Spotlight on Jayuya, Puerto Rico

A little about the history and culture of this charming little town in the mountains of Central Puerto Rico.

Un poco sobre la historia y cultura de este encantador pueblecito de las montañas del centro de Puerto Rico.

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Transcript

Welcome to the BoricuameRican podcast, where we talk about a whole bunch of stuff related to Puerto Rico, from food and drink to true crime. I’m your host, Nancy Pinto. I was born and raised in New Jersey by a strong traditional Puerto Rican family. I’ve never lived on the island, just visited a bunch of times, but it always feels like home. 
You can find us on Instagram at BoricuameRican underscore podcast, or join our Facebook group BoricuameRican or follow our Facebook page also called BoricuameRican! 
If you’re wondering where my usual cohost is (that would be my sister, Yovany, for you first time listeners), she’s got a lot going on – all good stuff! So unfortunately she’s not able to make it for every episode. For now, please sit back and enjoy this one brought to you by me and my husband, the American to my Boricua, Chris. We appreciate your ongoing support!

Today we’re gonna do a little spotlight on the city of Jayuya (spelled J-A-Y-U-Y-A). We had never been! So when we recently visited my parents in Puerto Rico after 8 years (not since we’ve seen the parents, just since we’d been to the island), I asked my dad if he could take us. There was a very unique museum with Taino artifacts that I wanted to check out.
Jayuya is in the center of the island, which is all mountains. To get there you have to drive along these narrow, windy roads. The etiquette is, you honk your horn when you’re approaching a serious bend to alert oncoming drivers that you’re there. My parents live about 30 miles north of Jayuya and it took over an hour!  Totally worth it though. The scenery is breathtaking. Sometimes you just see bamboo on either side of the road, it looks like something out of a fairy tale. The day we went turned out to be a lovely, fun, and very informative little field trip.

But first, a little history. As a reminder, Puerto Rico was inhabited by the native Taino people before the arrival of Christopher Columbus. (If you wanna learn more about the Tainos, please check out episode 2 of this podcast. We will link to it in the show notes). At that time, the region where Jayuya is located was ruled over by a cacique (chief) named Hayuya (spelled with an H instead of a J). Hence how the town got its name. The word hayuya means “place of the guayo” which is a type of tree.  Jayuya is considered the "birthplace" of the Taíno culture in Puerto Rico, and indeed there are a lot of places and events honoring our ancestors in this town.
In September of either 1511 or 1513, the Tainos carried out a short-lived, unsuccessful rebellion against the Spanish conquistadors. Puerto Rico remained under the control of the Spaniards until 1898, when the US took control of the island during the Spanish-American War.
On a different note. Sometime during the 19th century, the first Arabica beans were planted in Jayuya, and the resulting deliciousness ignited a reputation and legacy for fine coffee that has lasted to this day. There are too many coffee companies to name, but I can assure you, you can’t go wrong with any. While I was unable to find a breakdown by town, I learned that in 2023, the whole of Puerto Rico produced 1500 tonnes of coffee beans. Jayuya’s climate and elevation make it conducive to coffee production.

Back to the timeline. Jayuya was founded in 1883 and officially became an independent municipality on March 9, 1911 (before that, it was politically part of the neighboring town of Utuado). The population then was around 9000 (as of 2021 there were almost 15,000). Its first mayor was Don Rosario Canales Quintero.
Don Rosario had a nice little house for his family, who were Nationalists. Family and friends gathered at the home to discuss Puerto Rico’s independence and make plans for a revolution.
Fast forward to October 30, 1950: el Grito de Jayuya (the Jayuya Uprising although grito literally means “scream”) was carried out by members of the Nationalist Party. The violent rebellion lasted 3 days. The US National Guard was called in to quash the revolt, and the Nationalists lost. We will talk about this at some point in another episode.
In the years that followed, the house was unoccupied. It began to deteriorate. It was battered by hurricanes, and eventually destroyed. In the 1990s a replica was built. It is now known as Museo Casa Canales and you can visit it for only $1. It is located in the barrio Coabey (cities in PR are divided into neighborhoods called barrios. The word barrio doesn’t have the same negative connotation that it has in the US, like a ghetto). Coabey was the name of the underworld land of the dead in the Taino belief system. So you can see this is one way the town strives to preserve Puerto Rico’s indigenous roots. Anyway, in Casa Canales, which we toured, you can learn about day-to-day Puerto Rican life – for example, they have all the kitchenware they would have used. They also have a room dedicated to the revolution where you can see writings, pictures, and even guns! The docent will give you a rundown of the history, the family and the revolution. Whether you get an English-speaking employee is the luck of the draw though. Ours only spoke Spanish so my dad had to translate what I didn’t understand for me, and I had to translate for Chris! It’s still definitely worth going tho. For example, on display they have currency they had made up for the new, independent Puerto Rico. For 3 days the island was called La Republica de Puerto Rico. They had bills made in denominations of 100, 50, 10 and 5 pesos, and instead of George Washington they had photos of Pedro Albizu Campos on the bills. He’s considered the Father of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico. A little narcissistic to be on ALL the bills tho, no? At least GW is only on the measly $1.  Anyway go. It’s fascinating.
On the same property as the house is the Museo el Cemi (Museum of the Cemi, a cemi being a Taino god), which opened in 1989. We’re gonna learn a little architecture today. We had never seen a building like this. It is a trigonolith, which is a 3-pointed stone cemi. The architect, a gentleman named Efrén Badia Cabrera, designed it to look just like a representation of one of the many Taino gods! To me it looks like a big fish with a huge humpback. You enter through the mouth. Inside the museum you find all kinds of artifacts and objects used by the Tainos in their daily lives, as well as pictures of Taino symbols and reproductions of petroglyphs. This beautiful, informative museum will only set you back $1!
Side note, I wonder if the 3-pointed cemi also represents the 3 mountain peaks in Jayuya. These mountains are known as Los Tres Picachos and are among the highest points in Puerto Rico, with an elevation of 3,953 feet above sea level.
Twenty years before the museum opened, in 1969, an artist named Tomás Batista sculpted a monument of the Taino chief Hayuya, for which the town is named, as we mentioned before.  It is located in Jayuya's Cultural Center next to a Taíno tomb. We definitely missed this during our trip so next time we’re there we will go check it out.
Jayuya has several nicknames:
Pueblo de Los Tres Picachos (Town of the Three Pointed Hills), because of the mountain peaks we just talked about
Tierra de Altura (Highland).  Cuz you’re in the highest parts of Puerto Rico.
Ciudad del Tomate (City of the Tomato), because they are one of the top producers of tomatoes on the island.
Capital Indígena de Puerto Rico (Indigenous Capital of Puerto Rico) – Taino culture is very strong here. It’s not necessarily strong in other parts of the island.
Mirador de Puerto Rico (Lookout of Puerto Rico) for its amazing views.
Meca Artesanal (Artisanal, or Craft, Mecca)
Jayuya’s flag is meant to represent its identity as the birthplace of the Taino culture as well as their commitment to hospitality towards others. It’s rectangular, red…and going across the middle from left to right is a green band, not straight but rather jagged or like if you drew lines up, down, up, down, up, down – huh, giving it three peaks! This green band is outlined by narrow white stripes above and below. You see the design everywhere!
 
Jayuya has several festivals throughout the year including:
*Three Kings Festival- on or around January 6th (depending on the day of the week). We’ve talked about Three Kings Day in episodes 24 and 50. It’s a major Christian holiday. Kids get presents, families go to Mass and get together, and there are processions to reenact the Magi from the east traveling on camels to visit the newborn baby Jesus and bring him gifts.
*Festival del Tomate - April – this festival is all about tomatoes. As we mentioned, Jayuya is a major producer of tomatoes. Don’t ask me how many they produce. I ran out of research time before I could find the answer! Anyway at the festival there’s music, competitions, and all kinds of food and drink featuring tomato as the main ingredient.
*Festival for their patron Saint, Nuestra Señora de La Monserrate – September. As with most festivals, there’s music, food, arts and crafts, games and amusements, probably a Mass, and a parade.
*Festival Nacional Indígena (National Indigenous Festival): annually on November 24: this is to honor our Taino heritage, including the cacique (chief) that the town is named after. There’s native music, arts and crafts, and other cultural events.
There’s so much more to say about Jayuya, but we will close out with one really cool thing that we’ve just added to our bucket list: the Globo Aerostático (aerostat). What is an aerostat? Basically, a gigantic, tethered hot air balloon.  Jayuya is home to the very first aerostat in Puerto Rico. It’s also the highest in the world! It measures 100ft tall by 98ft in diameter. It sits at 3200 feet above sea level, and reaches 3700 feet above sea level when in full flight. The views are said to be spectacular!
 
So that’s our brief overview of Jayuya, a town that is definitely worth visiting if you find yourself in Puerto Rico. It’s lush and green and everywhere you look the views of the mountains are just gorgeous. There’s a lot to learn about the politics of the region, the native culture, and how the city is doing today. Time was limited so we didn’t get to see and do everything the town offers, so we will definitely return.

SOURCES
The Tainos: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1946209/episodes/10238070
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayuya
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayuya,_Puerto_Rico
https://datacommons.org/place/geoId/72073?utm_medium=explore&mprop=count&popt=Person&hl=en
https://agencias.pr.gov/municipio/jayuya/turismo/Lugaresinteres/Pages/MuseoCasaCanales.aspx
https://www.puertoricodaytrips.com/canales-museum/
https://www.elnuevodia.com/entretenimiento/cultura/notas/pasado-y-belleza-en-la-casa-canales/#:~:text=Canales%2C%20hijo%20de%20don%20Rosario,%2C%20%E2%80%9CEl%20h%C3%A9roe%20galopante%E2%80%9D.
https://agencias.pr.gov/municipio/jayuya/turismo/Lugaresinteres/Pages/MuseoelCemi.aspx#:~:text=El%20Museo%20Monumento%20El%20Cem%C3%AD,del%20Festival%20Ind%C3%ADgena%20de%20Jayuya.
https://www.discoveringpuertorico.com/globo-aerostatico-jayuya/
https://www.facebook.com/museocasacanales.elcemi/
https://cocotu.com/jayuya-puerto-rico-coffee-heritage/
https://perfectdailygrind.com/2023/10/puerto-rico-coffee/#:~:text=In%20another%20devastating%20turn%20of,year%20(1.4%20million%20kg).
https://backpackingpr.com/aventura/tres-picachos/