A TAÍNO IDOL'S ORIGIN STORY.

Archaeologist Joanna Ostapkowicz of the University of Oxford made an astonishing discovery while searching through the National Anthropological Archives at the Smithsonian Institution. She found a previously uncatalogued document relating to a unique artifact called a cemí, a two-foot-tall cotton figure made by the Indigenous Taíno people of the Caribbean. The document, written in 1907 by Dominican journalist Rodolfo D. Cambiaso, reveals that the cemí was discovered in a cave near Petitrou, now known as Enriquillo, in the southwestern Dominican Republic. This new information provides valuable insights into the cemí's history and its connection to regional archaeological sites. The cemí is currently housed in the collections of the University of Turin's Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. [Extracted from the article]