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The painting: Atabey Rising. Created by the author. depicts a prophesy that the Taino will rise again 500 years after their enslavement. The "garita" is a guard house that the Spanish built as part of their fortifications. It can be seen in Columbia, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and many other places in the America's. Even in St Augustine Florida. It has become a symbol of endurance and survival of a people who were once enslaved by their "conquerers."
Atabey rising is symbolic, my symbolism of the ancestor's view of a living, breathing Earth Mother. Behind her is the actual petroglyph of Atabey as it was often pecked in stone.)

I've begun another quest.

This time on behalf of my Taino Ancestors.

You know about them already because I have written about them in this blog before.

I can't name people and I can't relay specifics just yet because my project is so very new.

Recently I received the results of my MTDNA. I decided to get one done to see if my heritage was really of the Taino People. The people who met and greeted Columbus.

My ancestors suffered a lot and lost a lot under the rule of another people who came to Puerto Rico in their quest to expand their country into an empire.

A myth arose from those terrible times that my people had become extinct because of the rigors of their slavery and the diseases that were brought by the invaders.

Our blood mixed with many people who came to Puerto Rico in the past as well as the present. Yet, somehow, despite the fact that my father ancestors all were killed off or absorbed in the past the DNA of my maternal lineage survived and endured.

Recently a man conducted a study after extracting the MTDNA from bones of my ancestors.
They were classified as being of the Haplo Group A and C.  It just so happens to also be part of the classification of the American tribes who also survived the same kind of invasion.
Theirs has been classified as being of the Haplo Group A, C, D.
 The man who extracted the MTDNA from the bones of ancient Taino people decided to begin an MTDNA study on living people who reside in Puerto Rico.
The results surprised him. They yielded that some persons whose MTDNA was tested were the living descendants of the Taino people who met and greeted Columbus.
There was a specific marker within their genes within a specific region that also set them apart from the other American Indian tribes to make them very unique because of migratory patterns etc.

So, my quest has been embarked to hopefully get my little island on the maps of genetic scientists as being listed as the Taino tribal home. I think its only logical. No?

So far, I have gotten my Kit listed as having come from my ancestor's genes. I also recently got my wife's and her brother's MTDNA changed to that of being from the ancient Taino heritage.

There are some very strong arguements circulating about that speak of the Taino people being culturally dead....Yet their language is still being spoken by many people...
When you say, barbique, or canoe, or when you eat yucca root and cassava based plates, you are in essence doing something that is very old and came from my ancestors.

Whe you see a Puerto Rican whose eyes look like those of an "Indian" and their hair is jet black despite a great age, you are in essence, looking at a Taino ancestor. Not a Mongolian ancestor. A Taino ancestor.

The words my ancestors spoke: Canoa and Barbicu. There are more words, but you can read about them on someone else's web pages...

As for cultural aspects of my ancestor's they show up in the way Puerto Rican's cook and how some of them treat their illnesses with specific herbal remedies that are specific to our Taino ancestry.

A lot of people don't realize that Puerto Rico was the world's first  real "melting pot" in this hemisphere. And a lot of people haven't realized yet that Columbus was in fact lost and didn't discover the Indies in the Greater Antilles. A lot of people insist on believing that
The Taino are an extinct race of people in the face of their unique genetic markers and would like to continue believing that any evidence of the Haplo Group A and C are part of the continent's AmerInd genetic markers....People evolve in a specific ways that set them apart from where they have orginially migrated from....That difference is contained specifically within a cell that is contained outside the nucleus of our genes....It has been named mitochondrial DNA after the mothers and great, great, great grandmother's from whom it comes from. Our genes may change but for a single mutation to happen within an MTDNA it takes about 3,000 years to happen. The Taino ancestor's fell into slavery and tribulation about 514 years ago.

There is also a specific marker within our MTDNA that sets us apart from the other AmerInds who share the same Haplo Group letters as we do...It resides within the quadrant of designated as,  .517 in the A MTDNA  and .519  in the C MTDNA of anyone who is of ancient Taino blood as well as being of Taino descendancy.

I'm no genetic scientist, but I can read and understand some of the writings of the genetic researchers.

The Puerto Rican thing has been blurred by the contribution of so many different cultures that have been enslaved or fled to Puerto Rico during its history. Africans were brought over as slaves to replace the ancient Taino who had "become extinct." The fact is, that a few had run away from their slavery to go on to survive.  Many of our ancestors were raped during their enslavement, or were treated as chattel to serve as genetic vessels for someone else's genetic continuance. I am not preaching racism, in fact I am very grateful that many of the people who would have enslaved our ancestors unwittingly insured that our ancestors would survive within me, my wife, her brother and others who are my genetic match as well as the descendants of our all our ancestors.

One could argue that the results come only from a skeleton that died 514 years ago...That that one skeleton cannot possible reflect the survival of an entire group of people....
But in my strong willed opinion and in the face of scientific logic it does.

I am asking a general question here within Zaadz....
Should I continue my quest despite the arguements that the scientific community puts forth?
Should I continue my quest despite the opinions of my own people that speak of opinions contrary to results of the scientific facts that have been discovered by the reseacher who conducted the MTDNA study?

To see the researcher's paper, please go to http://www.kacike.org/MartinezEnglish.html
I can't upload it here because of copyright restrictions...

I've worked hard to make what happened to manifest in what I think was a professional manner despite my "ignorance" of the science of MTDNA. Yet there is something else that goes beyond the mask of "professionalism." Spirtuality and the issues that go with it as well. My people, my ancestors firmly believed that nature was a living, breathing entity.
That we all were part of a great web of life. Some of us still believe in the above. Some of us have gotten lost temporarily within the blur of the lines between our genetic and cultural inheritances...But yet, the Taino ancestor is still there waiting for her acknowledgement.

Form your opinion and please let me know what direction I should take...

Thanks for your kind attention

I will keep you updated.

John Ayes

  

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Photography: Carmen

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Please click above to view slide show.

The event my art was at this Sunday, September 10, 2006 celebrated , "The Second Latin American Cultural Festival of Orlando, Florida."

It was sponsored by La Prensa Orlando News, United Arts of Central Florida, WKVG Channel Six T.V., Telemundo T.V. as well as others.

Telemundo T.V., Aztec T.V. and WUCF T.V. and Radio, FM 89.9 were at the event filming the music and the art and will be televised Monday,
today, September 11, 2006.

As always I was interacting with the Camera people, art viewers and taking in the music and dancing that was going on. It was a pretty full day.

There were times when it got quiet after the people entered the auditorium. Many thoughts passed through my mind and I even amused myself with some of them.

As you already may know from viewing my slide shows, my art has been showcased many times in news papers, magazines and on local T.V. I began thinking that I have long overshadowed that great artist, Salvadore Dali as far as receiving media attention if I lived back in his time.

In any case, this article isn't what its all about.

While exhibiting my paintings at the Rosen College of Hospitality Management, that's at the University of Central Florida; I came to realize something that is very hard to explain with words.
The realization came from watching people look at my art work.
It spoke to me about something that is as old as humanity and the visual arts itself.

Something was happening within that exhibition salon that was as ancient as the cave art and the Cro Magnon people who had witnessed it happening and the person who had created it.

What was happening went beyond me and beyond my art as well.
It involved me and the viewer on a very personal level. The art, the viewer and myself had become a place. A precious point in a small space in time.

Me, the artist, through my artwork had set up a unique form of wordless communication. It was a space where two minds met.
The mind of someone who had created something that was a clear illusion yet very real and concrete in the mind of the viewer.

The illusionist artist works hard to give form and shape, depth and a feeling of space on a two dimensional surface, using shapeless blobs of color and tint. The viewer's mind sees it and brings the images on the canvas into a very personal type of focus that is relative to a unique set of very personal experiences.

Sometimes the viewer smiles knowingly. Sometimes the viewer expresses joy at having seen something that sparked a specific emotion or symbol within their culture. If the viewer is with someone they begin talking about the work that stands silent before them.

In my mind it was a monumental happening that ocurred without one word being spoken between myself and those who viewed my art.

Those unique personal happenings that happened within the viewer weren't the same because each life, each soul has traveled on a different path of experience and knowing.

But for one moment in the space of time I and the viewer's path merged and we became as one.

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Image and Text Copyright 2006 John Ayes


Hello Everyone!

Sorry for my long abscence.

I've been busy working on a new project on behalf of my Taino ancestors, descendants and our children.

In April 2006 I sent in my MTDNA sample to be analyzed by Family Tree DNA.
On March 22, 2006 the results came back positive for being a part of haplo group C.
I was listed as being, an American Indian. For the moment I was elated and happy because the results confirmed that I was indeed the living descendant of Taino people. The people who met and greeted Columbus.

My wife, Carmen also got very excited at the results and decided to also have her MTDNA tested. She came back haplo group A, also listed as an American Indian. She was confused as well because the maps that  had been sent showed the migratory patterns of our specific haplo groups. What was missing from those maps was that the Taino people weren't listed within them.

The more I thought about it the more it began to gnaw at me.

As you may already know the Taino have been labeled as being an extinct people that either succumbed to their slavery, diseases or the harsh cruelties that were metered out to them by their "conquerors.'" As it turned out we survived and our would be "conquerors" lost their position by way of war to other peoples. 

A genetic study was performed in Puerto Rico upon bones of four skeletons that were very old and associated with being the remains of very ancient Taino people. Their MTDNA was gathered and tested and it was found that their haplo groups were A and C. It was also found that they had very specific mutations within their MTDNA that made them uniquely Taino. It was then decided to carry the research one step further. 800 people were selected randomly and their MTDNA was tested. Of those 800 people that were tested a large percentage of them came out being of the haplo group A and C. 

There's one complication though. American Indians also are of the haplo group A C and D.
But, remember the mutation I just wrote about. It made our ancestors very unique types of A and C. 

I decided to write FTDNA requesting that my MTDNA kit status be changed from being that of an American Indian to that of being a descendant of the Taino people. They were very kind and thoughtful and granted my request. Then I wrote them again requesting that my wife's kit be changed to reflect her Taino ancestry. Again, FTDNA was kind enough to honor my request on her behalf as well as on the behalf of her brother who had also tested his YDNA with FTDNA. Three people now reflect that their heritage and ancestry are rooted deeply, genetically, in the Taino people.

Thanks to FTDNA the Taino people aren't so extinct anymore. A small section of a page in the history books has been rewritten. Thanks to my efforts and the acknowledgement of FTDNA.

Now. I wrote another E mail to my contact at FTDNA trying to appeal to them to see if they would also change the kits of the people who matched my MTDNA HVR2 results.
I think I went a little too far. Because for one to make such a request one has to have verifiable scientific proof that was gathered through research and scientific methods.
FTDNA requested formal papers that had been written in regard to Taino MTDNA that showed specific mutations that I have just written about. 

My good friend and mentor who is also one of my genetic matches sent me the papers I needed for presentation to FTDNA .

Its really an important issue and its not just for me. Its for a lot of people who are descendants of the Taino ancestors. Our position in the world right now is really a surrealistic one. We exist and yet we don't exist because a myth was started that said that our ancestors had become "extinct". 

Try to imagine this scenario. Mind you, its is a real one.

You are a Puerto Rican child. Your parents and your grandparents have informed you that you are a descendant of the Taino people. Stories are shared with you that are specific to your families experience and history. Some people also share their ancestor's negative experience s of their enslavement. The inhabitants of ancient Puerto Rico had suffered the ruthlessness that comes with slavery. They experienced a holocaust that was determined to end their very existence on this earth. As within every holocaust story a few survive and from those survivors the descendants come.  Puerto Rico's story is a unique one because the "conquerors" made some of the Taino women their wives. Within those blessed Taino women were the seeds of our survival. Their MTDNA.

Now, imagine you are that same child sitting in class at school. As always, the subject of Puerto Rico's history comes up. You read and your teacher confirms it that the Taino people have become extinct. The child raises its hand and the same statement is made and rebuffed. It has happened for over 514 years. But we knew it was a lie that was being taught.  

Many races have come to Puerto Rico. many have come and gone and many have stayed.
Many genes have been exchanged, metamorphosed, zygoted into who we are now. But the one thing that never changed was our maternal MTDNA. It was passed unchanged from mother to daughter and a little bit of it was passed to their sons. Their sons couldn't pass it on though, they could only inherit it. In that we we survived. 

If FTDNA accepts the scientific papers I sent them then a bigger page will be changed within the history books. Because they will confer and then conduct studies and research to confirm what has been written within those papers.

In the meantime the descendants of Taino have to be content with the stories that have been passed down to them about their ancestry. But, everytime they look in their mirrors they can see their ancestors looking back at them. 

I need your prayers this weekend so that the universe can hear loud and clear how important this little project is.

I will keep you updated on how it turns out.

Thanks...

En Lake Ech, I am another you before the Creator.

John Ayes  

http://www.picture-that.com/cultures/latinohispanic/lh-unity2006.pdf

Good News passes this way again as the universe blesses this artist person again.

Please follow the link above to bear witness to Ayes Art showcase and biography within Unity Magazine just hot off the press.

Another great honor to represent my Taino ancestors, brothers and sisters as well as the
Hispanic community celebrating Hispanic Heritage Months...(Sept through November.)

Enjoy!

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Flowers are really wonderful creatures.
They express the highest achievement
Within their phylum.
So are the birds of prey
Because they are at the
Top of their food chain.
Enjoy.

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Text and images Copyright 2006 Ayes

A solitary flower

Its beauty untouched.

Transitory being of the night

Coming forth when the

Moon is bright.
Releases its life
When the sun is alight.
Pluck you not I will instead-
We'll let you be so the stars
And the universe will marvel
In wonder and see
What beauty has been created
In this place.