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.
Indigenous peoples of the Caribbean
The Western Taíno lived in the Bahamas, central Cuba, westernmost Hispaniola, and Jamaica. They spoke a dialect known as Ciboney Taíno or Western Taíno. The Western Taíno of the Bahamas were known as the Lucayans, they were wiped out by Spanish slave raids by 1520. Western Taíno living in Cuba were known as the Ciboney. There are still Tainos in Hispaniola and Jamaica. They had no chiefdoms or organized political structure beyond individual villages, but by the time of Spanish conquest many were under the control of the Cuban Taíno in eastern Cuba.