New York, NY, Ocotber 12, 2000--- El Museo del Barrio, announces the acquisition of an important Taíno stone belt related to the pre-Columbian ball game. It was made in Puerto Rico between A.D. 1200 and 1500 when the Taíno culture flourished throughout the islands of the Greater Antilles. The newly acquired belt will be highlighted in a section especially dedicated to festivals and ball games in Taíno: Ancient Voyagers of the Caribbean, a permanent exhibition of pre-Columbian art and culture that opens at El Museo on October 26, 2000. (See enclosed press release for detailed information).

The belt is a major addition to El Museo del Barrio's permanent collections of pre-Columbian pottery, jewelry and stone tools from the Caribbean. This important work was acquired through the generosity of two members of the Board of Trustees, Chair Tony Bechara and Vice-Chair Estrellita Brodsky, as well as an anonymous donor.

Dr. Dicey Taylor, Guest Curator of Taíno: Ancient Voyagers of the Caribbean, describes El Museo's belt as both a masterpiece and a rare form of Taíno art. Most such belts were found in Puerto Rico in the late 1890s and early 1900s, and were usually donated to or acquired by museums. El Museo's belt became available from a private collection in France, where it had been for many generations. Fragments of stone belts are still found by archaeologists at Taíno sites, in refuse pits and around ball courts, but complete examples such as El Museo's piece are extremely rare.

Pre-Columbian cultures played a competitive game similar to soccer, in which the ball was hit with the head, arms, hips and legs, but could not be touched with feet or hands except to put it into play. The game was potentially fatal because the solid rubber balls were heavy and extremely fast. Players wore padded accessories on their arms and legs and protective belts of wood, fiber and cloth. Among the Taíno, ball games were played during festivals, or areitos that united communities and reinforced the history, customs and mores of their society.

The Taíno also created belts of stone in two forms, thick and heavy or slender and attenuated. Thick belts are known to have been made throughout the Greater Antilles and are beige in color. Carved from black stone and finely polished with crosshatched designs and bat wings on the upper rim, El Museo's belt is the slender type characteristic of Puerto Rico. While some scholars believe stone belts were actually worn during games, most interpret them as memorials that accompanied the dead in burials.

The mission of El Museo del Barrio is to establish a forum that will preserve and project the cultural heritage of Puerto Ricans and all Latin Americans in the United States.

Museum hours: Wed. through Sun. 11 to 5 p.m. Suggested contribution: $4 adults; $2 students and seniors; children under twelve accompanied by adults and members enter free.

El Museo del Barrio may be reached by subway: #6 to 103rd Street station; or by bus: M1, M3, M4 on Madison and Fifth Avenues to 104th Street; local cross-town service between Yorkville or East Harlem and the Upper West Side in Manhattan M96 and M106 or M2.