Editing Kalinago (section)

==Culture and society==
===Canoes===
[[Canoes]] are a significant aspect of the Kalinago's material culture and economy. They are used for transport from the southern continent and islands of the Caribbean, as well as providing them with the ability to fish more efficiently and to grow their fishing industry.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Canoe Building |url=http://www.kalinagoarchive.org/canoe-building/ |website=Indigenous Kalinago People of Dominica }}{{Dead link|date=March 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> Canoes, constructed from the [[Burseraceae]], ''[[Cedrela odorata]]'', ''[[Ceiba pentandra]]'', and ''[[Hymenaea courbaril]]'' trees, serve different purposes depending on their height and thickness of the bark. The ''Ceiba pentandra'' tree is not only functional but spiritual and believed to house spirits that would become angered if disturbed.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Shearn |first=Issac |date=2020 |title=Canoe Societies in the Caribbean: Ethnography, Archaeology, and Ecology of Precolonial Canoe Manufacturing and Voyaging |journal=Journal of Anthropological Archaeology |volume=57 |page=101140 |doi=10.1016/j.jaa.2019.101140 |s2cid=213414242 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Canoes have been used throughout the history of the Kalinago and have become a renewed interest within the manufacturing of traditional dugout canoes used for inter-island transportation and fishing.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Honychurch |first=Lennox |title=Carib to Creole: contact and culture exchange in Dominica |publisher=University of Oxford |year=1997}}</ref>

In 1997 [[Dominica]] Carib artist Jacob Frederick and [[Tortola]] artist Aragorn Dick Read set out to build a traditional canoe based on the fishing canoes still used in Dominica, [[Guadeloupe]] and [[Martinique]]. They launched a voyage by canoe to the [[Orinoco delta]] to meet up with the local Kalinago tribes, re-establishing cultural connections with the remaining Kalinago communities along the island chain, documented by the [[BBC]] in ''The Quest of the Carib Canoe''.<ref>{{cite web |title=Quest of the Carib Canoe |url=http://www.nativenetworks.si.edu/eng/orange/quest_of_the_carib_canoe.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130911042932/http://nativenetworks.si.edu/eng/orange/quest_of_the_carib_canoe.htm |archive-date=2013-09-11 |access-date=2013-09-05}}</ref>

===Language===
{{Further |Kalinago language}}
Historically, scholars assumed that Island Carib men and women spoke different languages. To explain this phenomenon, scholars proposed that the Island Caribs may have killed the men and kept the women, allowing the Igneri language to survive among women.<ref>Rouse, Irving (1992). ''The Tainos''. Yale University Press. pp. 21–22. {{ISBN|0300051816}}. Retrieved June 17, 2014. <q>Island Carib.</q></ref> This assumption arose from the fact that by at least the early 17th century, Carib men spoke a Cariban-based [[pidgin]] language in addition to the usual Arawakan language used by both sexes. This was similar to pidgins used by mainland Caribs when communicating with their Arawak neighbors. Berend J. Hoff and Douglas Taylor hypothesized that it dated to the time of the Carib expansion through the islands, and that males maintained it to emphasize their origins on the mainland.<ref name="Rouse21222">{{cite book |last=Rouse |first=Irving |url=https://archive.org/details/tainosrisedeclin00rous |title=The Tainos |date=1992 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=0300051816 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/tainosrisedeclin00rous/page/21 21]–22 |quote=Island Carib. |access-date=June 17, 2014 |url-access=registration}}</ref>

Linguistic analysis in the 20th century determined that the main [[Island Carib language]] was spoken by both sexes, and was [[Arawakan]], not [[Cariban]].  Scholars adopted more nuanced theories to explain the transition from the earlier Igneri to the later Island Carib societies in the Antilles. [[Irving Rouse]] proposed that a relatively small scale Carib force conquered but did not displace the Igneri, and the invaders eventually took on the Igneri language while still maintaining their identity as Caribs.<ref name="Rouse21222"/> Other scholars such as Sued Badillo doubt there was an invasion at all, proposing that the Igneri adopted the "Carib" identity over time due to their close economic and political relations with the rising mainland Carib polity.<ref name="Hill54">{{cite book |last1=Hill |first1=Jonathan David |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qb4LoGZnf-8C&q=Lokono&pg=PA41 |title=Comparative Arawakan Histories: Rethinking Language Family and Culture Area in Amazonia |last2=Santos-Granero |first2=Fernando |date=2002 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |isbn=0252073843 |page=54 |access-date=June 17, 2014}}</ref> Both theories accept that the historical Island Carib language developed from the existing tongue of the islands, and thus it is also known as Igneri.<ref name="Rouse21">{{cite book |last=Rouse |first=Irving |url=https://archive.org/details/tainosrisedeclin00rous |title=The Tainos |date=1992 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=0300051816 |page=[https://archive.org/details/tainosrisedeclin00rous/page/21 21] |quote=Island Carib. |access-date=June 17, 2014 |url-access=registration}}</ref>

===Medicine===
By the early twenty-first century, a combination of bush medicine and modern medicine was used by the Kalinago of Dominica. For example, various fruits and leaves are used to heal common ailments. For a sprain, oils from coconuts, snakes, and bay leaves are used to heal the injury.{{dubious|date=June 2024}} Formerly the Caribs used an extensive range of medicinal plant and animal products.<ref>{{Cite thesis| degree=MSc |last1=Regan |first1=Seann |title=Healthcare Use Patterns in Dominica: Ethnomedical Integration in an Era of Biomedicine |url=https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=miami1281448409&disposition=inline |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190422220156/https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file%3Faccession%3Dmiami1281448409%26disposition%3Dinline |archive-date=April 22, 2019 |access-date=April 22, 2019}}</ref>

===Religion===
The Caribs are believed to have practiced [[polytheism]]. As the Spanish began to colonise the Caribbean area, they wanted to convert the natives to [[Catholicism]].<ref>Menhinick, Kevin, [http://www.avirtualdominica.com/caribs3.htm "The Caribs in Dominica"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120303082342/http://www.avirtualdominica.com/caribs3.htm |date=2012-03-03 }}, Copyright © Delphis Ltd. 1997–2011.</ref> The Caribs destroyed a church of [[Franciscans]] in [[Aguada, Puerto Rico]] and killed five of its members, in 1579.<ref>{{cite book | author=Puerto Rico. Office of Historian | title=Tesauro de datos historicos: indice compendioso de la literatura histórica de Puerto Rico, incluyendo algunos datos inéditos, periodísticos y cartográficos | publisher=Impr. del Gobierno de Puerto Rico|issue=v. 2 | year=1949 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IVRnAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA238| language=es | access-date=4 January 2020 | page=238}}</ref>

Currently, the remaining Kalinago in Dominica practice parts of Catholicism through baptism of children.  However, not all practice [[Christianity]]. Some Caribs worship their ancestors and believe them to have magical power over their crops.{{Citation needed|date=October 2024}}