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Various scholars have addressed the question of who were the native inhabitants of the Caribbean islands to which Columbus voyaged in 1492. They face difficulties, as European accounts cannot be read as objective evidence of a native Caribbean [[social reality]].<ref name="Hulme1993">{{cite journal |last1=Hulme |first1=Peter |title=Making Sense of the Native Caribbean |journal=New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids |date=1 January 1993 |volume=67 |issue=3–4 |page=211 |doi=10.1163/13822373-90002665|doi-access=free }}</ref> The people who inhabited most of the [[Greater Antilles]] when Europeans arrived in the New World have been denominated as ''Taínos'', a term coined by [[Constantine Samuel Rafinesque]] in 1836.<ref name="Oliver2009">{{cite book |last1=Oliver |first1=José R. |title=Caciques and Cemi Idols: The Web Spun by Taino Rulers Between Hispaniola and Puerto Rico |year=2009 |publisher=University of Alabama Press |isbn=978-0-8173-5515-9 |page=6 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nkYAMSusYKkC&pg=PA6 |chapter=Who Were the Taínos and Where Did They Come From? Believers of Ceíism}}</ref> ''Taíno'' is not a universally accepted denomination—it was not the name this people<!-- This text refers to a particular people among the Arawakan language-speaking peoples—"peoples" would be the plural in this sense, and "people" is the singular --> called themselves originally, and there is still uncertainty about their attributes and the boundaries of the territory they occupied.<ref name="Hulme1993,199">{{cite journal |last1=Hulme |first1=Peter |title=Making Sense of the Native Caribbean |journal=New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids |date=1 January 1993 |volume=67 |issue=3–4 |pages=199–202 |doi=10.1163/13822373-90002665 |doi-access=free}}</ref>
The term ''nitaino'' or ''nitayno'', from which "Taíno" derived, referred to an elite social class, not to an ethnic group. No 16th-century Spanish documents use this word to refer to the tribal affiliation or ethnicity of the natives of the Greater Antilles. The word ''tayno'' or ''taíno'', with the meaning "good" or "prudent", was mentioned twice in an account of Columbus's second voyage by his physician, [[Diego Álvarez Chanca]], while in [[Guadeloupe]]. José R. Oliver writes that the Natives of Borinquén, who had been captured by the [[Kalinago|Caribs of Guadeloupe]] and who wanted to escape on Spanish ships to return home to Puerto Rico, used the term to indicate that they were the "good men", as opposed to the Caribs.<ref name="Oliver2009" />
Contrarily, according to Peter Hulme, most translators appear to agree that the word ''taino'' was used by Columbus's sailors, not by the islanders who greeted them, although there is room for interpretation. The sailors may have been saying the only word they knew in a native Caribbean tongue, or perhaps they were indicating to the "commoners" on the shore that they were ''taíno'', i.e., important people, from elsewhere and thus entitled to deference. If ''taíno'' was being used here to denote ethnicity, then it was used by the Spanish sailors to indicate that they were "not Carib", and gives no evidence of self-identification by the native people.<ref name="Hulme1993,199" />
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