Food & Agriculture
The Taíno diet centered around vegetables and fruits, meat, and fish. Large animals were not avialible in the West Indies, but small animals such as hutias, earthworms, lizards, turtles, birds, and other mammals were devoured. Manatees were speared and fish were caught in nets,speared, poisoned, trapped in weirs, or caught with a hook and line. Wild parrots were also captured with domesticated birds and iguanas were taken from trees along with more vegetation. Taínos stored live animals until they were ready to be consumed, like fish and turtles were which were stored in weirs, and hutias and dogs were stored in corrals.
Hutias
The Taino Indians also grew their own food. Some of the items are squash, beans, peppers, peanuts, pineapple, tobacco, calabashess (West Indian pumpkins), palm nuts, guavas zamia roots were collect from the wild.
The Taino had a developed system of agriculture which was environmentally friendly and almost maintenance free. They raised their crops in a conuco, a large mound which was devised especially for farming. They packed the conuco with leaves which improved drainage and protected it from soil erosion. One of the primary crops cultivated by the Taino was cassava or yuca, which they ate as a flat bread.
