1) Canoe is actually an Arawak word.

2) The Arawak Indians paddled out in dugout logs, which they called canoes, and offered gifts to the strangers.

3) The original inhabitants were Arawak native Americans who were gradually replaced by Caribs between 800 - 1000.

4) A scattering of Arawak Indian villages once surrounded Jamaica’s second largest and most visited city, but now high-rise hotels and restaurants dominate the coastal landscape.

5) From there you could see the Arawak Indians moving in lines like ants along the cliffs of the sierra, carrying sacks of ginger on their backs and chewing pellets of coca to make life bearable.

6) Arawak: a member of a South american Indian people formerly inhabiting much of the Greater antilles and now living chiefly in certain regions of Guiana.

7) Before all this the island was populated by native American Arawaks.

8) The explanation that they gave was that the Caribs had been conquered by the neighbouring Arawak.

9) One notable example of first contact is that between the Spanish and the Arawak (and ultimately all of the Americas) in 1492.