Taíno Symbols & Petroglyphs, Explained

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Mythology and folklore experts Adeche Atelier explain the significance of Caribbean & Puerto Rican Taíno symbols

Co-authored by Adeche Atelier and Glenn Carreau

Last Updated: November 28, 2025 Fact Checked

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Curious about the many symbols and pictographs attributed to ancient Taíno culture? You’ve come to the right place! Scholars today may not know as much about Taíno culture as they’d like, as the Taíno people were nearly wiped out by Spanish colonialism, yet many symbols still survive as indicators of what Taíno life, culture, and religion were like. We talked to mythology and folklore experts Adeche Atelier to learn more about Taíno symbols and their meanings, as well as the history and culture of the Taíno people of the Caribbean islands.

Taíno Symbols & Meanings: At a Glance

Mythology and folklore experts Adeche Atelier says that Taíno symbols were deeply embedded in their everyday life and rituals. Prominent Taíno symbols include the Great Seal (authority), the Spiral (creation), the Turtle (the beginning of all life), and the Trigonolito (the Taíno god of fertility).

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Section 1 of 2:

Important Taíno Symbols (and Meanings)

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   Great seal The Great Seal is a sacred tribal seal, particularly associated with the Jatibonicu Taíno tribal nation. It was found carved into rock around 900 BC, featuring a pair of branches surrounded by leaves—representing the sacred cojóbana tree. This symbol is also the Sacred Badge of Authority, indicating Taíno blood and lineage. Traditionally, the cacique (local leader) of a tribe bears this symbol as a mark of authority.

   Meet the wikiHow Expert

   Adeche Atelier—or duo Adwoa Botchey and Solomon Adebiyi—are fine artists, storytellers, and content creators inspired by African mythology, folklore, and spirituality. They have over 580k followers on social media.
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   Cemi “Some of the most significant Taíno symbols were the zemí icons, sculptural figures or images that housed deities, ancestral spirits, and natural forces,” explains Adeche Atelier. “[These] symbols were deeply embedded in everyday life and ritual: the zemí served as intermediaries between humans and spirits. [They] were buried in fields to promote growth, kept in shrines, used in healing, invoked for protection, and carved into sacred caves and stones.”

   • Cemi (or zemi) was the Taíno word for a deity or ancestral spirit.
   • The cemi symbols were used during ceremonial events in which offerings would be made to the cemi.
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   Spiral Adeche Atelier says that in Taíno culture, spirals were “a sign of continuity, cosmic energy, or water.” They could also represent creation and growth, giving the spiral significance as a symbol of both tangible matter and abstract concepts.
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   Trigonolito According to Adeche Atelier, trigonolitos were a common symbol in Taíno culture. “These … are wood or ceramic figures, often with human or animal motifs, emphasizing the head as the seat of power.”

   • “The god Yúcahu is depicted through trigonolitos and [is] linked with agriculture, the sky, and [the] sea,” says Adeche Atelier.
   • A trigonolito was a three-pointed stone sculpture in Taíno culture—typically depicting or representing Yúcahu, the god of fertility. “The three-pointed idol form perhaps [invokes] the cassava tuber and fertility in agriculture,” Adeche Atelier explains.
   • The Taíno people would bury trigonolito sculptures in the soil to fertilize it, believing it would help with their crop growth. Spanish explorers later found many small trigonolito sculptures, buried, as a result.
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   Coqui The coqui symbol depicts a frog—specifically, the coqui frog, today a national symbol in Puerto Rico. Coqui frogs are featured widely throughout Taíno art in pictographs and pottery. This particular coqui symbol has even been found in graves! In Taíno culture, the coqui represents luck, the spirit world, fertility, and renewal.

   • Coqui frogs are associated with a Taíno legend in which a goddess created the frog to call out for her lost lover.
   • This frog symbol may also be known as “Toa”—the Taíno word for “mother.” In another legend, all women of the island were abducted, and the children started to cry out for their mothers (“toa, toa”). The men left to care for them were transformed into frogs.
   • Adeche Atelier says that the goddess Atabey appears in a frog-like form in cave art found in some Puerto Rican sites.
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   Guabancex “The storm-zemi Guabancex is connected with hurricane-like forces,” Adeche Atelier explains. “[She] may be symbolised by swirling or S-shaped forms in petroglyphs.”

   • Together with her assistants Guatabá and Coatrisquie, the goddess Guabancex was thought to be responsible for the hurricanes that had the power to devastate the Caribbean.
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   Turtle Taíno pictographs included carvings of turtles. In legends, the Taíno people were descended from a sea turtle and the hero Deminán Caracaracol. Thus, turtles represented the beginning of life and were symbols of maternity (Mother Earth), fertility, and all of mankind.
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   Snail conch Snails and conch shells were important to the Taíno people in many ways! Snails were one of their many food sources (and an ingredient used during rituals). Conches, meanwhile, were used to communicate while hunting (due to the sounds that could be made with them) and as decoration.
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   Eternal lovers The Taíno “Eternal lovers” symbol is typically depicted as two birds connected at the beak. The symbol represents love, fertility, and equality within each Taíno tribe. That’s because the Taíno were very community-oriented, and believed everything grown or hunted belonged to the entire tribe—there was no such thing as “private property.”
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    Bird In Taíno culture, birds (particularly herons and cranes) were believed to represent masculinity. Thus, this symbol closely resembles a heron-like bird! The bird symbol may also represent members of a Taíno tribe, though this is unconfirmed.
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    God of Cohoba This may alternatively be the guardian of cohoba—specifically, the guardian of a cohoba ritual sacred to the Taíno people. As we’ve already mentioned, cohoba was a type of hallucinogenic dust; people believed inhaling it during rituals would allow them to interact with ancestors and spirits. The symbol depicts a plate atop this god or guardian’s head, representing the plate used to move cohoba during ceremonies.
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    Opiyel guobiran This symbol depicts a sort of god-dog hybrid. The opiyel guobiran is considered a Taíno counterpart to the concept of a “hell-hound,” or even dog monsters like Cerberus in Greek mythology. This “soul dog” was considered half-god, half-dog, and was believed to shepherd the spirits of the dead into the afterlife.
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    God of force In this symbol, the Taíno god of force is holding a trunk in their hands, symbolizing the Taíno peoples’ willpower and pursuit of freedom. As a whole, the god of force symbol represents peace, prosperity, and abundance.
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    Sun God The Taíno people believed that the sun and moon were born in one single cave: the cave of Mautiatibuel (“son of dawn”). According to Taíno legend, the sun (or sun god) would rise from the cave each day, then hide back in the cave as soon as the moon emerged for the night.
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    Moon Goddess The moon goddess symbol reflects the moon’s role in the Taíno legend discussed above. Because the sun and moon were said to have originated from the same cave, the Taíno people believed that the moon (or moon goddess) would rise from this cave each dusk and return to her hiding spot in the morning, when the sun rose again.
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    Deminán (Dimivan) Caracaracol In Taíno legend, Deminán (or possibly Dimivan) Caracaracol is the only named son of Mother Earth. When the Deminán Caracaracol sprouted a tumor, their brothers removed it and revealed the tumor to be a turtle. From this “union” of the Deminán Caracaracol and the turtle, the Taíno people were born.
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    Cemi Boinayel In Taíno culture, a cemi (or zemi) was a type of deity or ancestral spirit. So, the “Cemi Boinayel” symbol represents a specific deity: Boinayel, the Rain Giver—a being whose tears were believed to be the rain that fell from the sky. The Taíno revered this god as a source of water for their crops.

    • Cemis (zemis) could be deities or spirits of ancestors, especially the spirits of chieftains.
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    Behique This symbol represents the Behiques: a social class within Taíno society. Behiques were priests, shamans, and witch doctors—typically considered the wisest and most knowledgeable members of a tribe, with expertise in the use of plants for healing. They were also trusted with contacting the gods and advocating on behalf of the tribe while communing.
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    Itiva tahuvava The itiva tahuvava symbol represents the elements, as well as the Taíno goddess of Earth. In Taíno mythology, this goddess is the mother of twins and thus seen as a maternal figure. The symbol also represents the four winds—in other words, the four cardinal points believed to be the foundations of the Earth.
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    Maquetaurie Guayaba Maquetaurie Guayaba (or Maketaori Guayaba) was the Taíno cemi (god) of the dead. This deity was also associated with the aforementioned opiyel guabirán, the soul dog believed to shepherd the dead. In Taíno mythology, the land of the dead (underworld) was called Coaybay.

    • The term “maquetaurie guayaba” can also refer to ritual inhalers used by the Taíno in cohoba ceremonies to breathe in their hallucinogenic cohoba powder.
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    Potiza The potiza symbol represents love! That’s because the potiza was a type of container or pot used to ferment juice (or sometimes store water) in the Taíno culture. When the juice had fermented, men would give the potiza to women as a declaration of love.
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    Majador The Majador symbol represents a hand mortar that the Taíno people used during rituals. It was intended to spray ingredients of the cohoba (a Taíno ceremony), including seeds of the cojóbana tree. In Taíno culture, cohoba was basically a sort of hallucinogenic snuff powder made from seeds and inhaled ceremoniously.
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    Duho A duho is a type of wooden ritual seat used by Taíno chieftains when they presided over ceremonies (typically to communicate with deities or the spirit world). The duho itself depicts a person or creature on all fours.
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    Olla An olla is a vessel with both practical and ritualistic functions, as it was used for cooking and in Taíno ceremonies. This symbol depicts the olla, as it was an essential part of Taíno life and culture. In general, ollas come in a range of sizes and styles; some were even made with animal-like (zoomorphic) designs.
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    Cacique Marocael In Taíno mythology, Cacique (chieftain) Marocael was the guardian of a sacred cave called Cacibajagua. According to legend, Cacibajagua was the cave from which the first Taíno inhabitants came before they expanded to populate the islands.
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Section 2 of 2:

Who were the Taíno people?

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   The Taíno were Indigenous peoples native to the Greater Antilles. They lived in the Caribbean, throughout the islands today known as Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and the Bahamas—as well as the northern Lesser Antilles. It was believed that, by the 1500s, the Taíno people were wiped out by Spanish colonialism. However, descendants of the Taíno people remain in the world—preserving their ancestors’ legacy—today.

   • In Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, islanders refer to themselves as boricuas (a term for native Puerto Ricans) and quisqueyanos (a term for native Dominicans, respectively).
   • Scientific research has also confirmed that the Taíno people did survive the Spanish conquest, as roughly 60% of Puerto Ricans have Taíno ancestry.
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   The Taíno revered a pantheon of deities and ancient spirits. Adeche Atelier explains, “The principal figures include Atabey, a mother figure of fresh water, fertility, and creation; Yúcahu, her son, god of cassava agriculture, sea and sky; Guabancex, the powerful storm-god (zemí) of chaos and hurricanes; and Opiyelguabirán, a dog-shaped spirit who watches over the dead and guides souls.”

   • Adeche Atelier continues: “Others include rain- and climate-related spirits such as Boinayel, Márohu, and masters of the underworld like Maquetaurie Guayaba.”
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   The Taínos were connected to the Arawak people of South America. It’s believed that the Taínos were an offshoot of the Arawaks that emerged around 2,500 years ago, traveling from the northeastern coast of South America to the Caribbean. In fact, scholars referred to the Taíno people as “Island Arawaks” until the end of the 1990s; later, however, they began to recognize the Taínos as a distinct and separate people.

   • The Taíno were a culturally advanced people, with settlements led by chiefs and organized into cacicazgos, or chiefdoms.
   • However, they had no written language; thus, the symbols and pictographs shown above were most likely their primary method of “written” communication.
   • Taíno symbols represented not only gods and spirits, but also items and practices central to daily Taíno life.
   • Because Taíno culture was pushed to the brink of extinction, some symbols’ meanings are still unclear (or debated amongst scholars).
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   Today, many people identify as Taíno. As mentioned above, people in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Dominica have genuine Taíno ancestry, disproving the belief that the Taíno were wiped out. Many of those descendants have pushed to preserve Taíno culture despite the damage done by colonialism centuries ago. There are even revivalist island communities that incorporate Taíno culture and practices into their daily lives.

   • One family—the Guillén family of the Dominican Republic—specializes in reproducing native Taíno art, pottery, and religious materials. Some Taíno symbols are reproductions of pictographs found on recovered artifacts.
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