Hispaniola
An Arawak/Taíno home consisted of a circular building with woven straw and palm leaves as covering. Most individuals slept in fashioned hammocks, but grass beds were also used. The cacique lived in a different structure with larger rectangular walls and a porch. The Taíno village also had a flat court used for ball games and festivals. Religiously, the Arawak/Taíno people were polytheists, and their gods were called zemí. Religious worship and dancing were common, and medicine men or priests also consulted the zemí for advise in public ceremonies. For food, the Arawak/Taíno relied on meat and fish as a primary source for protein; some small mammals on the island were hunted such as rats, but ducks, turtles, snakes, and bats as a common food source. The Taíno also relied on agriculture as a primary food source. The indigenous people of Hispaniola raised crops in a conuco, which is a large mound packed with leaves and fixed crops to prevent erosion. Some common agricultural goods were cassava, maize, squash, beans, peppers, peanuts, cotton, and tobacco, which was used as an aspect of social life and religious ceremonies.
Spanish conquest of Honduras
When the Spanish first arrived in what is now Honduras, most of the estimated 800,000 population lived in the western and central regions. Honduras was a frontier region between Mesoamerica and the less complex societies to the south and southeast that were outside the direct Mesoamerican sphere of influence, although at times contact was direct and intense. Much of Honduras belonged to the so-called Intermediate Area, generally viewed as a region of lesser cultural development located between Mesoamerica and the Andean civilizations of South America. Cultural developments were closely related to those taking place in what is now El Salvador and Nicaragua, but also reflected cultural contacts with the Maya civilization and other Mesoamerican cultures such as those of the coast of the Gulf of Mexico and the central highlands of Mexico. The Pech people (formerly known as the Paya) occupied territory in the northeast of Honduras, possibly since antiquity. A similar scenario is proposed for those groups speaking Misumalpan languages, such as the Miskito and Sumu peoples. The Sumu, Pech and Miskito had cultural affinities to the south and east. The Lenca people occupied territories in central and southwestern Honduras, although linguistically related groups further southeast, they had strong cultural links to Mesoamerica. The Jicaque people also occupied lands in the region, in an area along the Atlantic coast from the Ulúa River east to an area between the Leán and Cuero rivers, and extending to the Nombre de Dios mountains. The Chorotega and the Pipil were both peoples belonging to the Mesoamerican cultural zone and fully partaking in it; the Pipil were found along the northern limits of Honduras, while the Chorotega occupied territory in the south, around the Gulf of Fonseca. Lenca and Nahuas inhabited the islands of the Gulf. Early colonial documents suggest that the important settlements of Naco and Quimistan, in the northwest, were multiethnic, inhabited by Pipil and Lenca or Maya, or all three. Naco in particular was a large town and an important centre for commerce that became an early focus for Spanish expeditions. Those groups in the northeast of Honduras were relatively isolated culturally, and not fully integrated into the exchange networks of either Mesoamerica or the Intermediate Area. The western fringe of Honduras was occupied by Maya peoples, the Ch'ol and the Ch'orti'. The Ch'ol occupied the region around the Amatique Bay and along the lower Chamelecón River. The Ch'orti' inhabited the upper reaches of the Chamelecón River and the Sensenti Valley.