Bonaire is a small island located in the Southern Caribbean. It is known for its pioneering role in the preservation of the marine environment, and for its excellent scuba diving, snorkeling and windsurfing. Bonaire has a fringing reef that surrounds the entire island. The shallow terraces are a true paradise for snorkelers and divers alike, the divers can also enjoy the deeper reef slopes. The reef system is a national park protected to a depth of 200 feet. On the leeward Western side of Bonaire there are many places where it is easy to just walk in the water from the shore and dive, or snorkel! That is one of the reasons why Bonaire was voted Best Shore Diving Destination in the World - Again!

For the 13th consecutive year Bonaire has been voted by the readers of Scuba Diving magazine as the best shore diving destination in the world. According to the January 2006 issue of the magazine, which reported the results of Scuba Diving's Top 100 Readers' Choice Awards, this year Bonaire received a score of 95.4, topping the runner-up in this category by four points. In 2005 Scuba Diving Magazine wrote, "Bonaire has topped the shore-diving category in our annual 'Top 100 Readers' Choice Awards' - an unbroken string of No. 1 titles that started in 1994." The string has not been broken, Bonaire is still number one. 

Especially for shore diving, Bonaire developed the unlimited tank fill packages. Dive as many times a day as your body can take for about $20.00 a day.

For snorkelers Bonaire created the Bonaire Guided Snorkel Program, a program that has been forgotten for a couple of years, but is being revived by the naturalists of Bonaire Dive and Adventure.  Read more...

Klein Bonaire, a small island half a mile West of Bonaire, also has a beautiful fringing reef. Only accessible by boat, like a few of the dive sites on the bigger island, but absolutely worth your while.

THE FIRST BONAIREANS by Jay B. Haviser, 1991, Reports of the Archaeological-Anthropological Institute of the Netherlands Antilles, No. 10, Curacao
Summary Compiled by Jerry Ligon

To summarize the prehistoric cultural background for Bonaire, we note the first humans arriving on the island at about 1400 B. C.. These hunter-gatherer-fishing peoples, were a small familistic group who had moved from Curacao to Bonaire. These Archaic peoples did not know of agriculture, nor how to make ceramics, and they had a loosely structured, basically egalitarian social system. Their primary areas of resource exploitation on Bonaire were at Lagun, around Lac, and at Gotomeer.
At about 470 A. D., the First Ceramic Age peoples arrived in Bonaire. These people had ceramics, agriculture, and a more complex social system than the Archaic Age peoples, whom they probably met on Bonaire. These Ceramic Age people had begun their long journey at about 200 B. C., near the confluence of the Middle Orinocco and Apure rivers. . . to the Caribbean Sea. By 470 A. D. at least a small group of them had reached Bonaire. As generations passed, and the Archaic peoples were absorbed into the Ceramic Age live ways , villages of the Ceramic Age peoples were established at Wanapa, Amboina and Put Bronswinkel, with large work camp centers at Sorobon and Fontein. During this early Ceramic Age period, some of these probable Ocumaroid peoples moved from Bonaire west, to initially colonize Curacao yet they did not reach as far as Aruba.
At the time of European contact with Bonaire in 1499, the Amerindian peoples on the island were identified as a localized clan, called Indios Curacaos, from the Caquetio tribe who covered all of Falcon, Paraguana, the islands, and into the Venezuelan mountains.
The Caquetios were intensive farmers of maize and manioc and that they also ate a boiled maize soup with chili peppers called "caza" as well they ate cactus fruits and maguey which was used to produce an intoxicating drink. Also noted of the Caquetios was that they traded extensively in salt, tobacco, and shell beads, made thread of cotton or agave fibers, used dug-out canoes, hammocks and body painting. Their weapons were spears, clubs, macanas, and also bows and arrows with bone, wood or tooth projectile points. There is no evidence that they domesticated animals, although there are reports of them trading in live animals, such as deer.
The Archaic Age peoples maintained a band level of social organization. A nomadic lifestyle promotes the development of a band level society as a loose integration of families with conceptions of kinship extended by marriage alliances. The members of a band level society are acutely aware of the need for population regulation, so as to not overexploit the wild foods available in their specific range. A common method , particularly in prehistory, was for part of the band to separate and occupy an uninhabited territory. It seems probable that it was this strategy, of moving into uninhabited territory, that was the stimulus for the Archaic Age peoples to originally move from Curacao to Bonaire.
Based on the limited number of Archaic Age sites on Bonaire, the size of the island, and its available resources for a hunter-gatherer society, there were probably never more that one hundred people at any single period.
As we look to the Ceramic Age on Bonaire, we note ethnographic analogies with the Sedentary Horticultural level of social organization. It is estimated that by using slash-and -burn agriculture, which allows greater material accumulations than does mobile hunter-gatherer, a population of 5 to 10 persons per square kilometer as an average for this level of organization. We suggest that the Ceramic Age population of Bonaire was probably never more that 100-1200 people at any single period.
These ecological self-contained systems require well-balanced man-land ratios for each community, which represents a very fragile equilibrium. Such equilibrium can only be maintained through the presence of local authorities which, for the Sedentary Horticultural level, are usually petty chieftains (caciques) as the official authority.
The Ceramic Age peoples of Bonaire, being associated with the Caquetio of Falcon, surely had a more complex system of social stratification, than was known in the Archaic. The presence of spiritual leaders (boratio), lesser chiefs (caciques) and a paramount chief (diao), all indicate a stratified society with the Caquetio. Lesser chiefs, upon death, have their bodies burned, bones pulverized and mixed with corn beer (macato), then drunk by members of the society, whereas for a paramount chief, (diao) the body is smoked over a slow fire, hung in a hammock in the Diao house, after several years, the bones are pulverized, mixed with corn beer and drunk, while a drinking, dancing, and ornamented costume festival is held for several days. Indeed, personal material wealth with the possession of bead necklaces, feathers, gold, and other commodities, was a clear indication of social status in Caquetio society. On Bonaire, we have as yet only excavated common persons burials at Amboina and Wanapa.

HUMAN BURIALS

Although van Koolwijk began collecting artifacts from Bonaire in the 1870's, there have been, until now, only two confirmed prehistoric human skeletons identified from Bonaire. Other specimen of human skeletons, excavated during building constructions, or exposed by soil erosion, have been reported from Bonaire, with specific examples from the prehistoric sites of Wanapa and Put Bronswinkel, however, these have not been confirmed as Amerindian.
Of the two confirmed prehistoric burials for Bonaire, the first was noted in 1976 during construction of a MAVO-school near the Amboina site. The burial context of these remains were poorly recorded. Yet, the skeletal remains were taken to the Anatomical Institute of the State University of Utrecht, and analyzed by the physical anthropologist, J. Tacoma. Tacoma published the results of his analyses in 1980, which represents the first professional publication relating to prehistoric burials on Bonaire. The second confirmed prehistoric burial for Bonaire was excavated by the author at the Wanapa site, in 1987. The analysis results of that burial are being represented here for the first time.
The skeleton was most likely female, age 22 to 28 years of age, and a height of a little over 5 feet tall, 150 - 156 cm.
Radiocarbon dating was indicative of the Ceramic Age from about 470 A. D. to 1445 A. D.
The 1976 Amboina Burial Radiocarbon dating indicates death occurred 760 + or - 25 years B. P ( A. D. 1200). Skeletal measurements indicate this individual was a male, between 40-50 years old, and a height of 170-176 cm (around 5ft 5 inches). This height measurement was later revised downward to 160 cm by the original author, Tacoma.

INDIAN PAINTINGS

Red paints, common to Bonaire, are known to have been made of mineral and/or vegetable materials. The minerals used were red ochre and iron oxide. The vegetable matter was from "rarana" (tree resins) and Bixa orellana (red onote seed), and Arrabidea chica (chica) and Bursera simaruba (carana) (Palu di sia cora).
If we examine some stylistic motifs of the Bonaire paintings, with the regional distribution of the petroglyph counterparts, then other ties can be made within the region. Dubelaar has plotted the distribution of several petroglyphic pilot motifs across South America and the West Indies (1986). Three of these pilot motifs which are common to Bonaire are the framed cross, concentric circle and back-to-back curved lines. The feline motif is presented here, not because it relates to the rock art, but rather because it is so concentrated in the northern Venezuela/Orinocco area and also appears as a carved jaguar pendant, and a carved ocelot bone talisman on Bonaire.
Note that the framed cross and concentric circle motifs are very widespread over the continent and West Indies, showing little regional isolation. However the back to back curved lines motif is very specifically in Northern South America only, predominately in Amazonia, the Orinocco basin and northern Venezuela.

MEANINGS

The rock painting of Bonaire is clearly associated with similar examples in South America. It appears that these paintings represent an artistic/spiritual expression having its most ancient roots in Amazonia: traditions which were carried down the Orinocco and Apure Rivers to northwestern Venezuela and then onto Bonaire.
If we note the modern use of rock art sites by the Arawakan Guarekena peoples of the Amazonas, Venezuela, then we see these sites used as a location for male initiation ceremonies, where females were not allowed to visit. This ethnographic example could give us insights into the possible use of the Bonairean rock painting sites. The presence of adult and child handprints on Bonaire could be related to young males in the initiation rites, the distance from the villages could relate to a separation from the females, and the presence of water could relate to some specific requirement of the initiation ceremony (perhaps hygienic, for the cleansing of wounds).
The exact dating of these rock paintings is, as yet, not possible due to the very small amount of organic material used in the paint and the few artifacts found associated with them. However, from studies in Venezuela and Curacao we do note that ceramic artifacts are found at rock art sites, so as to suggest a Ceramic Age identification for the sites (on Bonaire circa A. D. 450-1500).
With the eventual 15th and 16th century contacts of Spanish slave hunters and explorers, the Amerindians of Bonaire became more cautious of Europeans and retreated to more isolated settlements at Fontein and Rincon. However, the general lifeways of these Bonairean Amerindians who survived slave capture and disease, were relatively undisturbed by the 16th century Spanish political domination. It was the Amerindians responsibility to provide livestock and agricultural produce for the Spanish, but otherwise they were allowed to maintain their own life ways. One important beginning during this period was the appearance of the first mestizos of mixed European/Amerindian stock.
Into the 17th century, more mestizos were produced, as well came the African/Amerindian mix, the zambos, and dramatic changes were beginning, as with the initial disruptive contact with the Dutch, destroying the villages at Fontein and Rincon, and eventually capturing the island under Dutch rule.
During the 18th century, the small Amerindian ethnic community was primarily situated in isolation at Rincon, as mixed European/Amerindian families at Antriol, and in a newly developed residential area that later became known as Nord Salina.
The 19th century brought severe changes in the Amerindian lives, as the conquest of Bonaire by the British resulted in subjegation of the population. There was resistance to these changes that led to an increased integration of the Amerindian ethnic identity within the general Bonaire community. This was accentuated by the nationalistic liberation of Amerindians on the mainland of South America by Simon Bolivar. When the emancipation of the African slaves resulted in a dramatic African population increase at Rincon, the majority of the Amerindians isolated themselves into the barrio of Nord Salina.
At the beginning of the 20th century, it is doubtful if any pure-blooded Amerindians remained on Bonaire, however, there continued to be a strong identity with Amerindian ethnicity. The advent of World War 11 clearly disrupted the isolated security which Bonaire had known so long, opening the way for massive contacts between barrios on the island and the outside world.
At the end of the 20th century, there is still a strong identification with Amerindian ethnicity on Bonaire, with Amerindian words, place names, food recipes, simple customs, still being maintained on Bonaire.

From THE FIRST BONAIREANS by Jay B. Haviser, 1991, Reports of the Archaeological-Anthropological Institute of the Netherlands Antilles, No. 10, Curacao.