On June 7, the Barbier-Mueller Museum of Pre-Colombian Art will host an exhibition that will display a group of 55 works of Taino art, many of which were originally found in indigenous settlements on the Island of Hispaniola.

Many of the pieces in the exhibition are symbolic objects and many objects of daily use that reflect the customs, beliefs, rituals and magical-religious myths of the Tainos...

Many of the pieces in the exhibition are symbolic objects and many objects of daily use that reflect the customs, beliefs, rituals and magical-religious myths of the Tainos, the tribe that Christopher Columbus encountered when he arrived for the first time to the New World in 1492.

The exhibition will also serve as an homage to Fray Ramón Pané, a priest of the Jeronimos Order who accompanied Columbus on his second trip to Hispaniola. Pané, considered to have been the first cultural anthropologist in the Americas, learned the language, legends and customs of the Tainos.

He wrote a small book: “The Report about the Antiquities of the Indians” (“Relación acerca de las antigüedades de los indios”), a unique and accurate account of the Taino culture.