The Arawak people (from aru, the Lucayan word for cassava flour) are some of the indigenous peoples of the West Indies.
The group belongs to the Arawakan language family.
They are the natives whom Christopher Columbus encounters when he first lands in the Americas in 1492.
The Spanish describe them as a peaceful primitive people.
The Arawak people include the Taíno, who occupy the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas (Lucayans); the Nepoya and Suppoya of Trinidad, and the Igneri, who are supposed to have preceded the Caribs in the Lesser Antilles, together with related groups (including the Lucayans) which live along the eastern coast of South America, as far south as what is now Brazil.
