...the view of the night sky to modern lighting.

http://www.timespub.tc/2005/04/talking-taino-starry-starry-night/

turey...thought you might find some interest in this Smithsonian article: What Became of the Taino?...they still resonate today!
www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/what-became-of-the-taino-73824867

Met a Puerto Rican a few years ago and asked him if he had Taino ancestors. He was surprised at my asking. Turned out he had a DNA test done. It showed strong Taino links.

And: http://www.secretcuba.com/scinds.htm

Anyone for a trip to learn Canaye building and Conuco planting?

turey-skyman...besides the wonderful Taino mythology of the one-legged Orion in Native American astronomy & the night-time navigational skills of these pre-Columbian peoples, I'm attentive to the author's philosophic reminder:
"We tend to look at the world according to what we read and see; yet looking beyond what we usually see to that which we don’t see can enrich our lives."

No disrespect to your bringing attention to the beauty & twinkling vastness of the night sky...imagined through the eyes of a Taino seer. What pains is the reeling back in time to the un-reconciled terror visited upon these gentle, hospitable folk by the European explorers (or is that really, the "marauders"). Some historians, when they have added up the cost of human life have classified the near-extinction of the native population as a holocaust.

To Witness:
If Christopher Columbus were alive today, he would be put on trial for crimes against humanity. Columbus' reign of terror, as documented by noted historians, was so bloody, his legacy so unspeakably cruel, that Columbus makes a modern villain like Saddam Hussein look like a pale codfish.

Columbus wasn't a hero. When he set foot on that sandy beach in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492, Columbus discovered that the islands were inhabited by friendly, peaceful people called the Lucayans, Taínos and Arawaks. Writing in his diary, Columbus said they were a handsome, smart and kind people. He noted that the gentle Arawaks were remarkable for their hospitality. "They offered to share with anyone and when you ask for something, they never say no," he said. The Arawaks had no weapons; their society had neither criminals, prisons nor prisoners. They were so kind-hearted that Columbus noted in his diary that on the day the Santa Maria was shipwrecked, the Arawaks labored for hours to save his crew and cargo. The native people were so honest that not one thing was missing.

Columbus was so impressed with the hard work of these gentle islanders, that he immediately seized their land for Spain and enslaved them to work in his brutal gold mines.
Within only two years, 125,000 (half of the population) of the original natives on the island were dead.

Shockingly, Columbus supervised the selling of native girls into sexual slavery. Young girls of the ages 9 to 10 were the most desired by his men. In 1500, Columbus casually wrote about it in his log. He said: "A hundred castellanoes are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand."

He forced these peaceful natives work in his gold mines until they died of exhaustion. If an "Indian" worker did not deliver his full quota of gold dust by Columbus' deadline, soldiers would cut off the man's hands and tie them around his neck to send a message.
Slavery was so intolerable for these sweet, gentle island people that at one point, 100 of them committed mass suicide.

Catholic law forbade the enslavement of Christians, but Columbus solved this problem. He simply refused to baptize the native people of Hispaniola.

On his second trip to the New World, Columbus brought cannons and attack dogs. If a native resisted slavery, he would cut off a nose or an ear. If slaves tried to escape, Columbus had them burned alive. Other times, he sent attack dogs to hunt them down, and the dogs would tear off the arms and legs of the screaming natives while they were still alive. If the Spaniards ran short of meat to feed the dogs, Arawak babies were killed for dog food.

Columbus' acts of cruelty were so unspeakable and so legendary - even in his own day - that Governor Francisco De Bobadilla arrested Columbus and his two brothers, slapped them into chains, and shipped them off to Spain to answer for their crimes against the Arawaks. But the King and Queen of Spain, their treasury filling up with gold, pardoned Columbus and let him go free.

One of Columbus' men, Bartolome De Las Casas, was so mortified by Columbus' brutal atrocities against the native peoples, that he quit working for Columbus and became a Catholic priest. He described how the Spaniards under Columbus' command cut off the legs of children who ran from them, to test the sharpness of their blades. According to De Las Casas, the men made bets as to who, with one sweep of his sword, could cut a person in half. He says that Columbus' men poured people full of boiling soap. In a single day,
De Las Casas was an eye witness as the Spanish soldiers dismembered, beheaded, or raped 3000 native people. "Such inhumanities and barbarisms were committed in my sight as no age can parallel," De Las Casas wrote. "My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature that now I tremble as I write."

De Las Casas spent the rest of his life trying to protect the helpless native people. But after a while, there were no more natives to protect.
Experts generally agree that before 1492, the population on the island of Hispaniola probably numbered above 3 million. Within 20 years of Spanish arrival, it was reduced to only 60,000. Within 50 years, not a single original native inhabitant could be found.

In 1516, Spanish historian Peter Martyr wrote: "... a ship without compass, chart, or guide, but only following the trail of dead Indians who had been thrown from the ships could find its way from the Bahamas to Hispaniola."

Christopher Columbus derived most of his income from slavery, De Las Casas noted. In fact, Columbus was the first slave trader in the Americas. As the native slaves died off, they were replaced with black slaves. Columbus' son became the first African slave trader in 1505.

Why do we have this extraordinary gap in our American ethos? Columbus himself kept detailed diaries, as did some of his men including De Las Casas and Michele de Cuneo.

Columbus' reign of terror is one of the darkest chapters in our history.
–-Eric Kasum

Full Article @ HuffPost-Politics:
www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-kasum/columbus-day-a-bad-idea_b_742708.html?view=pri nt&comm_ref=false

This is why many Americans, myself included, would like to see Columbus Day changed to Native American Day. Columbus was a murdering thug that made every effort to destroy and/or enslave any people that dared get in way of his vision of "progress."

To Rene i totally agree, well said.