally the old man looks at the tourist and says, “You can’t get there from here.” (It’s funnier with a Maine accent!)

For us, for Columbus, and for the Taínos, transportation has always been a major issue. The Taínos had only two choices – overland on foot (this is known as “walking”, which has become an increasingly rare form of transportation), or by water in boats. Columbus had the same two options, although his boats had slightly more room for relaxing on deck. However, keep in mind that the term “canoe” (some Taíno names for canoe are canoa, cayuco, and yuco) had much different implications in the past than it does today. Columbus observed Taíno “canoes” on the south coast of Cuba that had brightly painted bowsprits, were almost 100 feet long, and were driven by 90 men with paddles (naje). Imagine trying to squeeze 90 people into what today we call a canoe!?

Columbus described Taíno canoes as hollowed from a single log, often the trunk of a huge Ceiba or silk cotton tree. In order to construct a canoe you needed to first ask permission from the ancestors to cut down the tree, because the Ceiba was home to the ancestral spirits. Among the Warao Indians of the Orinoco Delta, only those who possessed sacred knowledge were allowed to build canoes. There were many forms of insurance that went into making canoes seaworthy.

When you live on an island, there is no more important form of transportation than a boat; they are essential to island life. Overwater travel was extremely important for the Taínos, and as such the only Taíno words that we know that relate to travel have to do with boats, bodies of water (ama, ni or ne), and how far away places are. In the Taíno language, something that was far away was called ya, but if it was really far away, it was called yaya (Yaya is also the name of their principal god, the supreme being with “no name”). The Taíno also had a word for outsiders – people who lived far away and didn’t belong to your group – they were called cuba.

For us, getting to and from various archaeological sites has often involved boats, and we have had our share of memorable boating experiences, like running out of gas at night off the north coast of Haiti and waiting for the morning fishermen to come help us out. Back in 1979, Keegan and Chal Misick sailed across the Caicos Bank to look for cave sites on East Caicos that had been reported in 1912, only to run aground several times. When you are stuck on a mound of sand in the middle of the Caicos Bank waiting for the tide to turn, you are very far from where you thought you were going to end up (thank God we picked up Lee Penn in South Caicos who really knew how to sail!). Sometimes you have to be inventive to get where you want to go. On a survey job at Silly Creek in Provo, we were ferried to work on jet skis.

The best way to do archaeological surveying is on foot. Unfortunately, archaeological sites are not always located near modern roads or even within walking distance of a bar. Travel on foot through the forest can be difficult. Anyone who has been in the “bush” knows that under a canopy of trees you lack visual references to direction, and the density of the vegetation can sometimes make passage almost impossible; this is what’s known as the “wall of bush” (the Taínos called it jiba). You can’t go under it, over it, around it, or through it, but somehow (with the help of machetes) you keep moving forward. The Taínos didn’t have machetes, but an advantage that they may have had is that when the bush contains primary mature forest, there are fewer obstructions because large trees prevent the growth of a dense understory.

So did the Taínos simply ramble through the forest, or did they build trails and roads? Like any of us would, the Taínos cleared trails to their gardens and between their villages. An elegant piece of evidence pointing to the use of prehistoric roads comes from the north coast of Haiti, where Clark Moore recognized that large Taíno villages were located at 27 km (17 mile) intervals. This interval represents a one-day, or about an eight-hour, leisurely walk. Today, walking 17 miles to visit your neighbor seems unrealistic, yet it is all what you are used to. In Haiti, where walking is the primary form of transportation, we frequently encountered people who had walked for miles with a bag of charcoal on their head. During one of our surveys we asked directions in broken Kweyol and began following our guide. After about a mile we realized that the person thought we were lost and was leading us back to our hotel – 25 miles away!

Over the years we have walked at least a thousand miles looking for archaeological sites, often covering 10 to 15 miles in a day. If you are doing a beach survey and you are at sea level, the horizon is about seven miles away.  You start out walking in the morning and you reach the “horizon” by noon! You reach your second “horizon” by dinner!

Walking along the beach is one thing, but cutting cross-country is quite different. When Dr. Shaun Sullivan did his research at MC-6 in 1978 he followed a 3.5 km (2 mile) trail from Bambarra that was maintained by Simon Forbes. Simon was then burning charcoal on the margins of Armstrong Pond. When we returned to work at the site in 1999, Simon had stopped going to Armstrong Pond and it took us six days to cut a new trail.

Getting your bearings within such an environment often requires regular tree climbing. Once, Keegan had the unfortunate experience of climbing a tree on Crooked Island in The Bahamas during a rainstorm to figure out where he was, and then realized that he was in a poisonwood tree!

In many parts of the world animals were used to replace walking or the transport of heavy burdens (horses, donkeys, oxen, llamas, camels, elephants, etc.). These animals were not available in the Americas (except llamas – and we’ll refrain from the Ogden Nash rhyme) until Europeans reintroduced them. We mention “reintroduced” because there were horses, camelids, and elephants (mammoths and mastodons) in the Americas until about 10,000 years ago. A major question for paleontologists is whether the first arrival of humans, who hunted them for food, or climate change at the end of the Pleistocene Epoch led to their extinction. Columbus brought horses on his second voyage. When the Taínos first saw men on horseback they thought they were one creature, like the mythical Centaur. Horses provided the Spanish with a huge advantage over the native peoples they subjugated. On one occasion we did travel to a site in Jamaica on horseback, but this was more for fun than necessity.

The last form of transportation that has been around for centuries but was never used by the Taínos is the wheel. In fact, the only evidence for wheels in the pre-European Americas is found on children’s toys in the Maya area. We wonder if they too played the game where you keep a wheel upright while propelling it with a stick.

Our modern investigations of the Taínos have been strongly dependent on wheels. Starting with the two-wheeled variety, Dr. Shaun Sullivan used a collapsible bicycle during his archaeological surveys in the Turks & Caicos in 1977. At that time there were only two trucks on Middle Caicos, and somehow these two trucks managed to get into a head-on collision! He also used a motorcycle to investigate possible site locations on Eleuthera.

Survey trucks are a whole other breed of vehicle. We rented a red pickup truck on Grand Turk one year that backfired and spewed sparks across the road every time you shifted gears. On our daily trips between North Creek and Waterloo we would send pedestrians scattering for cover as the truck passed through town. On St. Lucia our truck had only second and fourth gear when the transmission got hot; this necessitated zipping around hairpin-turns to maintain speed in order to ascend a steep slope. This was more memorable to the ten people in the bed of the truck.

Our most interesting forms of transport, however, were in southwest Jamaica. Each day, to get to our sites we had to cross the Dean’s Valley River. The first year we crossed the river in a cattle cart pulled by a large tractor. The next year we had a “jitney.” similar to the trams they use at Disney World. Every day, “tru da riva,” was the warning call sounded for everyone to get up on their seats and secure the gear as the water rushed across the jitney. The third year we graduated to a Land Rover that had been used in an off-road race across Africa. Camel cigarettes (the main sponsor) shipped the vehicle to Jamaica for promotional photographs. Using the spotlights on the roof, this vehicle was a great help in catching land crabs at night.

Transportation, and the development of new ways to get to places that “you can’t get there from here,” has been a major part of cultural evolution for thousands of years. We have used all kinds of transport to conduct our research on the Taínos, and the Taínos had their own forms of transport. But modern development requires new forms of access. In this regard, the Turks & Caicos is now investing in the construction of a road and bridges that will connect Middle Caicos with Provo. There are environmental issues to consider, but from the human perspective the new road will facilitate movement (and development) to the formerly “remote” islands of North and Middle Caicos. What we see is a future in which a visitor to Leeward Going Through asks, “Does this road go to Bambarra?” and the Belonger answers, “This road don’t go nowhere, it just rests here.”

Dr. Bill Keegan is Curator of Caribbean Archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida. Dr. Betsy Carlson is Senior Archaeologist with Southeastern Archaeological Research, Inc. (SEARCH) in Jonesville, Florida, and affiliate faculty at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

Make no mistake: Scuba diving is serious business. To get certified, you have to study a fair bit of science, including the physics of gases, and be able to calculate atmospheres and air compression. You have to understand how to read Navy dive tables and use them to plan dives. You have to pass a written test and prove your skills 30 feet beneath sea level. And yet once you’ve got your “C card” and are officially a diver, you should be prepared to have the most fun one can have, legally.

Sure, the underwater world is beautiful and peaceful and relaxing and exotic. But the thing you don’t hear often about scuba diving is that sometimes it’s LOL–funny down there. Divemasters blowing “water” rings, couples goosing each other through their wetsuits, kids of all ages playing Hangman on their dive slates during safety stops: Good stuff, but that’s human humor. Barbara’s and my favorite way to crack up underwater is by observing the odd, amusing and always entertaining behavior of the critters themselves. Hunting and mating are two activities you can count on for high entertainment value, which is one reason to slow down in the water. Why rush off to the next hunk of reef? Stick around, work to achieve neutral buoyancy, where you are perfectly still in the water and neither bobbing up like an apple nor sinking like a brick. Move slowly, gracefully . . . keep your eyes peeled and pay attention. Because just when you least expect it, a fish is likely to do something to make you smile. And trust us, to do that while breathing through a regulator and not swallow water takes practice!

Exhibit A: the whitespotted filefish

The tropical Pacific Ocean lays claim to the ever-popular clownfish, but we think the whitespotted filefish is every bit as cute — plus, at a maximum length of 18 inches, there’s a lot more of him to love. With its colorful orange and black markings, bright yellow accents and white spots that appear during its first phase of life (not to mention its fat tummy and pucker-up white lips), this funny fellow could be the honorary clownfish of the Caribbean.

Viewed from the side, you can’t tell how slender this fish really is. And in the water, he moves slowly and in one plane; he doesn’t undulate like many softer-boned species. You can always spot one (so to speak) from a distance by his angle — almost always at 45º (lips up or down). But when it’s time for a gill cleaning, or better yet, some dental work, this handsome guy can practically hit 90º! We especially love their pre-mating rituals, when they circle one another back and forth and create the loveliest patterns. There’s a reason I have longed for fish-patterned swimsuits. Mother Nature is the ultimate artist!

If the whitespotted filefish had a Facebook page, his profile might read something like this:

Networks: Shallow coral reefs
Status: Usually in a relationship
Strength: Great at camouflage
Weakness: Not a great swimmer (blame my small fins!)
Fave foods: Algae, seagrass, small invertebrate or coral
Fun fact: Humans used to dry my skin and use it to finish wooden boats.

Exhibit B (Confiscated by TSA?): jackknife fish

This pair of 8-inch-long jackknife fish are the only ones we’ve ever seen in the reefs off Grand Turk. They were first seen several years ago at the base of a shallow coral head, where they took up residence until a bad storm blew in. Talk about riding shotgun! Next time they were seen was at a completely different coral head. But after a hurricane in 2007, they disappeared for good. Denizens of Florida and the Bahamas, jackknife fish are quite rare in the Caribbean. When you do spy one, you usually get double your money’s worth because they tend to stay in pairs. In fact, that’s one of the easiest ways to distinguish this elegant little guy from his cousins the highhat and the spotted drum (especially the adorably hyperkinetic juvenile, which is actually smaller).

Check out his Facebook page:

Nickname: Jack
Fave color: black and white (duh!)
Height: 3–4 inches
Atlantic or Caribbean: Atlantic!
Fun fact: I’m one of the few fish not in Wikipedia!

Exhibitionist C: grouper

“Lazy” isn’t a word typically used to describe fish, but that was exactly the first word that came to Barbara’s mind when she spotted a Nassau grouper apparently catching some zzzz’s on a large sponge in Grand Turk. Later she learned he was neither snoozing nor double-parked while the wife ran in to pick up dinner; he was at a cleaning station, the very common (and commonly missed by new divers) arrangement fish have with one another to get parasites removed from their skin, gills and mouths by a class of little critters called cleaner fish. (It’s fun to identify a cleaning station: Look for small yellow fish flittering in small groups above the corals. But keep your distance. The cleanees are vulnerable, and when they sense our presence, they skedaddle.)

Barbara says despite groupers’ rep for being anti-social, she’s known some to be very curious. “When diving at Coral Gardens off Grand Turk, my usual routine is to hang around with the other divers at first to photograph them gently interacting with Alexander, the resident grouper greeter. After a few minutes, I will swim off on my own. I was really startled the first couple of times that I got bumped by something. When I looked around, I saw it was a grouper — who seemed to want its picture taken.” Fair enough, she thought, but apparently shooting a fish is about as easy as photographing a puppy. As Barbara says,“You try to explain to an overly friendly, three-foot-long fish that it needs to stay at least 16 inches away for you to focus!”

Alexander is as much a fixture at Coral Gardens as Snoopy is at the Thanksgiving Day Parade. And he always wants to be petted. He and Barbara go way back. Of her friend she says, “This large Nassau grouper actually enjoys having his chin scratched by legendary divemaster Smitty (Algrove Smith, owner of Grand Turk Diving). For those of you who might be concerned about the ethical question of making ‘pets’ of wild things by feeding them, let me say that I have never seen Smitty or anyone in his dive group feed any marine creature.”

There must be something about groupers. I have personally witnessed this phenomenon at three other dive locations outside the TCI: always Nassau groupers, usually more than one, and always at the same popular shallow site. I agree with Barbara: It’s not about food. They genuinely like the attention and affection. See, we told you fish were funny!

Sometimes it isn’t the fish per se that’s amusing but his choice of swimming partner. Trumpetfish, those long, slender fish that change color before your eyes and dip 90º headfirst into soft coral, love tailgaiting. They’re frequently seen with jack, but occasionally you’ll see one hovering directly above a plump grouper like a shadow — or a halo. Whither goeth the grouper, so goeth the trumpetfish. They’re the Jack Sprat and his wife of the sea. We can only assume he’s waiting for the grouper’s leftovers.

On deck: shortnose batfish

Talk about a master of disguise: Even the most sharp-sighted diver can swim back and forth over a batfish and never see it. This shallow-bottom-dweller blends in perfectly with the color and texture of the sand, plus it can make dark, irregular spots appear to further disguise itself among the small plants that inhabit its favorite sandy areas. This wacky fish, typically about a foot in length, actually walks along the sandy ocean floor, but it can muster a burst of speed thanks to a pair of what look like jet-propulsion holes in its lower back.

On my last trip to Grand Turk, for my last dive, we requested a “muck” dive with Smitty, meaning we’d forgo the colorful coral in search of the more unusual, and more exciting, creatures that live in the sand and “muck.” Old Eagle Eyes started leading us further and further away from anything resembling life (plant or fish), and for the briefest of nanoseconds I thought he had gotten off the scent. (After all, I wasn’t seeing anything.) Suddenly he stopped kicking his fins and indicated we should stop, too. With his eyes, he pointed about 40 feet away in the Sahara-like sand. OK, he’s definitely losing it! I thought. Then, in super-slow-mo, he led us directly to three batfish, about six feet apart, gloriously ugly. Because we had approached so slowly and had “surrounded” them, they stuck around, hopping in the sand and giving us the show of the week.

By the way, do you know that divers use hand signals to communicate underwater? There’s thumb and index finger together in a circle, other three fingers straight (“okay”); thumb up (“ascend”) and so on. We also have signs for many of the fish. Can you guess the sign for batfish? Yep, you swing an imaginary bat. Here’s a thought: Maybe the fish find us as batty as we find them!

New York-based Suzanne Gerber writes about scuba, travel and health for a variety of publications. Book your next dive trip by contacting Suzanne at suzanne@worldofdiving.com.

Avid underwater photographer Barbara Shively discovered Grand Turk diving in 1997 and has returned every year. It is her passion to share the coral reefs’ beauty through her photographs, many of which can be viewed and purchased at http://shivelygallery.com/. A variety of her prints are on sale at Art Provo, located in The Regent Village, Providenciales.