The Taino cacique’s visit to the realm of the dead

Record summary

Ramón Pané’s account of Taíno religion includes narratives about the dead, nocturnal spirits, and sacred beings associated with caves and liminal spaces. The material can serve as a lead for examining how early European observers described Caribbean boundary crossings and contact with ancestors. It is not a verified encounter report and does not provide a single, fully recoverable Taíno theology. Pané’s Christian vocabulary, limited language competence, selective transcription, and the later loss of Indigenous records create major uncertainties about terminology and original narrative context.