Origins of the Tainan Culture, West Indies

Origins of the Tainan
Culture, West Indies

Caribbean Archaeology and Ethnohistory
L. Antonio Curet, Series Editor

Origins of the Tainan
Culture, West Indies
Sven Lovén
With a New Preface by
L. Antonio Curet

Preface Copyright © 2010
The University of Alabama Press
Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487‐0380
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Publishing history:
Elanders Bokfryckeri Akfiebolag / Gdtebocg 1935
The University of Alabama Press paperback edition / 2010
∞
The paper on which this book is printed meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences‐Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48‐1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lovén, Sven, b. 1875.
[?ber die Wurzeln der tainischen Kultur. English]
Origins of the Tainan culture, West Indies / Sven Lov?n ; with a new preface
by L. Antonio Curet. — Pbk. ed.
p. cm. — (Caribbean archaeology and ethnohistory)
Originally published: Géteborg : Elanders boktryckeri aktiebolag, 1935.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-8173-5637-8 (paper : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8173-8509-
5 (electronic) 1. Taino Indians—History. 2. Taino Indians—Social life and
customs. 3. Ethnology—West Indies. 4. West Indies—History. 5. West
Indies—Ethnic relations. 6. West Indies—Social life and customs. I. Title.
F1619.2.T3L913 2010
972.9004’97922—dc22
2010009966

Table of contents:
Page
Preface ........................................................................ XI
List of abbreviations, Terminology................................. IX
CHAPTER I. - Immigrations and Indian Elements in the West
Indies .................................................................. I
The Guanahatabeyes, 3; The Arawak Race on the Continent, 27;
Paria, 29; Trinidad, 32; The Mazoriges or Ciguayos in Northeastern
Santo Domingo, 42; The Calinas in Contact with the Tainos in the
Antilles, 51; The Transmarine Communication of the Tainos with
Yucatan, 58; Florida, 61; Haiti known in Cumana and Paria, Intercourse
among the Tainos, 68; The Territorial Extension of the
Cacicazgos, Puerto Rico, 71; Espanola, 72; Higuey, 73; The Territory
of the Ma

VI
genesis of the Axe, 207; Flint, 2IO; Guadeloupe, 2II; St. Kitts, Page
Cuba, 2I2; Santo Domingo, 215: Caicos Islands, 2I8; Jamaica, 2I9:
The Flint Culture on the Antilles, 222.
CHAPTER IV. - Ceramics ................................................ 224
Ancon, 227; Northern Argentine, 228; The Parana Delta, Chimay,
229; Teffe, 230; Manaos, 23I: Baixo Iriry and Santarem, 232; Venezuela,
234; Lake Tacarigua, 235; Aruba, Curayao, Bonaire, 237; Margarita,
239; The Coast regions of northern British Guiana, 240;
The more recent pottery in Venezuela and Guiana, The Orinoco,
245; True Caribs in Guiana, Guaribiche, 248; The Island-Caribs, 249:
The pottery of the Island-Arawaks: Trinidad, 250; Barbados, 258;
Grenada and the Grenadines, 259; St. Vincent, 262; Guadeloupe, 264:
st. Kitts-Nevis, 265; Virgin Islands, 27I; Vieques; Puerto Rico.
278; Espanola, 287; Cuba, 3I3: The Bahama Islands, 320; Jamaica,
322; Influences on Tainan Ceramics fram Southeastern States, 327:
Summary, 333.
CHAPTER V. - Towns and houses .................................... 336
CHAPTER VI. - Agriculture. Culture-Plants ........................ 350
Agriculture, 350: Manioc, 358; Ages, Batatas, 368; Yahutia, Arrowroot,
369; Maize, 370: Mefates, 376: Puerto Rico, Cuba, 380; \Vithout
information as to origin, 38I; Rep. of Haiti, Santo Domingo
or Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico, 382; Peanuts, Beans, 385; Tobacco,
386; Coca; 398; Cotton, 400; Other plants for spinning and twisting,
401; Gardens and fruits, 402; Summary of fruit trees. 404; Pineapple,
405; Spices, 406: Plants furnishing colours for body-painting
407; Goaconax, Herbs nsed in washing, Cultivated medicinal herbs,
408; Calabashes, Wild plants used by the Tainos, 409; Rubber,
Yuca dulce, 412.
CHAPTER VII. - Navigation, boats, oars, fishing, hunting, and
weapons ............................................................... 4I4
Fishing, 420; Hunting, 43I; Preparation of fish and meat, 438;
Aparatus for striking fire, 439; Meals, \Veapons, 440; Spear-Throwers,
441; Bow, 446; Arrows, 449; Clubs, 45I; Tactics of war, 453.
CHAPTER VIII. - Household Ftwnitttre .............................. 455
The duho, 455; Hammocks, 457; Loom, 458; Utensils, 459; Baskets,
46I; Mats, 462.
CHAPTER IX. - Gold. Ornaments. Dress. Treatment of the body.
Musical instruments ................................................ 463
Guanin, 468; Silver and copper, 473; Stone beads, 474; Shell fretwork
and engraving, 479: Deformation of head, 488; Modes of
hairdressing. Body Painting, 490; Tattooing, Musical instruments,
492; Maraca, 493; Drums, Wind instruments, 495.

VII
Page
CHAPTER X. - Social Conditions .................................... 498
Classes of society and rank, 498; Naborias, 499; The Commoners,
50r; The Tainos, 502; The Caziques, 503; Dance and festivals. 519;
The game of ball, 524; Mariage and sexual conditions, 526; Prostitution,
528; Transvestites, 529; Division of work, 532; Crime and
Punishment, 533; Diseases and means of cure, 535;
CHAPTER XI. - Burial Customs ....................................... 54!
Burial customs with general diffusion on the Tainan islands. A, Direct
burials with the skeleton in a contracted sitting or flexed position.
a, In excavated graves, 544; b, Burial in crouching posture
within a raised mound, 546; c, Cacique-burial in a grave furnished
with wooden supports, over which is an arch of branches topped
with earth. The cacique sits on a duho, 549; d, Direct burial in
caves with the skeleton in flexed position, 55!; E, Secondary Tainan
head burials. a, The head in basket kept under the roof of the
hut, b, The head in clay vessel in a cave, 552; c, The head without
receptacle in caves, d, Skulls in a row on a bed in cave, bones
underneath. II. Local fornrs of burial, originating from the Southern
States. T, Burial in midden in an inverted clay bowl, especially
of child, 553; 2, Bundle Burial. Cremation, 555.
CHAPTER XII. - Religion................................................ 560
The idea of God, 563; Man's first appearance on earth, 565; The
people of the mythical age, 567: Conceptions as to souls and postexistences,
573; Medicine-men, 575; Zemiism and zemi figures, 578;
Cotton images, 597; \Vooden images: Santo Domingo, Cuba, J a­
maica, 598; The West Indies, 599: Stone images, 603; Monoliths,
Illlmovable stone images, 605; Figurines: Jamaica, Cuba. C~'ico;
Islands. Santo Domingo, 607; Puerto Rico, St. Croix, 608; Pottery
idols, 614; Ceremonial purifications, 620; Cultus, 624; Masks, 625;
Masks of shell, Stone masks and stone heads, 626; Three-pointers, 628;
Stone collars, 633; Elbow stones, 640; Pestles, 641; Earthenware
pestles, Zenilistic ornamentation, 645; Earthenware stamps: Cuba,
Santo Domingo, 646; Puerto Rico, St. Croix, St. Vincent, Barbados,
Grenadines, Trinidad, 647; Roller stamps, 649; Flat stamps, 650.
Summary ............ " ................................. ,. . . . . .. .... .......... 657
Addenda. - I. On effects of tobacco. 2. The myth of
Women's Island ................................................... 697
Plates I-XIX.
Map showing the Indian West Indies.

Abbreviations Used:
A. de 1. = Documenlos Documcntas Iniditos Iniditas Relativas Relativos al Descubrimiento Descubrimienta etc. del Real Archivo
de Indias.
Madrid.
Coil. Ultramar = Colecci6n Colecrion de Documentos InCd1:tos Iniditos de Ultramar. Madrid.
Fewkes 1= I =
J. \VALTER 'WALTERFEWKES, The A Aborigines of at Porto Poria Rico and Neighboring
Islands. 25th Annnal Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology.
\Vashington, 'Washington, 1907.
Fewkes II = J. 'WALTER \VALTER FEWKES, A Prehistoric Island Culture Area of America.
34th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology. 'Washington,
\Vashington,
1922.
Krieger I = HERBERT IV. W. KRIEGER, KRlEGER, The Aborigines ot of the Ancient Island of at Hispaniola.
From the Smithsonian Report for 1929, pages 473--506. 473-506. \Vash­
\\'ash-
Hispaington,
1930.
Krieger II =
HERBERT W. KRIEGER, Archaeological A1'Chaeological and Historical Investigations
Im'estigations
in Samanci Samand. Dominican Republic. Repubhc. Smithsonian Institution. United Sta-
States
Kational National :Museum, Bulletin 147, 147. 'Vashington, \Vashington, 1929.
Krieger III = HERBERT W. KRIEGER, Aboriginal A T Indian Pottery of at the Dominican
Republic. Smithsonian Institution. United States National Museum.
Bulletin 156. Washington, 193I. 1931.
G. 1\1. M. = Goteborgs G6teborgs Museum, Ethnographical Department, Gothenburg.
R. l\I. M. = The Ethnographical State Museum, Stockholm.
B. M. = British Museum, 140ndon. I

Preface
In all regions around the world, there are always a few publications
that become classics and survive the passage of time. Many of these
books are not only jewels of past scholarship, but they are still used
today either because they contain or synthesize old information, or
because their ideas and interpretations of the past are still as valid as
the day they were published. The Origins of Tainan Culture, West
Indies is one of these books and is still quoted by most Caribbean
archaeologists.The author of this book, Sven Lovén, was a Swedish
anthropologist of whose life we have very little information.
Moreover, it is unclear how he became interested on this topic or if
he visited the region at all. The book was first published in German
in 1924, updated and translated into English for this 1935 edition.
Although the book is directed to the Tainan culture of the Greater
Antilles (Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico), in reality it
discusses aspects of the prehistory of the whole archipelago, from
Trinidad and Tobago to Cuba and the Bahamas. In his description of
the ancient cultures of the Caribbean, Loven masterfully combines
archaeological, ethnographic, and ethnohistoric sources, a deed
that only few people can do. Although it is true that many authors
combine these types of data, very few can say that they actually
master the three types of sources the way Lovén did.
The chapters of the book are organized by topics, including
the immigration and origin of the native people of the islands,
architecture, different types of artifacts and technology, social
organization, funerary customs, and religion. There is no doubt
that, at the time of its publication, this book was the most complete
publication on Caribbean archaeology. Even today it contains
information that cannot be found elsewhere.
Perhaps one of the most important contributions of the book is
not only the description of the archaeological, ethnographic, and

XII
ethnohistoric data, but also Lovén’s interpretations. Although I
cannot say that I agree with all of his conclusions and ideas, a majority
of them are still valid and accepted by the scientific community in
the Caribbean. Even many of the ideas that are not well accepted,
still must be considered in any debate on the archaeology of the
region.
Despite the fact that this publication is widely cited and
appreciated by all students of Caribbean archaeology, it is difficult
to find. Our intention with the publication of this facsimile edition
is to make it more accessible to a great number of interested people,
including Caribbean archaeologists, students, and historians as well
as all people of the Caribbean interested in their cultural history.
L. Antonio Curet, series editor

CHAPTER 1.
Immigrations and Indian Elements in the West Indies.
The distance from the Antilles with their southernmost island,
Grenada, to Trinidad (and Tobago) and even to the mainland
of South America, is not larger than migrations from
this continent to the islands could have been established by
tribes possessing sufficient good crafts. Farther on there was
no difficulty in crossing from one island to another along the range
of the Lesser Antilles. Firstly between the northern Leeward
Islands and the Virgin Islands there is a gap, which ought to
make traffic more difficult.
Of primitive tribes of different culture there remain nowadays
in Venezuela only the \Varraus in the delta of the Orinoco, another
complex in the Raudal district, as well as the remnants of the
Otomacos. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries primitive
tribes were still found in a district situated between the Serrania
del Interior and the Orinoco. Up till now archaeology, however,
has not been able to prove that in the \Vest Indies there ever
lived any primitive pre-Arawak Southamerican immigrants.
Florida evidently played an important part when the northern
\Vest Indian Islands were first invaded by foreigners. It has been
proved that a people coming from Florida, the Siboneyes, once
settled on the coasts of Cuba from the east to the west. This
was a primitive tribe that left Florida at a period previous to
the settlement in this peninsula of tribes on a higher cultural
stage.
\Vhether such a primitive tribe also penetrated into Espanola
is a question still open to discussion. Up ti11now we do not know
from Puerto Rico of any finds whatever originating from a primi-

2
tive pre-Arawak people. Of great interest is RATT'S discovery of
a settlement on the Krum Bay in St. Thomas. Its primitive inhabitants
who used stone celts cannot be identic with the Cuban
Siboneyes, but already the fact that ochre has been found,
points to a North American origin. Unfortunately we do not
know the part played by the Bahamas in the supposed pre­
Arawakan migrations from North America.
The distance to cover for to reach Jamaica from Cuba or
Espanola is so great that it may be questioned if it was possible
for a primitive people' to do so. Even in a big Jamaican canoe
MENDEZ had great difficulty in crossing from Jamaica to Espanola.
No undisputable finds originating from a primitive pre-Arawakan
tribe living in Jamaica have hitherto been brought to light.
It is, however, a matter of fact that the Island Arawaks have
practically penetrated into all the \Vest Indian Islands. In the
following I shall make a distinction between the Tainos, the Island­
Arawaks living in the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas at the
time of the Discovery, and the Igneris, the Island-Arawaks inhab~
iting the I,esser Antilles when the Caribs immigrated. Igneri,
probably the Arawak word eyeri, "men", was a name given by the
Island-Caribs to the Arawak Islanders which they conquered and
extinguished. I have borrowed the term from the French authors
of the 17-th century.
Leaving Trinidad aside, we know four distinct races in the
\Vest Indies properly speaking, from historical sources. The names
are given in the order in which they must have immigrated.
1. Guanahatabeyes (Siboneyes)
2. Island-Arawaks.
3. lvla~origes (Ciguayos).l)
4. Island-Caribs.
") Ciguayos was a yaino name, "los ciguayos porque traian los cabellos muy
luengos, como en llUestra Castilla las mujeres". LAS CASAS, Vol. 62 1. P. 434.
The name "Mac;origes" was also Taino-Haitian. LAS CASAS, in Col, de Doc. inM.
para La Historia de Esp., Vol, 63, p. 120, says "deciase macorix en la lengua
de los indios mas universal (7Xaraguanian) desta isla (=Espafiola), cuasi como
lengua extrafia y barbara",' Comp, Apol. Hist., ed. Serrano y Sanz, Madrid
190 9, p, 89.

The Guana- Only in the extreme western part of Cuba can we
hatabeyes. establish a pre-Arawak race in the Antilles at the
time of the Conquest with any degree of probability. These Guanahatabeyes
are mentioned in the Mission Report by LAs CASAS 1 )
and also in 15I4 in VELASQUEZ' report to the King of Spain. LAS
CASAS pictures them as ''tmos indios a1 cabo de Cuba} los qua1es
son como salvajes, que en ninguna cosa tratan con los de la isla,
ni tienen casas, esb'tn en cuevas contino, sino es cuando salen
a pescar". L1amanse guanahacabeyes. 2) The report of VELASQUEZ
states that a Spanish brigantine had visited the western part of
Cuba. The inhabitants were described as living in the following
manner: "Poniente est{m 1a una (that is provincia) se llama
Guaniguanies e 1a otra Guanahatabibes,3) que son los postreros
indios dellas; y que 1a vivienda destos guanahatabibes es a manera
de salvajes, porque no tienen casas ni pueblos, ni 1abranzas ni
comen otra cosa sino las carnes que toman por los montes y tortug
as y pescado."4)
Dr. PEDRO GARCIA VALDES has shown that the discoverers
and conquerors of Cuba were never in Pinar del Rio, that without
exception none of them at any time had ever seen Guanahatabeyes,
so that consequently the Spanish informants of that time
lack authentic knowledge of that race. In this he is indisputably
right, as well as in the assumption that the numerous finds in
Pinar del Rio prove that Tainos must once have lived there. All
the same, we must except the San Antonio district. The existence
of a strange, primitive pre-Taino race with extension at one time
over the whole island of Cuba is brought to light through Harl)
A. de I. Vol. VII. p. 35 and Col. de Ullramar, Isla de Cuba, Vol. III, p. 7.
2) A. de I. Vol. XI, p. 424-425.
3) A. de I. Vol. VII, p. 35 has Guanahatabeyes.
4) The peninsula of Cuba farthest to ,Vest the is still to-day called »Peninsula
de Guanahacabibcs". Compo DEcKER'r, Cuba, p. 106 and his map. Nevertheless
it must not be understood that the Guanahatabibes were confined to this
desolate little region, whose mangrove-covered coasts, moreover, shut off a fisherfolk
from the sea. Historical sources present the hypothesis that the Guanahatabeyes
had a retreat in the mountains (Sierra de los Organos) where they had caves
and also where they hunted (hutias and birds).
4) La Civilizacion Taina en Pinar del Rio, Ac. de 1a Hist. de Cuba, Hallana,
1930 .
3

4
rington's extensive investigations, and even established in Pinar
del Rio. If the remnants of that older, primitive people still
lived in the most western part of Cuba at the time of the Conquest,
is another question. Not only did none of the conquerors
have the opportunity of seeing these Guanahatabeyes, but also
the information obtained from the Cuban Tainos about the general
cultural standpoint of this race, does not harmonize with their
proper character as established by the conclusions to which COS­
CULLUELA and HARRINGTON came, through their excavations of the
Cuban dwelling-sites. The traditions that Guanahatabeyes were
still now and then found living in Pinar del Rio, as late as the
middle of the nineteenth century, I cannot find confirmed by any
document,!) But I will mention that accounts of wild Indians
killing the cattle of the colonists of Pinar del Rio with their arrows
and the rewards offered for their extermination on this account,
can be traced back to the beginning of the seventeenth century.
It is to be assumed that they have been destroyed since then.
Unfortunately I have not succeeded in finding any information
about this.
MARTYR and OVIEDO, have cited troglodytes, similar to the
Guanahatabeyes also in Guacayarima, the long southwestern
peninsula of Espanola including Mornes de la Rotte. MARTYR
says: "It is said that there is a district of a savana in the most
westerly province of Guaccaiarima inhabited by people who only
live in caverns and eat nothing but the products of the forest.
'l'hey have never been civilised nor had any intercourse with any
other races of men. They live, so it is said, as people did in the
golden age, without fixed homes or crops or culture; neither do
they have a definite language. They are seen from time to time,
but it has never been possible to capture one, for if, whenever
they come they see anybody other than natives approaching them,
they escape with the celerity of a deer."2)
The first part of the description has an indiscutible similarity
to that of Velasquez of the Guanahatabeyes of Cuba; and further-
1) See HARRlNG'tON, Cuba before Columbus, Indian Notes and Monographs,
New York I92I, p. 324, 353, and 407.
2) De Orbe Novo, The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera. By FRANCIS
AUGus'tus MAcNu't't, New York and London I9I2, p. 380.

more as in its continuation information follows about bitumen
"on the reefs of Hispanio1a,"l) Cuba and not Espanola must have
been meant.
Ovn:DO says2) that a very savage race lived in caves in the
province of Guaicayarima. They neither sowed nor cultivated
the fields, but lived from hand to mouth. All property was held
in common, with the exception of their wives. "Aquesta gente
fue 1a mas sa1vaje que hasta agora se ha visto en las Indias." It
must be remarked that this refers to the place to which OBANDO
advanced in Xaragua in 1503, and that at this date, which was
before his arrival to Espanola, OVIEDO had a very limited knowledge
of the island.
FEWKES cites LAS CASAS and VELASQUEZ unreservedly in regard
to the Guanahatabeyes in "Prehistoric Cultwre of Cuba", and also
mentions the assertion of MARTYR, that a similar race of people
existed in the extreme western part of Haiti at the time of the
ConquesP)
Fortunately LAS CASAS has lived in the towns of the province
of Hanyguayaba, which includes the extreme peninsula in the
southwestern part of the island of which Guacayarima is the very
point. For this reason he is able to confirm that the inhabitants
there were Tainos, having the same economical conditions and
manner of living as the others on the island. He contradicts
OVIEDO and says: "mal suro 10 que dijo, porque no vivian sino
en pueblos y tenian sus senores que los regian, y a sn modo como
los demas, (namely the rest of the Haitian Tainos) su communal
policia; porqne aun la misma tierra, por ser como un jardin, aunque
qnisieran vivir selvclticmente, no se 10 consentiera; y ni habia
cuevas ni espeluncas como el dice, presnmiendo demostrar que
sabe nominativos, sino muy graciosos campos y arboledas, donde
tenian sus asientos de pueblos y sembraban y cogian, e yo comi
hartas veces de los frutos del pan y de otras cosas que su industria
5
1) Ibid. p. 380-38 r.
2) Historia general y natural de ies Indias, Madrid I85!, Vol. I, p. 90.
3) Amer. Anthrop. N. S. Vol. 6, NO.5, 1904. FEWKF,S stands by this opinion
in Relations of A boriginal Culture and Environment in the Lesser Antilles, Bull. of
the Amer. Geogr. Soc., Vol. XLVI, New York 1914, awl in Antiquities of the West
Indies, Smiths. Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 63, No.8, Wash. 1914, p. 58.

6
y trabajos procedian. La Guacayarima, que dice ser otra distinta
provincia (10 que no es) porque tiene punta della (that is, Ranyguayba),
junto a la mar, ciertas entradas 0 penas, que Haman
Xagueyes los indios, como en la provincia de Riguey, que los
habia tan grandes, que podian vivir en ellos muchos vecinos pero
no vivian sino en sus grandes pueblos; alli se escondian cuando
la calamidad de los espanoles los perseguia, y porque huyendo
dellos, algunos alli escondidos hallarian."l)
Indeed, MARTYR mentions a tradition, according to \vhich the
former inhabitants of the islands (the Greater Antilles) lived on
roots, palms and magueys.2) But in truth this tradition could
also have had a mythological significance, explaining a condition
which existed before a hero of the race had discovered yuca and
maize, in this manner making a myth fit the conditions in Espanola.2)
I can cite reasons for this opinion, based on Arawak myths
from the continent of South America. Among the Tarumas, an
Arawak tribe in the interior of British Guiana, the legendary
brothers, Ajijeko and Duid, ate only nuts and fruit in the beginning,
until the first woman cut off the tail of their father, the anaconda,
and out of this obtained the seeds, cuttings and fruits of
the first plants to be cultivated for food. 3) 'rhe Paressis, also
Arawaks, in ancient times ate jatoba fruit, biriti nuts, edible fungus
wood and earth, until their progenitor found wild manioc roots
deep in the woods and brought home the roots.4)
If we turn to archeology and take into consideration HARRING­
TON'S finds in Pinar del Rio, it is very obvious that he found there
1) Col. de Doc. inCd. para la Histaria de Esp., Vol. 64, p. 57.
2) MacNutt's Trans. p. 384. Not to be confused with the Agave maguey.
Compo OVIEDO, Vol. I, p. 278, Maguay - - -- "en tiempo de necessidad, a
falta de mahiz e ca

an exclusively typical Siboneyan culture in the San Antonio
district, indeed a karstland, but whose eastern lowland has
layers of soil, also surface waters and is covered with a rich overgrowth
of forests and jungles. The only objects of Taino,­
or perhaps rather sub-Taino -, culture which HARRINGTON
found in the San Antonio region, consisted of "two large pieces
of undecorated aboriginal pottery", in Cueva Funche, a cave of
otherwise pure Siboneyan culture. I) They only prove that the
Siboneyes lived here contemporaneously with the Tainos farther to
the East. Then too, archeology does indicate that the last of the
Siboneyes took refuge in the almost inaccessible forests and jungles
in the northern part of the San Antonio region, and that this
district was never Tainan. In other parts of Cuba, as far as has
been investigated, Siboneyan as well as Taino sites exist. Indeed,
occasional objects of Taino workmanship are found in sites with
pure Siboneyan culture, showing that in some regions at one time
the Siboneyes dwelt alongside of the Tainos. But at the time,
of the Conquest, the greater part of the island had come completely
made Tainan. The sites investigated by HARRINGTON in the
San Antonio region with one exception lie some distance inland,
but near the Enseiiada de Guadima. In regard to the settlement
itself, the Siboneys were above all things dependent on near
access to fresh water. The largest of these Siboneyan sites in the
San Antonio district and the one that yielded the greatest abundance
of finds, "The Great Midden", lies near the little lake with
crystal-clear water in the Valle San Juan. Good water is also
found in the caves of this region. Although the Siboneyes of the
San Antonio district lived inland, they nevertheless procured their
food from the sea. Their refuse contains snail and mussel shells
and among them are found as well oyster and crab shells, bones
of turtles and hutias; but on the other hand, Harrington does not
mention the presence of fishbones2) finding however beads of
three kinds of fish-vertabras, more or less ground. Cosculluela
calls the Siboneys veritable fish-eaters, but brings into prominence
the fact that in their refuse, above all, the shells of molluscs are
7
1) See HARRINGTON, Op. cit. p. 369-370.
2) op. cit. p. 364-365.

8
found.I ) In the San Antonio region, they seem to have been collectors
of food along the shore rather than fishers. However, I do
not know if access to fish was more difficult in the Ensenada de
Guadima than along various other parts of the Cuban coast. As
to boats, material for them could easily be procured in the forests
of this region.
The differences between the Siboneyan and Taino cultures are
radical and show themselves generally to be the same over the
whole island. This is brought out clearly by HARRINGTON'S extensive
investigations. 2) The Siboneyan culture is far poorer than
that of the Tainos. It was a veritable shell culture. They made
"the gouges" out of conch-shell, as well as vessels.
If a race uses shell as material for axe-blades, this in itself
does not prove them to be primitive. Such a thing has been known
to have occurred on many of the islands that once had an Island­
Arawak popUlation, which entirely lacked suitable material for
the production of axes. For the same reason axes of conch-shell
are very common on Barbados, where axes of stone could only be
imported. One would expect to find axes of shell more general
on the Bahama Islands, where suitable stone is non-existant, but
because of the lively trade which the Lucayos carried on with
Cuba and Espanola in tIe period before the Discovery, they seem
to have succeeded in bringing about the importation of the far
more effective greenstone celts from those islands. Both upon
the Greater and I .. esser Antilles, where there is suitable rock for
making celt and axe blades, axes of shell are found in regions
along the coast where semifossil Strombus gigas occur. Evidently
they are Tainan because they are found on Taino sites. The
same is true on St. Croix,3) on Santo Domingo,4) and on Jamaica. 5 )
Scattering finds of axes of shell are made on several islands, which
1) J. A. COSCUI,I,UEI,A, Nuestro Pasado Ciboney, Ac. de la Hist., Habana 1925,
p. 16.
2) See especially his diagram, PI. lOS.
3) See Chapter II.
') HERBERT W. KRIEGER, The Aborigines of the Ancient Island ot Hispaniola,
Smiths. Rept. for 1929, Wash. 1930, p. 497.
5) J. E. DUERDEN, Aboriginal Indian Remains in Jamaica, Jouro. lnst. of
Jamaica, Vol. II, NO.4, Kingston IS97, fig. III, from a midden in the distr.
of Vere, Clarendon.

for the rest have rock suitable for axe blades. I can cite in addition
Guadeloupe!) and St. Kitts.2) Only two types of axe-blades
of shell are to be distinguished among those which belonged to
the Tainos, Igneris or possibly Island-Caribs. On Barbados they
retained a part of the spiral of the conch.3) 1M THURN called this
the "shoe-horn type." But otherwise everywhere, and particularily
on Barbados, they have produced a flat petaloid celt type
by striking off the whorl and grinding the sides. 4) A specimen of
this type of petaloid celt, made of shell, has been excavated by
HARRINGTON from a cave at Obando, in Oriente, Cuba, which contained
principally Siboneyan culture, and he is of the opinion that
the celt is Siboneyan, also. 5 ) The possibility can be suggested
that although the Siboneys made such axes of conch-shell, the type
is also Taino and intended to imitate the petaloid axe-blades of
stone. The "Vest Indian petaloid shell celts of Strom bus gigas are
flat and the whorls are not very conspicuous. The diverging sides
are often ground straight. The edge is not so sharp as in the Siboneyan
gouges and as a usual thing it is only ground from the
inside of a piece of conch-shell. On Barbados, the island which
is most pointed out as having axes of shell, their development had
reached so far, that with only shell for material they produced
celts resembling in form the customary petaloid celts of stone of
the Island-Arawaks. 6 ) Celts of shell occur also on Cura

O
except when the limestone contains flint.!) But in Yucatan they
seem never to have made it their aim to work out the form of
the shell celts as carefully as in the Antilles or in Florida. Their
principal care was that the edge should be ground quite sharp.
Florida's western and southwestern Keys lack stone and
they have made large axes or hoes of the entire Fulgttr perversum.
But in Florida, as well as in other of the Southeastern States,
they copied stone axeblade types in shelP) They made use of this
material in Florida because there is no suitable stone accessible.
Certainly no stone celts were found in the shell-mounds investigated
by WYMAN in the St. John's River district in Florida. But
there they treated shell exactly as if it were stone. Therefore,
knowledge of stone-axes was not lacking.
The Siboneyan culture had the character of a veritable conchshell
culture. They did not make stone axes, nor had they any
pottery. In both cases conch-shell material was used as equivalent.
Their "conch gouges" are of an entirely different type and of
another cut of snail-shell, than the shell celts of the Island-Arawaks.
The latter are made of the projecting lip of Strom bus gigas.
The "gouges" of the Siboneyes are made of "the lower point of
the spire of the conch", a species which BARRINGTON does not
name.a) Furthermore, they must have been made from some
other kind of snail than the Strombus. Gouges of that rounded
form in the shell-mounds of Florida are made of two species of
') In Yucatan they even made petaloid celt blades of flint. (Specimens in
Berlin and Gothenburg.) There they had no other material accessible for the
purpose. Moreover the Mayas had advanced very far in the art of giving form
by the chipping of flint.
') HOLMES, Art in Shell of the Ancient Americans, Second Ann. Rept. Bur.
Amer. EthnoI. PI. XXV: 3, Madison County, Kentucky; J. WYMAN, On the Fresh
Walev Shell-Heaps of the St. John's River, East Florida, Amer. Nat., Vol. I, 1868,
p. 454, figs 8-9, of Strom bus gigas, clearly au adze; Fresh-water Shell i'vlounds of
the St. John's River, Florida, Mem. Peabody AC. Sc., Vol. I No. 4, 1875, PI. VII:
I, 2, 3, 4. VIII: 1. All of these have square butts or else the neck has been
struck off. CLARENCE B. MOORE, Certain Antiquities of the Florida West Coast,
J ourn. Nat. Scieuces, of Phila., Vol. XI, sec. ser., 1897-1901, p. 374 and fig.
I I has a pointed butt.
3) HARRINGTON, Op. cit. p. 88, PI. IVa, b, figs. 38, 106 and the diagram,
P·324·

Fulgur (Busycon).1) Presumably in their selection of shell the
Siboneys followed the traditions of Florida, which they adhered
to in Cuba. \VYl\1AN'S "chisel-shaped tools"2) are unlike the Siboneyan
gouges, however, so far as they lack the orifice of the conch,
but the sharp grinding away of the edge is entirely like the latter.
For types exactly like the Siboneyan I have only to cite I{AR­
RINGTON'S statement that such gouges are found in the shell- heaps
of Florida.3) .
The Siboneyan culture presents itself as a veritable conchshell
culture not alone because the axe-blades are made of conchshell,
but by the fact their 7)essels are made of the same material.
Only in exceptional cases have they secured pottery vessels from
the Cuban Tainos.
The Siboneyan vessels of shell are of a primitive type. They
were produced only by broadening out of the orifice of the conch. 4)
Sometimes this broadening extends along the entire length of the
shell. 05) Drinking cups of conch-shell with only the orifice broadened
out, occur on the west coast Florida in a culture otherwise
with richly developed pottery. 6) According to HOLMES, similar
drinking cups of Fulgur perversum, which is a Florida conch,7)
were still used by by the chiefs of the Timuquas at the time of
the French Huguenots visit to the mouth of the St. John's River,
Florida, in 1562-1564. The completely open Siboneyan vessels
of conch-shell are clumsily carved out and not halved with a
distinct cut. Other Antillean conch cups are found in caves in
the province of Samana, in Santo Domingo. They are bisected
straight across and the spiral is taken well out of the conch shell. 8)
"Implements and utensils of shell" predominate in these caves
I) \VVMAX, Shell l110unds etc. p. 56.
2) Ibid. PI. VII: I, 2, 3.
3) ap. cit. p. 423. That material in the American Museum, Heye Fonndation.
4) HARRINGTOK, PI. IV c, XXXIV and the diagram on p. 424.
') Ibid. fig. 100.
6) CLARENCE B. MOORE, Certain Aboriginal Mounds, Central Florida W.
Coast. J ourn. of the Ac. of Nat. Sciences of Philadelphia, Vol. XII, Sec. Ser.
1902--1904, p. 395, fig. 4P of a Florida snail, the Fasciolaria.
7) Sec. Ann. Rept. Bur. Amer. Ethnol. p. 193, referring to De Bry.
8) KRIEGER I, PI. 8, 3.
II

12
"to the practical exclusion of manufactured objects of pottery and
stone. "1)
Possibly later investigations can prove exact the hypothesis
that a pre-Arawak race of North American origin once existed
in Espanola. Meanwhile the halved Santo Domingo conch-shell
vessels can not be looked upon as equivalent to the Siboneyan,
without further ado. Moreover, if they did not belong to some
primitive race of North American origin, they must at any rate
be an adaption of something which originated on that continent.
It is singular how the Indians of the Southeastern States and
Mississippi Valley, even after they had arrived at a developed
pottery, continued to use vessels of conch-shell, and that for that
purpose they imported sea conches from the Gulf of -:vIexico far
inland. 2 ) This constant use of conch-shells as drinking-cups among
primitive peoples appears among the Indians of Tierra del Fuego,
who drink water out of brooks from these, and then fill them
again and carry them home. 3) The Siboneyes must have had
other receptacles, just as the Fuegans still have, of what
material I do not know, but at any rate not of clay, before they
procured pottery vessels from the Tainos.
In his summary HARRINGTO~ only cites the objects of conchshell
as being common both for certain shell-heaps of Florida and
the Siboneyan culture in Cuba.4) Presumably the forefathers of
the Siboneyes also carried with them the art of chipping flint
from !Florida to Cuba, even if at present we have not been able
to point out exactly Siboneyan types in Florida.
In shell-mounds of the St. John's River district which either
completely lack pottery or in whose inferior layers it is lacking,
both WYMAN and MOORE have found that there are some few
artifacts of flint. From this fact, 'Wyman drew the conclusion
that "flint implements are the most ancient and earthern vessels
the next."5)
The older flint age, which lacks pottery and moreover in the
1) Ibid. p. 494.
2) Compo HOLMES, Sec. Ann. Rept. Bur. Amer. Ethnol., p. I92-201.
3) MARTIN G-CSINDE, Die Feuerland-Indianer, Vienna, I931, p. 294.
4) Op. cit., p. 423.
5) Fresh-Water Shell-Heaps etc. p. 450.

St. John's River district shows itself still poorer than the Siboneyan,
is for the rest not equivalent to it. As a general thing arrow-heads
are the only flint artifacts in these strata.1) In Cuba
up to the present time only one point of stone has been found
and IiARRINGTON puts the question if this can not really be looked
upon to represent a knife.2)
Flint does not occur in the region of the St. John's River,3)
for which reason it must have been imported.4) It must therefore
have been valuable to the primitive Indians of this district.
Flint objects in the mounds are only those that have been thrown
away. WYMAN often found fireplaces but never a flint workshop. 5)
If arrow-points became damaged or misshapen, they could not be
restored and possibly used as knives, while other flint artifacts
.whkh the Indians eventually had, when unfit for use, could be
rendered serviceable again by another chipping and were preserved
the longest time possible. As has been said, the scanty
finds of primitive pre-ceramic culture in Florida consist of, as far
as we can ascertain up to the present time, only one kind of artifact,
namely arrowpoints.
If we look for Siboneyan flint artifacts in either the younger
or higher cultures of Florida, we find only weak and hypothetical
analogies.
Lengthy, elliptical knives of chipped chert, with han"lle shap-
1) WYMAN, Fresh-Water Shell Mounds etc., PI. II are chipped objects also
arrow-points, but not from the oldest culture which lacks pottery. MOORE, Certain
Sand Mounds ot St. John's River, Florida, Ac. of Nat. Sciences of Philadelphia,
vol. XII, likewise names only arrow-points as flint artifacts for shell-mounds
lacking pottery, but does not reproduce these.
2) HARRINGTON, p. 206, fig. 48.
3) 'WYMAN, Fresh-Water Shell-Heaps, etc., p. 402 and Fresh-Water Shell­
Mounds etc., p. 50.
') When CABEZA DE VACA wandered as a trader with Indian articles in Texas,
he offered them in exchange for the shell beads on the coast, which he would
afterwards trade for flint stones to be made into arrow-points, together with
seasoned reeds for them and cement with which they were made fast. See TER­
MER ed., Stuttgart I925, p. 55. MOORE, Certain River Mounds ot Duval County,
Florida, p. 495, found arrow-points in a mound with bitumen adhering to the
tang. This mound belongs to the younger culture and contains below undecorated
pottery, while stamped specimens are found above.
6) Fresh-Water Shell-Mounds etc. p. 49.
I3

14
ed like a knob!) as in the Stone Age of Japan, are unlike any
Siboneyan type.2)
The discoidal knife-scraper has its principal range in the
central part of the Mississippi-Ohio basin and is not found any
nearer the coast than Tennessee.3) Possibly the "crescent of chert"4)
can have had the same object as the Siboneyan implement vvith
concave edge, but otherwise without decided external contour,fi)
"as if for dressing down arrow- or spear-shafts. "6)
Some of the Siboneyan artifacts of flint are found in similar
forms in the middens of Tierra del Fuego. For instance, the discoidal
scraper has a strikingly similar counterpart.7) The knives
of Tierra del Fuego follow the usual primitive stages of development.S)
Nevertheless, with the slight knowledge that we yet possess
of America's oldest archeology, it would be too early to express
an opinion on the question, if some convergence from a primitive
Indian substratum presents itself here. Exactly these same
artifacts actually arose very early in Europe also, as Soon as they
had really taught themselves the flaking of flint. In certain instances
the Stone Age of Tierra del Fuego reached a higher phase
of development than that of the Siboneyes. Beautiful triangular
arrow-points occur, with tangs and barbs made by pressure. 9 )
These belong to a later stage of development.
By rotation the Siboneyes have produced mortar-holes in
the solid rock or in suitable naturally flat stones, for the grinding
') MOORE, Certain Sand jVIounds of the St. John's River, Florida, P. go, fig.
106, rude; Certain River Mounds of Duval County, Florida, p. 463, fig. 17, finely
elaborated from Shields Mound with a highly developed stone culture, containing
some copper together with a culture element so late in time as a smoking-pipe
of soapstone, and moreover with stamped pottery.
2) Highly elaborated knife-scraper type, HARRING'tO~, fig. 7, "from a mound
near the Cienaga de Zapata", with an incision in the upper part of the edge side,
so that a handle is formed or a slender part for the setting into the shaft.
3) HODGE, Handbook, art. Cache Disks and Blades, and Flint Disks.
4) MOORE, Certain Sand lVlounds, etc., p. gO-g1, figs. r07-I08, found in
the same mound as the above-mentioned knife.
')HARRIXG'tOX, fig. 52, Boca Ovando, Oriente.
6) Ibid, p. 3g2 .
7) GusnmE, Op. cit. fig. 63. Camp. HARRIXG'tON, fig. 47.
8) Ibid, fig. 62. Camp. the lower one with HARRING'tON, fig. 47.
9) Ibid, p. 64.

of hematite. This also must be considered a primitive North American
characteristic.1) In this they differ decidedly from the Cuban
Tainos, as HARRING'l'ON shows.
The Siboneyes also knew the art of grinding, although they
never advanced approximately so far as the Tainos by this method.
Thus they lacked entirely stone axes, to say nothing of
stone sculpture. That grinding was known originally by the Siboneyes
is shown by the fact that so strong an integral culture
element as their simple, almost circular hammerstones2) for the
grinding of hematite, must have received their shape through
grinding, although it is true that they selected stones naturally
of a suitable form. Their flint knife-scrapers could also have a
polished back side.3) On the other hand, when they wished to
give their stone mortars a cylindrical form, they understood hmv
to do it only by flakening off big pieces. 4)
In conclusion, an important indication of the North American
ongin of the Siboneyes is that they used hematite for producing
a red colour, contrary to the Tainos, who once brought over bixa
from South America to the Greater Antilles, for the painting red
of the body. In Siboneyan caves and dwelling-sites, Harrington
often found paint stones of hematite.5) One stone mortar for the
grinding of colour was still red from the hematite colour.6 )
The using of hematite as colour for body-painting occurs up
to a late time in North America. Hematite is often found in graves
in the United States and even in culture with highly developed
IS
1) According to HODGE, Handbook, art. "Mortars", in the "United States
they extended from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Various types in the Southern
States, see CHARLES C. JONES, jr., Antiquities of the Southern Indians, particztlarty
of the Georgia Tribes, New York 1873, PI. XVIII: I, 3, 7.
2) HARRINGTON, figs. 56, 99. fig. 57 is oval with very rude sides and sho\vs
a similarity to the Taino hammer type.
3) Ibid, fig. 7.
4) Ibid., fig. 104.
0) Ibid., p. 180, Village site, Mesa Ruena Vista, 4-5 miles west of Jauco.
Oriente; p. 190, Cue,'a Caletica, east of J auco; p. 206, Monte Cristo Site, Oriente;
p. 314, Cueva del l\:fuerto, near Santiago; Portales rock shelter, Pinar del
Rio.
6) Ibid., p. 224. Found in the purely Siboneyan "Flint Cave", south of
Maisi'.

16
pottery and many other elements in the Southeastern States.1)
In the lower culture strata of the St. John's River region, \VYl\IAN
often found traces of red ochre. Ochre (hematite) for colouring the
body red, is one of the primitive culture elements, which was
always retained in North America and carried up into higher
cultures. In this case the reason is entirely natural. Bixa is a
tropical growth, cultivated by the Indians in South America and the
\Vest Indies, and has never been introduced into North America.
The use of ochre for painting the body presents itself as a primitive
e1ement, originating among the wandering, poor and rude
collecting and hunting races along the coast of Texas, who smeared
and coloured their faces and hair with it.2) The Fuegans, who
belong to a primitive Indian race-stratum, use as colouring material
for the painting of their bodies, a reddish yellow clay, which is
burnt to a brick-red colour.3)
LJp to the present time the Siboneyan culture in the West
Indies has only been established in Cuba. FEWKES, although
assuming its extension not only in Cuba, but also over all the \Vest
Indies,4) has not been able to confirm this hypothesis as yet by
the finds that have been made.
According to him, this culture should be found in Florida,
south of a line drawn eastward from Charlotte Harbor to the
Atlantic Coast, lying under a higher culture with pottery originated
in the North. 5) Possibly Siboneyan culture does exist in the
shell-heaps of this region. But until further notice, for its existence
in Florida we have only to take HARRINGTON'S statement.
The lower culture which FEWKES himself excavated on vVeeden
Island, to judge from what he says, can not be looked upon as
equivalent to the Siboneyan. Even if it should belong to a precolumbian
period, its development gives it the effect of being
younger than the Siboneyan, let alone the fact that it is poorer
1) CLARENCE, B. MOORE, Certain Sand Mounds of the St. John's River, Florida,
J oum. of the Ac. of Nat. Sciences, Vol. X, Sec. Set., Phila. 1894-96, p. 8.
') CABEZA DE VACA, op. cit. p. 55.
3) GUS1NDE, op. cit., p. 225.
4) J. 'W ALTER FEWKES, Preliminary A rcheological Explorations at Weeden
Island, Florida, Smiths. Misc. ColI. Vol. 76, I925, p. 25.
5) Ibid.

in elements. It contains many objects of shell and bone.!) Like
the Siboneyan, it is certainly a shell-culture but otherwise is
without typical similarities. The numerous drinking-cups have
the lip "artificially smoothed and the spire formed into a handle."
That is, a more advanced stage of development than the Siboneyes'
crudely cut snail-shell ... FEWKES refers to :VIOORE'S illustrations
for "weapons made from fossil conch shel1." Not a single
one of the characteristic Siboneyan gouges is found reproduced as
coming from MOORE'S excavations on the west coast of Florida.
Moreover, Fewkes found in the same layers on "Weeden Island
"circular disks or elongated plates for suspension. "2) The Siboneyes
had only assymetrical, poorly-made beads of shel1. It is
true that shell disks of the above-mentioned kind are also found
on the northern Greater Antilles and the Virgin Islands, but in
the Taino culture, and the Floridian influence mnst have been of
later date in this as well as some other cases, which I shall treat
later on.
HA'l"r'S excavations on St. Thomas show us that a primitive
North American culture, different from the Siboneyan, migrated
to the \Vest Indies. The abundant occurrence of hematite, together
with hammer-stones for grinding it, in the small shellheaps
at Krnm Bay, St. Thomas, mustS) be considered as meaning
that this culture proceded from a race that emigrated from North
America to the \Vest Indi~s. It is with good reason that HArr
does not identify his Knull Bay culture with the Siboneyan. It
is not a conch-shell culture, as is the case with the Siboneyan. It
contains "a number of specimens of a peculiar long and narrow
type of stone axe", 4) different as to form from the slender petaloid
celts, which are found on the dwelling-sites of the Island-Arawaks
on the Virgin Islands. Hatt found only a few small fragments of
pottery, by themselves on the surface of the shell-heaps. He
says nothing about conch vessels. Indeed, it can be possible that
the Krum Bay race had vessels of wood or bark.
1) Ibid. p. 2I.
2) Ibid. p. 22.
3) GVDMGND RATT, Archaeology of the Virgin Islands, XXI: e Congr. Int.
des Americanistes, Session de la Raye 1924, p. 31 and Fra Vestindiens Stenalder,
Kationalmuseets Bog, Copenhagen 1925, p. 59-60.
4) PI. VII, 3.
2
17

18
The shell-heaps lie on rocky ground and land suitable for cultivation
is not found in the vicinity. It is likely, therefore, that
the Krum Bay people were seashore-collectors and fishers. Krum
Bay is very sheltered, so that these primitive Indians could lie
out there in small craft and fish.
It is likely that they had been settled on other islands nearer,
the Northamerican mainland, before they came to St. Thomas.
Since the Krum Bay culture is not a conch-shell culture, it
can scarcely be that it came from the west or south coasts of Florida,
where the Siboneys must have originated. It must have
come from some region containing stone in the parts of the Atlantic
Coast of the United States, located in the vicinity of the
nearer vVest Indies, perhaps Georgia and by way of Bahamas.
As has already been said, 'WYMAN came to the conclusion that
the pottery in the region of the St. John's River is younger than
the chipped flint. Later, MOORg also came to the same conclusion
as a result of his excavations in this district, extending over a
greater area and carried out \vith greater resources at his command.
I ) "Pottery filled so great a want in the lives of the aborigines
and so was so extensively used by the makers of the shellheaps
where it was found at all, that it seems impossible to account
for its absence upon any hypothesis other than the one suggested",
namely that if a trace of pottery lacked in culture layers, then the
makers of the layers must have been without it.
With regards to the Krum Bay culture, it is also of great
importance to learn just when, in the ages gone by, the stone axe
made its first appearance in Florida. It seems to me that there
is good reason to consider it, like pottery, to be younger than
flint flaking. The Indians of Tierra del Fuego, who have a comparatively
highly developed flint culture, lack not only pottery
but also stone axes. In Florida it seems that not pottery alone,
but axes as well are missing from \VVMAN'S excavations of the
lower primitive culture in the St. John's River district. The axeblades
he fOllnd were cultures younger than the most primitive,
which nevertheless contained chipped flint. They were all of
shell. As that was used only as material for the production of stone-
') CLARENCE, B. MOORE, Certain Shell Heaps ot the St. John's River, Florida,
hitherto unexplored, Amer. Naturalist, Vol. 26, 1892, p. 916.

axe types, it can clearly be seen that stone-axes were the prototypes.
These shell axes are found in cultures with pottery. Wyl\lA);T'S
excavations did not include a mound containing the highest
cultures within the region. The pottery is of coarse material, but
already stamped specimens occur; smoking-pipes and metals were
lacking. Above all, MOORE has investigated higher, and probably
younger, cultures in this section containing highly and richly
developed pottery, smoking-pipes, also copper, gold and silver,
and many more things. In these higher cultures occur also ground
stone celts, and among them oblong celts,l) although they are
not of equal breadth to those of the Krum Bay culture. The finds
made in Florida and Georgia up to the present time leave us
without a clue as to the origin of the Krum Bay culture on the
continent. So much only can be said in general, that while the
Siboneyes must have set out from the stonefree coast in southern
or south-western Florida, on the other hand the makers of the
Krum Bay culture must have started from a more northern locality,
where there was native or imported stone, and probably
on the Atlantic side of the peninsula.
The stone axe is in northeastern Florida younger than the
flint implements. With our present knowledge of Florida, it can
only be said that it, \vith its substitute, the imitated axe of shell
material, made its appearance there at the same time as the first
pottery, and that later on stone axes in other and highly developed
ground forms came in with still higher cultures.
On that account it is remarkable that the Krum Bay culture
lacks pottery.. But it is indeed conceivable that this culture
migrated from the continent at a time when its makers were procuring
clay vessels for themselves from higher standing races
through barter, and had not yet learned how to make them. On
the other hand, they could already make a primitive type oblong
celt for themselves.
At the time before the Discovery, Florida, especially in the
interior but also along the west coast, was in the possession of races
with a far higher culture than that which is conceded to the Si-
1) 1'doORE, Certain Sand ]I,Iounds of the St . .fohn's River, Florida, p. 23, fig. 7,
Certain River 1'vfounds oj Duval County, Florida, p. 458, fig. 8, Journ. of the Ac.
of Nat. Sciences, Philadelphia, 1894--96.
I9

20
boneyes. CUSHING'S Key Marco discoveries gave us evidence
of a decidedly higher culture, in spite of the fact that it lacks stone
axes and clay vessels, because it had no resources of raw materials.
Strand-collectors, fisher- and hunter-races of sufficiently low
culture to be possibly compared with the Siboneyes, were at the
Discovery only fonnd on the east coast of Florida.
According to the oldest Spanish sources of information, the
Indians of the Florida Keys 'were of a race which could not be
compared to the Gnanahatabeyes in cultural quality Yvithout
further consideration. Escalante FONTANEDAl) describes the Indians
on "Los }lartires."2) (Florida Keys) They were tall and
of pleasing appearance. The men went about in skins and wore
besides only '\1110S bragueros tejidos de palma, con que los hombres
cubren sns verguenzas, y las mujeres un as yerbas que nacell
de 11110S {uboles;3) estas yerbas parecen lana, aunque son differente.
"4) Like the Gl1anahatabeyes, 'who lived exclusively by
fishi11g and hunting, these India11s of the Florida Keys obtained
the greater part of their sustenance by the same methods. "Su
comida ordinaria es pescado, y tortugas, y caracoles que to do es
pescado, y atunes y ballenas, segun vi est an do entre e1los y algunos
destos indios comen lobos marinos, aunque no todos, porque
hay differencia entre mayores y menores. Hay otro pescado
que aeA llamamos langostas, y otro como a manera de chapin."5)
But the hunting also must have had for them an especial significance,
which we can only conceive with great difficulty to-day,
1) His narration is from the time of Philip II. Camp. Doc. ined. del A j'ck
de Indias, Vol. V, p. 540. Again, he was a prisoner among the Carlos "desde
llhio de trece anos hasta que fue de treinta anos". See Ibid., p. 539.
2) These islands extended in an east to west direction. See Ibid., p. 533
Doubtless they are identical with the Florida Keys. Compo with the maps, De
Laet, Navis Orbis, Lugd. Bat. 1633, directly before p. I, and GAIIFAREL. Hisioire
de la Floride Francaise, Paris 1875, "Carte de la Floride Fran

when all the wild animals have been exterminated. At that time
there were "venados" there, and FONTANEDA mentions other mammals,
which were hunted not only for food, but whose skins were
sought.!) Nevertheless, FONTANEDA does not say that the Indians
of the Florida Keys lived exclusively by hunting and fishing. The
larger of these islands, at least, could not have been without land
suitable for Indian agriculture, even if the layer of humus were
thin. 2 )
If we follow the Florida Keys to their root, we find that the
Indians who have lived on the mainland in the vicinity Laguna
de :\fayami, the Tequestas, can sti11less be likened to the Guanahatabeyes.
3 ) Possibly better analogies can be found along Florida's
east coast.
}Ioreover, FONTANEDA localizes the short journey of I,ucas Vasquez,
which went precisely along the east coast of Florida towards
the North. Oritza and Chicora4) were the objectives of this expedition,
but it was interrupted prematurely5) and according to
FO::-.JTAXEDA, Vasquez only visited "gente misera, aunque hay
algunas perlecillas en algunas conchas; comen pescado, ostiones
asados y crudos, venados, corzos y otros anima1es; y al tiempo
que los matan enos, las mujeres acarrean lena y agl1a, para cocer
o asar en pari11as. "6)
If we understand "parilla" as meaning a stand for roasting,
then this race of fishers and hunters of the east coast of Florida
had barbacoas, on \vhich fish and game not only \vere roasted,
but boiled. Barbacoas characterize the higher culture stage in
the lowlands of South America. In North America I know of
wooden gridirons on four poles in North America from the Timuquas
at the mouth of the St. John's River, and from the Secotan
on the coast of North Carolina. But setting aside barbacoas,
and with them perhaps cooking pots, there is nothing to prevent
2I
1) Camp. Ihid.
') Camp. DECKF;R'I', Soydllmerika. I,eipzig and Vienna H)04, p. 272.
3) See Ibid., p. 534-"535.
4) X ames of Indian settlements on the coast of Soath Carolina, from the
expedition of Ayllon ell l52 r.
") Compo Ihid., p. 535·
") ]/Jill., p. 536.

22
us from thinking that we have to do here with a race somewhat
the same cultural stage as the Guanahatabeyes.
Above all things and in addition to this, what we learn from
FONTANEDA'S account is that in later Taino times, the initiative
to transmarine communication lay on the side of the Cubans.
Indeed, at the time of the discovery of Cuba they had large
canoes, to which the Indians of Florida could scarcely have had
a counter-part. But an emigration from Florida to Cuba is also
not inconceivable, indeed it is even more natural than vice versa,
as Cuba is sometimes visible from Key \Vest in clear ·weather.
Moreover, in this case the strong currents would have a less terrifying
effect.
In general, a11 that we know of the Guanahatabeyes is that
they were a race of fishers, hunters, and collectors that had not
developed any Indian agriculture. It is said that they had no
houses, but this is certainly to be understood in the Taino sense
and therefore it is probable that they had at least sheds.
They may have crawled into holes in case of storm and rain, but
as a rule the climate there is such, that there is no reason why the
night could not be passed in the open air. LAS CASAS' statement
that they lived in caves must not be taken as in complete harmony
with the reality. Indeed, he himself was never in the extreme
western part of Cuba and never observed the Guanahatabeyes.
The western sierras of Cuba are the richest in caves of any region
of the island,!) and for that reason the Tainos, who lived in houses,
could very easily have conceived the idea that among the Guanahatabeyes
caves compensated for the lack of regular houses. At
the same time, naturally, it is not out of the question that in arid
Pinar del Rio caves represented suitable dwelling places. 2)
FEWKES distinguishes a particular pre-Arawak race of troglodytes,
which he represents as following along the arc of islands
from the South American continent, but he does not cite archeological
proof of its existence. It is only in recent times that HAR­
RINGTON has concluded to identify things found in certain Cuban
caves, as originating from a primitive race of fishers being of
North American origin. But vvith this exception, and perhaps
") Compo DECKERT, Cuba, I,eipzig, 1899, p. 104.
2) Compo DECKERT, Cuba, p. 104.

also of the caves along the south shore of Samana Bay, the material
in the caves of the rest of the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas
has shown itself to be equivalent to that found in the village-sites.
In both cases it is of such a nature that we have every ground
to suppose that it proceeds from the Island-Arawaks. Furthermore
if in exceptional cases the caves of the \Vest Indies show
evidence of having been inhabited, for the greater part they
appear to have served the Island-Arawaks as mausoleums or
grotto-temples, where sacrificial feasts were offered to the spirits
of the dead, as is best shown by the discoveries made by lVION­
TANI, in the cave Boca del Plurial, in CUba.1)
The theory of a primitive race of troglodytes in the Lesser
Antilles is a contradictio in adjecto. \Vith the exception of Barbados,
only few caves do exist in these islands. :Moreover, FEWKES himself
must have learned by experience that the caves of Trinidad
did not contain human remains.2)
If we turn to South America, the nearest caves to the \Vest
Indies are in the Paria Peninsula, but as far as I know they are
without any traces of mankind. In this connection we will not
take into consideration the finds with secondary burial in large
vases of clay in shelters in the the Raudal region of the Orinoco.
Interesting human remains have been found in many caves in
different parts of the Andes. But the class and quality of the
cultures are very different. Perhaps in the majority of cases these
caves also have served as burial, or for the worship of the spirits,
like many of the Island-Arawaks of the \Vest Indies. However,
in connection with a primitive race of fishers, we must take into
account the fact that UHLE fonnd a cave at Pichalo, near Pisagua,
inhabited by an aboriginal people, who ate seaweeds.3)
In the regions of tropical South America still inhabited by primitive
races, caves that show signs of having been used as dwellings
can only be found in eastern Brazil,4) and very rarely at that.
23
1) L'Homme de Sancii Spiritus (Cuba), Congr. Int. d'Anthrop. et d'Arch.
Monaco, 1906, Vol. II, p. 148-149.
2) Amer. Anthrop., N. S., Vol. 16, No.2, p. 204, n. 2.
3) Z. E. 1913, p. 1142.
4) One near Maqhine in Minas Geraes. See P. \V. I,UND in Annaler for Nordisk
Oldkyndighed, Copenhagen 1838-39, p. 159-168.

24
Great importance must be given to 1"AS CASAS' assertions
about the Guanahatabeyes, that "en ninguna cosa tratan con los
de la isla." By this it is clearly shown that this aboriginal race had
assimilated with the Taino immigrants only \vith great difficulty.
Moreover, a race of pure fishers inhabited the southern cayos of
Cuba, but at the time of the Discovery, they were living in a
dependent state under the protection of the Taino chiefs of the
main island. Their ethnical origin can not be established but
otherwise they were tainized.
Up to the present date only in Cuba has the culture sequence
been clearly determined; the older Siboneyan stratum, then the
younger "Sub-Taino" and "Taino," With the exception of the
Krum Bay culture on St. John, investigated by HAlT, we know
nothing firmly established about pre-Arawak immigrations to
the rest of the \Vest Indies; they may well have started either
from North America or South America.
The Island- The immigration of the Arawaks to the \Vest
Arawaks. Indies must have taken place in waves, Originally
they must have been attracted to the most southern of the Lesser
Antilles by the good fishing. Later, when they found the islands
suitable for the cultivation of yuca, they made permanent settlements
there, Upon such larger islands, local, higher and more
independent cultural developments have taken place. This is well
expressed in FEWKES able "Culture Areas", How these concretions
started, \ve can as yet only perceive in individual places, On the
southern I

subordinate significance from South America coming from over
the Lesser Antilles and Virgin Islands, together with others
from Florida and from Yucatan, which culture - in so far as it
concerns Cuba - HARRINGTON calls "Taino Culture". For I must
mention that this had come over from Haiti by emigration
to Cuba, where, especially in the plateau land of Oriente, the
population which arrived shortly before the Discovery was very
numerous, as the abundance of finds proves. On the other hand,
HATT'S investigations have made clear that at a late date a Taino
emigration took place from Puerto Rico to the Virgin Islands,
which appears to be younger than an older South American influenced
Ignerian culture. Cuba's older Arawak culture is poorer
and not so highly developed as the Taino culture, that came in
at a late time from Haiti. HARRINGTON calls this older Cuban Arawak
culture, "sub-tainan culture". He will even extend the term
and make it designate the Arawak culture on Jamaica. But
precisely on Jamaica, the Arawak culture has advanced to an
indiginous development turning aside from the rest of the Greater
Antilles and little dependent on the specific Taino cultural evolution
of Espanola and Puerto Rico. Because of this, the Jamaican
culture remains poorer than the Espanolan-Puerto Rican. Outside
influences have not furnished many contributions. Evidently
Jamaica stood in immediate communication with northern Central
America, while the South and North American elements remained
in the Taino culture, and did not pass over from Espanola or
eastern Cuba to Jamaica. The Jamaican culture is too high and
uniquely developed to be classified with the "sub-Tainan" in
Cuba. It surely has been developed on Jamaica since the Arawaks
took possession of that island. Therefore, we can talk of a
hypothetical"sub-Taino" stage in Jamaica, only so far as that
this emigrated to the island at a time when the Taino culture
was not yet developed on Espanola to say nothing of eastern
Cuba.
There exists a great coherence otherwise within the entire
culture of the Island-Arawaks. This is true above all for the
Tainos. the Arawak race which at the time of the Conquest, still
lived on the Greater Antilles and the Bahama Islands. Even if
on searching the historical sources more thoroughly, we can learn

this fact only for Espanola, yet be it remarked that the Spaniards
did not find on any of the other islands Indian cultures that manifested
themselves to be of another kind before the strangers.
But unfortunately they did not pay much attention to local
differences. These we get to know better through archeology.
As pervading similarities in the Island Arawak culture from J a­
maica down to the most Southern of the Lesser Antilles, can only
be cited here the petaloid celt and a certain kind of archaic
pottery with clay faces or heads, although it is a fact that this
latter varies considerably. The culture of the Igneris we can only
know for the greater part through archeology and for the rest in
the historical sources through constituent parts that remained
among the Island-Carib wives, who, with Island-Arawak ancestry,
going back to a time shortly before the Discovery, even in the
seventeenth century brought up their daughters in their own
native language to do woman's work with utensils and technic
from the Igneri time, and also taught them something of the
old Igneri religious ideas, which often differed characteristically
from those of the Caribs. In this manner, we get evidence of a
vanished race with essential likenesses in speech and culture to
the Taino, who at the time of the Discovery by femal individuals
still remained alive.
l'he Taino far away from South America, illustrates best of
all that the great Arawak emigration to the Antilles took place
at a time before the tribes of the tropical lowlands of South America
had yet enriched themselves with different cultural properties,
which therefore remained foreign to the Tainos. The smaller
number of cultural elements among this race and also in a certain
measure the archaic stage of development of their pottery, make
it necessary for us to put back the date of the emigration of
the Island-Arawak from the continent to a time considerably
remote.
In addition, as the Island-Arawaks have been in the West
Indies a very long time, the expansion of the Arawak race on the
South American continent not only must be placed back in distant
ages, but also it must completed for the most part at a very distant
time.

The Arawak
Race on the
Continent.
\Ve have not yet reached the point where we can
fix upon the centre of expansion of the Arawak
tribes on the South American continent with
exactitude. It is believed that the Arawaks were the first to
propagate the cultivation of manioc, the use of the 01der1) hammocks
made of fibre or bast, and the production of clay vessels
in the lowlands. EHRE:Nlu:rcH considers them also the principal
propagators of tobacco and maize cultivativation.2)
Indeed the directions of the movement of the wanderings of
the Arawak tribes in Venezuela and Guiana indicate the
fact that they set out from two different centres here, and this
again is a sign that we have to do here with a more recent processes
than the first phases of emigration. I will only mention
here, that with regard to the practicability of investigation of
the centres of expansion and directions of migration, I have
found it convenient to divide the Arawaks into two classes:
a) River Arawaks, who spread themselves by means of the large,
gently flowing streams, and b) Maritime Arawaks, who expanded
by way of the sea. To the last-named the Island-Arawaks belong.
In this work I will take into consideration only the Maritime
Arawaks, and particularly, the Island-Arawaks.
To what degree the :iVIaritime Arawaks in pre-Spanish times
had extended themselves along the north coast of South America
to the \Vest, or if their center of expansion lay further west than
Paria, can likewise have no direct significance with respect to the
emigration of the Island-Arawaks to the Antilles.
As the base of this emigration we must consider Trinidad, or
the adjacent Paria. The Orinoco is not what Martius means by
an "Arawak river", that is, a great, calmly flowing lowland stream,
with dry soil bying behind suitable for the cultivation of yuca.
It should also be added, a river on which the Arawaks could
easily undertake journeys in their large canoes, which are not
fit for turbulent streams. Such gently-flowing rivers in South
America are conducive not only to the settlements of the Arawak
') Camp. ERL,\XD ~ORDENsKroLD, The Changes in the IVIaterial Culture at
Two Indian Tribes Unier the Influence 0/ New Surroundings, Gothenburg, I920.
p. I3·
2) Die Ethnogr. Siidam. etz., Arch, f. Anthrop. N. F. III., p. 48.
27

28
tribes, but also to their geographical expansion. Only at certain
points does the lower Orinoco afford locations suitable for Arawak
colonization and the cultivation of yuca. An Arawak settlement,
rich in cassava and maize once lay at the base of the
delta. This dominant center was the large town Huyapari (Carib)
or Aruacay (Arawak), located on a hill on the north side where the
Macareo branches off. At the time of the Discovery the Caribs
held the sway but the larger part of the population were Nepoyes,
an Arawak tribe that also was settled on Trinidad. Higher
up, the banks of the Orinoco are for the most part desolate and
sterile, or in some places there are swampy morichales. The moriche
palms furnish the staple food of the Guaraunos, whose
settlement on the delta was of older date. Better economical
condition begin to prevail for the first time when we advance
up to the large Indian town, Cabrutu, which was rich in maize.
Somewhat higher up the falls commence and there is a region
where a group of dissimilar tribes of a low grade of culture are
still living, not only on the east where masses of granite occur,
but also on the sterile llanoos of the west side. Not till we pass
beyond the navigable portion of the Orinoco's course do we meet
with Arawak tribes.
It is indeed certain, that the True Arawaks still live adjoining
to the most southern affluent of the Orinoco, that their settlement
at an earlier period possessed an influence on the lower
Orinoco, far greater than at the present time, and also that in
distant times they had passed up the river with their fleets,
beyond the bend at Cabrutu. Later, in their respective connections,
I will return to the similarities between the Tainos
and the Orinoco tribes in respect to their chairs and secondary
burial in baskets in their huts, which were only pointed out
by FEWKES in a general way. The Arawak races of the Upper
Orinoco are River Arawaks and probably came from the Southeast
by way of the Rio Negro route and its continuation. In connection
with the emigration of the Island-Arawaks to the Antilles
consequently, we have nothing to do with these Arawak tribes.
As I will mention later, there are certain archeological circumstances
which indicate that the True Arawaks once came from
Trinidad into the lowlands southeast of the middle course of the

Orinoco. This is in harmony with their own traditions, also.
When the True Arawaks met the Spaniards for the first time, a
tradition was still current among them of a time when they lived
in Guiana, how they had journeyed on the sea along the coast,
found the land fertile and had settled there for that reason. Indeed,
RODRIGO NAVARRETE says that they had come from the East,l)
but here might very well be a mistake in the longitude. BRINTON,
in his article 2 ) which until lately has been too little regarded,
cites myths from BRETT, according to which it appears that the
Arawaks formerly lived on an island in the North, which must
be Trinidad. An Arawak semi-cici,3) who was converted to Christianity
and in I84I became catechumen, related some of the Arawak
mythology to BRETT, and when asked where these incidents
had taken place, answered, "Not in this land, but at Kaieri (an
island)", pointing with his hand to the northward.4) The Arawaks
of Trinidad, moreover, called their island Cairi.5) In addition,
according to the information obtained by English navigators along
the coast of Guiana in the seventeenth century, the True Arawaks
had come thither from Trinidad.6)
From the above it must be inferred that there is no reason
to suppose that at the present time the True Arawaks are still
inhabiting in the mother-country of the Tainos. On the other
hand, these two tribes closely related by blood must have had a
common centre of expansion in Trinidad.
Paria. I have already mentioned that once upon a time
the Arawaks must have inhabited both sides of
the Gulf of Paria. This can not be proved linguistically,7) but all
1) See the trans. of Rodway in Timehri I895, Pt. I, p. 7.
2) D. G. BRINTON, The Arawah Language of Guiana in its Linguistic and
Ethnological Relations, trans. of Amer. Philos. Soc. Vo1. XIV, N. S. Phila. I87I,
P·444·
3) ~~ Piaie.
4) Rev. \V. H. BRETT, The Indian Tribes of Guiana, Land. I868, p. 402.
5) See RAI,EIGH, The Discovery - - - of Guiana Hak1. Soc. Ser., Vol. 4,
London I848, p. 4 and DE LAET, op. cit. p. 662.
6) PURCHAS, His Pilgrimes, London r625, A Relation of a Voyage to Guiana
Performed by Robert Harcourt etc. (I608).
7) Accordiug to }.i[ART'ilR, MacNutt's trans., p. 30 however, in Pari a the
canoc was called culchas, the Arawak form being kuljara (}vlartius).
29

30
the other outward signs and accounts indicate that the Parians
were Arawaks and not Caribs. 'When COLUMBUS visited them on
his third voyage, they presented themselves to him in their canoes
not at all in an unfriendly manner, but like genuine Arawaks
very anxious to trade. They had round shields of wood, while
the Arawak races of Trinidad who fought against Sedeno, used
partly round!) shields and partly square 2 ) ones, and the True
Arawaks in Guiana "large wooden bucklers"3) of "cork-wood".
The Englishmen who in r606 arrived at the region near the mouth
of the \Viapoco, found that the Arawaks there had "woodenbucklers."4)
The only Carib characteristic that the Parians had,
was the use of poisoned arrows. 5) But it could not have been
that they themselves prepared the poison; they must have bartered
it from afar, for on no account would they give away their arrows,
while they willingly exchanged gold for brass. Moreover, the
poisoned arrows of the Parians proved to be had and did little
harm to the Spaniards at a later date (at the beginning of the
third decade of the sixteenth century) .6) Indeed, the majority of
the Arawaks did not have poisoned arrows; as a matter of fact,
they had shields as protection against the poisoned arrows of the
Caribs. On the other hand, the Island-Caribs had neither "bouclier"
nor any other protective weapon. 7 )
These Parians formed a part of a commercial chain engaged
in the traffic of caracolis of guanin 8 ) from the West, and like the
') JITA:-;- DB CASTBr.!,ANOS, Elegias de Varones ilustres de Indias, Bib!. de Aut.
Esp. Tere. Ed. Madrid 1874, p. 93.
2) Ibid" p. 96.
3) BRET1', Op. cit. p. 489 and ROTH, Animism and Folklore of Guiana Tribes,
Thirtieth Ann. Rept. of the Bur. of Amer. Ethnol. ,VasIl. 1913, p. 383. Both
deseribe the same Arawak tradition of a victory over the Caribs at the mouth
of the Pomerool1. Compo further C. VAN CO!,!" Gegevens over Land en Volk ~'an
Suriname, p. 456.
4) PrRCIIAS, His Pilgrimes, I,ondol1 1625, p. 1262.
5) LAS CASAS, Histaria, Col. de. Doc. ined. para la Hist. de Esp. vol. 63,
P·240 .
6) See FRAY PEDRO SIMON, Primera j)arte de las notieias historiales de las
conquistas etc" lYIadrid 1625, p. 238 and 103,
') P. JACQUES BOUTON, Relation de l'Eslablissemenl en l'isle de la Martinique
etc, Paris, 1640, p. 127.
8) Hakl. Soc. 43, p. 128, D. FERNANDO, p. 57.

Arawaks, they sold such things to their enemies, the Island­
Caribs.I ) As a matter of fact, we know from the account of ROD­
RIGO NAVARRETE,2) that the Arawaks lived not only on the island
of Trinidad, but also on the continent around the Gulf of Paria. 2)
FIGUEROA also says (1520), "viniendo por la costa hasta el golfo
de Paria hay otra provincia que llega hasta la que dize de Aruaca."
He describes the Parians at Unicaco as "guatiaos e amigos de los
cristianos e que tratan e conversan con los cristianos pacificamente,
e con los otros guatiaos, amigos de los cristianos". The
Indians at "Boca del Drago", who lived here on both coasts of
the peninsula of Paria, "de mar a mar", were also "guatiaos y
amigos."3) But for the rest, we must be cautious and ought not
conclude that Arawaks are referred to whenever FIGUEROA employs
the Arawak-Taino term gttatiao. The assumption is well-founded
that by this he means in general the tribes that were friendly to
the Spaniards. Indeed, in the Spanish epoch Carib tribes lived
further west in the mountains, which for that reason can rightfully
be named "Carib." Nevertheless, if we should make an
investigation of the geographical names of the region, we 'would
find that Arawak names are frequent. The Caribs also penetrated
the lowlands of the Gulf of Paria on their passage by sea from
Guiana. Pelleprat has furnished us an excellent description of the
Galibi colony on the lower Guaripiche.
Generally speaking, the connection between the Ara,,-aks of
the Gulf of Paria and Trinidad and their kinsmen on the coastlands
of Guiana was never interrupted. In the Spanish epoch,
the True Arawaks still carried on their commercial voyages from
Guiana to the coasts of the Gulf of Paria and passed Boca del
Drago in order to provide their guatiaos, the Spaniards, on the
arid islands of Margarita and Cubagua,4) ,vith large cargoes of
31
1) ROCHEFORT (DE PorXCY), Histoire naturelle et morale des Iles Antiiles,
Amsterd. 1665, p. 446, DU TERTRE, Histoire generale des A ntilles, Paris, 1668. Vol.
II, p. 392.
2) JAMES RODWAY, Some Spanish Accounts of Guiana, Timehri 1895, Part I,
p. 13 OVIEDO Y VALDES, Historia general y natural de las Indias Occidentales,
Madrid 1851, Vol. II, p. 266.
3) A. de r., Vol. I, p. 381.
4) OVIEDO, Vol. II, p. 267-268, RODWAY, Ibid., p. II-I2.

32
cassava. I ) The Arawaks arrived there in great fleets, which they
outfitted at the approach of the Dry Season. 2 ) Perhaps already
before the Conquest they had carried cassava to these dry islands,
whose Indians possessed sufficient articles of exchange, proceeding
from their rich pearl fisheries and from their participation in the
commerce of gold and ornaments of guanin from the \Vest. It
can also be taken into consideration, if the Arawaks in pre-Spanish
times had not supplied these treeless islands with the skins
and with the feathers from parrots and other birds,3) Indian products,
especially typical of Guiana. Nevertheless, the Indian products
most desired by far by the Arawaks, more than gold and
probably even more than pearls, were "unas piedras que llaman
abas, que son a manera de jaspes labradas, y de que hazen sartales
y estiman mucho. "4) Later we shall see how greatly the
nephrite of the Antilles was prized by the True Arawaks.
Nevertheless, the greater part of the Indian maritime commerce
of the Arawaks of Guiana turned towards eastern Trinidad,
where they bartered trumpets,5) pearls, salt and axes,6) using the
Arawaks who had settled there as middlemen.
Trinidad. By means of literature, we can only establish two
racial elements, the Arawak and the Carib, on
Trinidad before the extermination of the Indians. The transla-
1) Each load was two arrobas (about 24 kg.), for which cargo RODRIGO DE
NAVARRETE, at that time governor of Margarita, used to give a knife.
2) RODWAY, Ibid., p. 7. Although they had sails, one need not consider
these to be necessarily of Indian origin. As ROD. DE NAVARRETE wrote in his
report of about 1545, the Arawaks had carried on trade with the Spanish of
Cubagua for 25 years.
3) Compo RODWAY, Ibid., p. 11. On the contrary Paria had sufficient parrots
with gay-colored feathers, which they presented to the sailors of COLUMBUS.
See LAS CASAS Histaria, Vol. 63, p. 235-236.
') OVIEDO, Vol. II, p. 267.
5) Apparently trumpets of conch-shell.
6) See ADELE C. BRETON, Man. Vol. XXI, cites the text of a Spanish map
of ilie north coast of South America from the Orinoco to the Magdalena, which
is in Lord Kingsborough's collection in the British. Museum. On this are given
the Spanish towns founded up to 1570, and ilie note that Trinidad had been
abandoned by the Spanish in 1571 and in 1575 still remained so.

tion of RALEIGH of the word Salvagay by "Salivas"l) is only
arbitrary, and improbable.
FEWKES dra"\v5 the conclusion, that the Indians seen and
observed by COLUMBUS on Trinidad at the time of his third voyage,
belonged to the Arawak race. 2 ) Everything seems to confirm,
that this opinion is justified. On the other hand, it is not true
that Carib tribes3) were not also established on Trinidad, although
the principal part of the population was Arawak.
The older Spanish accounts give us little enlightenment as to
which races one time peopled Trinidad, and where they lived.
The Basque, J"C"AK BONO, who visited Trinidad in 1516 and took
180 Indians away with him, found the people friendly and the
cannibal Caribs of a hostile character. 4) Consequently he must
have lived among the Arawaks. FIGUEROA could only have known
Arawaks on Trinidad, for he describes the population only as
"guatiaos 6 amigos de los cristianos."5) In the account of RODRIGO
DE NAVARRETE. Trinidad is included also in the list of regions
inhabited by the Arawaks.6) Yet in early times the report was
current among the Spaniards, that on Trinidad lived warlike
cannibals, "Caribes", who used poisoned arrows. But reports of
that kind had for their motive the justification of slave-hunting
and we can not determine with exactitude just how much truth
there was in them. ~When SEDENO landed with his army on the
island in 1532, there were named only two large Indian provinces;
CarnuC14,rao, under the great war-chief Baucumar and Chacomar
under 1viarauna. 7 ) This great Indian war against the united tribes
of Trinidad under their war-chiefs, and which resulted in great
loss for the Spaniards, has only been equaled by one in South
1) FEWKES, Amer. Anthrop., N. S., Vol. I6, No.2, p. 202.
2) Ibid., p. 201-202.
3) Compo Ibid., p. 202-203.
4) LAS CASAS, Historia, Vol. 65, p. 322.
5) A. de 1., Vol. I, p. 383.
6) In the designation of the Spanish map already cited, it says that the Arawaks
inhabited eastern Trinidad.
') HERRERA, Historia general de los hechos de los Castellanos, Madrid
I726 Dec. V, Book II, p. 26; CASTELLANOS, El. X, Canto I, p. 88. Castellanos
himself had remained some years at Trinidad, at the time of the Indian
war.
3
33

34
America, namely the Coalition War of the Indians in the Valencia
Valley of the Carib Mountains, some 20 years later under
Guaicaipuru. In connection with these struggles, it can be seen
how complicated the cultural and ethnological conditions in Trinidad
must have been. They fought with bows, strong and straight,
with "empulgueras" for the fastening of the string,I) and with
poisoned arrows ,2) as well as dart-throwers with hooks on the
extremity of the back side, with strong, sharp darts3) and very
efficacious sling-stones;4) they also had not only round shields5 )
but also rectangular shields 6 ) and they called to battle, some with
trumpets 7 ) and others with drums. S ) Their medicin men sought
communication with the spirit-world, in order to ascertain the
issue of the war, some by means of tobacco intoxication while
others used yopa. 9 ) The methods of painting the body for
battle were different,I°) and the poisoned arrows were more or
less deadly according to the region in Trinidad from which the
archers came.u)
All that we can determine from this is only very general,
namely that there was much in the military culture that was
characteristic of the Caribs, while other things were Arawak. But
in Trinidad we must also take into consideration the considerable
culture influences from the \Vest. Castellanos mentions quivers,I2)
a western culture-element, preferably from the M otilones in the
") ibid., Canto V, p. 94 and 97. ostensibly, when this is combined with a
little peg on the inner section of the bow.
2) Ibid., p. 94.
3) Ibid, p. 93.
4) Ibid., Canto iI, p. 9I.
') Ibid., particularly the warriors of the chief Utuyaney, "cada eual eon 5U
rodela".
6) Ibid., p. 96, "Paves", together with arrow and bow.
7) Ibid., p, 96, HERRERA, Ibid" p. 26.
B) HBRRERA, Ibid.; Castellanos, Ibid" p. 93.
9) CASTELLANOS, Ibid., Canto IV, p. 93,
10) Ibid" p. 93.
11) HERRERA, Ibid., p, 26, The Caribs of Trinidad must ha\'e had a tetanus
arrow-poison, because it caused rabies, See also ADELE C, BRETON in Man, VoL
XXI, No,S, Note I and p. II.
12) Canto V, p. 94, first "Proveida de flechas el aljaba" and then "dos earcajes"
together with a straight, hard and strong bow.

5t:erra de Perifa1) and in the western llanos. 2) Trinidad had bartered
the guanin and gold ornaments of the 'Vest from Paria. The
warrior chieftains of Trinidad wore crowns3) of gold on their foreheads
and golden eagles on their breasts,4) after the Columbian
fashion, to say nothing of great earrings and nose ornament of
gold. 5 )
The different kinds of shields betray the widely ramified
transmarine connections of Trinidad perhaps better than any
other element. Certainly the round shield of wood must have had
the preponderance. In CASTELLAJ:\oS'6) description "rodelas" are
mentioned often, "paves" only once. These two principal types
are of entirely different origin.
The rectangulare shield had a southeastern expansion, counting
from Trinidad. It can be shown preferably among the Warraus
as the isahi, made of transversely placed pieces of ita twigs and
curved7) outwards the long way.S) HARTSINCK describes the quadrangular
shield of Surinam; "its form is almost square, a little
hollow in the centre, where a handle is fixed."9) Apparently this
describes exactly the Arawak wooden shield. According to Moc­
QUET'S narration, the same is found among the CaripMts, an Arawak
tribe that lives on the mouth of Oyapoc, used here also
as protection against the envenomed arrows of the Caribs.10) The
Arawac Palicottrs, in Brazilian Guiana, had "un boucHer d'un
') BOLINDER Collection .. G. lvI. I6.3.I70.
2) Guagibas. see RIVERO. Histaria De Las Missianes de Los Llanos De Casanare
y Los Rios Orinoco y ]JIeta. TIscr. El Ano De 1736. Bogota 1883, p. 223.
further up the Orinoco among the Guipunavis. See SOLANO, in D .ANGEL AI,TOA­
GlrIRRE Y DUVALE, Relacion Geografica De La Gobernacion De Venezuela (I767
- -1768), p. 277-278. Publ. de la Real Soc. Geogr. Madrid 1909.
3) Compo NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. 40r.
4) 1,A5 CASAS, Historia, Vol. 63, p. 234. CASTELLANOS, Ibid., p. 87 & 94,
in the latter case decorated with feathers.
'J CASTELLANOS, ibid., p. 94.
0) Ibid., p. 95.
7) BRETT, ap. cit" p. 349--35 [ and illustration p. 350.
8) Not in the long, like a scutum.
9) The Indians of Guiana, 1770, trans. in Timehri, Vol. VII, No.8, Part I,
1893, p. 45·
10) ]EAX MocQUET, Voyages en Afrique, Asie, Indes Orientales Et Occidentales,
Rouen, r(j45, p. 157 & fig. C.
35

ois extrement leger qu'ils barbouillent en dehors de diverses couleurs.
La figure en est presque quarree et un peu concave en
dedans, ou il y a une ance au milieu qui sert a la tenie plus
commodement."l) This shield was curved in the same manner
and had figures painted on the exterior, like the isahi of the
Warraus. 2) Evidently a strong typological connection must exist
here, even if the method of fabrication of the shield and the
handle on the inner side3) was not the same ~mong the \Varraus
and the Palicours.
Nevertheless, the normal type of shield for Trinidad and for
Paria was the round shield, of course made of wood. 4 ) Moreover,
the origin of this shield must be sought in the West. The extremely
ramified overseas connections of Trinidad reveal themselves
still more clearly here.
As genuine Caribs, the tribes of this race in Venezuela with
their highly developed culture had strong bows and poisoned
arrows, but no shields. Neither were these mentioned by OVIEDO
y BANOS as being used in the hard battles which the Spaniards
fought with the tribes of the western Carib Mountains.
The round shield can have come to Trinidad from the West
in two ways, namely by the Orinoco route or by the sea, preferably
from the northwestern part of the present republic of Venezuela
with the tongue of land, the peninsula of Paraguana, lying before it.
When in 1531 ORDAZ undertook his voyage on the Orinoco,
he came upon the round shield for the first time, shortly after he
had commenced his return trip, just below the rapids in a warlike
race which the Spaniards took for Carib,S) and which according
to its culture was not Carib, but ethnographically related to
the Caverres and Guipunavis, not to speak of the races in the
region to the northwest of the Amazon. GUMILLA speaks of
"broqueles y rodelas"6) without naming the tribes. I believe that
1) BARRERE, Nouvelle Relation de la France Equino:riale, Paris 1753, p. 168
and fig. 6.
2) See BRE'!''!', Ibid.
3) The shield of the Warraus requires a second handle, as it is held with both
hands at the same time.
') It is also called "Tablachina".
5) See OVIEDO, Histaria, Vol. II, p. 219 and SIMON, op. cit., p. 124-125.
6) Et Orinoco Itustrado, Madrid, 1745, Vol. 88, p. 106.

I am not mistaken in assumption that by broqueles GUMILLA meant
the little woven round shields, which are found not only along
the Rio Tiqui{~,1) but also among the Arawak Achaguas, who
carried with them into their graves a strong woven shield "de
canas delgadas y flexibles. "2) GUMILLA must have seen rodelas in
nearer regions, but besides the Guipunavis had as well large round
shields of wood, covered with tapir-skin.3)
Moreover, Trinidad could have received the round shield
from the north coast of South America only through influence
from a vast distance. The round shield is mentioned in Curiana
among the warlike races, who lived near the in culture more advanced
and peaceful Caquetios. The Choques, also, had "rodelas
de madera bien hechas pintadas con soles y estellas,"4) and the
Guaipas "adargas de cuero de dantas." The Indians whom the
Spaniards of HOJEDA and VEspuccr's expedition encountered in
one of the Islas de Sotovento in 1499, had rodelas 5) as well as bows
and arrows.
The Indians of Trinidad had not only canoes,G) but also pirogues.
7) The latter must have been especially characteristic of the
Caribs of Trinidad in the Spanish epoch, for CASTELLANOS says of
Pamacoa's men:
"Espertos en piragua y en canoa
En guerras de Caribes muy sangrientos. "8)
In addition, COLUMBUS observed that it was characteristic of
the great canoes of Trinidad to have in the middle "un apartimiento
como camara en que vi que andaban los principales con sus
37
lj KOCH-GRUNBERG, Zwei Jahre unter den Indianern, Stuttg. 1909, Vol. r,
figs 139 and 218, Tanzschild der Desana, and fig. 221, Tukana.
2) RIBERO, op. cit., p. III. GUMII,LA T. II, p. 227 mentions "rode1a" as
burial deposit.
3) SOLANO, ap. cit., p. 277-278.
4) OVIEDO Y BANOS, Histaria de la Canquista y Pablacian de Venezuela, Vol.
II, Madrid 1885, Documentos, p. 234, involuntarily we think of the painted round
shield of the Jibaros.
5) LAS CASAS, Histaria, Vol. 63, p. 413.
6) Ibid., p. 233.
7) SIMON, ap. cit. p. 151.
8) El. X, Canto Line 4.

mugeres."l) \Ve must consider this a peculiarity belonging especially
to canoes of the Gulf of Paria with its tranquil water on
the lee side of the trade wind. For all that, these cabins in the
middle of the canoes are to be associated with a western cultural
influence. The great Maya canoe, which COLUMBUS met near
Guanafa on his last voyage, likewise had in the middle "un bulto
de hojas de palma" not unlike the lelzi on the Venetian gondolas.
Children, women, household goods and commercial wares were
protected under this from the rain and wind.2)
CASTELLANOS mentions several great war-chiefs by name. Notwithstanding
-- except that there were Caribs there 3 ) - we learn
nothing about the races that inhabited Trinidad. But it appears
as if all the great chiefs who took part in the great council of war,
not alone the peaceful MARUANA but also BAUCUMAR and his warparty,
were Arawaks. According to the description of CASTELLANOS,
only one and the same language was spoken at this meeting. 4 )
A notable contrast exists between the peaceable Indians, that
COLUMBUS learnt to know on 'l'rinidad and these warriors whom
CASTELLANOS pictures. It must be taken into consideration here,
that the Indians of the description of CASTELLANOS were on the
war-path, and also that the lastnamed and COLUMBUS must have
described two different parts of the island. COLUMBUS met the
Indians of the southeastern region of the island. This without
doubt was the province of CHACOMAR, \vhere Sedeiio landed in
15I9.5) Here was the most thickly populated section of the island
and the richest in food-supplies, although the provisions were not
enough in the long run for the army of Sedeiio.6) The Arawaks
of Chacomar remained friendly the whole time to the Spaniards. 7 )
') NAVARRETE, op. cit., p. 40r.
2) See DON FERNANDO COLON, Historia del Almirante, Vol. II, Madrid 1892,
p. 147-148.
3) Canto I, Line 6; compo Canto IV, I,ine 4, Pamacoa's men.
') Compo Canto III, p. 91, "Llamaron una lengua que alli estaba, soldados
y personas principales".
5) SIMON, op. cit., p. 95 and 43, n. 4. Xotice the custom of Arawak tribes
on Trinidad and in Venezuela as wcll as of their kinsmen the Tainos, to name
the casiques after their districts or villages.
6) Ibid., p. 95 & 97.
') Ibid., p. 97.

But when the latter made raids in other sections and stole provisions,
the Indians in the parts that suffered from this foraging
arose and made war.l ) To judge from CASTELLANOS, the battles of
Sedeno were fought first of all on the savanna in the center of
the island and then in the northern mountains, which perhaps
belonged to the kingdom of Baucumar, and also where he called
his people into battle with his "cornuta".2) Very likely there were
Caribs among the adversaries of Sedeno. These must have established
themselves in the northwestern part of Trinidad and
have influenced the Arawaks there, making them more warlike.~)
Nevertheless, we receive our first meagre information as to
which races inhabited Trinidad from English sailors. But from
these Englishmen on the other hand, we learn nothing of the
ethnography of the Trinidad Indians.
The ethnographic information from Sir ROBERT DUDLEY'S expedition
to Trinidad in 1595 is very scanty. It does not come
from the march which he made into the interior with 300 soldiers,
but from his connection with the Arawaks of Curiapan, which
COLUMBUS named "Punta del Arenal"4) and in the later Spanish
period Punta de Icacos or Punta de Gallo, this being the real
southwestern point of Trinidad. The Arawaks there were naked
and painted red, while the chiefs wore feather-crowns. 5) The
Arawak vocabularies of \VYATT 6 ) and DUDLEy7) must be derived
from CURIAPAN. The presence of the word "Harowa, a stonegood
for the headache," in DUDLEY'S dictionary is very interesting for a
comparison with the Taino. The Dutch missionaries have compiled
') Compo Ibid., p. 97.
2) Canto V, p. 96, "Cornuta", probably a conch-shell trumpet. In the northeastern
part of South America and also in the Antilles it was a Carib custom for
the chief to gh'e orders with a trnmpet of conch-shell. See for Galibi, BIET,
Voyage De La France Equinoxiale En L'Isle De Cayenne Entrepris En L5Annee
[652, Paris 1664, p. 370 and for the Island-Caribs, orders for those on the land,
where the canoes should disembark, see BRETON, Dictionaire Caraibe-Francois,
Auxerre, 1665, reimpr. par Jules Platzmann, I,eipz., 1892.
3) Pamacoa may have been a Carib chieftain. His most notable ornament
was a "collar de dientes de indios y animales". See Canto', p. 96.
4) Compo NAYARRETE, op. cit. Vol. I, p. 396.
5) DUDLEY in Hakl. Soc., N. S. Vol. III., London 1899, p. 70.
6) Ibid., p. 65.
') Ibid., p. 78-79.
39

a little vocabulary of the Arawak idiom of the J aois.1) This
language is nevertheless by no means identical with that of the
True Arawaks. It is mixed with Carib words. For example,
the Jaois use weyo, for sun and nonna or noene for moon,2) while
DUDI,EY gives the Arawak words, haddale and cattie. But yet the
J aois seem to have maintained close relations with the True Arawaks.
On the continent in many places along the coast and
also for such a great distance as from the Orinoco3) to the Wiapoco
,4) they were the neighbours of the latter. The J aois along
the coast of Guiana were described as differing from the Arawaks
in language, also. 5) However they appear to have
followed them in their migration from l'rinidad to the coast of
Guiana. 6 )
Sir \VAL'l'ER RALEIGH has given us the following names of
races of Trinidad, or of Cairi, as the Indians?) of that time still
called the island. There were the Jaois around Parico, the Arawacs
at Punta Carao, the Saluaios between Carao and Curiapan,
Nepoyos between Carao and Punta Calera; further away at Spanish
Citie were the Carinepagotos, as they called themselves. 8) Of
these races, we know the Jaois as Arawaks, as has been said. The
Carinepagotos, according to the entire name and particularly because
of the terminal element goto, "people" can be considered as
Caribs. The Arawacs likewise we can identify as Arm-vaks.
From the information RALEIGH gives, we can deduce up to a
certain point where these races lived on the island.
The Carinepagotos lived in the vicinity of Port of Spain. The
old Carib town, Arima, whose inhabitants cross-bred with negroes
now speak English,9) lies not far east from Port of Spain.
") DE LAE'!', Nov'Us Orbis, Ludg. Bat. 1633, p. 642--643.
2) Ibid., p. 642 .
3) PT_~RCHAS, op. cit., p. u85.
4) Ibid., 1252, 1263, 1282 and 1285.
5) COlnp. Ibid., p. 1272.
') Ibid.
') In Arawak. See above and RAI,EIGH, in Hakl. Soc. Vol. 3, London
1848, p. 4·
8) Ibid., p. 4.
9) FEWKES, The Aborigines of Porto Rico, p. 46-47. As genuine Caribs,
they are excellent weavers of baskets. See Ibid., PI. VII.

"Arvacas" lived on the south coast, near Punta Carao.
The J aois lived in the vicinity of Parico, that is on the north
side of the southwestern tongue of land.
The Nepoios lived between Carao and Punta Galera, that IS,.
in the Southeast and East.
The Sahtaios lived between Carao and Curiapan, that is, in
the southwestern part. I )
Major JOHN Sea')'')', named "King's Geographer" in I668, has
compiled a summary of the racial elements in Trinidad. 2 ) He
could establish three of them, namely "the Carrebees, the Sapoyes
and Arowagoes and those divisions are distinctly separated, into
three parts by ridges of mountains" .3) If we compare this information
with that of RALEIGH, we can say in general; that the
Nepoyes lived in the East, the Carib tribes4) in the Northwest,
and the Arm,vak tribes in the remaining portions of Trinidad,
above a11, in the Southeast. We learn nothing of the ethnical
status of the "Napoyes or Sapoyes nation".5) But I am inclined
to think that it was an Arawak tribe, because a part of it had
emigrated to the coast of Guiana along with the True Arawaks
and the J aois. 6) Nevertheless, like the J aois they spoke a different
language than the True Arawaks. 7 )
In 1587, when the island was still Indian, were the three
different racial elements mentioned. At that time the Caribs,
with the help of their kinsmen on the Anti11es, were carrying on
a' war of extermination against the Arawaks, to whom the
Nepoyes had joined themselves. It was precisely this war which
made it possible for the Spaniards to establish themselves on the
island of Trinidad8 ) Likewise in I605, it was said that a11 three
of these racial elements had placed themselves under the protec-
4I
I) Very likely an Arawak tribe.
2) Sloane i"rI. S. S. 3662, Brit. J'vIu5., published by N. Darnell Davis in Timehri,
Vol. XI, N. S., 1897, p. 12-14.
3) Ibid., p. 13.
4) SeOTI', Ibid., p. 14, speaks of "the Carib nations".
5) Ibid., p. 14.
6) PURCHAS, op. cit., p. 1272.
') Ibid.
") Compo SCOTT, Ibid., p. 14.

tion of the English.!) In r639, Captain Robert Markham was
murdered by the Caribs on Trinidad at the instigation of the
Spaniards. The Caribs were persuaded by the Spaniards, that
the English had come to aid the Sepoyes and Arawaks against
the first mentioned. 2 ) During this unsuccessful attempt at colonization
in r644-r645, the English were treated as friends by
th e "A:"\.rawacoes"d an "N epoyes. " 3)
\Ve get little information about the Indians of Trinidad from
French sources, who received their accounts from the Island­
Caribs. They captured the Arawaks of Trinidad, and then they
devoured them. As an interesting episode may be mentioned that
once the Arawaks of Trinidad took the island of Tobago from
the Caribs.4) BRETON calls Trinidad "Chaleibe". 5) I am inclined
to hold the opinion that an error in the name Cairi (Caili) lies
before us here and that BRE'fON'S name does not refer to Galibis
as being settled on Trinidad.
By the scanty information that we have concerning Trinidad
at least one thing is brought out clearly, namely that Trinidad,
through the arrival of Carib elements and cultural influences
from different directions that never reached the Greater Antilles,
had attained a development richer in many respects and
visible above all in their warlike culture, than that which must
have characterized the forefathers of the Tainos, before their
emigration to the Antilles.
The )Iazoriges A long time before the emigration of the Calinas
or Ciguayos in to the Antilles, great ethnographical revolutions
~ortheaster." must have taken place in northeastern South
1'Ianto Dommgo. A'
menca, pro
b
a
bl
y
. ., h th' .
111 connectlOn WIt e ImmIgration
of the Carib race to lands that had formerly belonged
to the Arawaks. It seems that they affected the Antilles very
little, but yet it is apparent that the immigration of the Mazoriges
I) DARNELL DAVIS, Ibid., p. 15.
') Ibid., p. 23.
3) Ibid., p. 24.
') Compo ROCHEFORT, op. cit., p. 15 & 322.
5) P. RAYMOND BRETOX, op. cit., p. 411.

to the northeastern part of Espanola was connected with these
race-movements.
We have already quoted from LAS CASAS to show that "Mazoriges"
in the universal language, that is Xaraguanian, the lingua
universal of Haitian Tainos, means practically "People of
foreign language." At the time of the Conquest, theMazoriges
were still regarded as foreign intruders, and their relations with
the Taino Haitians had not yet been peacefully established. MAR­
TYR says that in the war against the Ciguayos and their allies,
3000 Haitians, who had suffered from their invasion, entered
the ranks of the Spaniards.I )
Of what race were these Mazoriges? Were they Caribs? Co­
Llnmus believed this to be possib1e. 2 ) But in spite of this, their
first encounter with the Spaniards at the Golfo de las F1echas
(13. de Samana) gives no motive for such a hypothesis. In no
case could they have been deserters from the Ca1inas of the Lesser
Antilles. We must bear in mind that the Ciguayos considered the
Caribs on the islands to the east and still further distant as belonging
to a race very different from3) them. But from the description
of COLUMBUS, it appears that they must have had commercial
relations towards the Southeast, where the Caribs lived. For they
knew that gold and guanin reached them by that route. 4 ) The
Haitians called the continent of South America "Guanin", "y se
llama asi por 10 que lleva (that is, Guagiona) de ella, cuando fue
alla.~'5) On Espanola, they had come to know the Haitian myth of
Matininb. But the location of Matininb was not doubtful to them,
as to PANE. To them it was the gold island beyond the Caribs.
That "la isla de Matininoa" was described by the Ciguayos, who
were talking to the Spaniards with the aid of a Taino interpreter,
as "toda pob1ada de mujeres sin hombres" is in complete harmony
with the manner of thinking that the Tainos intuitively have with
respect to this myth. But their location of the island and their
43
1) De Orbe Novo, trans. of MacNutt, New York & Lond. 19I2, Vol. I, p. 143.
2) K"VARRE'I'E, Vol. I, p. 284, If they were not Caribs, he believed them
to be neighbours of tribes with the same customs.
3) Ibid., p. 282 & 284.
4) Ibid., p. 282.
5) PANI

44
riches of gold show the influence of the Amazon legend of the continent
upon the Ciguayos. In South America the legend concerns
the empire of the Incas. 1 )
If the Ciguayos of the Golfo de las Flechas had obtained their
gold from some other part of Espanola, they would have understood
the name, Caona. But COLUMBUS was astonished to hear
a new term for gold used by them, namely tuob. 2 ) "Una caratula
de oro"3) when they pointed it out, proved to be their king's
"corona de oro" ,4) that is a golddiadem such as the chieftains
of Trinidad also wore, and which must have come to the island
from the West and have originated in the Columbian Andes.
The Ciguayos were genuine Haitians with respect to their
arrows, which were similar to those of the Tainos, with wooden
points "de un palmo y medio". In addition, some had a fishtooth
affixed, and for the most part5) these points were also poisoned.
The shafts consisted of tender cuttings of the same kind
of straight reeds "y de longura de una vara y media de dos. "6)
Previously, on the north coast of Espanola opposite to Tortuga,
COLUMBUS had the chance to see some arrows of the Caribs which
they had shot. They were "de las espigas de canos, yexegieronles
unos pali110s tostados y agudos y son muy largos".?) We ought
not to think too much about the material of the point here, for
on one hand the Tainos hardened the points of their darts in the
fire, while on the other hand the Caribs made use of an affixed
pint made of a fish spine,S) attached in the reed. But we must
take in to consideration more, the fact that the Carib arrows
were extraordinarily long in order to be suited to their long bows.
1) Compo NORDENSKIO:r,D, Kampen am guld och silver, Upsala I9I9, and
Deductions from the Geographical Distribution of some Post-Columbian Words
Used by the Indians of South America, Gothenburg I922, p. 24-25.
2) NAVARRETE, Ibid.
3) Ibid., p. 284.
4) Ibid., p. 285.
5) This must refer specifically to the Ciguayos, seeing that with the exception
of these, the rest of the Taino-Haitians did not have poisoned arrow-points.
6) Ibid., p. 286. NORDENSKIO:r,D is of the opinion that Gynaerium saccharinum
is referred to here. Of the same kind of reed the Island Caribs made the
shafts of their arrows.
7) Ibid., p. 243.
8) BRETON, op. cit., p. I67, tail-spine of the ray.

Such long strong bows COLUMBUS saw for the first time at the
Golfo de las Flechas. He describes them as "grandes como 10 s de
Francia e Ing1aterra".1) The material dark-brown wood, also
struck him as strange; "pareciale que los arcos eran de tejo" .2)
From this we see that the Ciguayos belonged to the race that had
learned to make long strong bows out of the very heart of the
tree, like the Island-Caribs out of brazil,3) or in the interior of
British Guiana out of many kinds of dark wood. 4)
Another sti11 more typical resemblance to the coastland of
Guiana and the Antilles in regard to their weapons were their
clubs. The page is now torn out of the diary of COLUMBUS. 5) But
LAS CASAS has it and from his description it is plainly seen that
the clttb· of GU1'ana's coast-land with a flat end existed on the
Antilles, not only among the Calinas and Ciguayos, but also
among the Tainos. He says: "una espada de tabla de palma,
que es durisima y muy pesada, hecha desta forma: no aguda, sino
chata, de cerca de dos dedos en gordo de todas partes."6)
The Ciguayos came with ropes to bind the Spaniards. 7 ) When
COLlT:'VIBUS on his second voyage was passing by the eastern part
of Espanola and sent a boat to a large Indian town to get water,
some Indians, probably Ciguayos came "en sus canoas, can archos
y flechas herboladas can hierba ponzonosa, traian tambien unas
cuerdas, haciendo ademanes que los habian de atar con e11as. "8)
This is a ulode of combat which I do not know otherwise in the
\Vest Indies, but on the contrary it exists in a race of the eastern
cordillera of Columbia, the Panches, the most bitter enemies of
the Chibchas, who carried ropes with them into battle, with which
to bind their enemies. Then they cut them into pieces and carried
home the pieces of flesh in baskets to be eaten at the feast of
victory. The Panches considered this a very old custom among
them, and Aguado, who is the informant, had himself visited
1) NAVARRETE, t. 1., p. 286.
2) Ibid.
3) Camp. Du TERTRE, Vol. II, p. 403.
4) FARABEE, The Central Arawaks, Phila. 1918, p. 65.
5) Camp. KAVARRETE, Ibid.
") Histaria, Vol. 62, p. 435.
') NAVARRETE, ap. cit., p. 283.
8) LAS CASAS Histaria, Vol. 63, p. 67.
45

among the Panches and, had been a witness to their cannibal
feasU)
The Ciguayos were so-called because they wore their hair
long "como en nuestra Castilla las mugeres. "2) In this they were
different from the Taino Indians of Espanola, but were in accord
with the Island-Caribs, as the Spaniards first saw them in their
canoes, and also with the Arawaks of Trinidad.3)
But, for the rest, there are things in the scanty accounts about
the Mazoriges, that show us that we are dealing with a tribe that
at one time forced its way probably from the northwestern Amazon
to the north east coast, where it passed through a filter of
Arawak-Carib culture.
It is likely that the Mazoriges were Arawaks, but did not
belong to the same Arawak language group as the Tainos and
the True Arawaks. With the exception of "tuob", which name for
Columbian gold alloyed with copper I shall treat in Chapter IX,
their negation bae~a or baeza4) is the only known word of the
language of the Mazoriges. In its second element, I have found
it identical with the negative used by the Arawak tribes living
in the distant regions of the Amazon, as the Xingu Arawaks,5)
Paressis6) and the Cauixanas near Lake Acunay on the south
side of the Rio Vapura,7) but different from the usual negation
111 Taino,8) in the language of the women of Dominica,9) and in
1) FRAY PEDRO DE AGUADO, Histaria De Santa 1l,[aria 17 Nueva Reina De
Granada, Vol. I, Madrid I916, p. 405.
2) .L.iS CASAS, Ibid., p. 434.
3) ~AVARRETE, Ibid., p. 40I; 14 as Casas, Ibid., Vol. 63, p. 234-235.
4) .LAS CASAS, Apal. Hist., Ed. Serrano y Sanz, Madrid I909, p. 633.
5) KARL V. D. STEINEN, Unter den Naturvolkern Zentralbrasiliens, Rer!. I894,
1VIehinaku, p. 528, ahitsa Kuslenau, p. 530, aitza, Waura p. 532, ailsa, Yaulapiti,
p. 536 atisa.
6) Ibid., p. 544, maisa Here it is joined to ma, which also was a prefix of negation
in the Taino language.
') See MARTIUS, Wortersammlung Rrasilianischer Sprachen, .Leipz. 1867, p.
258, neiul.
8) Camp. MARTWS, Ibid .. p. 316, mayana, maca; BRINTON Ibid., p. 44I, maya,
mayana, which he compares with the Arawak ma, man, mara.
9) BRETOX, Ope cit., Combinations with the Arawak prefix of negation 1IIa,
p. 3 and 19, magane probably the same as the Taino mayana and p. 53 marichetou;
1fartius, ibid., p. 349, Galibi, mentions on the other hand no composition with the

the language of the True Arawaks,l) compositions with the prefix
of negation ma, to say nothing about the other Arawak languages
of the continent.
Ethnographically also, there are things about the Ciguayos
that mark them as different from the Arawaks and the Calinas of
the Antilles and of the coastland of Guiana, and which on the
other hand must be sought deep in interior of South America.
The Ciguayos had the feathers of their plaited crown2) only
stuck in backwards at the neck. 3 )
Since COLUMBUS after he encountered the Ciguayos at the
Golfo de las Flechas for the first time thought the fashion of ,Yearing
feathers -- and parrot feathers in particular - only stuck in
backwards at the neck, as worthy of note, it is to be supposed
that he had seen nothing similar among the Tainos, during
his first voyage. The feather-crowns of the Island-Caribs, had
feathers round about them.4) Among the tail-feathers of the
amra were fastened altogether backwards in the feather-crown. 5)
I know no feathers which are only worn backwards on the neck,
among the Arawaks and Caribs in the coastland of Guiana. To
be sure, it can happen, as on the savanna,6) that two long arara
feathers stand erect at the very back of the feather-crown. 7 )
prefix mao Thcre all have the prefix aua, French orthog., MARTIUS, Ibid., p. 349.
The Same prefix of negation, aua, is found in the language of the Island-Caribs.
See BRETON, Diet. Car.-Franc., p. 401; Calinago auatti, auabatei, }}il ny est pas ,j
recalls baeza. On the other side, for the second element of baeza LAS CASAS, Apal.
His/., ed. Serrano Y Sanz p. 433, cites from Haitian-Taino, })ita, por no se,\.
") BR1NTOX, Ibid., Compositions with the prefix mao
') LAS CASAS, t. 62, p. 434 has redecilla, ~AVARRETE, Ibid., p. 282, because of
a mistake in printing or a misunderstanding, rebecilla. Katurally there could be
no question here of a hair-net similar to the Peruvian, which was disseminated
very far from all relation with the ,Vest Indies. Compo NORDENSK101,D, Eine geagraph.
und ethnor;r. A nalyse dey maleriellen Kultur zweier lndianerstdmme in El
Gran Chaca, Gothenburg, 1918, p. 137. The improbability of such a signification
is confirmed by the fact that LAS CASAS, t. 62, p. 435, speaks of "sus penachos de
plum",}.
3) LAS CASAS, Ibid., p. 434, compo ::\AVARRETE, Ibid., p. 282 & 283.
4) Compo Breton, op. cit., p. 310 & 40T.
5) Ibid., p. 180 and DE 1,A BORDE, Relatian - - _.-- des Caribes, sauvai;cs des
Lies Antitles, in Receuil de divers Voyages, Paris 1684, p. 30.
G) Arecunas, a feather-crown in the J\lus. of Gothenburg.
7) BARR ERE, fig. 2, p. 195.
47

BARRERE uses the expression "Tours de Plumes",l) as descriptive
of the two feathercrowns of the Galibis, the simple one and the
other composed of feathers in stories, which likewise has excellent
counterparts in the savanna.
In the historical sources no reference can be found that provcs
that the custom of wearing vertical standing feathers on the neck
advanced as far as Trinidad. Indeed, the long-haired Indians of
Trinidad had "la cabeza atada can pafiue10 de algodon tejido a
labores y colores el cual creia yo (that is, Columbus) que era all11aizar"
.2) and the Parian Indians "traen las cabezas atadas can
t1110s pafiue10s labrados como yo dije, hermosos, que parecen de
lejos de seda y almaizares,"3) while the Ciguayos wore" los cabellos
l11UY largos y encogidos y atados atras, y despues puestos en una
redecilla de plul11a de papagayos."4) The description of COLUMBUS
does not show that the Trinidad Indians and Parians wore their
hair gathered into cotton bands at the neck. Moreover no tailfeathers
of parrots were mentioned in the feather-crowns of Trinidad.
The Island-Caribs also wore their hair drawn backwards
and bound together with a cotton band, in which knot were "des
petites houpes" with "coudre de cristal ou autres bagatelles".
I have already mentioned the tail-feathers of the arara, placed
backwards in the feather-crowns of the Island-Caribs. It is very
interesting to note that DE LA BORDE5) describes this cotton band
as "bien joly". That is, it had the same silky brilliance as the
hairbands of Trinidad and Paria. When we pass over into the
region of the Amazon, tail-feathers, standing erect at the neck
and alone, become more common. Stately feather-ornaments of
this sort are found already in the Rio Negro region. 6 )
The Ciguayos also distinguish themselves from the Haitian
Tainos therein that the custom of painting of the body black prevailed
among them. \Vhen COLUMBUS saw one of them for the
first time, he believed that the man had "el rostro tiznado de
') Ibid., p. I94-195.
') XAVARRETE, t. I, p. 397.
3) Ibid .. p. 40r.
4) NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. 282.
5) QP. cit., p. 30.
6) KOCH-GRUNBERG, QP. cit .. Vol. I. PI. IX & X, figs. I95, I96, I97, Tuyu­
.has, a Betoya tribe on the R. Tiquie.

carbon" .1) He must have been deceived in this. The black painting
must have been done with genipa (tain. xagua.) At a later
time, in the war between the Spaniards at Vega Real and the
Ciguayos, who were terribly painted with black and red, it was
said that they obtained this black colour from a pear-shaped fruit,
which they carefully cultivated in their gardens.2) At the time
of the visit of COLUMBUS they might have been painted black all
over, but especially on the face, because they perhaps had some
still unburied corpses.
The Tainos also knew the use of genipa for painting. LAS
CASAS mentions that the Haitians and Cubans painted particularily
the feet, but also the rest of the body with the fruit of the
Xagua tree, which he compares with a fig. This gave a fast black
colour, which did not fade.3) The customary Haitian painting for
war was above all red with bija. 4) I have already mentioned that
the Arawaks in the southwestern part of Trinidad went about
painted with bija. Even Baucumar entered into the battle entirely
painted with bija. 5)
Among the Island-Caribes the customary painting for protection
against salt water and insects was roucou (=bixa) with
(carapa) oiL 6) Only on solemn occasions were they painted with
genipa. 7)
The roucou was the usual paint along the coast of Guiana, not
only among the Arawaks, but also the Calinas. 8) There the Calinas
were painted with roucou on festival occasions, also. But
there was also some genipa painting.9)
Along the lower Orinoco also, roucou painting with carapa
oil appears to have been customary.l0)
') NAVARRETE, ibid.
2) MARTYR, MacNutt's Trans., p. 143.
3) Apol. Hist. ed. Serrano y Sanz, p. 36.
4) Ibid., p. 36 & 634; OVIEDO, Historia, Vol. I, p. 297.
5) CASTELLANOS, El. X, Canto V, p. 95.
6) BRETON, Op. cit., p. 79, bicket, = bixa.
7) Ibid., p. 25, F, chaoua, = Taino xagua, and p. 49.
8) BIET, Vol. II, p. 353, & BARRERE, p. 197, Galibi; BRETT, p. II9 & 121,
Carinyas on the Pomeroon; Q'C'ANDT, p. 238-240 and 1M THURN, p. 316, the Arawaks
as well as the Calinas.
9) BARRERE, Ibid.; 1M THURN, p. 317.
10) See GUMILLA, Vol. I, p. 138.
4
49

50
It is not clear to me, where the Indians of GILlJ, the 1'amanaks
and the Maipures, obtained their red painU) But their
paraman or mani, from which they got their black paint,2) could
not have been other than genipa (jagua). The description of GILIJ
was not very reliable, because he had never seen the plants that
furnished the colours in their natural condition.
Higher up the Orinoco, where there are tribes who in different
aspects and for distinct reasons approach more or less those
along the northwest Amazon, for the first time ,ve find genipapainting
more en vogue. The black genipa must have been considered
still more frightful to the wicked spirits than the red
roucou. Probably the more frequent occurrence of jagua-painting,
in measure as we draw near the territories of the Amazon from
the basin of the Orinoco, is related to the greater fear of the
wicked spirits, particularly the demons of the woods, which naturally
play an important role in the forest regions of the Amazon.
The spirits of the dead, like to dwell in the woods. The Jiraros
and Ayricos in the region northwest of the Orinoco, smeared
themselves black with the juice of the jagua-fruit.3) On the other
hand, the Salivas were painted "vith different colours when they
buried their dead. GmuLLA calls attention especially to the figures
on the face. Like the races of the upper Amazon, the Achaguas
paint the hands as black as pitch "y quedan como can guantes. "4)
The Giraras and Airicos were painted "can unos rasgos dis formes
de un barniz encarnados, y es el que se dijo ya can que se
pintan los Achaguas."5)
1'0 understand the great significance of the genipa-painting
at festivals, and above all at the ceremonies for the dead in the
domains of the Cayari-Uaupes, I refer the reader to KOCH-GRU",­
BERG.6 )
The immigration of the Mazoriges or Ciguayos to the northeastern
part of Espanola might have been an isolated pheno-
1) Saggio di Storia Americana. Vol. I, Roma 1780, p. ISO.
2) Ibid., p. 180-181.
") Gn,IILLA, Vol. II, p. 219.
4) RIBERO, p. 103.
5) RIBERO, p. II4. See Gumi1la, abovt'.
6) Zwei Jahre etc. p. 250--251 and figs. 13I-132, R. 'l'iquie, p. 85, I27, &
173, Siusis, also p. 342 and fig. 2I7, Tukanas.

menon. According to all that we can learn from historical sources,
we can conclude that the Tainos and Igneris lived there otherwise
undisturbed, until the Calinas from the coast of Guiana captured
the Lesser Antilles from the Igneris and began their raids against
the Tainos on the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas.
5I
The CaIinas in The immigration of the Calinas may have taken
Contact with place not long before the arrival of the Spanish.
the Tainos in But at that time, it seems already to have come to
the Antilles.
a stan
d
stl
'11'
, l11somuc h
1 as t e conquest of other
islands ,vas not continued.
At a time before the arrival of the Spaniards, the memory of
an uninterrupted commerce and relations with the continent of
South America was still alive. That is the reason that the Borinquen
women, the prisoners of the Calinas on Guadeloupe, could
inform COLUMBUS that the mainland was very large, that it was
called })C-uania })l) on Espai'iola, and that i)en otros tiempos)) their
people used to go to the mainland, in order to carryon commerce
with the Indians there.2) But Arawak commercial expeditions
from the mainland had visited the Antilles as well, in order to
supply them with stone axes. This has been brought to light by
a very interesting tradition, which Roth has noted in our days
among the Arawaks of the Pomeroon, and which is as follows: 3)
A large Arawak canoe ,vith a numerous crew set out from its
country and descended the river, until finally it came to the land
of the stone axe. The lowlands of the coast of Guiana, where the
Arawaks lived were stone1ess and axes, or at any rate the material
for them, had to be imported. The men, who took part in this
expedition, went prepared to leave their wives and children for a
period of years, - the land was situated so far away. They took
with them, therefore, not only a large supply of cassava, but also
sprouts for the cultivation of manioc. The boat glided out onto
a green sea, full of dangerous rocks.
') Compo with the already given accounts of the island, Guanin, by the Mazoriges
and PANE.
2) See D. I"ER..,\ANDO, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 207.
") An Inquiry Into the Animism and Folk-lore of the Guiana Indians, Thirt.
Ann. Rep, of Amer.Bur. of EtlInoL, \Vash, I9I5, p. 219-223.

52
We can certainly conclude from this, that it was not a question
of a simple journey in the lands around the Gulf of Paria. The
dangerous rocks could really be the skerries, coral-reefs etc. along
the windward coast of the Lesser Antilles. Naturally, during its
odyssey to the distant, strange and unknown shore, the expedition
is exposed to much witchcraft and meets many curious races.
During this voyage, the Arawak visited a village, inhabited only
by women, which could very well represent Matinino, the island
in the Haitian legend, where there were only women. Finally the
Arawaks reached the land of the stone axe, where even the men were
of stone. ROTH refers here to the Indian conception of the origin
of the mankind from blocks of stone, but I am inclined to believe
that the stone idols and well-developed sculpture of the Tainos
took this form in the legend. Moreover, the fact hat the inhabitants
of the province of Cibao, in Espanola, were called Cibuneyes,
which literally means »stone men », must have contributed also
to this idea. 1 )
In connection with this must also be mentioned an episode
of a legend of the Warraus, also taken from ROTH 2 ), according to
which it appears that the tobacco which the Warraus obtained
in the first place, grew on a distant island called Nibo-yuni, literally
»M an-without », so called because there were only women
there. According to my opinion, the Matinino of the Haitians
appears here again, so that the Warraus must have originally obtained
tobacco from the Antilles. With this we should compare the
fact that the use of tobacco in purely Indian times was not as general
in South America 3) as among the Tainos.
It should furthermore be noted that there was a legend
among the Tamanacos and Galibis on the South American continent,
that the amulets of nephrite came from a land where only
women lived.4)
1) From siba, stone, and eyeri, man. See BRINTON, ap. cit., p. 440.
2) Ibid., p. 335.
3) See ERLAND NORDENSKIOLD, Deductions Suggested by the Geographical
Distribution of some Post-Columbian Words Used by the Indians at South America,
Gothenburg 1922, p. 74.
') See HUMBOLDT, Reise in die Aequinoctialgegenden, Part 4, Stuttg. & Tiib.
1823, p. 330--331 cites GILIJ and LA CONDAMINE, and for the connection with
»Madanino (Montserrate) '), p. 342.

I agree with BRINTON, that the island of women, Matinin6,
is a historical myth 1 ). I think this myth to be an episode of
the immigration of the Tainos to Espanola.
A group of Tainos from one of the Antilles set out on the
expedition referred to, which was the first impulsion of the settlement
of the Tainos on Espanola. When they went, they left the
women and children on the island where they lived before. I believe
also that the Taino men must have found the return from Espanola
to the East very difficult, as it was necessary to struggle against
wind and current; besides, it must have required a certain length
of time to harvest enough cassava for the trip back home, from
the new plants originating from the cuttings they brought with
them.
In the legend, according to PANB, it is said that the Haitian
hero, Guagugiona, after he had first taken the women around to
different islands and countries, he finally left them on Matinin6,
"donde se dice que hoy no hay mas que mujeres."2)
That the Island-Arawaks had relations with the mainland
in ancient times is shown in this legend by the fact that he also
had the women with him on Guania, whither he had lured them
with the promise that they would receive many jewels there. 3 )
After the immigration of the Caribs to the Lesser Antilles,
direct commercial relations between the Tainos and the mainland
of South America were broken off definitively.
To judge from historical sources, V ieqttes was the most
distant Carib island in the epoch before the arrival of the
Spaniards, and no reallusion 01 the Caribs with the Tainos 01 Puerto
Rico had taken place. Only occasionally the Caribs had remained
a time in the eastern part of Puerto Rico to cut down trees and
build canoes. The nearest islands, which had only a scanty rainsupply,
among them St. Croix their principal island in the North-
3) BRINTON, ap. cit., p. 443, in considering Matinino only a legendary island,
~ome one of the Antilles, located nearer South America than :Espanola. On the
contrary, according to OVIEDO. Histaria, Vol. T, p. 34, Matinino was situated
between Dominica and Santa Lucia; it is customary to identify "Matinino with
Martinique. The Island-Caribs, BRETON, ap. cit., p. 412, knew the real
Martinique only under its Arawak name Iouanacaera, or Iguana Island.
") PANE, Chapter V, p. 286.
2) Ibid., Chapters III & IV.
53

54
west, had bushes, but no timber of a SIze sufficient for the
construction of canoes.
During the second voyage of COLUMBUS, a Carib told him that
they rowed often to an island Cayre1) where there was much gold
and" que vayan alIa con c1avos e contezuelas para hacer sus canoas
e que traeran cuanto oro quisieron. "2) I do not believe that the
island mentioned was the one which the Spaniards first visited, as
Chanca supposes, that is to say Dominica, but precisely Puerto
Rico, which lies nearer to St. Croix. That Burenquen was mentioned
for the first time later during the voyage3) as the island which
the Caribs raided, signifies nothing in the identification of the
island. In the last cas,= it was the Puerto Rican women, wich
they took from Guadeloupe with them, ,,,,ho described to the
Spanish the raids the Caribs made on their home island.
Before the Spaniards took possession of Puerto Rico, they
met Carib boat-builders there by chance. Some Caribs from St.
Croix who were visiting this island later for the purpose of making
canoes, murdered and devoured a cacique that was an ally of the
Spaniards, and destroyed his village. It ,;vas thus that they took
revenge on him, becattse he had transgressed the laws of hospitality
against some Carib boat-builders. 4) As the Caribs were at Puerto
Rico to build boats, they were not on the war-path and their visit
had the authorization of the Borinquenos.
Such was the character of the actions of the Caribs on Puerto
Rico. Probably there never was a fusion between the Caribs and
the older Taino population. Fewkes' statement that "the various
accounts vvhich we have of the tribes of the Antilles" indicate that
the Borinquen Indians were a mixed race of Carib and Arawak
blood5) and that the geographical names in eastern Puerto Rico 6 )
are Carib, must be rejected. All the information in the sources
about the Caribs as forming the population of Puerto Rico and of
') Cayre means island, that is the same name used on Trinidad. I believe
also, that COLG"~IBUS made the same error when he named Puerto Rico "Caribe"
as Breton did, when he called Trinidad "Chaleibe".
2) NAVARRETE, Op. cit., p. 356.
3) Ibid., p. 357.
') MARTYR, MacNntt's Trans., p. 259.
5) FEWKES I, p. 2I9, compo p. 39--40.
6) Ibid., p. 40 .

the northeastern part of Santo Domingo, is of later derivation and
originates from the fact that COLUMBUS misinterpreted what he
observed and that later also, when they learned to know the natives
better, the historians still relied on the authority of COLUMBUS in a
general decision.
In respect to Puerto Rico, LAS CASAS assures us expressly
"no eran en la isla de San Juan Caribes, jamas". This should be
compared w'ith what he often repeats agreeing with the later experience
of the Admiral: "En todas estas islas eran una lengua
y mismas costumbres." No citation at all from LAS CASAS can be
found in which he designates the population of Puerto Rico as
Caribs. It is true that in a general resumee he excepted Puerto
Rico from the other 1'ainan islands, because its inhabitants were
by no means so pacific as those of the rest of the islands1), but this
exception ,,'as only very gradual and in certain respects. Later, in
many cases he describes as directly opposite the conditions on the
Carib islands and mentions especially Dominica and Guadeloupe,
without in any way enrolling Puerto Rico in this category. LAS
CASAS also describes the conquest of the island by Ponce de Leon2).
In this description also, he emphasizes the similarity of the inhabitants
to the Haitians, in respect to their peaceful and mild
nature. The island was indeed attacked by cannibal Caribs, but
so far were these from being successful that, on the contrary, it
was said, "y para contra e110s (the Caribs) eran valerosos (that is,
the Borinquenos) y defendian bien su tierra."3)
The description of the conquest of Puerto Rico is nevertheless,
nowhere so complete and exact as in OVIEDO, who obtained
his information direct from the original current reports. He was
also the first to take them to Spain.
Nevertheless, OVIEDO has contributed much to a mistake,
seeing that he, relying on the opinion of COLUMBUS, which he formed
during his second voyage, that the popUlation of Puerto Rico
must be Carib4), numbered Burenquen among the Carib islands.
55
1) LAS CASAS, Vol. 66, Apol. Hist. Chapter 205.
2) Vol. 64, Lib. Ill, Chapter 46.
3) HERRERA, His/oria, Dee. I, Madrid 1601, p. 251.
4) J., HaM. Soc., Vol. 43, p. 53.

So without thinking he places 1 ) the Indians of this island among
the "caribes flecheros', . On one occasion speaking of the islands
inhabited by the Caribs, he says "la principal isla desta gente fue
la isla de Boriquen". It is made a Carib island like Guadeloupe,
Dominica, 1VIartinque and St. Croix. The Indians, who killed the
great Spanish dog on Puerto Rico, Ovied02) calls "caribes", and
this was snatched up by Herrera, who moreover relying on LAS
CASAS had compared the popUlation of Puerto Rico with that of
the other Tainan islands.
In Vol. I, Lib. XVI, OvmDo describes the conquest of
Puerto Rico and here one receives an entirely different idea of
the origin of the population. Here he is by far more authentic,
and for reasons easily explicable. According to this account, the
most detailed and consequently much reliable in the whole Spanish
literature, the popUlation of Puerto Rico is Tainan and not
Carib.
The island itself is described as thickly populated.3) In this
connection nothing is said which would indicate that the population
of the island was not entirely homogenous. Thus says OVIEDO
that the Indians of Puerto Rico (like the Tainos on the other islands)
had the idea that the Spaniards came from heaven. On the contrary,
every time that the Spaniards met Caribs, at the first sight
the latter received them as enemies.
The Indians of Puerto Rico were described as equally homogenous
in respect to their weapons. Like the Ciguayos they had
bows and arrows, and the latter were not poisoned. On the other
hand, it is expressly mentioned that the Caribs who aided the
Borinquenos against the Spaniards, were from the neighbouring
islands and shot poisoned arrows. Not a word is said about Puerto
Rican Caribs. I.(ater, where OVUCDO describes the manzanilla tree
from which he believed that the Caribs obtained the poison for
their arrows, he mentions expressly that although it existed on
Puerto Rico and Espanola, the Indians there did not knmv the
use of the milky sap of this tree. These Caribs, who came to help
the Borinquenos, - and among them were Indians from the
1) Vol I, p. 67.
2) Vol. I, p. 483.
3) Vol. I, p. 478-479.

island of Vieques 1 ), who were especially designated as »caribes>}
- and who came in pirogues, were accused of cannibalism,
and Ovn

58
la gente que hasta hoy ha hallado diz que tiene grandisimo temor
de los de Caniba 6 Canima1). At that time he had voyaged2)
among the eastern Bahama Islands and along the north coast of Cuba
from the B. de Nuevitas to the vicinity of Baracoa. They knew in
Cuba that cannibals lived in the southeast, in which direction
were also found great boats and commercial goods.3)
At Marien, on the north coast of Espanola he found indubitable
proofs of Carib visits; in part these were accounts4) of such
incidents, but he saw as "veIl the long arrmvs of "espigas de canas"
'with burnt points affixed, which the Caribs had shot. The Mazoriges
also knew intimately the cannibal Caribs, who lived on the
islands farther east.5)
On the other hand, I can not prove by historical sources that
the Carib raids in the time of the Indians, extended as far as J a­
maica.6)
MARTYR says that the Caribs made war against Puerto Rico,
but that the Borinquenos had no boats in which they could pass
over to the Carib islands. 7 ) It must rather be understood by this,
that the Tainos did not dare cross over to the Caribs, so great was
their fear of them.
The Carib territory in the Antilles reached to and included
Vieques. But no permanent settlement was founded on Puerto Rico.
The Transmarine
Communication
of the Tainos with
Already in the epoch before the Conquest, the
Tainos must have had ultramarine relations
not only with the North.
Yucatan.
COLUMBUS could give the information even
during his first voyage, that, according to
report, "Yamaye estaba cerca de tierra firme 10 jornadas de canoa
que podia ser 60 6 70 leguas, y que era la gente vest ida alli8).
1) Ibid., Vol. I, p. 2I8. He repeats this opinion when he is at the Golfo de
las Flechas.
2) See further, Ibid., Vol. I, p. 2Ig.
3) Ibid., p. 200. (Vol. I).
4) Ibid., p. 263 & 243. (Vol. I).
0) Ibid., Vol. I, p. 282.
"J Camp. FRIEDERICI, Die Schiff etc., p. 56.
') MacNutt's Transl., Vol. T, p. 73.
f) NAVARRETE, Op. cit., p. 275.

"From this it can be in/erred that the] amaicans had dared to make
in their great canoes that distant seavoyage to Yucatan, which cOlmtry
could not be seen tram] amaica. Possibly the journey was made
along the south coast of Cuba, which for a long distance lay to
windward, and where they could purchase provisions. The Caiman
Islands were not inhabited at the time of the Discovery.!)
In Cuba also, the Spaniards heard of a race that wore clothes,
under a mighty prince, who also was clothed.2) Indications of
commercial relations between Yucatan and Cuba are also seen.
COI,UlYIBLS, on his first voyage, as well as LAS CASAS a short time
after the conquest of Cuba, tells of the finding of a honey-comb.
Although Cuba can export wax at the present time, nevertheless
originally it did not have indigenous bees. An Indian importation
is without doubt presented here. But FRIEDB;Rlcr believes, that
here apparently it is not a question of wax, but of a native sea-alga,
"alcyonidido" .3) At least in the case of the honey-comb found in
an Indian house, I believe that we have no reason for any other
assumption than that it really was a honey-comb. On his first voyage
COLUMBUS announced the discovery of this honey-comb, in a house 3 ) ,
near Baracoa.
LAS CASAS mentions a large honey-comb, at whose finding, in
ISII, he was present. The wax in question lay buried in the sand
on the south coast of the Province of Habana, where the first city
of this name was located. He was of the opinion that it was
brought over by merchants from Yucatan; "la cua1 provincia es
6 era de miel y cera muy abondante"4) He remarks that at this
time Yucatan was not yet discovered and informs of its wealth
of bees and "colmenas". 5) \Vhen the Spaniards of Heman de
1) L~s CASAS, Histaria, Vol. 64, p. 15I.
2) MARTYR, MacNutt's Trans., p. 100. It was said that their clothes were all
trimmed with pearls. See Raccolta E Studi Publicati Dalla R. Commission, Part
III, Vol. I, Roma 189 2 , p. 77.
3) Die Schiff. der Ind., p. 95.
3) KAVARRETE, Op. cit., p. 223.
4) Histaria, Vol. 65, p. 34. It can also be taken into consideration whether
the wax and honey which Columbus' men found on Guadeloupe were imported
from the mainland of South America by the Caribs. LAS CASAS, Historia,
Vol. 63, p. 126, does not consider wax and honey native to Guadeloupe.
5) Ibid., Vol. 62, p. 354.
59

60
Cordoba's expedition came to Yucatan in 1517, they found worthy
of note the numerous wooden bee-hives with tame bees.1) Not
only at that time, but later on the occasion of GRIJALVA'S expedition,
in 1518, the Mayas bartered gourds filled with honey very
willingly with the Spaniards.2)
Yet another observation I{AS CASAS has made. He says that
when later Indians were brought from New Spain to Cuba, they
recognized a species of wading-bird, whose feathers had been exported
to Mexico. These birds "de la misma forma y grandor de
grullas", were especially characteristic of Cuba. They waded
there in the salty, shallow waters of the swamps along the southern
coast and were either killed by the Cubans or captured3) living,
in which case they jed these birds in their huts with cassava
taken from a dish of salted water. These birds were greatly treasured
by the Indians of New Spain" por ser tan artifices de hacer
cosas de pluma."4) Formerly the Mexicans had procured their
heron-feathers from nearer regions, namely from the Atlantic
lagoon-coast of the mainland. These feathers of the red spoonbill-herons
were extremely valuable in Mexico, where they formed a
part of the king's war-dress, and of the costume and shield of the
Xipe. 5 ) It can be imagined how astonished the Mexican Indians
were when they saw great numbers of these herons in Cuba.
The small quantity of silver and copper which the Tainos
possessed, could only have been imported, but from what place
remains uncertain. l'he two metals were only mentioned once in
the diary of COLUMBUS. An Indian in the neighbourhood of Baracoa,
in Cuba, had "un pedazo de plata labrado colgado a la nariz."2)
On the 26th of December, 1492, when COLUMBUS lay in the Bay
of Acul on the north coast of Espanola, he could record that he
1) Ibid., Vol. 65, p. 356.
2) Ibid .• Vol. 65. p. 422.
3) Probably during the breeding season ,,,hen their white colour was changed
to red. See I,AS CASAS, Histaria, Vol. 65, p. 471, "cuando comienzan a colorar."
4) His/aria, Vol. 64, p. +70~~-47I. According to SIR HARRY JOHXS1'ON, The
Scenery of Cuba, Hispatliola (Haiti) and Jamaica. Geogr. J ouru. Vol. XXXIII.
p. 635 the Zapata marsh once was the breeding place for myriads of aigrette
herons.
5) SELER, Gesam. AlJhandlungen, Vol. II, p. 402, 403, 406, 537.
6) NAVARRETE, Op. cit., Vol. T, p. 197.

had only seen a small quantity of copper during his voyage.1)
It is very doubtful if the silver came from Mexico, as :;VIoore has
found silver in many places in Florida "always in low mounds
or nearer the surface of larger ones." He considers these finds
pre-Columbian. 2 ) He has also found there "embossed ear-plugs
of sheet-copper, some overlaid with sheet-silver."3) An analysis
of the copper ingots found by BASTIAN in Jamaica and now in the
Museum fUr Volkerkunde of Berlin, would show their place of
origin. The great Maya canoe with articles of commerce, which
was met by COLUMBUS near the island of Guanassa during his last
voyage, carried among other things not only axes, bells and "patenas"
of copper, but also crucibles jor melting copper. 4) But we
must not forget that excavations MOORE'S in Florida and Alabama
produced a great wealth of copper and that in eastern Cuba pure
native copper occur.
It seems that the wares which the Tainos preferably and
voluntarily sold to the Spaniards the first time they came
apart from provisions - were cotton in skeins and parrots.il)
Florida. The accounts about the voyages of the Indians
between the Tainan islands and Florida are much
more precise.
If we must believe MARTYR and GOMARA, the initiative for the
islands of the Lucayos lay on the side of the mainland.6) MARTYR
states that in a certain kind of tree that grows on these islands,
1) Ibid., Vol. I, p. 263.
2) MOORE, Discussion as to Copper from the Mounds, 1903, p. V.
3) Ibid., p. XIII.
4) LAS CASAS, Historia, Vol. 64, p. IlO, HERRERA, Dec. I, Madrid 1601, p.
165-166; DON FERNANDO, ap. cit., Vol. II, p. 147-149.
5) NAVARREtE, ap. cit., Vol. I, p. 173 & 175. Guanahani; 197, 199 (here in
addition to hammocks); 203, (here in Bayamo, a great wealth of cotton thread);
the north coast of Cuba; 255, 257 Tainos of Espanola; 285-286 the Ciguayos;
Hakl. Soc. Vol. 86, p. 43 Rum Cay; MARTYR, MacNuU's Trans., p. 102, parrots,
south coast of West Cuba.
6) I have found no justification for an opinion of H. BEUCHAT, Manuel d'Archeologie
Americaine, Paris, 1912, p. 509, that among the Ais of Cape Canaveral
there was a tradition that they were "de meme race que les Yucayos". His information
about the voyages of the Calusas to Cuba and the Bahama Islands,
p. 508, proceeds from the 18 th century.
6r

62
doves were bred in immense numbers. The Indians from Bimini
and Florida came hither, caught the birds and carried entire boatloads
of them back home.1) MARTYR, as well as GOMARA, mentions
the race mixture, caused by the union of North American Indians
and the Lucayan women and from this North American influence
an elevation of the moral culture of the Lucayos followed. 2) The
existence of the North American continent was well known to the
Tainos. When he was at Guanahani, COLUMBUS heard that a land
lay to the Northwest.3) That the Lucayos knew about the mainland
of North America, and particularly that a great peninsula
projected from it, certainly became known to Ponce de Leon,4)
when for a period of six months in 1512 he was searching for the
longed-for Fountain of Youth in the Bahama Islands. In Cuba
also, at Puerto de Nuevitas, they had heard of the mainland in
the North. S )
'fhe settlement of the Cuban T ainos on the coast of Florida
must have occurred at such a late date, that the possibility can
be taken into consideration, that it might have taken place after
the discovery of Cuba. No conclusion can be. drawn from FON­
TANEDA'S manuscript, whether the Cubans arrived there before
the Spaniards. The motive of their emigration to Florida was
of a superstitious character.
FONTANEDA says: "En la provincia de Carlos antiguamente,
1) Mac Nutt's Trans., p. 25I.
2) Ibid., and GOMARA, Histaire Generale des Indes Occidentales, Paris 1587,
p. 50. Doves on the Bahama Islands, see JOSEPH H. RILEY, Birds, in the Bahama
Islands, The Geogr. Soc. of Baltimore, New York, 1905, p. 382.
I do not cite MARTYR without a certain restriction. The name "Islas de los
Lucayos" was also misused as the designation for the Florida Keys and the coastal
islands of Cuba. See A. de Ind. Vol. V, p. 546. In this connection, it can also be
mentioned that Los J ardines de la Reina or Cuba in early times was favoured richly
with a large species of pigeon, which the Indians used to give to the Spaniards.
See MARTYR, MacNutt's Trans. p. 102; LAS CASAS, Histaria, Vol. 63, p. 58 & 64,
p. 470; DON FERNANDO, Gp cit., Vol. I, p. 253. The origin of Martyr's story could
have been the intercourse between Cuba and these small islands, whose fishers
stood in a dependent relation under the protection of the caciques of the island
and were obliged to furnish them with fish and turtles.
3) NAVARRETE, GP. cit., Vol. I, p. 175.
4) OVIEDO, Histaria, Vol. I, p. 482.
5) NAVARRETE, GP. cit., Vol. I, p. I95-I96.

aportaron much muello los indios de Cuba, en busca deste rio
(namely the River of Youth, "Jordan", in Florida): y e1 padre del rey
Carlos que se llama Sequene, los tom6 y hizo un pueblo de ellos,
que hasta hoy dia esta la generacion y por las mismas cosas que
ell os partieron otros de sus tierras, que venian a buscar el rio
Jordan." A river in Florida, that could rejuvenate all who bathed l )
in it was talked about by all the kings and chiefs of the land. This
Floridian myth was well known on Cuba and the Bahamas.2)
The Cubans seem to have come to Florida in different lots,
and to have landed in various places, until they were united in one
village by the sovereign of the Carlos, who ruled them before the
contemporary of FONTANEDA. \Ve do not learn from FONTAXEDA
anything about the location of this town, but it must have been
on the mainland. Two large villages, Guarungve and Cuchiyaga
were situated on the Martires (Florida Keys). The people of these
villages were tall and entirely different3) from the Tainos as to culture.
Yet these villages on the Florida Keys also stood in relations
of dependency to the Carlos,4) as did the Tequestas in the region
of the Everglades as well.
Strangely enough we find precisely among the Tequestas, ,'vho
dwelt on the part of Florida's mainland, which was nearest to the
Lucayos, and the Calis, who lived in the section nearest to Cuba,
some elements that are foreign to North America, but whose existence
can be explained by the connection with the Tainos. Already
at the time of the Discovery, the Tequestas show themselves
acquainted with the art of making bread from the root of a wild
plant, common to the southernmost part of Florida.S) Under DE
SOTO'S expedition the Spaniards found such roots everywhere in
1) A. de Ind .• Vol. V p. 537, camp. p. 54.
2) The myth, which NORDEXSKIC)LD, Deductions Suggested by the Geographical
Distribution of some Post-Columbian Words Used by the Indians of South America,
Gothenburg F)ZZ, p. 144, note I, cites as the motive of a great Tupi emigration
from the coast of Brazil to far up the Amazon, is not exactly the same as the Floridian.
In the Tupi legend the "land where one can not die" is talked about.
Nevertheless, in bouth cases the myths furnished inspiration for the overseas
migration of races in canoes.
3) FON'l'ANEDA, Ibid., p. 532-533.
4) Compo Ibid., p. 538, "las is1as J ucayos".
5) Ibid., p. 535.

the villages of the Calis. I ) Now it is indubitably unquestionable
that this could not by any chance been yuca, which the Spaniards
had already knmvn well in the West Indies and consequently would
have identified immediately, but coonti, root of a wild cycadadeous
plant, Zamia floridana, which as a matter of fact the Seminoles,
who later migrated to this region from the North, also taught
themselves to grind into meal for the making of bread.2) The southernmost
part of tropical Florida is exposed to great floods during
the rainy season. This rendered difficult the cultivation of
maize within an extensive area. At any rate coonti rot must have
been their most important food-plant from which they obtained
meal and bread. At the beginning of the expedition of NARVAEZ
the Spaniards found no maize in the neighbourhood of Tampa Bay.
'Vhen they advanced somewhat further north, for the first time
the Indians show them some maize, although it was green at the
time.3) The expedition which DE SOTO sent to the land around
Lake Okeechobee found the Indians suffering with famine. The
land was "very barren of maiz", but everywhere in the villages
were found coonti-roots, with which the Indians nourished them
selves "sodden with water and salt."4) Coonti-roots are not poisonous
and therefore do not require an apparatus for pressing out
the poison, as is the case with yuca. At the same time, strangely
enough, the Indians of southern Florida baked their bread "upon
certaine tileshares", which they placed over the fire, just the same
as the Fidalgo de Elvas had seen the Indians of Cuba do previously.5)
From this it may be gathered that in southern Florida,
they learnt how to produce burens of clay from the Tainos.
I am disposed to accept the hypothesis that by "otras raices a
manera de turmas"6) FONTANEDA means sweet potatoes, which in
that case, the Indians of southern Florida obtained from the Tainos.
") GENTLEMAN DE ELVAS, The Discovery and Conquest of Terra Florida. Trans.
out of Portg. by Richard Hakluyt. Repr. from the Ed. of 161 I, London 1851,
p. 35·
2) HODGE, Handbook, art. Coonti. The name is Seminole. The oldest Spanish
visitors know no Indian name for it, either from the Tequestas or Calusas.
3) CABEZA DE VACA, Op. cit., p. 18.
4) GENTLEMAN DE RINAS, p. 36.
4) Ibid., p. 37.
6) A. de 1., Vol. V, p. 533.

The "parilla" on which the Indians of the Atlantic coast of
Florida formerly placed clay pots for boiling fish or game I am not
inclined to identify with the barbacoa. The Spanish sources certainly
do not mention the barbacoa as the gridiron of the Tainos. It is
true that the Spaniards adopted the Tainan word, barbacoa as
the signification of pilework. Spit is only found mentioned once.
During the second voyage of COI;UMBUS, the Spaniards saw some
large fish on a spit over the fire in a deserted hit near Santiago
Bay, in Cuba.I ) In the wooden stands used by the Timuquas at
the mouth of the St. John's River 2 ), and by the Secotans 3 ) on the
coast of N. Carolina, the grid rested high above the fire, supported
by forkes poles planted in the ground. These gratings were
moreover only designed for drying, and not for roasting, as are the
provisionally erected barbacoas of South America. In the southeastern
States the former apIJ1iance no doubt constitutes a local
adaptation. To this day the Cunas of Panama possess grid stands
of this description, but only for open-air drying, and not over
a fire.
We also do not know from the sources if the Tainos had firetans.
It is a South American culture-element, but it likewise
occurs among the Timuquas and the Secotans4) and is likely to
have reached them from the \Vest Indies.
CUSHING'S excavations at Key lVIarco brought to light two
kinds of objects which otherwise are unknown to the Indian culture
of the Eastern States. One of these is wooden chairs made
in one piece. The one published by CUSHING,5) has four legs like
the Tainan, but is no pronounced dt£ho type, inasmuch as the back
part is not long and does not swing upwards. However, the long
back part can be missing, as is the case with a Cuban chair, which
is nevertheless beautifully carved. S ) \Ve must also remember that
') MARTYR, MaeNutt's Trans., p. 94.
2) LE Mm'NE, in De Bry, Tab. XXIV.
3) Voyages an Virginie et en Florida John With, pI. XIV,
4) LE MOYNE, in De Bry, Tab. XXIlI and XXVIII; WITH, pI. XV.
6) FRANK HAMILTON CUSHING, Exploration of Ancient Key Dwellers Remains
on the Gulf Coast of Florida, Proe. Amer. Philos. Soc. Vol. 35, r896, PI. XXXIV,
7, and p. 363.
6) HARRINGTON, Op. cit., Vol. I, PI. V, "from cave at Mesa del Sardo, J aueo,
near Cape Maisi."
5

66
the Tainan chairs that have been preserved to us, come from caves
and have religious sanctity, for which reason they are as a rule
finely elaborated. It is possible that the more simple uncarved
chairs without curved posterior part were commonly used among
the people. Chairs of that type were not used among the Timuquas,
but benches with a seat composed of slats, like our garden chairs.I )
It is likewise singular that spear-throwers are found at Key
Marco. 2) For the rest, it is not necessary to go very far towards
the North to discover that the Indians had extraordinarily strong
bows, very effective in battle. Spear-throwers, on the other hand
must have been the real weapon of warfare in Key Marco, because
Cushing found four or five whole ones as well as a fragment of
another; but he did not came across even a piece of a bow.
There were two different types of spear-throwers found; one
with t w03) finger holes, and the other with one.4) Neither resembles
the type of spear-thrower found in North America at no nearer
place than among the Cliff Dwellers in Colorado,5) which is a
long, narrow kind with loops and peg placed in front of it. Both
of the Floridian types differ frotn the Tainan, which had loops of
cotton.6) It will not do to assign the origin of the spear-throwers
of Key Marco to the Tainos. The spear-thrower in different types
has a very sporadic extension in the United States and Mexico
(Tarascos, Aztecs). Perhaps the Indians of Key Marco kept the
spear-thrower because they lacked suitable wood for bows.
\Ve find hammocks "of cloth or of strouding" among a race
in the United States, the Yuchi, now settled in Oklahoma, but formerly
living on the Savannah River. 7) They serve as cradles, when
they are suspended by ropes between two trees. In this the Yuchi
differ from all the other races of Indians in Oklahoma, all of
whom have cradle-board.S) Hammocks are otherwise entirely
') LE MOYNE, in De Bry.
2) CUSHING, PI. XXXII, 4, p. 371.
3) CUSHING, Ibid., PI'. XXXV, 4.

foreign to the Indians of North America. Since the Yuchis once
lived in a region so near the West Indies, the hammock might
have come to them from the Tainos. The Seminole box-shaped
hanging baby cradle is only a hammock in so far as it has the
ropes for suspension (Comp . .MAC COWLEY, Seminole Indians of
Florida. 5th Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol., p. 497, fig. 66).
It may seem peculiar that the gold in Indian finds in the United
States has its principal extension in Florida and neighbouring
sections. But for all that, it is not necessary to explain this fact
by saying that Florida must gave gotten the gold from the Tainos.
In reality gold-washing was carried on by the Timuquas in the rivers
which flowed from the southernmost Alleghanies. They also
worked up the gold themselves and made ornaments of it.!) Northeastern
Florida and Georgia, where the Timuquas lived, are also
comparatively rich in gold. The circular or rectangular plaques
decorated with pricked engraving resemble, however, the silver or
copper plaques. But all lack Tainan decoration, which, on the
other hand, the small gold ornaments found in Santo Domingo
appear to have. It can not be proved that any Tainan object,
made of gold, has come over to Florida. I do not know of any
gold finds from the Southwestern Keys, which however are located
nearer to the West Indies that St. John's River region.
Attention has also been directed to the assumption that many
celts of the so-called Antillan type have been found, especially in
St. John's County, in northeastern Florida.2) Now it is certainly
true round, wellpolished celts with pointed butt and petaloid as to
form, like the usual Tainan specimens are found in this region.3)
But as long as we do not know of such celts as being made of stone
material from the Antilles, and especially of dark-green nephrite,
we can not conclude that there has been importation. The younger
cultures of Florida showed great proficiency in the formation
and polishing of celts, with greater variations than occur on
I) I,l( MOYNB, in De Bry. Tab. XLI.
2) CHARLOTTE D. GOWER. The Northern and Southern A ffiliations of Antillean
Culture, Mem. of the Amer. Anthrop. Ass. Ko. 35, 1927, p. 22 cit. Douglass.
3) MOORB, Certain River Ivlounds of Duval County, Florida, Journ. Ac. Sciences,
Vol. X, Sec. Ser. fig. 30. a fine specimen "of altered Felsite."

68
the Greater Antilles. That the petaloid is found here among other
celtforms, does not necessarily reveal foreign influences.
I have only been taking into consideration here the cases in
which North America was the receiver and the Antilles the giver.
In what follows I shall deal with the opposite cases.
Haiti Known In respect to the knowledge that the continental
in Cum ana Indians and above all, those of South America
and Paria.
had of the existence of the Tainan islands, besides
the Arawak tradition already mentioned of
the "Land of the Axes of Stone" I can only add that, from a conversation
between the Indians of Cumana and some Spaniards,
this is related in Benzoni - it appears that it was not yet known
there that Haiti, as the same Indians called the island, had been
conquered by the Spaniards.I )
This Indian knowledge of Haiti was pre-Columbian, as a matter
of fact. According to information received from the Indians
of Paria, COLUMBUS estimated the distance from there to Espanola
as approximately 3002) leagues.
Intercourse
among the
Tainos.
Communication among the Tainos was very busy,
especially between Espanola and Puerto Rico,
where it was carried on by means of the Mona
Passage. Canoes from Higuey made the trip to
Moreover archaeological finds reveal
Puerto Roco every day.3)
such specific similarities in their culture that we can suppose
that there was an intensive movement between these two islands.
The Haitian gold from the Sierra de Cibao was exported to
Cuba and the islands of the Lucayos. For this reason COLUMBUS
directed his course to Espanola. He soon left the north coast
of Cuba.
We learn very little about commerce among the Tainan islands,
aside from this fact. The Indians on Fernandina carried on
trade with Guanahani with tobacco leaves.4) Spices were carried
") Hakl. Soc .. Vol. 2I, p. 46.
2) I,AS CASAS. Vol. 63. p. 242.
3) LAS CASAS, Histaria. Vol. 64. p. 235.
4) Hakl. Soc., Vol. 46, p. 45.

to the neighbouring islands from Espanola. It is very possible that
hy this only aji were meant.!)
The beautiful bowls of dark wood, hollowed out by burning, in
the store-house of Anacaona came to Xaragu8. from the island of
Gonabara or Guanabo (He de Gonave), their production being a
specialty of this wooded island.2)
In his discussion about Indian commerce, I,AS CASAS states
that in Espanola and the sorrounding islands there were no markets3),
as in many places on the mainland.
At the time hefore the Conquest a large number of exiles,
fleeing in crowds before the tyranny of the Spaniards, escaped
by sea from the western part of Espanola to Cuba.4) Among
these fugitives from Haiti was the cacique Hatuey, who became
a war-chief in lVIaisi. 5)
Long he fore this, at a much earlier date the older 1'ainan
population of Cuba had been subjugated by an arl:stocratic class
of immigrated Haitians. The oldest Tainan population of the
island Las Casas compares with the simple and peaceful I,ucayans,
because in respect to their armament, they were on about the
same level, as is brought out by his description of the conquest
of Cuba. The immigrated Haitians, who held these Exbuneyes
"como por esclavos"6) and likewise the fishers of Los J ardines7 )
in a state of dependency, came to Cuba at a late date, according
to the acceptation of LAS CASAS, "y segun entonces8) creimos no
habia cincuenta anos que los desta (Espanola) hobiesen posado a
aquella isla (Cuba)."9)
69
") :\IARTYR, MacNutt's Trans., p. 90.
2) MARTYR, De Orhe, MacNutt's Trans., p. I25.
8) Apol. Hist., ed Serrano y Sanz, p. I80. He also denies there the exist ens
of a merchant class.
4) LAS CASAS, Histol'ia, Vol. 64, p. 474.
5) Ibid., Vol. 65, p. 3-5. He was from the Haitian province Guahaba, which
lies nearest to Cuba. See Ibid., Vol. 64, p. 464.
6) Apol. Hist., ed. Serrano y Sanz, p. lIS.
') LAS CASAS in A. de I. Vol. VII, p. 35 or Col. de Ultramar., Vol. III, Cuba
p. 8, Compo Histaria, t. 64, p. 464.
8) LAS CASAS arrived in Cuba in lSII.
9) Ibid., Vol. 64, p. 474.

70
The Linguistic The Tainos can be considered as a people with
Unity of the practically one and the same Arawak language.
Tainos. Individual words of this we know of as predominating
only in the idiom of Espanola. Las Casas
often repeats "en todas est as islas era una lengua y mismas costumbres."
Nevertheless, from his own experience he knew only
Espanola and Cuba. This was confirmed in reality for the Lucayan
Islands, Cuba and Espanola through the voyage of COLUMBUS.
BRINTC)Nl) in regard to this has clearly explained how the Lucayan
pilots conld make themselves understood in Cuba and Espanola.
The diverging idioms of Espanola, which LAS CASAS mentions2) from
11;[ acorix de arriba and Ai acorix de abajo, were dependent on the
foreign linguistic element, which the Mazoriges had introduced.
There seem to have been dialectic differences even in the pure
Tainan language of Espanola, and paxticularly that an especial
principal idiom or lengua universal was accepted. This last was
Xaraguanian, the most beautiful dialect in Espanola and the
richest in vowels.a)
\Ve have very little information as to the linguistic identity
of the above-mentioned islands with Puerto Rico and Jamaica.
Probably the differences of dialect on distant Jamaica, the island
that differred so considerably from the others in respect to culture,
must have been exceedingly great. That the language of Jamaica
was at all events Tainan is shown by the fact that COLUM­
BUS with the aid of his Lucayan interpreter could make himself
understood hy a Jamaican cacique. However, the Borinquenos
and Haitians must have understood each other. The son of
Guacanagari talked with the Borinquen women that were taken
from Guadeloupe by the Spanish.4)
Tainos, the naturalized name for the Arawak race of the
Greater AntiUes and the Bahama Islands, was the name of the
ruling nobility of Espanola and Cuba, as is well known. We can
draw the conclusion that the name was also used on Puerto Rico,
for the Borinquen women who were the prisoners of the Caribs
1) op. cit., p. 441.
2) Apol. Hist .. Vol. 66, p. 485.
3) Ibid.
') NAVARRETE, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 366.

on Guadeloupe, called out to the Spanish: "Tayno, tayno", que
quiere decir bueno."l)
The impression that the Tainos every\vhere were all of the
same race is strengthened by the fact that no particular tribes
were mentioned by name. Only "geographical" designations are
known. The Indians of the Sierra de Cibao in Santo Domingo
were called Cibuneyes, that is, "dwellers of the mountains".2)
BRINTON derives Lucayos from the Arawak lukku, man and kairi,
island, that is Lucayos, "island-people".3)
The Calinas' calling
each other "mainland dwellers" and "island dwellers" is a parallel
phenomonon.4)
7I
The Territorial The degree of Tainan territorial union in the
Extension of Greater Antilles depended politically on the culthe
Cacicazgos. ture, quality and extension of the cacicazgo. The
Tainos lived on the islands in distinct dominions,
bounded politically, one by the other. No one could hunt or
fish in a domain, foreign to him. 5) Such a trespass constituted
grounds for war. 6)
The cacicazgo possessed different territorial extension in the
various regions, over the village alone, or over an Indian province
with its several village-caciques. In Espanola there were five
large cacicazgos one formed of many provinces, each under a king
of great and sovereign power, and one in Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico.
Only two caciques in Porto Rico had the title,
"king", namely Agueybana I and Agueybana II.
It is said
"la isla toda communmente
Pendia del mandato de su boca,7)"
1) CHANC~ in Navarrete, Op. cit., p. 352.
') Apol. His!., ed. Serrano y Sanz, p. 16, from siba, stone and eyes, peopl.
3) Op. cit., p. 441.
4) BRETON, Op. cit., p. 329~330.
S) Apol. Hist., ed Serrano y Sanz, p. 171.
6) Ibid., p. 520.
') CASTELLA~WS, El. VI, Canto I, p. 52.

72
or that he was "el mayor senor desta isla" (that is, Puerto
Rico).1)
The village of both Agueybanas was situated on the south
coast and was named Guaydia,2) what COLL Y TOSTE3) interprets as
Guania, as it is commonly called Guayanilla. In time of peace, his
immediate authority seems to have extended into the mountainous
valleys, since Agueybana II was able to lead the Spaniards into the
interior of the country to the rivers with gold-bearing sands.
The cacicazgo of Agueybana had as its principal province
the coastal lowlands of the South, which brought forth much
cassava and maize.4) This coast was particularly suited for Indian
fishing. But his influence in peace seems also to have reached
far into the interior of the land, where he could show Ponce de
Leon the auriferous rivers, Manatuabon and Cebuco. 5)
North of the watershed various caciques ruled. Next to
Agueybana's village the cacique U arayon governed the province
Yagueia,6) whose name continues to live in Mayaguez. 7) He also
was among those who followed the commands of Agueybana in
the war against the Spaniards.S)
Espanola. It is certain that the development of an aristocracy
was more successful on Espanola than in any
others of the Tainan islands. Only in Espanola can real cacicazgos
with marked limits be indicated. The island was a little Indian
world by itself. Geographically it is richly individualized. It had
more leading provinces by nature, with sufficient good so11 for an
increasing Indian production and concentrated settlement. These
districts formed the nuclei of the respective cacicats. Over-
1) OVIEDO, Histaria, Vol. I, p. 465.
2) CASTEI,I,AXOS, Canto II, p. 54.
3) Prehistaria de Puerto Rico, San Jnan 1907, p. 45.
4) OVIEDO, His/aria, Vol. I, Lib. XVI, Chap. 1.
5) LAS CASAS, His/aria, Vol. 64, p. 236. I presnme that the :'Yfanatuabon is
the .Manati River. According to Ju.·\S DE VEI,ASCO, Geagyajia y descripcion de las
India" I57I--1574, Madrid 1894. p. I32, the mouth of the Cibuco River is 8 leagues
east of the Rio de Arecibo and 3 leagues west of Rio Toa.
6) LAS CASAS, Apol. His/., ed Serrano y Sanz, p. I9.
') FEWKES I, p. 39.
8) CASTEU,AXOS, El. VI, Canto II, p. 54,

land communication between them was often difficult, especially
through the Sierra de Cibao, the central cordillera of the island.
The interior part of this highland was so unknovvn even to the
Tainos, that the two river Yaqui received the same name, simply
because the Indians believed that they sprang from the same
source.I) Until far into the Spanish epoch, different parts of the
island carried on communication with each other for the most
part by means of canoes.
The names and the approximate position of the casicazgos have
been cited many times in the sources, without an exact localization
of their geographical limits. The best and most detailed
description is found in LAS CASAS, Apol. Hist., Chap. III-IX.
Higuey. Beginning at the east, the first cacicazgo was H l:guey.
It consisted of two principal parts; a, the low
plateau in the South, "llanos y compinas que los indios llamaban

74
tions 1 ) in the dolinas with "tierra colorada", which is very fertile
here, and in the rock crevices grew a singular root, "guayaga",
which was not found anywhere else on the island, and out of
which they made a kind of "tortillas" after a complicated method
of preparation.2) They always had at their disposal a supply of
subterranean water in "jagueyes",a) caves or natural open springs
in steep places. In connection with this may be mentioned the
notable discovery, made by DE Booy in a cave, of some peculiar
vessels for water, which I will discuss later.
To the west Higuey was bounded by the sterile Lorna Tina
which was very difficult to pass over. Saona,4) also, belonged to
Higuey. It was here that the defeated cacique, Cotubamana hid
from the Spaniards in a cave situated high above the surroundings.
5)
The Territory
of the Ma~origes.
The boundaries of the two provinces, Marorix de
abajo and M arorix de arriba, are less natural and
therefore more difficult to establish. Apart from
linguistic differences, provinces less political than
natural must have been meant by these names.
M a~orix de abajo occupied a long, narrow portion of the vega
at the southern foot of the young northern sierra, and extended
to the boundary of Marien.6) The cacique Guanacouel of Mac;orix
de abajo lived only three or four leagues from the present Santiago.
7)
The people of Mac;orix de abajo must have been tainized up
to a certain point, as they were in part under the direct control
of Guarionex and part of them, as a matter of fact, spoke a language
distinct from that of Mac;orix de arriba but also on the
other hand not the same as the pure Haitian Tainan.
M arorix de arriba was the province of the pure M aroriges at
1) Ibid., and Rist., Vol. 64, p. 86.
2) Description Apol. Rist., Ibid., p. II.
3) Ibid., p. 10.
4) Ibid., p. 9.
6) LAS CASAS, Ristoria, Vol. 64, p. 97.
0) Apol. Rist., ed Serrano y Sanz, "despues desta provincia del Marien etc."
?) LAS CASAS, Ristoria, Vol. 63, p. 120.

the time of the Discovery.I) The province Samana on the south
side of the gulf can not be proved to have been Ciguayan. It
rather belonged to Higuey.2)
From Mavhat extension Guacanagari
dominated the caciques on the Vega below the Sierra Septentrional.
At any rate, it must be the question here of a part of
1) Compo Apal. Hist., ed Serrano y Sanz, p. 5I7.
2) Compo Ibid., p. 9.
3) LAS CASAS, Histaria, Vol. 63, p. I65.
4) OVIEDO, Histaria, Vol. I, p. 34-35. LAS CASAS also says that Ma

Marien, that extended along the south side of the Sierra de Monte
Cristi to Ma

in the vicinity.I) The information about the boundaries of Marien
is very scanty. It can not have included any nameworthy portion
of the really fruitful Vega, since Ma

Xaragua. Xaragua was the southwestern cacicazgo of Haiti.
It was first governed by Beheccio, and then by
his sister Anacaona, the widow of Caonab6.
The principal part of the cacicazgo of Xaragua lay around
the innermost part of the Gulf of Xaragua, now the Bay of Port
au Prince.I ) Completely within, along the shore of this bay lies
"la vega de la Yaguana, que es cosa hermosisima y deleitable" ,2)
now Plaine de Cul-de-Sac. The Xaraguanos had a "puerto", or
rather a landing-place on the shore for boats, the site of the present
Port au Prince. This landing-place, Cahay, w:as described
by LAS CASAS as very poor,3) which judgment can be well understood
from the European point of view, as even now Port au
Prince is only accessible by means of boats. Here, on the shore
lay the great, painted canoe of the king.4) "Volviendonos ocho
leguas atras, hacia el Oriente de la ribera de la mar, fin desta
vega estaba la ciudad y corte de aquel rey Behecchio y aquella
reina Anacaona, su hermana." The region there is described as
dry and healthful "es muy llana como una gran campina 0

But the cacicazgo was comprised of more than the lowlands
between the mountains. In the mountains were many caciques,
who were dependents of the cacicazgo of Xaragua and here were
located the conucos,l) which it is likely supplied the court with
an abundant supply of cassava.2)
Although Xaragua was able to produce a great quantity of
cassava, yet it is a notable exception among the other cacicazgos,
in that really not cassava, but cotton, constituted the wealth of
the country. The system of irrigation must have been instituted
for the cultivation of cotton. The Xaraguanos were obliged to
pay their tribute to Spain in cotton and maguey.3) DON BARTO­
LOME'S men were richly laden with cotton "en pelo y hilado" when
they departed.4) The cotton of Xaragua was of a particularly fine
quality. In the art of producing naguas and hammocks of cotton,
Xaragua excelled the rest of Espanola.5) The Spaniards obtained
from Anacoana's store-house four balls of cotton yarn so large
that they were onl'y carried with great difficulty.6)
Xaragua stood on an acknowledged higher and more aristocratic
culture level than the rest of Espanola. It was noted for
the refinement of its customs and manners, which served as a model
for the other courts of Espanola. 7) Its language was considered
the most aristocratic and the principal language of the island.B)
79
Cuba. Through the excavations and investigations of
M. R. HARRINGTON in Cuba the existence has been
proved of a primitive race of fishers, that lived along the coast
and could not make pottery, who as a general rule had axes made
from the shells of conches and who had shell beads, who buried
') Compo ROLDAN'S visit in Xaragua, Ibid., Chap. IX, & X, and Apol. Hist.,
ed. Serrano y Sanz, p. 516.
') The Indians who brought the loads of cassava were from "todo el reino"
according to LAS CASAS, Vol. 63. p. 149.
3) MARTVR. MacNutt's Trans., p. 119.
4) LAS CASAS, Historia, Vol. 63. p. 147.
5) Apol. Hist., eel Serrano y Sanz, p. 516.
6) LAS CASAS, Hist., Vol. 63. p. 148.
7) Apol. IIis!., Vol. 66, p. 356.
S) Apol. Hist .• Vol. 66, p. 486.

80
their dead in a laying position and did not deform the skull; and
not as having existed only in the far West, in the vicinity of Cape
San Antonio, but also along the coast of Oriente, and there especially
in the region of Baracoa.
To what degree this primitive Cuban people withdrew before
the Tainan immigrants or were assimilated with them, can only be
decided by means of archaeology. At the time of the Conquest,
the entire population of Cuba must ethnologically be considered
as Tainan, with the exception of the Guanahatabeyes. Possibly,
also other Indians they were yet living as a fisher-people on the
southern keys and the south coast of Cuba, might have been
descendants of the pre-Tainan population since the pilot Diego of
Guanahani did not understand the language of the men in the
canoe off the south coast of Cuba, during the voyage of COLUMBUS
from Los Jardines de la Reina and Evangelista.I ) Moreover, communication
with the fishermen in Los J ardines de la Reina was
carried on by means of signs.2) But whether the idiom used here
was completely foreign, or only a diverging Arawak dialect, these
fishers were subordinated to the Tainan organization on the island
of Cuba.
We must not consider the Haitian immigrants as a little group
of aristocratic men or exclusively nitainos, but rather as a great
mass of immigrated Haitians, strongly dominant in the mountainlands
of eastern Cuba, and then after an abrupt interruption at
the swampy valley of the Cauto, spreading out more weakly over
the rest of Cuba. LAS CASAS says that the greater part of the population
of Cuba originated in Haiti.3)
LAS CASAS has named Cibuneyes,4) the older Cuban population,
who lived in a state of dependency under the Haitian immigrants.
Possibly there is an error here, a confusion with the Cibuneys
in the Sierra de Cibao, for whom this name, meaning
"rock-men" is exceedingly appropriate. This name seems to me
1) Compo MARTYR, MacNutt's Trans., p. 100.
0) Compo LAS CASAS, Histaria, Vol. 63, p. 56.
3) Histaria, Vol. 64, p. 464.
0) A. de I., Vol. VII, or Col. de Ultramar, Cuba, Vol. III, p. 7-8 and Historia,
Vol. 64, p. 464, and 474.

very difficult to explain in Cuba.1) Therefore I would like to propose
another, Exbuneyes 2 ) , which LAS CASAS also cites for the
older Haitian immigrants in Cuba that had been reduced to
servitude.
The larger part of these Exbuneyes, particularly those that
were engaged in the Tainan agriculture, I am disposed to consider
as descendants of the older waves of Taino immigration and
not as springing from the primitive aboriginal race. I have already
mentioned that LAS CASAS compares these Cibuneyes preferably
with the Lucayans.3) The Haitian immigrants overcame
them through their superior culture, the proper Tainan which
was previously developed on Espanola and Puerto Rico, mostly
on endemic ground. Through the discoveries made by HARRING­
TON, it can be inferred that this superior culture in reality carried
over elements, essentially Haitian to, the mountainous eastern part
of Cuba. This is brought to light above all by HARRINGTON'S finds,
but also in a measure less important by the representations of LAS
CASAS, as if the the swampy river, the Cauto, had really been an
impediment to the invasion of the higher Haitian culture. This
impediment is shown to have been more industrial, social and religious
than economic and affecting food-production. Particularly
manioc, as a national article of food, held the same significance for
the Tainos practically everywhere without respect to their grade
of culture or social development. So also in Cuba.
If we consider now the territorial organization of Cuba in
the Tainan epoch, from the descriptions of LAS CASAS we can conclude
that there were not such large cacicazgos in Cuba as on Espanola.
In thickly-populated Maisi the aristocratic organization
had its highest development. But in the haitianized eastern part of
Cuba we do not find a great region having relations with smaller
cacicazgos in other places, which could have formed the nucleus
of a veritable cacicazgo-kingdom.4) The surface of Maisi is very
1) HARRING'rON, Cuba Before Columbus, New York 1923, Vol. II, p. 412 returns
to the word Cibuneyes, "rock-men, an appropriate term for cave-dwellers."
He evidently sees in the Ciboneyes the primitive people of Cuba.
2) Apol. Hist., ed Serrano y Sanz, p. !I5.
3) Historia, Vol. 64, p. 474.
4) Gran Tierra de Maya, which is apparently the largest Indian settlement
is a high plateau, accessible only with great difficulty.
6
8r

82
rugged. As HARRINGTON'S archaeological investigation shows, the
principal mass of immigrated Haitians lived on the high plateau,
Gran Tierra de Maya, where they had good soil and sufficient rainfall
for their yuca cultivation. The expedition which COLUMBUS,
on his first voyage, sent out from Baracoa advanced to an other
principal settlement in Oriente at Bayamo and almost passed by
the mountain settlements on the left hand. The inaccessible
forestclad Sierra Maestra was uninhabited in Indian time, quite
as Blue Mountains in Jamaica.
The development of the cacicazgo is closely connected with
the military organization. How little developed and incomprehensive
these must have been is shown by the fact that in the
description of the conquest of Cuba, LAS CASAS mentions only one
single real war-chief, and moreover that was Hatuey, who had taken
refuge in Maisi, when he fled from Guahaba, the nearest province
of Haiti.!) Still, it is scarcely credible, that Hatuey really
found a cacicazgo in Maisi, to which he succeeded. But through
because of his burning eloquence and earnest exhortation to necessary
preparations2) against a Spanish attack at the feasts in Maisi,
he was called to the office of war-chief of this province. Still it
must be remarked, that the Spaniards made no real war on the
Cubans further to the West, but came across them unexpectedly.
Those Cubans never arrived at a "mobilization."
Only one cacique of great importance is mentioned even in
in the East, and that is the christianized Comendador "un gran
senor y rey de la provincia 6 pueblo que se llamaba Macaca."
This large village was situated in the province Cueyba and had a
harbour 15-20 leagues from Santiago. 3 )
LAS CASAS describes the village and the village chief as the only
political entity of Cuba. But the villages there were large, sometimes
consisting of from 200 to 300 houses.4) By "pueblo y provincia"
cited frequently during Velasquez' military expedition, must
have been meant only the village with its surrounding COnt£cos.
The really large provinces west of the zone, strongly influenced
") LAS CASAS. Histaria, Vol. 64, p. 464.
2) Ibid., p. 465-466.
3) Ibid., p. 481.
0) Ibid., p. 474.

y the Haitians, were Camag~lay and Habana. But on the
other hand, all of the narration of liAS CASAS indicates that they
were never organized as cacicazgos.
In Camaguay there were many large villages,!) among them
the very large one, Caonao, where the horrible Indian massacre
took place in the plaza and in the large meeting-house.2)
When the Spaniards advanced into the Province of Habana,
they found only village-caciques.3)
In Cuba but further to the \Vest and both on the coast were
two remarkable places \vhich must be mentioned.
On the north coast, where now Sagua la Grande is situated,4)
there was a large village, named Carahate, built on piles in the sea.
In the houses the Spaniards seized a great quantity of cassava, as
well as products of the hunt and fishery, and in addition 10,000
parrots.5)
Possibly these were exported. vVe have already seen that the
Arawaks carried on an overseas trade with parrots.
011 the southern coast, in Indian times, the region near the
Gulf of Xagua had a great economical significance. I have already
mentioned it incidentally the commercial relations between this
region and Yucatan. The out-standing and remarkable thing
about the Indian settlement on the Gulf of Xagua were the large
enclosures of interwoven canes along the shore for "lizas",6) and
on land for "perdices."7)
') Ibid., Vol. 65, p. 20.
2) Ibid., p. 22-23.
3) Ibid., p. 33. Habana stretched across Cuba from one sea to the other and
must be regarded as a natural and not a political province. Very likely this
name is nothing more than the Haitian Sabana as Hand S are interchangeable
in Tainan. Thus Columbus during his voyage among the I,ucayan Islands, found
Bosio instead of Bohia used as the name for Haiti. See NAVARRETE, Vol. T,
p. 188. This province of Habana has also a predominating savanna-character.
4) Compo Ibid., p. 30 .
0) Ibid., p. 3 I.
6) Mycteroperca. The bones of these are the kind of fish-bones found most
frequently in the refuse-mounds of Jamaica. See DE Booy, Amer. Anthrop. Vol.
IS, NO·3, p. 432.
7) See LAS CASAS, Histaria, Vol. 64, p. 2IO--2II & 470, Vol. 65, p. 36. "Perdices"
in Spanish America means Tinamidae, not partridges. \Ve must reckon
them with the latter in Cuba, for they could not fly.

Especially rich in cotton was the land back of the coastal
range in Oriente. In a village of 50 houses, some 50 leagues from
Baracoa, which NAVARRETE supposes was Bayamo,1) the Spaniards
found an immense quantity of cotton, both manufactured and
raw; in one house there were more than 500 arrobas. 2 )
In an investigation of the settlement of Cuba, we must take
into account that LAS CASAS, when he uses the expression Cibuneyes
or Exbuneyes, makes no distinction between the fishers on the islands
and along the coast, who lived as dependents under the protection
of caciques in the interior of the country, and naborias. 3)
The first-named could have been the remains of the primitive
Cuban fisher-race. The last, who certainly were more numerous
in Cuba, formed on that island as well as in Esnanola the great
mass of the Tainan population.4) Most of the naborias were not
domestic slaves in the real acceptation of the word, but really the
lowerclass Indians of the Tainan village whom the cacique sent
to work in the fields under the direction of his nitainos, or claimed
for some other service. They stood below the line, had not the
right to vote on public matters, and performed only manual labor.
Jamaica. It is also not probable that there were real cacicazgos
in Jamaica. The information in the sources
is much too scanty and fragmentary for a searching study.
Even the colonization can only be investigated by means of archaeology,
which up to the present time has established that the wooded
mountain-lands in the East and the sterile limestone plateaus
have never been popUlated.
Economically, Jamaica distinguished itself through its great
1) Vol. I, p. 20I.
2) Ibid., p. 203. An arroba is about II 1/2 kg. At Bayamo there is also much
black earth, recognized as the best soil for cotton.
3) "Communmente llamaban los indios en su lengua naborias los criados y
sirvientes ordinarios de casa." Vol. 65, p. 45.
4) In the Archivo de Indias the expression naborias is frequent in document
of the Repartimiento Period, both from Cuba and Espanola. From a statement
by LAS CASAS can be determined the proportion of the two classes of Taino society.
because in Ibid., p. 59. we find that the cacique Guayabona had "en su senorio
500 Nitainos" and 30-40,000 subditos But the numbers must be considered exaggerated.

wealth of cotton.l ) The Jamaicans had "grandes algodonales".2)
The women were greatly occupied with spinning and weaving.3)
Jamaica furnished cotton cloth and hammocks to the islands
of Cuba and Espanola, that had been Spanish already for some
time.4)
The Bahamas. \Ve do not learn from the Ijterature if the separate
Lucayan islands, each by itself, formed a little
cacicazgo, or if the village was the highest unit. The latter seems
to have been the case. COL"C"MBUS did not meet any important
caciques. At Fernandina (I..ong Island), COLUMBUS recorded that
he had seen many villages, but none with more than IS houses. 5)
The I,ucayan "kings" were so highly respected, that they were
obeyed blindly, but they betrayed themselves to be only common
village-caciques, by personally directing and taking part in the
agriculture, fishing and hunting. 6 )
Those of the Lucayan Islands that COI;u1mus visited had balls
of cotton as the most important trade article. 7) This superfluity
of cotton is explained by the fact that I{ong Island and San Salvador
especially, but also little Rum Kay, are rich in "Bahama
Black Loam."8) CHARLES N. MOONEY says of this loam, "Cotton
grows luxuriantly in this, and upon this Black Loam it was cultivated
in the early days. "Henequen grows exceedingly well in
this black loam of the Bahamas. "9)
85
') ~IARTYR, MacNutt's Trans. p. 362.
') LAS CASAS, Historia, Vol. 64, p. 286.
") Ibid., p. 287.
4) Ibid., p, 28(), The Spaniards eycn got sail-cloth from Jamaica.
5) NAVARRETE. Vol. I, p. 184.
G) MARTYR, MacKutt's Trans. VoL n, p. 252; LAS CASAS, Apol. His! .. eel.
S. y. S. p. 53.
7) Compo NAYARRETE, p. 173, Guanahani, 175 Rum Cay, 189 Crooked Island,
P. 181 mentions especially the wealth of cotton and the women's eotton dresses
on Fernandina (Lang Island). I follow Markham's identifications of the islands.
8) See the maps, PI. XXX & XXX IT in "The Bahama Islands", ed. by GE­
ORGI': BDRTIANK SHATTt'CK, New York 1905.
9) Ibid., p. 159.

CHAPTER II.
Ancient Indian Monuments in the West Indies.
Here I am going to follow FEWKES' terminology and division
of Archaeological Sites into Plazas, Shell-heaps and Caves, since
this embraces the three largest categories of ancient monuments
in the Antilles. The investigations of COSCULLUELA in the Ci€~naga
de Zapata have established archaeologically a fourth kind of
antique relics in Cuba, namely pile dwellings. However, this
subject will not be treated before Chapter V.
Plazas. By plaza is meant a levelled piece of ground
completely or partly enclosed by flat rocks set
on end, or banks of earth. Archaeological investigations which
have been made of them to date, in Puerto Rico and St. Croix, and
also of their nearest surroundings, show them to have been closely
connected with the settlements and the religious worship. From
LAS CASAS and OVIEDO it can also be concluded that they were
really the plazas of the villages, situated in front of cacique-huts,
where also the ball-playing took place.
The huge circular ring of stones at San Juan de Maguana in
Santo Demingo 2270 feet in circumference and made up of heavy
granite boulders, in whose center is found a large block, fallen
down at the present time, on which a human face is carved, can
not be reckoned a plaza in this sense.I ) But we have every reason
to think that this was a place of worship, where the large stone
zemi in the center was worshipped. A road, paved with stone
and ending at a brook, leads to this sanctuary. It is likely that
1) ROBERr SCHOMBURGK, Ethnological Researches in Santo Domingo, Rep.
Brit. Ass. I8S!, p. 90-92.

the village itself was located here by this brook, from which it
obtained its water.
STAHL, who has seen more plazas in Puerto Rico than any
other investigator, describes them as quadrilateral or rectangular,
and enclosed by flat stones, standing on end. 1 ) The plaza which
HAEBERLIN investigated in the Rio Arecibo district near Utuado,
is rectangular with upraised stone slabs set only along the long
sides. 2) Contemporarily ALDEN MASON investigated several plazas
at Caguana, a suburb of Utuado.3) Six of them are rectangular
with only the two longer sides set with stones. A few of these
plazas have solely the two rows of upright-standing stones, set at
equal distances, as in the one examined by HAEBERLIN. But some
have between them "other stones of similar size being placed as a
capping, flat on these uprights, edge to edge, thus forming a kind
of long seat or step along the side of the court. The caps are
supported on the outside by the unexcavated earth. In certain
naturally low portions there seems to have been a surface stratum
laid as a sort of paving; this is hard-packed, sandy and full of
concentric spherical nodules of a charcoal nature, as yet unidentified.
"4) Therefore, in this case the two of stones formed walls
with a flat upper side, suitable to sit or walk npon. A large square
plaza is especially noticeable because it is so well leveled. Its
eastern and western sides are outlined with stones, the latter
with huge basaltic boulders. 5) ALDEN MASON describes the largest
plaza as "oblong."6) It is entirely enclosed within limestone
slabs. The short south side is closed by "a double line of low
stones", "by a beautiful semi-circular wall of uprights with a
double row of caps, forming a kind of pavement or seat. "7) Therefore,
here also appears the same arrangement for seating as in
some of the rectangular plazas, which are open at the short sides.
1) AUG1;S'tIN STAHL, ]~os Indios Borinquelios, Porto Rico 1889, p. 181.
2) HER:\iAN K. HAEBERLIN, Some Archaeological Work in Porto Rico, Amer.
Anthrop. n. s., Vol. 19, 1917, p. 214-220 and fig. 10.
3) J. ALDEN MASON, Excavation of aNew A rchaeological Site in Porto Rico,
Proc. of the 19 th Int. Congr. of Americanists, Wash. Des. 1915, p. 221-223.
4) Ibid., p. 221 and Pl. I, b.
5) Ibid., PI. IV, b and V, a.
6) Ibid., PI. III, a.
7) Ibid., PI. III, b.

88
Close by lies an oval plaza, circled "by a ring of limestone slabs
each set at an angle leaning outward."l)
All these forms of plazas situated at the same locality at
Utuado must be looked upon as contemporaneous. Probably a
large Tainan village was located here.
Settlement in the vicinity is proved by the fact that ALDBN
MASON found the posts of a house, almost all of them rough piles
of a tree, that in Puerto Rico is called moraton or ortegon, set into
holes which the Indians had filled up with debris, stones, potsherds
and charcoal. In other cases, the posts had rotted away in the
ground. FBWKBS calls the attention to the fact that the plazas
which he investigated lie "for the most part on terraces or on
land fringing rivers, elevated high enough to be above the freshets,
and yet lying in river valleys that could be cultivated."2) However,
the greater part of them must have been located in the lovvlands,
but have been destroyed by the cultivation of the land
there.
The significance of the plazas in connection with zemiistic
ceremonies is revealed by the fact that the upright stones are
sometimes engraved with pictographs, as it were with a face. 3)
Some of the large boundary stones are carved out regularly,
for instance in the form of an axe or as pillar-stones with pictographic
figures sculptured at the top, like a face in bas-relief.4)
That plazas were used for zemiistic ceremonies, is evident from
the fact that FBWKBS found stone-masks at a plaza in Utuado. 5)
In front of Puerto Rican plazas, FBWKES found tumuli containing
human bones, potsherds and a few fragments of celts. 6) In
one tumulus at Utuado he found ten skeletons, of which one could
be observed sitting in a contracted position with a clay vessel at
its side.?)
') Ibid., p. 222.
2) FEWKES I, p. 82.
:J) Ar,DEX MASON. op. cit., p. 221, PI. V, b .
. 1) FEWKBS, Prehistoric Porto Rican Pictographs, Amer. Anthrop., n. s., Vol. 5,
NO·3 1903, p. 461--462, and PI. XI

The character of sanctuary is seen even more clearly in the
row of stones, which HATT excavated at Salt River on St. Croix.
This stone-row is of great interest, especially in comparison with
the Puerto Rican plazas. The work itself belongs to the Puerto
Rican culture.
HATT'S excavations on St. Croix, St. Thomas and St. John
have before all have produced the result, that Ignerian and Tainan
culture are presented in different deposits, and what is still more
important, that at Salt River on St. Croix and at Magen's Bay,
St. Thomas, the Tainan culture lies above the Ignerian. 1 ) On
these islands the first Arawak immigrants during a long undisturbed
period received, in succession, a great number of southern
cultural characteristics from their Ignerian kinsmen of the Lesser
Antilles. Subsequently, a migration of Tainos from Puerto Rico
took place. When I published the first edition of this work,
before the stratification of HATT and its outcome had appeared,
I knew nothing of this sequence of the two cultures. From the
far poorer material that I had at my disposal, I could only infer
that many southern elements passed along the chain of islands up
to the Virgin Islands. The finding of Puerto Rican cultural elements,
such as slender collars and carved Puerto Rican threepointed
stones, on St. Croix revealed a qualified religious influence
from that island. But I could only form for myself an idea of
from what quarters the culture-influences reached the Virgin Islands.
Without the stratification of HATT, I did not know exactly
the time-sequence.
'fhe sanctuary at Salt River was located on a plain north of
a small hill, where lay a part of the Indian village, which has left
after it much refuse on these slopes. Hatt found only one row of
slabs, "standing on edge." Of the nine that still remain, four
have pictographs. These are much like the Puerto Rican petroglyphs.
One of these at the southwestern end Hatt interprets as
representing "a pregnant woman-perhaps a symbol, or a goddess
of fertility or of childbirth."2) This has its companion in Puerto
Rico, as at one side of the plaza of Utuado, investigated by Fewk-
1) HATT, Archaeology ot the Virgin Islands, p. 32.
2) Ibid., p. 36 and fig. 12.

90
es, stood a pillar stone representing a woman "with head and
bust well carved in relief. "1)
Of very great interest is the little tunnel which passes through
a stone slab with pictographs of eyes and mouth. This stone
stood at the northeast end of the row. The hole, which opens
outward, is tiny and surrounded by an engraved circle. If water
is poured from the inner side, it comes out through the little hole
on the outside. HATT'S explanation of the little tunnel's employment
for rain-magic, harmonizes well with what we learn from
PANE about the religious practices in Espanola. HATT quotes
PANE'S statement about zemis with speaking-tubes, in the hut
of the cacique and also about the two stone zemis in the cave,
which were made to perspire before the assembled people, when
it was going to rain.2) The zemiistic cult and oracle among the
Tainos was under the control of the cacique and centered in his
residence. The means that were used to make manifest the zemis'
foresight and power scarcely deserve the name of "pious fraud."
They helped the cacique to keep the people constantly reverent
and fearing. \Vhen COLU1IBUS discovered in a cacique's hut in
Espanola the Indian who was talking through the speaking-tube,
the casique begged him not to talk of it before the other Indians,
because by this deception he kept them obedient.3) The same
sort of trick, that is to let the zemis manifest themselves by means
of fictitious rain-magic, or promises of rain, in the presence of the
pious people, was brought to light through HATT'S find in the
plaza at Salt River.
Hatt did not find any stone-masks in the form of a disk, but
fallen from "a rough column of coral rock", at the southwestern
end of the stone row lay a large head of corallimestone.4) Other
smaller ones lay in the vicinity.5) One of them, (fig. 10, b), shows
plainly that it was intended to be bound into a handle. It has a
head-band with the same kind of engraved lines placed at angles,
1) FI'eh. Porto Rican Pictographs, p. 462.
2) HATT, Archaeology of the Virgin Islands, p. 36-37.
3) D. FBRNANDO COI,ON, Hisiaria del Almirante, Col. de Libras Raros que tratan
de America, Madrid 1892, p. 278.
4) HATT, Ibid., p. 38 and fig. 17, a.
5) Ibid., fig. 10, a, b and 17, b.

which is so common in Puerto Rico. This kind of stone head
with a rather slender neck, which was evidently intended to be
mounted, is indeed often found in Puerto Rico and also occurs
in Santo Domingo. I )
HATT assums that an artifically made platform of clay-like
earth, four meters northwest of the stone-row, formed a foundation
for the hut of the chief, although he did not find any postholes.
Near by the platform there is a kitchen midden, in which
Hatt found two skeletons buried lying in a crouched position.
On the other hand, he did not find any tumuli like those Fewkes
observed at the plazas of Puerto Rico. He found some graves of
children in another part of the village site of Salt River.2)
In the platform itself, Hatt found four skeletons, which, if
his interpretation that the residence of the cacique himself was
located here is correct, must represent hut-burial. But he also
found "a tremendous amount of human bones - --, mostly
splintered and scattered in all possible ways."3) . Therein HAT!'
sees unmistakable proof of cannibalism and believes that cannibalistic
feasts together with zemiistic ceremonies took place at
the row of stones.
Now it is a matter of fact that at the time of the Discovery,
no sign of cannibalism could be pointed out among the Tainos,
also that cannibalism on the whole is foreign to the pure Arawak
races of South America. On the contrary, the Tainos expressed
to the Spaniards their terror and abhorrence of cannibalism,
which their enemies, the Caribs, practised. If the chief's hut
really was located on the platform, it is very singular that pieces
of bones from cannibal repasts should have been buried exactly
under it. Their presence in that place must' be attributed to a
later episode, and preferably should be connected with the Caribs,
who possibly after they had captured the Tainan village at Salt
River, slaughtered and ate the men of the village at the customary
victory-feast and then buried the thrown-together splintered
bones in the platform, which had been made by the Tainos at a
previous time.
1) PI. VI, 2.
2) Ibid., p. 38.
3) Ibid., p. 37.
9I

92
Besides this, HATT is of the 0pllllOn that the population of
St. Croix at the time of the Discovery was not Carib but Arawak1)
Yet that such was the case I have shown previously
Carib colonization reached forward along the chain of islands,
gradually extending as far as and including Vieques. At the
time of the second voyage of COLUMBUS, the Spaniards were wellinformed
of the population of the islands through the Borinquen
women, whom they had saved from the power of the Caribs, on
Guadeloupe. From them they obtained the knowledge that also
Ayay, that is St. Croix, was Carib and solidly united with the
other Carib islands in the struggle against the Borinquenos.2)
According to CHANCA'S authentic account, the Spaniards did not
even land at St. Croix.3) The meeting with the canoes and the
visit ashore relate to St. Martin. MARTYR, whom HATT cites,"')
however without reason, for the idea that the Indians must have
been Arawaks, has transferred the episode to St. Croix. MARTYR'S
account of the same is inexact and fantastic and differs greatly
from CHANCA'S authentic version. This is not the only inexactitude
and mistake in localization that occurs in MARTYR'S description
of the second voyage of COLUMBUS.
It is not proved by HATT'S account, if the row of stones really
belonged to a leveled plaza large enough to be used as a ground for
ball playing. The distance from the row of stones to the platform
is not more than 4 meters. Neither would it have been advisable
for some of the people to have the opportunity of seeing from
within, the arrangement with the little tunnel through the stone.
The commoners had to stand outside.
For the rest, the sanctuary at Salt River not only with respect
to the petroglyphs on the stones, but also the finds that were
made there has so many characteristic similarities with the plazas
of Puerto Rico, that it must be attributed to the same Tainan
culture, that prevails in Puerto Rico.
In Cuba, also, the known plazas are only surrounded by earth
embankments. Moreover, they all lie in Oriente, within the
1) Ibid., p. 4I-42; ,)Fra Vestindiens Stenalder», p. 57-58.
2) NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. 353.
3) Ibid., p. 356.
4) Fm Vestindiens Stenalder, p. 57-58.

egion which was thickly populated by the Tainos that immigrated
from Haiti at a late date.
The plaza discovered in 1847 by RODRIGUEZ-FERRER at
Pueblo Viejo, "near the edge of Gran Tierra de Maya" is very
large, "258 yards long by 96 wide" ,1) and quadrangular as to
form. 2) The walls of earth, which are 10 feet high and 10-12
feet wide at the base. When CULIN3) dug into them, they were
shown to contain pieces of pottery. No closer investigation of the
place has been made, so we do not yet know anything of the
plaza's relation to the settlement. But a village site lies near by.4)
The other plaza in Oriente HARRINGTON found farther south
in the plateau land at Monte Cristo.5) Only the east end can be
observed. The short side appears somewhat rounded, the long
sides are straight. The walls of earth are 5 feet high in some places.
\Vithin them, a low mound lies in the northwest corner. Outside,
on the east lies a mound "4 feet high by 28 feet in diameter".
Harrington found by this mound "a few potsherds" and two
hammer-stones, but he did not dig into it. Therefore we do not
know if it is a tumulus or perhaps the foundation of a house. The
mound within the plaza has a counterpart in the plaza, which
HAEBERLIN excavated in the upper Arecibo region in Puerto Rico. 6 )
HARRINGTON has examined a third plaza at Laguna Limones
on the first terrace above Maisf.7) This also is very large to judge
from the measurement which he gives for each earthern wall.
These are as broad as the walls of the plaza at Pueblo Viejo, 15
feet, but only 2-3 feet high. The plaza'S form is quadrilateral
certainly, but not rectangular, as the wall on the southern short
side runs obliquely. Similar to the two other plazas in Oriente,
this one is also closed and has only a narrow entrance in the southeast.
Association with the settlement can be inferred from SIX
1) HARRINGTON. ap. cit., p. 4I, cites RODRIGl:EZ-FERRER.
2) Ibid., page 65 cites CUI,IN, who gives the measurements as 668 feet long by
300 feet wide.
3) Ibid., and FERNAXDO ORTIZ, Historia de la Arqueologia Indocubana, Havana,
1922, p. 26--27. cites CULIN.
4) HARRINGTON, ap. cit., PI. XXVII.
0) Ibid., and p. 208-20g, sketch-map, fig. 5I.
6) HAEBERLIN, ap. cit., sketch-map, fig. IO.
') HARRINGTON, ap. cit., p. 304-308, plan Pl. I,XXXI.
93

94
mounds just southwest of the plaza. The highest seems to have
an artificially made nucleus, and can therefore possibly be a tumu­
Ius. The low ones had the character of kitchen middens. The
finds which were made by HARRINGTON in superficial excavations,
reveal a highly developed Tainan culture. It is very likely, therefore,
that the village belonged to the immigrated Haitians.
Up to the present time plazas on Espanola and Cuba have
been investigated so little that it can not yet be known if they
were places of worship, like the plazas of Puerto Rico and the
stone-row at Salt River on St. Croix. The plazas known at present
in Santo Domingo and Cuba agree therein that they are
formed by wa11s of earth. But then of course the people that settled
in Gran Tierra de Maya in more recent times had immigrated
from Haiti. However the great circle at San Juan de Maguana
shows as well, that the Haitians could transport and raise
very large boulders. In OVIEDO'S description of the Haitian
ba11 courts, large stones for the seating of the spectators are also
named.
In his description of the villages of the Tainan islands LAS
CASAS says: "Los pueblos destas islas no los tenian ordenados por
sus calles, mas de que la cas a del rey 0 senor de pueblo estaba
en el mejor lugar y asiento, y ante la casa real estaba en todos
una plaza grande mas barrida y mas llana, mas luenga que cuadrada,
que llamaban en la lengua destas islas batey, la penultima
silaba luenga, que quiere decir el juego de la pelota, - - - Tambien
habia casas cercanas de la dicha plaza, y si era el pueblo muy
grande habia otras plazas 0 juegos de la pelota men ores que la
principa1."I)
In another place he describes the ball courts and their location
as follows: "tenian una plaza comunmente ante la puerta
de la casa del senor, muy barrida tres veces mas luenga que ancha,
cercada de unos lomillos de un palmo 0 dos de alto, salir de los
qnales la pelota creo que era falta. Ponianse veinte y treinta de
cada parte a la luenga de la plaza."2)
OVIEDO knows the ball-courts of Espanola: "Yen cada pla

de la pelota (que ellos llaman baley) y tambien a las salidas de los
pueblos avia mismo sitio puesto con assientos para los que mirassen
el juego" .1)
"Pues en el capitulo de suso se dixo de la forma de los pueblos
e de las casas de los indios, y que en cada pueblo avia lugar diputado
en las plazas y en las salidas de los caminos para el juego de
la pelota, quiere decir de la manera que se jugaba - - -. En
torno de donde los jugadores hacian el juego, diez por diez, veinte
por veinte, mas 6 menos hombres, como se concertaban, tenian
sus asientos de piedra; e al cacique e hombres principales, ponianles
unos banquerillos de palo, muy bien labrados, de lindas
maderas, 6 con muchas labores de relieve e concavadas, entalladas
y esculpidas en ellos a los quales bancos 6 escabelo llaman duho"2)
So in the historical sources we find proof that in the rectangular
plazas, the Tainan bateyes are found again. The expression of
LAS CASAS "cercada de unos lomillos", I take to mean surrounded
by banks of earth. Now the known plazas in Santo Domingo and
also in Oriente, Cuba, are indeed surrounded by walls of earth,
although these are far higher than the measurement, given by LAS
CASAS. The flat stones of the Puerto Rican plazas, which stood
upright on the ends, could not have always been suitable as
seats. But the arrangement of "capping," which ALDEN MASON
describes and pictures, must have served exceedingly well as a
long bench for the spectators. That the Puerto Rican plazas are
usually only set with stones on the long sides, agrees exceedingly
well with the statement of LAS CASAS, that the ball-game was
played against the long sides, and that particularly the ball's
passing over them, caused it to be considered dead.
From what Las Casas says it appears that the principal court
for the ball-playing was located in front of the cacique's hut, and
as we may well suppose, reasonably near the center of the settlement.
Moreover, he confirms this when he says that the residence
of the cacique is situated on the open plaza in the middle
of the village.3) The assertion of FEWKES that "the Indian town
must have been near by, for OVIEDO says that near each pueblo
1) Historia, Vol. I, p. 163.
2) Ibid., Vol. I, p. 165.
3) LAS CASAS, Historia, Vol. 65, p. 165.
95

96
there was a place for batey, or the ball game l )" agrees only in part
with the original account. FEWKES seems to have given importance
only to the phrases "tambien a las salidas de los pueblos"
or "y en las salidas de los caminos".
But if the rectangular plazas can be explained from the sources
in a manner worthy of belief, on the other hand such is not the
case with the great ovals. That they were somehow connected with
the zemiistic cult is all that we can say about them. As stated
before, the mighty circular cercado at San Juan de Maguana
can only be regarded as a sanctuary.
FEWKES affirms above all, that the plazas were especially used
for areytos in "the ancestor worship", which in truth forms the
nucleus of the whole Tainan religion. "The conclusion drawn
from my excavations of the Utuado mounds are that large numbers
of the dead were buried just outside the dance courts, and
that the elaborate areitos or mortuary dances were held in the
latter."2) In "The Aborigines of Porto Rico", FEWKES goes still
further and uses the rubric and designation "dance plazas". In
this work he sums up his opinion as follows: "the general appearance
of the enclosures, with idols and pictographs carved on some of
their boundary stones, and the presence of neighbouring mounds,
some of which were burial places, others the sites of prehistoric
pueblos, confirm my belief that they were plazas in which were
celebrated the ceremonial dances called areitos, and especially
those mortuary rites of ancestor worship which reached so high
a development among the pre-historic Puerto Ricans. Here were
performed dances commemorative of the dead interred near by,
and here were sung songs in memory of the ancestors, as Oviedo
and others have stated. "3)
The word batey means not only ball, but also the place where
the game of ball is p1ayed.4) In the sources, particular "dance
plazas" are not mentioned. The word areyto meant song, as well
as dance, in Espanola, or probably OVIEDO'S expression comes
nearest, "que ellos llaman areyto, que es 10 mismo que nosotros
1) FEWKES I, p. 84.
2) Amer. Anthrop. Vol. 5, NO.3, I903, p. 457-458.
3) FEWKES I, p. 84.
4) LAS CASAS, Apol. Hist., ed. SERRANO y SANZ, p. 538.

llamamos bay1ar cantando" .1) I repeat that especial plazas for
dancing are not mentioned in the sources. FEWKES has cited some
archaeological grounds, which according to his opinion indicate that
"cercados de los indios", "juegos de bola", "corrales", or what
ever the population may ca11 them, had been "dance plazas", including
those which according to the description of LAS CASAS,
can be identified as ball courts. But if the sources do not mention
any especial dance plaza, on the other hand they place in
relief the principal and representative office of the cacique, at the
zemiistic ceremonies and public feasts. In connection with this,
it is also fitting to accept that these took place on the plazas,
which were under the especial protection and control of the cacique
in the fulfillment of his religious and representative obligations
before the people of the province, over which he ruled. We have
already seen that the largest and most important batey of the
village was located near the cacique's hut and that the game was
played under his supervision. I hold it to be worthy of belief that
this batey was also used for zemiistic ceremonies or the great dancing-festivals,
and that such a use alone may have fitted as to the
oval plazas. These lay, as the published excavations of ALDEN
MASON show, in the vicinity of the rectangular plazas, that is to say,
near the huts of the caciques, if these lastnamed plazas were bateys.
In what follows will be shown how closely the worship was united
with the cacicazgo. The same was the case with the great ceremonial
dancing-festivals. OVIEDO discusses the religious dances, and among
them the festival dances in honour of the cacique;" en las fiestas
generales assi como por una victoria 6 vencimiento de los enemigos
6 casandose el cacique 6 rey de la provincia."2) Later he describes
the commemorative dances, at which "las genea10gias de sus
97
1) His/oria, Vol. I, p. 127. Eroutou, in the language of the Island-Caribs,
means song, dance. See RAYMOND BRETON, Dictionaire Caraibe-Fran

98
caciques" are recited. I ) CANIZARES narrates how in the solemn
autumnal offerings of the Haitians in honour of the cacique's zemi,
women with baskets full of cassava and wreaths of flowers during
singing of the areitos entered the hut of the cacique, where the
zemi was placed, and then in their areitos, in union with the men,
described "the power of their zemes, commemorating in song the
great deeds of their cacique's ancestors."2) \Vhere the continuation
of the festival took place, we are told nothing definite about it.
It only says, "they spend the remainder of the day in the open
air, amusing themselves and singing."3)
ABBAD has observed many of the old Indian customs, which
still were in use in Puerto Rico during the eighteenth century.
\Vhen the houses were too small for the reception, the dances had
to be executed "de baxo de la casa, yen su circunferencia". Not
alone the dancing but as well the entire character and arrangement
of the festival still had at this epoch a decidedly Indian
stamp. The owner of the land replaced the cacique of former
times. 4 )
From the facts known up to the present time about the extension
of plazas, it would appear that they only followed the
higher proper Tainan culture. Thus they are only found in Puerto
Rico, Espanola and the plateau-land of Oriente in Cuba, which
was colonized by the Haitians who immigrated there at a late date.
I have already discussed correspondences between Puerto Rico
and St. Croix on one side, and between Espanola and Cuba on the
other.
No plazas have been found up to now, further westward in
Cuba. But a large part of the island, particularly Camaguey, has
not been investigated, and therefore we do not yet know how intensive
the Haitian immigration was in that part of Cuba.
Since in Jamaica the location of the pre-historical remains
are known better than i:i1 Cuba, the lack of plazas in Jamaica is
') Ibid., Vol. T, p. 128.
2) MARTYR, De orbe novo, Trans. of MacNutt, Vol. II, p. 3T7.
3) Ibid., p. 3 18.
4) D. AXTONIO VALLADOR DE SOTOMAYOR, His!. Geog. Civ. :v Pol. de Puerto
l?ico, Madrid 1788, p. 279-281.

shown to be an actual one. DUERDENl) as well as CUNDALL2) gives
a lists and maps of the remains in the different counties of Jamaica,
but nowhere is an inclosure named.
Plazas are missing on the Lesser Antilles, so far as is known
up to the present time. Still, FEWKES says that an inclosure should
be found on Carriacon, but he has never visited it and nothing
further is known about its existence. BARRINGTON BROWN describes
a circle of stones from Sierra Pacaraima, on the boundary of British
Guiana. It is circular and about 30 feet in diameter. The
upraised boulders stand at a distance of from 5 to 6 feet apart.
On one of them "a frog-like figure" has been deeply engraved.3)
Lnm Ro'rH points out the similarity to the great stone circle at
San Juan de Maguana, which is also circular in form. A likeness
to Puerto Rico and also Salt River is found in the fact that a
petroglyphic figure occurs on one of the boulders. A connection
between Guiana and the \Vest Indies is found to this extent, that
the Arawaks of both regions produced petroglyphic figures on
great natural stones. But plazas, especially the rectangular ones,
are confined in the \Vest Indies to the higher developed Tainan
culture, as has been said previously. This Guianan stone circle
cannot be classed among ba11 courts, since the Tainan ba11 courts
are rectangular and the boulders set much closer.
A site at Santa Rita in British Honduras shows a remarkable
correspondence to the Tainan plazas and their surroundings.
Completely within a large round tumu1us lies an inclosure, rectangular,
with the short sides almost rounded, a thing that can
occur on Puerto Rico and Cuba, "25 yards in length" and "4 feet
in height." The ,valls are made of "clay, rubble, and limestone
dust, not very clearly separated·'.4) It can not have been used as
a ball-court, seeing that two groups of three small burial-mounds
each are found in the interior. But the likeness is found in its
connection with burial.
1) A bO>'. Ind. Rem. in ] amaiea.
2) Handbook of Jamaica for I933-34, Kingston 1934, p. 5-7.
3) H. LIl'L\$ \\' P. GANX. The ]}!aya Indians of Southern Yucatan and }\'orthern
British Honduras BUL Amer. nthllol., Bull. 64. \Vashington 1')18, fig. 22 and
p. 7G.
99

100
Middens and The designations of kitchen middens, refuse heaps
Shell Heaps. and shell mounds are also used. 1) As a general
rule names like "kitchen middens" and "refuse heaps" are more
significant. They are the accumulations of refuse in the former
Indian dwelling-places. Hitherto for the most part only those
have been observed and studied that lie along the coast and contain
a large quantity of sea-shells. One of these located on an
estate named "Retreat, which lies six miles from the sea on the
north side of Jamaica contains quantities of land shells, a few
specimens of marine shells, and bones of the Indian coney and
of various fish. "2)
But it can be only exceedingly exceptional, that an inland
dwelling-site has left behind so great a quantity of land-mollusks.3)
As a general rule, the Tainos lived on vegetables, and first and
foremost they planted manioc, sweet potatoes, ajes and maize.
Besides these, on many occasions they ate fish, while iguanas and
hutias were delicacies, most of all reserved for the feasts of the
cacique. Retreat has yielded also, although only a small number,
sea-shells that were brought to the interior of the island for food. 4)
As a rule, we have no right to expect that the dwelling-sites of
the interior will consist in reality of anything more than potsherds.
Possibly the mounds along the River Yaqui, in Santo Domingo,
which SIR ROBERT SCHOMBURGK examined superficially, are nothing
more than the refuse heaps of the villages. As far as Schomburgk
could see, they consisted only of potsherds.
DE Booy's assertion that the kitchen middens of the Jamaicans
"allow a perfectly exact determination of their different
food-stuffs"5) can only appear to be exact for the animal food
and especially that which is obtained from the sea.
1) See DUERDEN, Abor. Ind. Rem. in Jamaica, P. 4.
2) Ibid., p. 19. Compo DE BODY, Americ. Anthrop., n. s., Vol. 15, NO.3, p. 429,
"an enormous number of land snail-shells". Later he directed excavations on site.
3) DE BODY, Ibid., p. 431, found that at least 98% of them were land-mollusks,
"the rest being sea shells". These land-mollusks are principally Helix acuta
and H. iamaicensis. See DUERDJtN. Ibid., p. 5 and 20.
4) DE BODY, Amer. Anthrop., n. s., Vol. 17, No. I, p. 80 is of the opinion that
the Indians, who took the snails out of the shells of the Strombus gigas in Saona,
"possibly after salting the meat" carried it home" to their habitations."
5) Amer. Anthrop., n. s., Vol. IS, NO.3, p. 425.

101
In the shell-heaps can be seen how the Indians had adapted
themselves to the food-possibilities of the different localities, and
how they had understood to make use of them. Even in Jamaica
certain differences between the contents of the north coast and
those of the south stand out. As has been said, in Trinidad the
shell-heaps near St. Bernard contain up to 40 % of Tivela mactroides,
a characteristic shell of the east coast of the island, while
50 % of the contents consist of Donax variabilis, "locally known
as the chip-chip shell and is found in enormous numbers on the
beach at certain times of the year."l) Neither of these two shells
is cited in DUERDEN'S list from the coast of Jamaica. 2 ) On the
other hand, information about the different kinds of shells is
completely lacking in FEWKES' account of his excavations at Erin
Bay, Trinidad. From Jamaica as well as from Saona, one receives
the impression that Strom bus gigas must have been greatly prized.
BRANCH mentions it among mollusks in the middens of St. Kitts­
Nevis.3) It is also found in the refuse-heaps on Curac;ao4) and on
Aruba where it lives in great numbers along the south coast.5)
Along the mangrove coasts, the mangrove-oyster preponderates in
the shell-heaps. Such is the case at Salt River, St. Croix. In a
midden which DE Booy excavated at the lower part of the River
Higuamo near San Pedro de Macoris, Santo Domingo, 80 % of
all the mollusks consisted of Ostrea virginica.6) It is notable that
on Aruba we find such vegetable remains as seeds of the Crescentia
cujete, leaves of Agave Americana and stalks of ] anipha Urens.
From the French sources, especially BRETON, we learn what
an important role the crab played in the diet of the Island-Caribs.
From what has been found in the refuse heaps, it has been made
clear that crabs also formed one of the chief aliments of the Island-Arawaks.
1) DE Booy, in Amer. Anthrop., n. s .. Vol. 19, NO·4, p. 475.
2) Amer. Ind. Rem. in Jamaica, p. 5-6.
3) Amer. Anthrop., n. s., Vol. 9, NO.2, p. 332.
4) A. J. VAN KOOI,WIJK, De Indianen Caraiben Oorspronkelijke Bewoners van
Cura~ao, 1880, p. 61.
0) VAN KOOI,WIJK, De Indianen Caraiben van het Eiland Aruba 1881, p. 223.
6) THEODOR DE Booy, Santo Domingo Kitchen-Midden and Burial Mound,
Indian Notes & Monographs, Vol. I, No.2, New York, Heye Foundation, 1919,
p. IJg.

I02
FEWKES, because of the immense quantities of crab-shells and
claws in the middens of the I-(esser Antilles, draws the conclusion
that the crab formed a very important part of the food of the
Indians. 1 ) I believe it very possible that the fishing of crabs
attracted the Caribs to the Lesser Antilles, after it had previously
brought them as far as the month of the Pomeroon. It would
therefore be of great interest to know if these crabs were the same
kind that they fished on the mainland in the vicinity of the Pomeroon
River and on the little islands along the coast of French
Guiana. FEWKES does not mention the names of any species from
the middens of the Lesser Antilles, nor does HAEBERLI~ from Cueva
de la Seiba, Puerto Rico. DUERDEN mentions only three species
of crabs that occur in the middens of Jamaica. Two of these are
land crabs. "All the species are very common to-day."2) On St.
Kitts-Nevis also, the Indians at both land-and sea-crabs.3) DB
Booy describes in the shell-heap of St. Bernard, Trinidad, "a number
of crab carapaces and claws" of "the large crabs" which are
still found "in the neighborhood" and form" a favorite food of the
inhabitants" .4) In Cuba, HARRINGTON very often found crab claws
in both Siboneyan and 1'ainan food-refuse in middens and caves.
As the shell-heaps are the refuse-heaps of the Indian settlements,
we can not expect to find in them any articles that were
still of value to the Indians. The stone-axes are small and worn
away, and as BRANCH cites from St. Kitts-Nevis changed into
"mullers and rubbers" by grinding off the edge. 5) The same
seems partly to be the case in Jamaica. 6)
As a usual thing, pottery is found in the middens only in
fragments. An exception to this is found in Trinidad, where have
been excavated many complete and very interesting vessels, or
the fragments lay so near together that the objects could be reconstructed.
Some few have also been excavated from the middens
of Puerto Rico. 7)
') Bull. of the Amer. Geog. Soc., Vol. XLVI, p. 665.
2) A ilOr. Ind. Rem. in Jamaica, p. 6.
3) BRA"'-TH, A mer. AntMop., n. s., Vol. IX, No.2, p. 332.
4) Amer. Anthrop. n. s., Vol. 19. Ko. 4, p. 476.
5) Amer. Anthrop., n. s., Vol. IX, No.2, p. 318.
6) See DE Booy, Ibid., n. s., Vol. 15, NO.3, p. 434.
') DE HOSTOS, Ibid., n. s., Vol. 21, Ko. 4, p. 387, fig. 48.

103
Through the friendly offices of the late PROF. SOPHUS MOLLER,
at that time Director of the Museum of Copenhagen, I had the
opportunity of studying the contents of a previously mentioned
kitchen-midden, namely the one on the slope of a hill, where a
portion of a Tainan village was once located at Salt River, St.
Croix. The material had been excavated in the year 1900 by
H. U. RAMSING, at that time a first lieutenant. Since that date,
both DE Booyl) and HATT have directed excavations in that place.
Through his excavations, HATT has stratified in a most excellent
manner the entire site and has brought home from there a rich
amount of material.
RAMSING'S investigations were not systematic. For the first
time, the difference between the older Igneri an and the later
Tainan culture ,'vas pointed out by HATT, and this was an exceedingly
important resnlt, which places the archaeology of the
Virgin Islands on an entirely different basis than in former times.
In the meanwhile, the material of RAMSING shows itself as purely
Tainan, indicating that he only dng into the upper layers of
that midden. I reproduce with some changes the statement
about RA.MSING'S finds, as I gave it in the first edition of this
work.
"The ware in the pottery fragments is, as a general rule, coarse
and of clay mixed with sand, in which pebbles can be found as
large as peas. Of such a clay are above all a great numbr of flat
red sherds, thick-walled and of considerable size." They are almost
identical with those from the Long Mountain shell-mounds, east
of Kingston, which DUERDEN describes: "Some thick flattened
pieces are more suggestive of large platters than of vessels." In
the same passage he describes the ware as "made of a very coarse
clay with large particles of silicious matter. "2) "The fragments are
frequently blackened on the exterior side. On the inner side,
sometimes is found a black painting in large irregular spots, which
perhaps represent large figures, inartistically made and impossible
to reconstruct from the fragments." There are reasons for seeing
in these flat, thick dish-fragments burens, or the great "gridd-
') THEODOR DE Booy, Archaeology of the Virgin Islands, Indian Notes and
Monographs, Vol. I, No. I, New York, Heye Foundation, 1919.
2) Abor. Ind. Rem. of Jamaica, p. 13.

les",1) on which the Tainan women dried the cassava-meal over
the fire. LAS CASAS describes burens as follows: "son hechos de
barra, redondos y llanos, de dos dedos en alto, como una rodela
grande que estuviese no por medio 1evantada sino toda llana;
est os Haman buren, aguda 1a ultima."2) OVIEDO gives the following
description; "un buren ques una ca

1 05
On another fragment of finer ware, the engraving was executed
with a more pointed instrument. If the ornamentation is
purely lineal, then double strokes run downwards, facing each
other. In fragment No. O. III6 it appears as if the maker had
in mind a trapezoidal ornament, although the short side can not
be seen below. Another ornamentation with double line can be
seen in Plate II, 8, where an eye is also to be seen in the middle
and above to the right is the head of a bird with the eye partly
visible, the bill being represented by an acute-angled triangle.
Plate II, 9, a polished red fragment, shows a meander ornament
engraved contiguous to the raised border, after it was burned.
Small heads of clay, like those which are so frequent on
Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo, are not found in this collection.
Only some few faces or better said pairs of eyes, all of
which I present in Plate II, I-4 and 7. The two half-made faces,
Plate II, 2 and 3, which are standing obliquely towards the exterior
and look towards the interior of the dish, about like DE
Hos'l'os, fig. 49, i, Porto Rico or FEWKES I, Pl. LXXVII e-e,
Santo Domingo and JOYCE, fig. 62, a, Santo Domingo, have a
hole perforated where the mouth should be. That these holes
have served for hanging up the objects is altogether improbable,
as the part above the hole is much too fragile.
The most interesting face of all is, nevertheless, the one in
high relief, Plate II, 6. It seems to me that it shows southern
influence. With its broad upper portion and pointed chin, it has
a counterpart in JOYCE, Centro Amer. and West Ind. Arch., Fig.
64 g, from Carriacou. The spiral representation of the eyes characterizes
also the southern I,esser Antilles. In this case, the long
spiral strokes mark the limits of the face along the cheeks, entirely
like JOYCE, Ibid., 64 h, from Carriacou. I do not, however,
hesitate in pronouncing the Salt River fragment as Tainan, not
Ignerian. That kind of faces with pointed chins, is found even
so far away from South America as in Tainan pottery from Santo
Domingo.1) Also the vessel form is the same on both these sherds
from Salt River and Santo Domingo, namely the shallow, small
bowls with the very short, vertical side, which are found in Puerto
1) KRIEGER I, PI. 2I, c, Monte Cristi Province.

I06
Rico and in Santo Domingo. Plate I, 3, also from the refuse heap
at Salt River, shows this form of platter.
I did not observe any dosed vessels in RAMSING'S material
from the shell-mound. Plate I, 2 is more dosed than the other
specimens, and is a relatively large fragment, sufficiently so to
show the original form dearly. It is worthy of note that this
belongs to a boat-shaped type, which is common to Jamaica.
I shall discuss the type itself in Chapter IV. This half of a bowl
from Salt River is yellow, which can also occur in Jamaica. 1 )
Plate II, I and 7 have eyes like SPINDEN'S type 2. This method
of representation can be regarded as extending over all the
West Indies.
An relief ornamentation, the Co') formed snake in relief with
notches, Plate I, 4, was found in this Salt River shell-heap. Other
variants, DE HOSTOS, Prehis. Porto Ric. Ceram., p. 385, fig. 47 a,
48 hand i, and also FEWKES I, PI. LXXXVI c, from Santo Domingo
should be compared with this. On fragment No. O. I704
there are conventional ornaments in relief in the form of a horseshoe,
decorated with notches, such as are also seen in FEWKES I,
Pl. LXXXVII a-a" from Utuado, Puerto Rico and in DE Booy,
Amer. A nthrop. , Vol. 4, No. I, p. 98, fig. ra, on a fragment of
a bowl excavated by him at Battle Creek on North Caicos Island.
A spindle-whorl, Copenh. Mus. O. D. 1820 is a little smooth and
flatzing of unburned gray day. DE Booy found on St. Thomas
and St. Croix a large number of such whorls made from fragments
of day vessels.2) HATT also found some of them.3) One kind of
them is made of bone.4) But besides these HATT found two, shaped
like a cone. 5 ) Less conical is another spindle-whorl that KRIEGER
found in Santo Domingo. 6) Presumably the conical type belongs
to the elements and characteristics that made their way northwards
along the arc of the Lesser Antilles, before they were captured
by the Caribs, and can be traced back to the country where
1) See DUERDEN, Abor. Ind. Rem. In Jamaica, p. 38.
2) DE Booy, Archaeology ot the Virgin Islands, p. 87-88 and fig. 28.
3) HATT, Archaeology ot the Virgin Islands, p. 35.
4) Ibid., fig. 9, m.
5) Ibid., fig. 9, k. and I.
6) The Aborigines ot Ancient Hispaniola, PI. 7.

I07
they originated, Columbia, where they are found, richly developed
as to form and decoration in the region of Anti6quia. In the meantime
I do not know of any from the Lesser Antilles. A spindlewhorl
from the Erin Bay culture of Trinidad is globular.!) That
type is South American. Trinidad has moreover experienced
more South American influences than the Antilles. The flat diskshaped
type, which predominates in the Antilles, we find also in
lVlo~TANi,;, Sancti Spirit%s, Cttba,2) made of stone. 1'0 the same
common flat type belongs also the spindle-whorl made from a
slice of calabash and belonging to the spindle collected I786 by
SAMUEL FAHLBERG from the Caribs on Trinidad, which is now in
the Stockholm Museum.3)
NORDENSKIOLD affirms that in South America different types
of spindle-whorls can be found near each other. This is true especialty
for the higher civilizations in the Andes. Thus AMBROSETTI
has found many types in the cementery of La Pay a in the Diag%ita
region and ERIC VON ROSEN at a settlement-site near Tolomosa in
the T ariia Valley. 4) The most remarkable spindle from the entire
West Indies is of stone, FEWKES I Plate LXXXVI c, Latimer Collection,
Puerto Rico. This seems to indicate a more convenient and
better developed method of spinning than the other spindles. Besides
the central hole, there are four side-perforations,5) arranged in
such a manner as to almost form a square. FEWKES continues:
"On the side opposite that here figured, there is a depression of
rectangular shape extending toward the periphery from the central
hole and so situated as to serve as a slot for attachment to a
stick, suggesting that the object was part of an ancient spindle."
The sources say nothing about how the l'ainos spun and wove.
Apart from some fragments, six complete petaloid round-celts
were found in the midden, five of nephrite and a small one, No.
") PEWKES, Certain Archaeological Investigations in Trinidad, British W. I.,
Amcr. Anthrop., Vol. 19, ·Wash. 1917, p. 487 and Pi. 6, f.
2) Congr. Intern. d'Anthrop. et d'Archeol. Monaco I906, Vol. II, fig. 120.
3) See 0'1"1'0 FRO DIN and ERLAND NORDENSKIOLD, Ueber Zwirnen und Spinnen
etc. fig. 32.
4) Ibid., p. 28.
') ERIC VON ROSI':N, En Forgdngen Viirld, Stockholm 1919, pnblishes a wooden
whorl for 4 threads from Morohuasi, p. 194, fig. 195 and REISS & STUBEr,
state that a similar one was also found at Ancon.

108
0.970 of quartz porhyry. One of them, No. 0.lI08, appears to
have been unsuccessfully made and besides is worn away by the
action of the sea. A flat celt, No. 0,977 has a blunt point and is a
little curved, so that it probably has been an adze. It has a thick
ferruginous crust, produced by atmospheric action, and is probably
of diabase. Flat axes of eruptive rock appear, on St. Croix, and
are not unusual in the Virgin Islands. There is a shell celt, No.
0,978, which is petaloid, like another from t5. Croix, No. O,I73I.
The stone figure of a fish, Pl. II, 5, does not have a hole for
suspension. \Vith its marked gills, it resembles preferably a shark.
Very interesting are the two ragments, evidently of the same
stone ring. The larger of the two is pictured in Pl. I, I. They are
pieces of a slender collar of black eruptive stone, containing rather
large grains of quartz. Up to the present time all the collars, whole
or fragmentary, that have been found on the Virgin Islands are
slender coUars, and we have good reason for the hypothesis that
they were made on Puerto Rico, and came in with the Tainan colonization
which started from that island. The decoration of the two
above-named fragments, consists of what ]OYCB calls "chevrons".
All the material which Ramsing brought home from the midden
at Salt River is Tainan and originates fmm the Borinquenan colonization
of the place.
Through the friendly complaisance of the late Prof. ERLAND
NORDENSKIOLD, at that time Director of the Ethnographic }iuseum
of Gothenburg, I had the opportunity of investigating the contents
of a midden on Trinidad. These finds originated on the plantation
of H. E. NORDI,UND at Radix Point, on the east coast of
Trinidad. NORDLUND states:
"Objects found in the excavations made in the year 1915.
The finding-place is located on the east coast of Trinidad, on
the plantation of the undersigned at Radix Point, which is named
"Aurora", and where the dwelling-house of the owner is now erected.
The place was covered by a black cultural layer some two
English feet deep and consisting of earth mixed with remains of
coal, chip-chip shells (Donax) and larger snails (Melongena) as
well as numerous fragments of pottery, which had been washed
out and were found on the surface. The chip-chip mixture is so
abundant, that the denuded surface looks white after the first

109
strong rain. The soil of the finding-place was worked for the first
time some ten years ago for the cultivation of root-crops.
The site has only been investigated in three small spots, that
lie near each other and close to the sea, making together a total
surface of some 150 square feet. The entire finding-place must be
about two acres, or scarcely a hectare, and it lies partly at the top
of the high ground where the villa is, partly on a height of land to
the south of it and finally in the hollow between the two hills. The
sea washes the base of these hills.
Entire stone-axes were found in the layer from 8 to 24 inches
deep below the surface and inbedded in the chip-chip shells, as
well as potsherds and numerous remains of bones. The last, as
well as fragments of vessels are scattered throughout the entire
cultural deposit."
The shell-heap lies a considerable distance further north along
the coast than the one that DE Booy investigated at St. Bernard,
and somewhat more to the North than Mayaro Point.
The same as in the case of St. Bernard, the chip-chip shells
predominate here. \Ve find lYIelongena shells also in DE Booy's
account of his work there.I) On the other hand, NORDL1'ND does
not mention Ti7)ela mactroides, so abundant at St. Bernard, and
which make up almost the entire shell-heap on a local property
"abont four miles to the north of Cape Mayaro", that is, still nearer
to Radix PoinP) Nordlund has also sent in some well-preserved
bones of mammals, among which may be noted some from
deer (venado).3) There are also antlers.
The majority of the potsherds are of coarse clay, flat and from
large vessels which can not be reconstructed. A part of them, at
least, mnst come from hurEms. There are no less than 23 annular
feet for vessels. The only piece worthy of consideration is the face
illustrated in Pl. II, IO, which is from a right well polished dish. In
the horizontal tube above the nose a hole has been drilled into it on
both ends, but as the two do not come together, at the most they
could only have served to put something, perhaps feather, into.
The face, looking to the interior of the vessel has a more archaic
1) A mer. Anthrop., n. s., Vol. 19, NO·4, p. 475.
2) Ibid., p. 477.
3) Odocoileus gymnotis, Ibid., p. 476.

110
appearance than other representations of man that I know from
Trinidad. The eyes are represented in high relief, which is very
frequent at Erin Bay; holes have been made for the pupils.
If we make an estimate of the meager ceramic contents of the
excavated parts of this midden at Radix Point, the culture there
seems to be in a far less developed stage than at Erin Bay or St.
Bernard. We can therefore assume with good reason, that the
midden at Radix Point, to judge from the part that has been excavated,
did not reach upwards into an epoch as recent as the two
other cultures. According to the similarities just mentioned, it
seems that the culture in this shell-heap of Radix Point stands
nearer to that of Erin Bay, than to that of the neighbouring St.
Bernard, likewise on the east coast. The culture of Radix Point
gives the impression of being an earlier stage of the Erin Bay culture.
In this, moreover, must be sought the reason that none of
the developed pottery with the great band-handles and distintcly
modeled heads, which are so abundant at Erin Bay, are to be found
at Radix Point. Consequently, if the culture of Erin Bay can be
traced back to the Arawaks, then this must also be the case of the
less developed culture of Radix Point.
Not one of the potsherds is painted. However, two colourstones,
Nos. 30 and 3r, were found at a depth of from 9~--II inches.
It seems to me worthy of consideration, that a11 five of the
stone-axes from Radix Point are petaloid in form. Typical roundcelts
are No. I6.I5.I of black igneous rock, and No. I6.I5.2 of lava
with a ferruginous crust. Nos. I6.I5.5 and I6.I5.I5 both made of
a light-green rock (jadeite?) are flat. No. I6.I5.6 is curved: perhaps
it was an adze. None of these celts is made of the darkgreen
nephrite of the Greater Antilles.
No. 16.I5.3 is unique; it can not be ca11ed a she11-axe, although
it is made from a shell. It is well-polished and has a decidedly
hlunt point. The use of she11 as material for celts is no isolated
case in the \Vest Indies. In the collection of shell-celts from Barbados
in the British Museum can be studied all the stages of transition
from pure shell-celts to such in which the work becomes more
and more the important thing, so that finally the shell becomes
only the material for celts with pointed butt. In the British ::\lus-

III
eum there are also celts with blunt points and made of shell, from
Addison Key, l:i'lorida and presented by MOORE in 1907. Not only
on the coasts of Caribbean Sea and Mexican Gulf did they have
used shell as material for celts. The same thing occurs in some of
the islands of Melanesia.l )
Moreover, the celts cited from Radix Point seem to me to indicate
the extreme age of the shell-heap there, and also that it is
older than that of Erin Bay. The petaloid celt, as I shall show
later, is the oldest in the West Indies, even if it is certain that at the
ime of the Conquest, it was still in general use on the Greater Anttilles.
'trinidad as well ought to be listed with the islands where
it predominated in those days. But only one with marginal
notches 2 ) is found in the shell-heap at Erin Bay, which type of axe
is well represented in G~uiana, but apparently can only have passed
from Guiana to the \Vest Indies for the first time in a very recent
epoch.
The point of bone, 16.I.5.20 found at the depth of a foot near
the clay face, shown in Pl. II, IO, is round in the middle, pointed
on one end and has a flat reduction on the other. A bone object
which FEWKES found in the Erin Bay monnd, the flattened form of
which "resembles a spatula used in pottery making", does not
seem to be of the same kind as this point to judge by his description
(FEWKES II, p. 75). I have not seen a single sherd from Radix
Point on which the engraving was of such a sure and distinct execution
as that of the Erin Bay vessels. Possibly the one point
from Radix Point may have been an instrument for engraving
patterns and perform mouldings on vessels. It is not worn, however,
as might be expected in case it had used for this purpose.
Maybe that it is a dart point. Among the bone points, that Krieger
found in Monte Cristi Province, Santo Domingo, one has a
flattened end,3) like the one from Radix Point. Bone points of the
same shape as these from Trinidad occur in the paleolithic remains
of Southwestern France and were probably arrow-or dart points.
With respect to this, I will refer to "the chisel-ended lance-heads",
') Brit. ]lilus. Handb. to Eihnogr. Coil. fig. 10, a, Malekula, New Hebrides, &
Bank Islands.
2) 17£WK£3, Amer. Anthrop. 11. S., Vol. 16, NO.2, fig. 72.
3) A bor. at Hispaniola, PI. 7, the uppermost to the left.

IIZ
which Abbe Breuil traces back to the most remote epoch of the
Madeleine Period, a specimen of which found in a cave near Bruniquel
(Tarn-et-Garonne) is now in the British Museum. I ) In this
case the idea of the instrument being tool of the former class is
precluded, since the Madeleine period lacks ceramics.
The investigation of the strata of a midden is a very delicate
matter. \Ve cannot presume with certainty that a regular deposit
of the accumulation of refuse has been made from the bottom upwards
and from the interior outwards. The village-site is not always
so plainly localized as on the hill near Retreat in Jamaica. 2 )
Displacements must have occurred in the course of a very long
period of time, and with these changes in the stratification of the
refuse-heaps. Besides, if precisely the fishing makes the buildingup
more constant,3) and a numerous population remains permanently
am the strand, before which good fishing-grounds lie or,
if a locality like the mouth of the Pomeroon is visited regularly
every year (here on account of the crab-fishing) not alone
by the men, but also by the entire population of the village with
all the household utensils, we can not expect a regular development
of the refuse-heaps, beginning with the coarsest and most necessary
common vessels, in inferior layers, and finishing with carefully
finished and sumptuous forms in the superior layer. Although I
am convinced that the interesting painted pottery of St. Bernard 4 )
made of a fine clay, is very young, up to the present time it can
not be proved that it followed the unpainted ware with scratched
in ornaments, found in the same shell-heap.
On the other hand, more favourable suppositions for the history
of the development could be made, when it can be shown
that a dwelling-site had been established at a more recent epoch
on an old midden, especially if in the interval a layer of vegetal
earth has formed, as in the shellheaps at Tuckerton N. Y. 5)
1) See Brit. Mus. A Guide - - - of the Stone Age, 19II, p. 52, fig. 48 &
p. 59·
2) See DE Booy, Amer. An!hrop. n. s., Vol. 15, NO.3, p. 429, fig. II4.
3) Compare with conditions in Northwest America.
4) DE Booy, Ame1'. Anthrop. n. s., Vol. 19, NO.4, PI. VIII.
5) See HAWKES & LINTON, At/zer. Anthrop., n. s., Vol. 19, NO.4, p. 489,
"thick layers of undisturbed black soil."

II3
Certain shell-heaps of Jamaica, the deposit at St. Bernard on
Trinidad, and above all the mighty shell-heaps along the lagoon
coast of southeastern Puerto Rico must have required so much
time for their accumulation, that we can imagine a successive cultural
change, slow in the primitive stages and then ever increasing
its rapidity and developing continually a great variety of new
and perfect forms. Still, up to the present time no one has demonstrated
such an evolution in its particularities. DE HOSTOS can
only sketch the general course of development for Puerto Rico:
"The deeper the layer, the lower the quality. On or very near
the surface, beautiful, painted, polished and sometimes lustrous
ware shows the achievement of long, persistent effort. At the
bottom, eight or ten feet below the surface, the rudest, most primitive
specimens are found As there seem to be no gaps between
the successive layers -- gaps which would show a discontinuance
of progressive effort -- the inference is made that such a place
had been occupied continuously, that the inhabitants were sedentary
people. "1)
For this reason, the investigations of DE HOSTOS possess an
universal interest, because they demonstrate that the same race
populated this coast and tranquilly evolved its culture without
foreign interference. There are no reasons for rejecting the hypothesis,
that this race was the Tainan Borinquens.
Wherever shell-heaps could be found and investigated along the
coast of the West Indian islands, taken as a whole and without
exception they show - of course with local differences which
we will treat in the chapter on pottery - the same culture whose
representants must have been quite simply the Island-Arawaks,
who were in possession of the entire chain of islands, before the
immigration of the Caribs. In this connection I do not take into
consideration pre-Arawak cultures of North American origin. Indeed,
FEWKES has good reasons for the theory that the Indians,
whom Columbus encountered on Trinidad, must have been Arawaks
and also that the culture of Erin Bay must be Arawak. Now,
as the Radix Point culture is similar to it, we can conclude its representatives
also belonged to the same race. JOYCE has called
attention to the striking similarity between clay-heads from a
8
1) Amer. Anthrop., n. s., Vol. 21, NO.4, p. 377-378.

midden at M oro'lR;hanna, Brit. Guiana, and not only those of Grenada,
but also the distinctly incised heads from Erin Bay.!) \Ve
have grounds enough for the belief that these early inhabitants of
Morowhanna were Arawaks. The culture of St. Bernard makes a
peculiar impression particularly by its fine polychrome pottery.
But I will show later that this is the same as that which Branch
has published from St. Kitts DE Booy and HATT from late Ignerian
culture on St. Croix and St Thomas, we have every reason that the
latter was Igneri, that is, Arawak.
]OYCg'S jig. 64 e, (Carriacou?) lOa lug from a vase furnished
underneath with a depression into which the finger may be inserted,
also resembles Trinidad pottery in being moulded of greyish
paste and covered with a red Slip."2) Fig. 64, d, Morowhanna, also,
is not a massive head but hollow. Thus a record of connection between
the mouth of the Pomeroon and the southernmost West Indies.
Differently from the I.esser Antilles, the inhabitants of 1\1orowhanna
used arrow-heads oj stone. Not less than seven of such
very fine points are found in the British Museum, which came
from this dwelling-site. They have tangs and two relatively long
barbs, that is, they belong to an advanced type. Particulary interesting
are two large points from Morowhanna, made of a milkwhite,
slightly transparent kind of stone, rather like porcelain and
perhaps is porcellanite. In this case, either the points or the raw
material were imported from Trinidad, where this stone occurs,
and is quarried. 3) Both are without tangs and barbs. Brit. 1'v11£s.
I9II-I40 is very wide in p!Oportion to the short point (L. 4%
cm. max. \V. 3 cm); I9II-I39 is on the contrary relatively longpointed
(L. 7% cm. max. W. 3 cm). This point is so large that it
could have been a lance-head. Both have notched sides, which - at
least in I9II--I39 - are sufficiently regular to appear intentional.
In the Gothenburg Museum are found various potsherds from
the dwelling-site at \Vaini River. These will be discussed in Chapter
IV.
1) Centro Amer. And vVest Ind. Arch., fig. 64 and p. 254.
2) Ibid., p. 252 - 2 54.
3) SmVERS. Siid- und 1kliiteiameriha, p. 445. bi Tm;RN, Am the Ind. p. 414-'
415 mentions "great quantities of white semi-transparent Quartz." This quartz
is not found in the region and must have been imported.

There are shell-mounds only between the Essequibo and the
Orinoco in the coastland of Brit. Guiana and the neighbouring
coastal region of Venezuela. 1M THURN believes this to be absolutely
certain.1) They are found chiefly between the Waini and
Barima Rivers and also somewhat up the rivers. Here in times
long gone by, lived an Arawak population on islands in a shallow
sea. These islands, probably continental remains that had
survived abrasion in a remote peirod of time, were united to mainland
by the alluvial deposits from the coastal stream, running in
a north-easterly direction. 1M THURN says the shell-mounds lie
"in swamps, on islands of firm ground"2) Speaking of the findingplaces
at Morowhanna, JOYCE says, "The Aruka Hills, isolated
eminences, stand now in a tidal mangroye swamp, and were
evidently at not very distant date actual islands."3) So rapidly
happen the changes caused by the action of the coastal current,
that the old maps from the time anterior to the period of colonization
are not recognizable, and JAMES RODWAY remembers
clearly the changes that have taken place during his life, particularly
in the mouths of the great rivers, especially in that of
the Essequibo.4) As along the coast of Florida, the mangrove must
facilitate the deposition of silt along the coast.
The Indians now living in the region of the Pomeroon know
nothing about those who built up the shell-mounds.5) The occupation
of the hills belongs to a by-gone period. Precisely through
the transformation of former sea-bottom into firm land, resulting
in its transition into swampland covered with a luxurious
grovvth of mangroves, these one-time small islands were cut off
from communication and thus made unsuitable for settlement. As
has already been said, the hills could have been a place of refuge
for the Indians at a later time and on isolated occasions.
That is best shown by the finding by Brett of two little silver
disks, ear pendants, which, according to his opinion, appertained
to a skull that was buried in the mound. He believes that the
1) Am the Ind., p. 412.
2) Ibid., p. 418.
3) Centro A mer. And West Ind. Arch. p. 234.
4) Guiana, London 1912, p. 31 and 37.
0) Compo BRETT, The Indian Tribes of Guiana, p. 427.

6
silver was brought to the Indians by the Spaniards or Dutch. hI
Tm:RN calls attention to the fact that even at the present time,
the Indians of the savanna wear the same kind of earpendants. 1 )
H. TEN KATE corroborates the assertion of 1M THURN that shellheaps
are lacking along the coast further to the Southeast. There
are none in British Guiana, east of the Pomeroon. He, himself,
has sought them in vain in Surinam. 2 ) According to RODWAY,
kitchen middens have a somevvhat greater extension along the
coast. They are found "on sand reefs in the district between the
Orinoco and the Essequibo". 3) The reason for this circumstance
could be the fact that the continuation of the coast more to the
Southeast was covered with mangrove swamps at an earlyer period,4)
impracticable for settlement, and that the turbid water of
the coastal current makes difficult the existence of such marine
organisms as are suitable for food. Oyster shells are very scarce
already at the Pomeroon, but more abundant as we go towards
the Orinoco. S )
I have mentioned previously the great visitation of the Pomeroon's
mouth at certain times of the year for the purpose of
catching crabs. The carapaces and claws of crabs are likewise
very abundant in these shell-mounds. 6) It seems to me, as if
many of these mounds outside near the sea, which BRETT and hI
THCRN have investigated, were not really village-sites but merely
dwelling places during the fishing-seasons, where the catch was
eaten. For very often potsherds are entirely lacking.7)
Already I have discussed the tradition of the Arawaks about
the immigration from Caieri, which island in this case must have
') Am. the Ind., p. 415. Two in Goth. Mus. 12. 1. 271. They hang on strings
with beads from the 18 th century.
2) Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch West Indie, Gravenhage, Leiden 1916,
p. 541.
3) Guiana, p. 42 .
. 1) 1M TH1.'RN, A Tramp With Redskins, Timehri, Vol. VII, NO.5, Dec. 1893,
Part II, p. 235. states that in Guiana, looking from the sea, only an unbroken
line of mangroves is seen.
0) 1M THURN, Am. The Ind., p. 415.
") BRETT, The Indian Tribes Of Guiana, p. 422; 1M THURN, Am. The
Ind., p. 414-
') Compo BRETT, Ibid., p. 416.

II7
meant l'rinidad. The Arawaks set out from Trinidad, passed by
the \Varraus in the swampy Orinoco-delta, which taken as a whole
was not suitable for the cultivation of manioc, and stopped for the
first time only when they arrived at the earlier archipelago of
small islands, the remains of which ought to still exist to-day at
the mouth of the southern main tributary of the Orinoco. I regard
as extremely probable the possibility that the Arawak were
first enticed by crab-catching from Trinidad to these little islands,
which became the port of entrance for all the immigration into
the coastland of Guiana. Originally they might have remained
on the little islands only during the season when the crabs were
abundant and the fishing good. After they had once established
themselves on these islands, they were obliged to seek on the mainland
behind them, land with soil suitable jar the cultivation oj manioc.
Earthenware heads, the presence of annular bases as well as
other similarities to wich I shall come back in Chapter IV, reveal
the fact that kitchen-middens in the Pomeroon district ascend in
a period when boldly moulded ceramics was found on Trinidad,
where it is represented by Erin Bay, and influenced north-eastern
British Guiana as well as Grenada, Carriacou and St. Vincent.
Insufficiant knowledge of the stratifications makes it impossible
to pronounce an opinion on older cultures represented in the Guianan
shell-heaps. On the other hand, the cultures yet known from
Trinidad are of comparatively late date. Also Radix Point contains
high annular bases, a late element in the West Indies.
During his expedition in 1912 FEWKES found out where the
middens of Barbados, Grenada, the Grenadines, and St.Vincent
are situated. On the latter island he noticed that many middens
are on the lee-side, "from Kingston to the extreme northern end
of the island, especially where-ever convenient landing places or
where valleys opening to she sea presented available land for cultivation"
(FEWKES II, p. 91). Several middens are also found on
the windward side. The great midden at Stubbs on the windward
contains "not only pottery fragments, but likewise shells, fragments
of tests, and claws of crabs" (Ibid. p. 92).
From Grenada, "like the other Lesser Antilles", FEWKES speak
of at "shell-heap culture" as distinguished from "an agricultural
culture" and "a true Carib culture" (Ibid. p. 88). With a "shell-

IIS
heap culture" he seems to understand the remains of a pre-Arm,yakan
people which he earlier supposed to have immgrated from
South America and vvhich he then called "cave dwellers". He has,
however, never offered any real proof of his theory of the cave
dwellers. His statement that real shell-heaps are found on Grenada
and possibly also on other islands of the Lesser Antilles is
interesting.
The mound on Banana Bay, Balliceaux, contains shell
beside broken pottery, fragments of charcoal, and ashes (Ibid.
p. 92 ).
On Barbados the tendency towards placing the middens on
the leeside is obvious, especially at the mouth of the small streams
arising ou the hills in the east and flowing through the plains
of the western part of the island. A large midden is found "a
few miles north of Bridgetown", thus on the lee-side. "But well
defined shell-heaps of great hight can rarely be traced at the present
day" (Ibid., p. 8r).
The known middens on St. Kitts invariably contain marine
shells, "but not in sufficient quantities, lead us to designate them
as shell heaps" (Ibid., p. r59). Among the remains we notice the
claws of a land crab. Those of a marine crab and fishbone are
scarce (BRANCH, A. A., Vol. IX, p. 382).
The lack of shallow water at the beach of the \Vindward Islands
has prevented the natives from collecting marine animals,
and explaines the absence of real shell-heaps. Of other remains
of meals only crabs but not fishbone are mentioned. Possibly some
of the middens on the shores of the islands have disappeared.
It is a matter of fact that certain middens have partly been
washed away by the sea, as is the case of the Banana Bay midden
on Balliceaux. Presumably this is caused by changes in the sealevel.
HATT'S extensive investigations on St. Croix, St. Thomas, and
St. John have revealed the presence of middens on the leeward
as well as on the windward side of the islands of St. Thomas and
St. John with their irregular coasts have on their windward sides
numerous creeks, sheltered by islands. AI agens Bay on St. Thomas
as well as Salt River on St. Croix are both situated on the
northern coast and enjoy a perfect shelter against the sea. Their

shell-heaps contain not only marine shells, indicating strand collecting,
but also fishbone (DE Booy, Arch. Virgo Islands p. 36 and
46), which makes it evident that these places were once fishing
villages. Besides they hold remains of various kinds of land-animals.
On Puerto Rico the shell-heaps and the middens are found
on the south-western and western coasts (Hos'fos, A. A., n. S.,
Vol. 2I, p. 378).
On Espanola researches have been made only in the eastern
part. Shell-heaps on the Higuamo River contain marine shells
as well as fishbone (DE Booy, Santo Domingo Kitchen Midden,
p. II9, I20, and I24). The middens examined on the south coast
of the Samana Peninsula to the east of the town of Santo Domingo
are on the lee-shore.
The Siboneyan middens on Cuba are situated on the south
coast and in the west, at C. San Antonio, thus on the lee-side.
The Tainan middens as yet known are found on the inner plateaus
of Oriente, where the principal part of the Tainan people
had settled. Of edible mussels only Strmnbus gigas and "the
univalve, Livonia piela" playa prominent part (HARRING'fON, p.
I60). l,and crabs are often abundant in the middens of Cuba.
On Jamaica middens are missing on the northeastern and eastern
coasts, thus the windward sides. Those found on the other
coasts have a rich supply of marine shell and fish-bone.
Smaller middens are found on the Caicos Islands. It cannot
be doubted that there are many more middens in the \Vest Indies
than those mentioned above. Up till now most of the Lesser
Antilles have not been investigated at all.
Since the middens are refuse heaps they contain only broken
and waste things, especially broken vessels. \Vhen it was possible
to clear up the matter, whole vessels have proved to have
been used for burials. \Ve do not know of a single whole vessel
from the Lesser Antilles, but nevertheless midden burials seem to
have been practised on these islands. Many a time human skeletons,
or part of skeletons have been washed out. In the midden
on Banana Bay in Balliceaux even skeletons "interred in the contracted
or "'embryonic' position" have been found (FB:WKES II,
p. 90 ).

120
Caves.
Caves have played an important role In the life
and world of ideas of the Tainos.
Caves as Dwell- Up to the present time, only in Cuba and
ings and Places through the investigations of HARRINGTON has a
of Resort. pre-Arawak people been established, that in certain
cases lived in caves. FEWKES' theory of a particular primitive
cave-dwelling population anterior to the agricultural Arawaks
and the Caribs, that inhabited the Lesser Antilles and Barbados
especially, he has not been able to prove by establishing
it archeologically He can say about artifacts that he found at
the entrances of caves in Barbados, "The resemblance of these
implements to those found in the fields indicates that their makers
were culturally not very unlike those dwelling near the middens
along the shore of the same island."I) Moreover, it seems
incredible that FEWKBS supposed primitive "cave-dwellers, or fishermen,
hunters, fruit and root-eaters"2) had been able to even
hew out caves for themselves on Barbados.3) We know that the
Taiuos made niches in their cave-shrines.
Indeed, it is incorrect of FEWKBS to cite P A~E as authority to
prove that the oldest inhabitants of Espanola vvere cave-dwellers.4)
In Chapi:er I of PANE'S account,5) he only tells of the exit of the
oldest Haitian Tainos from a cave.
With the exception of the Siboneyan caves on Cuba and perhaps
on the south shore of the Samana Bay, Santo Domingo, wherever
there are caves in the Antilles, or the Bahamas that have
been inhabited in ancient times, there are grounds enough for the
supposition that the inhabitants were Arawaks.
We can not distinguish an older troglodyte stage within the
culture of the Island-Arawaks at any time or in any way. We
must take into consideration that the Tainos developed a very
1) Bull. of the Amer, Geog. Soc., VoL LXVI, p, 669.
2) Ibid., p, 667,
3) FEWKES, Arch, of Barbados, Proc. of the Nat, Ac. of Sciences, Vol. I. Baltimore
I9I5, p, 49-50.
4) Bull. at the Amer. Geog, Soc., Vol. LXVI, p, 669 refers to his earlier paper,
Cave-dwellers of the old and new }Vorld. Amer. Anthrop,, 1900.
5) BOURNE's Trans, in Proe. at the Am. Ant. Soc. n, s. Vol. XVII, Part, 3,
p. 3I 9·

I2I
solid form of house. In addition to that, the climate - aside
from the hurricanes, which were not very frequent - did not
oblige them to take refuge in sinister caves where there were spirits;
and there were no wild animals that were to be feared at
night. In a word, there were no factors sufficiently powerful to
force even a primitive race of the Antilles to become troglodytes.
Perhaps the scarcity of suitable wood for building and "wattle" on
some of the islands of the Lucayans might have impelled them to
make use of the caves there as habitations, where it was possible. I )
But on the whole, caves were only utilized as dwelling-places in
the West Indies occasionally, and in these cases whem they were
accessible by the aid of ladders and above all, were suitable for
domiciles because of their size, ventilation, drainage and c1arity.2)
The location of the entrance of caves in many cases shows that
the Tainos must have had ladders, probably the Indian kind, consisting
of a trunk with transverse notches for steps, which is so
common in the coastal regions of Guiana and along the lower Orinoco.
Troglodytism did not extend over the West Indies generally.
On many of the Lesser Antilles and Virgin Islands caves are entirely
lacking, while in other places they were not suitable for
dwellings. DUERDEN only knows "burial caves" in Jamaica. He
says, "No indications that the caves ever formed regular places of
habitation are presented. Tropical conditions would never necessi-
1) To judge from the numerous traces left by dwellers, that DE Booy found
even in little caves on Caicos Island.
2) As a matter of fact, in Puerto Rico the Cueva de las Golondrinas lies
above a steep bluff, but only a few feet above the level of the coast. The entrance
of the cave can easily be reached with a ladder. See FEWKES I, p. 38.
The Cueva de la Seiba lies with its entrance above an acclivity "about sixty
feet above the bottom of the valley." See HAEBERLIN, in Amer. Anthrop. n. s.
Vol. 19, No. I, p. 87, 91, 94, 95, 100, and 103. The caves from which they obtained
spring-water in Saona were easily accessible from the coastal terrace. See
DE Booy, Amer. A nthrop. , n. s., Vol. 17, No. I, p. 82-83 and figs. 16 & 21.
The caves of Salado, Santo Domingo are pictured by De Booy, Ibid., p. 86 as
really only difficult of access because the entrances have been obstructed by a
landslide. Those that he investigated were not proper dwelling-caves but watering-places.
It is very different in pure burial-caves. The investigations of HAR­
RINGTON in the mountainous district of the province of Oriente, in Cuba, show
that such caves as lie high above and on a steep limestone wall are preferably
chosen for mortuary caves!

122
tate such a course, and, as shown above, the size of holes precludes
this."!) From the resume that REICHARD made of his cave-investigations
in J amaica,2) it appears clearly that he also found no
cave-dwellings.
Even if broken pottery and remains of meals are found in a
cave, this is not sufficient to warrant the conclusion that it was a
human dwelling. MONTANE'S description of his find in the cave
Boca deZ~Plur£al, near Sancti Spiritus, in Cuba,3) indicates that the
food was placed before the layer of ashes in which were the skulls
and offered to the dead. It was observed that the corozo seeds
were whole, that is, had not been consumed; Boca del Plurial must
be designated a mortuary cave.
Even if charcoal and ashes are also found, as can be the case
in nearly all the caves \vith signs of having once been dwellings, or
though the roof be blackeness, as in Barbados,4) or in a cave on
North Cakos Island,5) yet this must not be considered decisive
proof that the cave has been inhabited. If the ashes are not mixed
with the Indian culture-layer, they may just as well have proceeded
from some more recent visitors. But even when this is the case,
we must weigh carefully the possibility of the cave really only having
been used occasionally, and on particular occasions, for zemiistic
feasts, on which the pepper-pot must certainly have been cooking
constantly. In Boca del Purial it can be calculated from the
ashes and the large quantity of animal-bones, that a great amount
of meat was cooked in the cave for the sacrifice. On the other hand,
if we find -- as did FEWKES in a cave at Bridgetown,6) Barbados-­
a large fragment of a griddle used for baking cassava, then the
hypothesis that the cave had been used as a dwelling is more
well-founded, for at a sacrificial feast or at the presentation of
offerings, the cassava must first have been ready-made.
But the question can be asked, how a people so accustomed to
hanging-mats as were the Tainos, could have been satisfield to
1) Ahor. Ind. Rem. In Jamaica, p. 25.
2) Globus, VoL 86, p. 255-256.
3) Congr. Intern. d'Anthrop. et d'Arch., Monaco 1906, Vol II, p. 148--149.
4) FEWKES in Proc. of the Nat. Ac. of Sciences, VoL I, p. 49.
5) DE Booy, in Amer. Anthrop., n. S., VoL 14, No. I, p. 94.
6\ FEWKES, Ibid., p. 50.

I23
live in caves, where there was no possibility of hanging them up.
The most remarkable of all is that in a cave near Conch Bar, on
Grand Caicos Island, were found "some crude bedsteads made of
forked sticks and boughs, being found there when the cave earth
was removed.' '1)
Those who are familiar with the culture of the \Vest Indies will
see at once that the material from these caves in Puerto Rico,2)
Caicos Island3) or the spring-water caves at Salado, Santo Domingo,4)
is of the same kind as that found in te shell heaps on these and the
neighbouring islands, and which we call Tainan, with good reason.
On this account, it is not necessary to go into details. HAEBERUN
certainly found a difference in the quality, colour and form of the
pottery of C1£eva de la Seiba, when he compared it with that of a
juego de bola, lying one mile distant toward the \Vest, which he
had investigated previously. But both wares show, each for itself,
certain Taino characteristics and have their counterparts in other
places in Puerto Rico.
Burial Caves. The use of caves for secondary burial seems to
have been by far the most frequent manner of
utilizing them among the Tainos. In Jamaica, as has been said,
it is the only use they were put to, as far as is known up to the
present time. However, it is very unfortunate that all the Jamaican
burial caves, with the exception of the one excavated by
REICHARD at 1vlontego,5) were destroyed in the course of the centuries,
and as a rule by negroes, who wanted to get the pottery in
them. The cave at Montego has shown that not only the skull,
but also other bones were placed in the funerary vessel. The
especially interesting cave of Boca del Plurial shows the leg-bones
placed in an X-form,6) which is also plainly seen in the petroglyph
in FEWKES, Pl. LXI, g, "from eastern end of Porto Rico."
1) DE Booy, A me)'. Anthrop., n. S., Vol. 14, No. I, p. roo
2) FEWKES I, PI. LXXII, Cueva de las Golondrinas; HAEBERI~IN, Amer. Anth·
rap., n. s., Vol. 19, Xo. 2, p. 223-230, Cueva de la Seiba.
3) DE BOOY, Amer. Anthrap. n. s. Vol. 14, No. I, p. 90-104.
4) DE Booy, Amer. Anthrop., 11. s., Vol. 17, No. I, p. 89-97.
5) Globus, Ibid.
H) MONTAN1; in Congr. Intern. d'Anthrop. et d'Arch., Monaco 1906, Vol. II,
p. 143·

124
Secondary burial in caves must be looked upon in general as
peculiar to the Greater Antilles and Bahamas, where there are many
limestone districts, having an abundance of caves, that is, the
entire region that was Taino at the time of the Discovery. Along
the coast of Jamaica, secondary burial in caves was established
by DUERDEN, and was also encountered by REICHARD. MONTANE
has shown it localized in Boca del Plurial, in Cuba. He says
that there are also other burial caves, "rarement les cranes
accompagnent les restes, il se trouvent presque toujours a part."!)
Both in Oriente and Pinar del Rio, HARRINGTON has excavated
many burial caves.
As the caves of Espanola is still so little investigated scientifically,
we can not rely on the circumstance that burial in caves
not is confirmed archaeologically. It is indeed mentioned by
COLUMBUS, and according to his description, it appears that the
head was separated from the body,2) as we can observe in Jamaica
also, as well as at Boca del Plurial. The cave, investigated by
ARTHAUD in the eoUine de Borgne, seems also to have been a burial
cave.3)
In Puerto Rico, although already so many caves have been
investigated up to date, a skull burial in a cave has not yet been
proved with exactitude. AITKEN was told that in the caves of
the "Hollow Hill" ten miles north of Utuado, human bones had
been found. 4) In a cave there, he himself found "well-dried human
bones scattered through the litter, showing no evidence of having
been actually interred."5) On the other hand, he has established
the fact of the direct burial in the cave of 19 children and young
people, the majority of them "in a flexed position, lying on one
side, facing the north wall."6) He found also a skeleton, which
can be that of a perished man; a similar one was found by HAE­
BERLIN in the Cueva de la Seiba. 7)
') MON'rANf.;. Ibid.
2) His/oria del Almirante. (Historiad. primitivos, Madrid I749) Chap. LXI.
3) E T. HAMY. Charles Arthaud de Pont Il 1Vlousson I788~--9I, Bull. et ::\Iem.
de ia Soc. d'Anthrop. de Paris, V Set., Paris 1908, p. 30J.
4) Proc. of the Nineteenth Int. Congr. of Amer., \Vashington 1917, p. 224.
5) P. 225.
6) P. 226.
') American Anthrop. n. S., VoL 19, No.2, p. 221, fig. 13.

JAMES M. WRIGHT mentions "Lycayan bones in lonely caverns
scattered throughout the archipelago."l) DE Booy has
heard in particular of several skeletons in a cave on East Caicos
I sland. 2)
Cave burial, with the head in a vessel, has only been confirmed
in Jamaica up to the present time. Nevertheless, Huc­
KERBY found "a burial urn containing a skull and surrounded
with other bones"3) at Rutland Vale Valley, on St. Vincent.
Surely burial in caves must have been less frequent on the
Lesser Antilles for the reason that there are less caves there proportionately
than in the Greater Antilles. The most important
islands of the Lesser Antilles lie within the inner, volcanic zone,
where caves only occur exceptionally in the volcanic tufa. From
Barbados FEWKES has cited not a single burial cave in his preliminary
report, although it lies in the outer, limestone zone and
its caves must have played an important role in the lives of its
former inhabitants, practically as well as religiously. In fact, not
once does he mention burial caves, investigated by himself, in all
of the Lesser Antilles, but on the other hand one on Desirade
from Labat. Nor did FEWKES succeed in finding traces of human
occupation in the caves of Trinidad.4)
Shrines. A very noteworthy passage cited from PANE in
another connection shows that the Haitians
worshipped idols in caves, why they did this, and that they had
cave paintings in such shrines. He relates: "they say that the
sun and the moon came out of a cave which is situated in the
country of a cacique named Maucia Tiuuel and the name of the
caves is Giououa and they hold it in high regard and it is all painted
in their fashion without any figure, with many leaves and
other things of that sort, and in this cave there are two cemis of
stone, small about a foot high with their hands tied, and they
looked as if they sweated. These cemis they hold in great regard.
and when it did not rain they said that they went there to visit
1) The Bahama Islands, p. 421.
2) Amer. Anthrop., n. s., Vol. r4, No. r, p. r03.
3) A mer. Anthrop., n. s., Vol. r6, NO.2, p. 242.
4) Bull. of the Amer. Geogr. Soc., Vol. XLVI, p. 669.

them and suddenly it rained. And one of the cemis is called by
them Boyamanicuel and the other Marois."l)
The I gneris of Martinique also had idols set up in caves,
according to Du TERTRE. The royal Lieutenant-general of the
island, :LVI. Du PARQUE1', assured Dc; TERTRE that the Caribs had
found in the caves a kind of idols made of cotton with "des grains
de savonettes, et une espece de casque faite de coton sur la teste".
They stated that these were the gods of the Igneris whom they
had massacred. No native dared to enter this cave; indeed, they
trembled with fear when they approached it. When Du Parquet
was informed of the find, he sent natives to the cave with the
order to get the idols and bring them to him. But they were so
terror-stricken, that they were afraid to do so. The first two that
entered the cave, became unconscious and had to be carried out.
Later on, he sent more courageous men, who brought the idols
away in great secrecy.2)
How the cotton-idols were placed and if there was anything
else in the caves, does not appear from Du TERTRE'S account.
While burial caves, perfectly intact, have been found in our
times, as at Montego in Jamaica or Boca del Plurial in Cuba, such
only in Cuba, Oriente, has been the case with one single Cueva
Zemi which we could designate exclusively a cave-temple. \Ve
can confirm niches, images, reliefs and heads that are carved in
the \Vest Indian caves. \Ve know that idols, duhos and also the
kind of sticks - with human figures carved on the upper end -
which are named by FEWKES "swallow sticks" or "swallowing
sticks" ,3) have been found in caves. In most cases we know
nothing or too little about the circumstances of the finding.
The account of the discovery of three most interesting wooden
idols in a cave in .T amaica, is very brief and lacking in detail.
They illustrated by DUBRDBN fig. XI, p. 42, but correctly reproduced
for the first time by JOYCE, in .Tount. of Royal Anthrop.
I) Chap. XI, Bourne's Trans.
2) Du TERTRE, Histoire, Paris r668, p. 369-370. The chances of ever seeing
these idols again are yery small. The French frigate that was carrying them as
a gift to the Duke of Orleans, was captured by the Spaniards and the captain
was examined by the Inquisition, a charge of idolatry having been preferred
against him.
3) FE\VKES I, PI. I,XXXVIII, Pt. rand 2, a---e.

127
Inst., vol. XXVII, 1907, pIs XLVIII, XLIX, Land LI, I. They
were for a long time in the possession of the British Museum.
They were published for the first time, somewhat incorrectly, in
Archaeologia, 1803, which gave as their origin, "found in June
1792, in a natural cave near the summit of a mountain, called
Spots, in Carpenter's Mountain, in the parish of Vere (now included
in the parish of Manchester, created in 1817) in the island
of Jamaica by a surveyor in measuring the land. They were
discovered with their faces (one of which is that of a bird) towards
the East."l) \Ve have every reason for the supposition that the
cave was still intact, at the time of its discovery. But we are told
much too little about details, not even if the entrance of the cave
also towards the East.
In Cueva Zemi, Oriente, Cuba, HARRINGTON discovered a cavetemple
with zemiistic sculpture, which illustrates the transition
from petroglyphs to more plastic representation.2)
Perhaps nowhere in the \Vest Indies were the cave-temples
so frequent as in the numerous caves in the limestone district of
northern Espanola, but none was explored by scientists. The
greater part of the idols have come to us from this region. It is
likely that they were found in the limestone caves.3) \Ve know
this to be true of some of them. In such a cave at Loma Sucia, in
the vicinity of the former Isabela, was found the very interesting
guayacan idol, FEWKES I pl. CXc c-c." In this same region were
found also FEWKES I, pl. X C I a-a', according to OBER who was
iuformed about it by the finder, an old negro, "two human figures
seated in a canopied chair" .4) "They were placed in a rude niche
beneath an overhanging rock, at the entrance to a deep cavern."5)
"Found at Isabela, - - - in a cave inhabited by Indians in former
time" was also "the wooden seat" or" the ithyphallic figure
of a man" in the Brit. Museum. G ) It certainly may have have had
") DCERDBN, Ibid .. p. 43: J Oycr:, Ibid., p. 403.
2) op. cit., p. 268-Z73.
3) Camp. FEWKES I, p. 198.
4) FREDERICK A. OmlR, Aborigines of West Indies, Proc. Am. Ant. Soc., Vol.
9, n. s. Pt. 2, 'Worcester, :Mass. 1894.
") FmYKES I, p. 291.
6) JOYCE, J onrn. of Royal Anthrop. lnst. 1907, p. 406 and PI. LII, 3 an

128
a representative use in the fertility cult. Zemiistic sculptured
d7thos, were used by the caoba ceremony. Their presence in
caves might also indicate that these were used for religious purposes.
The clay idol or effigy vase, FEWKES I, pl. LXXXII, a,
a man sitting on a stool "is said to have been found in cave at
the Rancho Viejo between the cities Bane and Azua."l)
FEWKES says of the caves that he saw and investigated on
Puerto Rico "Niches that are evidently artificial platforms, and
other artificial structures occur. quite frequently."2)
PANE mentions rockpaintings on the walls of the cave in
Espanola, where the two idols were worshipped. FEWKES has
devoted an entire chapter in his great monograph to the "cave
pictographs" in Puerto Rico. In the vicinity of the hacienda
Barranca, "not far from the military road of Puerto Rico from
Ponce to Juana Diaz" F:gWKES found indications that "some of
these rock etchings" 'were filled with coloured clay, which can
explain PANE'S statement about cave-paintings. The figures in
FEWKES I, PI. 1/XI, which are excellent illustrations of the Borinquens'
religious conceptions, seem to me to be especially interesting.
F}

129
On East Caicos Island, DE Booy has found cave pictographsl)
in a cave near Jacksonville, and even a head cut out of the limestone
rock.2) DE Booy observed also that a large stone was" cut
into a rude semblance of a couch or altar." One of the human
figures "was cut on the roof of the cave directly over this
stone. "3)
There are also drawings in the entrance of the Buccament
Cave on St. Vincent, which cave was investigated by HUCKERBy.4)
It was observed that they consisted of faces with eyes that suggest
to be 10oking.5) These faces also seem to have protected the
dwellers of the cave, who have left their traces behind in the
form of "fragments of pottery and a few rubbing stones. These
fragments do not manifest any variation from the other sherds
found in different parts of the island. "6) This last observation
of HUCKERBY' about the conformity of this pottery with that
common to St. Vincent, seems to me to contribute to the probability
that the cave was used by Indians in the Igneri period.
In the, Amazonia, masks are intended to frighten away the
spirits, and at the beginning of the festival they were turned towards
the forests, in order to keep back the forest-demons. ROTH
cites the different methods used in British Guiana to keep harmful
spirits at a distance from the dance-plazas. 7) The question can
be asked if the stone faces, which FEWKES found at the "danceplaza"
in Utuado,8) did not have a similar purpose. ROTH says:
"An alligator skull stuck up in a Carib house will prevent the
Yurokon entering it."9)
Did shrine-caves exist also in the Lesser Antilles in the time
of the Igneris?
The occurrence of carved-out niches, probably for idols, as
') Amer. Anthrop., n. s., Vol. I4, No. I, p. 1°3'--104.
2) Ibid, fig. 17.
3) Ibid., p. 104.
4) Amer. Allthrop., n. s., Vol. 16, No.2, p. 244.
5) Ibid., PI. XXIX B.
6) Ibid., P. 244.
') An Inquiry into the Animism and Folklore Of The Guiana Indians, Thirt.
Ann. Rep. of the Bur. of Amer. EthlloI. 19°8-19°9, \Vash. 1915, p. 196.
8) FEWKES I, p. 83 & 137, Plo LVc and d.
9) An Inquiry into the Animism etc., p. 197.
9

130
in the cave at Battewia 1 )
and still more on Barbados,2) indicates
mnch more zemiistic Island-Arawaks rather than primitive troglodytes.
Up to the present time only a few objects have been fonnd on
the J..esser Antilles that point to zemiistic worship in caves.
I believe that the wooden turtle with two ronnd perforations,
for snspending, FEWKES I pI. XC a-a' and fonnd according to
OBER "in a cave near St. Vincent in I878,3)" had a ritnal use. The
curious gronp of idols with the remains of a "canopy", now in the
British l\lnsenm,4) which already mentioned as very likely from
Santo Domingo, indicates that the turtle had a signification in
the Arawak religious ideas.
Other finds in caves which might perhaps have some religious
significance, are mentioned only in traditions. I ""ill only cite a
wooden idol, found at the entrance of a cave on Barbados, according
to REV. GRIFFITH HUGHES, The Natural History 0/ The
Island 0/ Barbados, London I750,5) and "a wooden seat or stool"
found in a large cave at Battewia.6)
I believe it is best not to differentiate two strongly between
burial caves and shrine caves. The zemiistic worship comprised
not only the wooden and stone idols, but also the bones of the
forefathers in the cotton zemis; indeed, in the cave Boca del Plnrial
the sacrificial meal was placed before a row of skulls.
As the conditions in the Cueva de las Golondrinas indicate,
we can not separate too strictly dwelling- and burial caves, or
dwelling and shrine-caves.
The most important significance that caves can have for onr
knowledge of the Tainan culture is above all in the fact that in
them has been preserved by far the greater part of what we yet
possess of Tainan wooden scnlptures. It is probable that we can
") FEWKES, Bull. of the Amer. Geogr. Soc., Vol. XLVI, p. 670.
2) FE\\'KES, Proc. of the Nat. Ac. of Sciences, Vol. r, p. 49.
3) OBER, cited by Fewkes, Ibid., p. I9(); according to hI THURx, Tilllehri,
Vol. n, Part. II, Georgetown r883, p. 252, OHlm found it at Balliceaux.
4) JOYCE in jOllrn. of Royal Anhtrop lust. 1907, PI. LT, 2, and Cenir. Amer.
And TVest Ind. Arch. PI. XXXI.
5) FEWKES in Bull. of The Geogr. Soc., Vol. XLVI, p. 669 cites HecHES.
6) HAW'tAYNE in JOllrn .. Of The Anthrop. Soc., Vol. XVI, London 1887, p.

trace back to the religious cult the majority of this class of objects
in the caves, even the seats which had religious importance and
on which the caciques sat while the people were coming in. On
certain small islands, especially the Bahamas, where there was a
scarcity of building material but an abundance of little caves in
the limestone districts, they used these to shelter their boats and
boat material, as they furnished good protection against rain and
decay. Tradition tells of canoes found "in caves of the smaller
islands"l) i. e. in the I/ucayan Islands.2) They have all disappeared
and exact information is lacking. The only detailed
information about a canoe found in a \Vest Indian cave indicates
that it was not placed there for preservation. In a burial cave, the
Halberstadt Cave, in Jamaica, this canoe was found placed over
a rmv of skulls; evidently it was broken in pieces, when it was
found thereY)
Thus as the Tainan canoe is lacking in our museums, it is
more than gratifying that DE Booy found in a cave on More's
Island a Tainan naho, or paddle,4) and Harrington another one in
a cave near Monte Cristo, in the southeastern part of Oriente,
Cuba:')
In most regions where caves occur, in North America and
South America, they were frequently used by the Indians as
burial-caves, but at times as dwellings. One question only is
of interest in connection with our theme, namely - did the
Island-Arawaks put caves to various uses for the first time after
they had immigrated to the \Vest Indies, or were such uses of
caves already familiar to them before their emigration from the
South American mainland? As the archaeology of north-eastern
Venezuela has been very little investigated up to the present time,
this question can not be answered.
At the same time, it is not at all remarkahle that such phenomena
do not appear among the nearest kinsmen of the Tainos
1) FIl\\,KES I, p. 20g. The Lucayan must really be meant here, even whell
"old Carib canoes" arE' mentioned.
") \Y. K. BROOKS, On The Lucayan Indians, Mem. of ~at. Ac. Sciences, vol.
IV, ""ash. r888, p. 215'--222.
") DC;ERDIlN, Aboy. Tnd. Rem. in Jamaica, p. 21 and 26 .
. il Amer. Anthrop., 11. S., Vol. T 5, Ko. r, fig. I, p. 2 and 3.
5) op. Git., p. 208, fig. 50.

on the mainland, the True Arawaks of Guiana. For of course
these live on a lowland, where caves are entirely lacking. It is
more remarkable that FI-:WKES' investigations in a large number
of caves in Trinidad yielded only a negative result.l) Up to date
no investigations have been made in the Eastern Carib Mountains,
very likely one time Arawak land. The immense CUe1Ja del
Guacharo near Caripe, which has been described by HUMBOLDT,2)
was not suitable for a human dwelling because of the dirty making
bats that lived in it. Yet it is singular that the Indians there, had
the idea that their forefathers had once lived in the deepest interior
of the cave and that they, by mean of their p1'aies, had
exorcised the spirits of darkness.3)
Within the \Vestern Carib Cordillera up to date we only
know the culture at Lake Tacarigua and neighbouring regions.
With the exception perhaps of the in part younger Serrania del
Interior, to which cretaceous formations belong, the Cordillera,
which is formed of chrystalline rocks, could not be considered a
very probable region for the formation of caves.
Fragments of pottery and skulls have been found in Aruba
in the caves, and consequently KOOLWIJK thinks they were once
inhabited.4) In the brescias of the caves at Fontein and Carachito
human bones also have been found. Cave paintings likewise
occur at Aruba, almost always in red and brown, not seldom in
white, although only twice in black.
The Caiquetios who lived on the Coro coast, adored idols in
shelters. 5)
Caves that are used for purposes resE'mbling that of the Tainos,
are found in the land of the Chibchas. But the investigations
in the Bogota region are still too incomplete. The Chibchas buried
their bodies in caves in a squatting position, and sometimes
even dressed and with their ornaments.6) As to the Chibchas, this
1) Amer. Anthrop. n. s .. Vol. 16, No.2, p. 204, n. 2.
2) R. in die Aeq. Ceg. Vol II, p. I02-II8.
") Hid., p. II3, II4.
4) De Indianen Caraiben van Het Eiland Aruba, Aruba Nov. 1881, p. 223 &
226.
0) SALA$, Etnologia ii Histaria de Tierra Firma (Venezuela & Columbia) Madrid
1908, p. 181.
6) VICENTE RESTREPO. Los Chibchas, p. 119.

I33
kind of burial with the body sitting in a squatting position is
Andean and even occurs far to the South in the caves at Cas a­
bindo, Puna de Jujuy.I) The idea to bury in a cave must have
been the same as in the direct urn-burial - whose Andean origin
has been established by NORDENSKJOLD2) - that the earth should
not press down on the corpse.3) A parallel coincidence can also be
observed in a cave at Casabindo, where an urn likewise was found,
containing the body of a child that had been buried directly.4)
In the Tainan caves in Oriente, Cuba, the skeletons have a
flexed position.
A body, sitting on a stool with bow and arrow in his hand,
was found in the middle of the nineteenth century in cave between
Leiva and Meniquira in the land of the Chibchas.5) The
rulers in Bogota were buried seated on stools. S ) The idols of the
Chibchas sometimes were seated on stools in the temple huts. 7)
There are Tainan counterparts to these circumstances among
the Chibchas. Sometimes the body of a Haitian cacique was
placed in his sepulehre, seated on a duho. 8)
In a cave at Salta de Tequendama a beautiful polychrome, ceremonial
vessel, probably sacred, was found. (VICENTE RESTREPO,
Atlas A rquealogica , 76, a).
I will not go into details about the urn-,9) basket-,lO) and
mavis-ll)burials under granite shelters, hollowed out byt he water in
the river-bed of the Orinoco, in connection with the West Indies.12)
1) VON ROSEN, En fijrgdngen varld, p. II2, fig. 73 and 74.
2) The Changes in the mat. cult., p. Ig0.
3) NORDENSKltiLD, Ibid., p. 186, n. 2, cites SOAREZ DE SOUZA.
4) VON ROSEN, Ibid., p. 212, fig. 75.
5) VICENTE RESTREPO, Los Chibchas, p. Ilg.
6) JOYCE, South Amer. Arch., p. 33.
') Ibid., p. 34.
8) OVIEDO, t. I, p. 134.
9) According to G. MARCANO, Ethnographie Precolumbienne de Venezuela,
Mem. de la Soc. d'Anthrop., 2e Serie, Vol. IV, Paris I8go, p. 207, from a very
old race before the time of GILl] and HUMBOLDT probably Arawakan.
10) Guahibos, Ibid., p. 12g.
11) "Mavis sort de cercuits faits d'ecorces d'arbres assujetties avec de fortes
lianes," characteristic of the Piaroas. See Ibid., p. I2g.
12) See Ibid., p. 128. Apparently the pebbles and sand were washed out and
carried away by the swiftly-flowing flood-waters of the Orinoco.

I34
Neither I will discuss at any length here if the Arawaks along
the middle Orinoco are a younger element coming from the Southeast
and South, which established themselves between strange
tribes. They must have brought 'with them the Arawak secondary
burial. Of course it is not yet completely proved that these different
kinds of sarcophagi under the abris, all contain bones belonging
to a secondary burial. It is probable that this mode of
Arawak burial came into contact here with a branch of the Andean
direct burial in urns, and perhaps also in other places in northwestern
Venezuela. According to SPINDEN, the Andean direct
urn-burial in sufficiently large vessels, the dead "in sitting position
with the knees under the chin and with the hands at the side
of the face", had extended itself over a large extent in northwestern
Venezuela. He cites urn-burials at Aruba, in Maracaibo,
Merida, Valera, earache, Valencia, Maracay, La Union on the
R. Portuguesa, San Fernando de Apure and Atures. 1 ) He also
touches upon the eventual occurrence of indirect urn-burials,
when the vessels are small, but he does not cite any place in the
territory that he himself has investigated, where it has been found.
In chapter XI I shall treat of the Tainan habit of a second
burial of the head in a basket suspended in the hut, which was
changed into putting it in a vessel placed in a cave.
I) New Daia on The Archeology of Venezuela. Proc. of thc Nat. Ac. of Sciences,
Vol. 2, New York, I916, p. 327.

CHAPTER III.
Stone Artifacts, Celts, Adzes, and Axes.
Flint Artifacts.
As far as the \Vest Indies are concerned, MASON has rejected
the division into palaeolithic and neolithic ages. But when
MASON published his monographs on the Latimer collection from
Puerto Rico and the Guesde collection from Guadelope not a
single object was known from the Antilles that cannot be ascribed
to the culture of the Island-Arawaks.
Later the Siboneyan finds on Cuba were made. The culture
of the primitive people emigrating from Florida, we may characterize
as palaeolithic. As to their lithic implements, stone axes are
altogether missing, and the art of flint chipping shows only very
early and simple methods. Grinding is unknown and pottery
missing.
The Island-Arawaks who came from South America originally
only knew the art of grinding, which can be observed in their
principal stone implement, the petaloid celt. Considering the
fact that the Island-Arawaks, as far as we know, when migrating
from the continent to the islands brought with them pottery, it
seems correct to call their culture neolithic.
In great part of the tropical lowlands of South America, chipping
does not occur and chipped implements are replaced by those
of some other material. Here the axes, for the most part made of
old eruptive rock, were most frequently the only stone artifact. If
the region in question namely the Amazonas, is without stone
then the tribes living there must provide themselves with stone
axes for clearing by means of trading, and often at great distances,
but in I,ower Amazonas from the not far stone working places near
the rocks along the tributaries.

An abundance of flint is found in Jamaica, it also occurs in
Cuba, while on Espanola chert exists oI1ly in a few localities. But
the chipping of flint to standardized types was an art which the
Arawaks did not master for the first time after they came to
these islands. It is certainly true that stone arrow-heads are
found in the northeastern part of South America, in Brit. Guiana
as well as on Margarita,l) and also near Lake Tacarigua, in
Venezuela.2) Yet we do not know whether they existed there
previous to the migration of the Island-Arawaks to the Antilles.
\Vithin the area once occupied by the Igneris, only flakes are
found. Standardized forms of chipped flint are found only on the
Tainan islands lying at a greater distance from South America.
Therefore we cannot in any manner find any connection between
the flint chipping in the Tainan culture and that of South America.
It is very different in the case of the celts produced by the
method of grinding. This celt the Tainos must have known previous
to their migration from the South American mainland.
In the polished stone "axe" (or rather celt), MAX SCHMIDT
sees, "a common symbol of the Arawak culture" .3) Even where
there was no stone, as "in the territory of the ancient Mojos",
there were polished celts.
Celts.
\Ve have every reason to suppose that the continental
forefathers of the Is1and-Arawaks were
familiar with the polished celt. That the petaloid celt, v;as the
type which they originated, cannot yet be proved by the stratification
of culture-sequence, but, this is for conclusive reasons
evident. Then, at a later period axe types reached the West
Indies, through South American influences. For the most part
these influences emanated from Colombia.
With the limited knowledge that even to-day we have of the
archaeology of northeastern South America, it is not possible
to indicate the region of the mainland, located near the \Vest 1n-
1) DE Booy. Notes on the Archeology of 211argarita, Heye Found., Vol. II,
NO.5, New York 1C)I9, fig. ro, of (juartzite.
2) An arrow- or spear-head from Hejuma, near Valencia, Xational Museum
of Copenhagen, 0 D I 97, of schist with a tang 9 l!Z cm. long.
') Die Aruaken, I,eipzig 1917, p. 99.

137
dies, where in early times the petaloid celt was the only one in
use. If the petaloid celt was the only axe type that the Island­
Arawaks knew of to begin with, it does not infer that at the time
of their migration to the Antilles tIns type was the only one met
with on the mainland of South America, not even in the part to
the north of the stoneless Amazonia Region. No doubt the evolution
of types to the north and south of this region has been a
different one, owing to the difference of material available: in
the South rather coarse grain eruptive rock, and in the North fine
grain diorites and similar rocks which allow of a fuller grinding
and polishing. I am not going to give a full account of the evolution
in the South but just a short survey of it.
It looks as if at a very early period grooved axe types were
evolved from the primitive and crude forms in existence in the
southeastern Andes and in the great Punas, and this finally culminated
in the axe with the broad butt and wide blade with the sides
only slightly curved, which later was disseminated towards the
Southeast and in Brazil, probably through the wanderings of the
Guarani tribes.I )
An undoubted advance towards the demonstration of the expansion
of the celt in South America is RIVET'S compilation of
what he designates as "haches simples neolithiques '.2) But under
this general title he does not introduce any sub-divisions, although
he particularizes especially with such in the types of axes.
Consequently we must content ourselves with the fact that celts
with pointed or blunt butts, from the pointed triangular to the
rectangular, are united under this termination. It can only be of
interest to us as far as concerns the West Indies, to investigate
circumstances in the Northeast of the Mainland.
No excavations have been made as yet in the Paria Peninsula
and the Paria lowland north of the Orinoco delta. All that I am
acquainted with, as coming from that region, are two axes
from Cumana; i. e. of no celt type.
1) In the Mus. fur Volkerk., in Berlin, there are two very fine axes of this
type, V. B. 4615-23 and 4625-41 from River Jequetintinhonha, Minas Geraes
(Dr. Russak) and three just as representative, V. B. 247-249, the lvlauhBs
(presented by Kii.hne), thus from a Guarani tribe.
2) EthnograPhie Ancienne del' Equateur, by R. VERNAU & P. RIVET, P.139-qo.

If we pass over to the True Arawaks, who are the nearest kinsmen
of the Island-Arawaks that still survive, the stone1ess land of
\Vina, in Guiana, where they really have their true expansion,
must have always been a region that imported stone axes. In their
earliest meetings with Europeans along the coast of Guiana, nothing
appeared more desirable to the Indians than axes. For some axes
captain Charles Leigh obtained a house and "Gardens planted with
Cassava and Potatoes" at the mouth of the river, Caroleigh (not
far from Oyapoc).l) I have previously mentioned that it appears
from the traditions of the Arawaks at the Pomeroon, how they
imported the greatly treasured celts of nephrite from some islands
in the distant North, which I identify as the islands of the Tainos.
In the interior of Guiana as well, on places where the rocky
ground lies bare, the kinds of mineral exposed are little suited to
the production of celts. They were obliged to make axes with
marginal notches out of very coarse grey "nd red-brown Guiana
sandstone; also, they even made a celt out ot hard Roraima quartzite.
2) There are eight axes of Guiana sandstone, in the Brit. ';\lus.,
presented by Lubbock. A little curved oblong axe, Brit. Mus.
2.90.6.r6, with a grey, somewhat ferruginous crust, can perhaps
be of a kind of diabase which is found in the old rocks on the
Cuyuni and YuruarP) The floor of rock in the Bush is accessible
only in the gorges, cut by the rivers. From such places the Indians
of British Guiana obtained the material for their "fine quartz
chipped arrow heads}) and RODWAY supposes that there were at one
time "factories of such implements" along the Mahaica and Corentyn
Rivers, as well as near the Demerara. A finely polished axe with
marginal notches of porphyry in the British Museum, about which
I am going to mention again later on, can possibly be made of indigenous
material. But particularly in the celts made of nephrite,
at least, the material must have been imported. I have already
designated the northern Antilles as the locality where it originated.
Another center of radiation for nephrite was located in
eastern Brazil, in the state of Maranhao. 4 )
') PeRcHAs, His Pilgrimes, London 1625, p. 1254.
2) ::'Ilus. of Goth., 12.1. 198, found by THeLIN.
') Camp. SIEVERS, Si

I39
Importation, in reality occasioned by the lack of usable material,
made the evolution of types in Guiana susceptible to foreign
influences, sometimes from astonishingly great distances. The
coastal population was distinguished for great aptitude in navigation,
and was, especially through the development of the canoe into
the pirogue, able to make long voyages out on the open sea and
and up the Orinoco, or to the Amazon. The Branco River was an
excellent means of communication with the Amazon, for the savanna
in the \Vest.
The outside influences which contributed to the evolution
of types was different in Guiana than in the \Vest Indies. One
thing that is noteworthy in this connection is that the Colombian
influences which bore such rich fruit in the Lesser Antilles, can
only be perceived in a very limited degree in Guiana.
Owing to their commercial intercourse with the Europeans,
first with the Spaniards and later with the English and Dutch,
the True Arawaks must have rejected their stone celts at an early
date, to replace them by European axes and knives. In
QUAKDT'S time, the roots of the yuca were removed with hoes in
the place of coas,l) which was not so surprising considering, that
the Dutch Jews of Paramaribo had already for a long time supplied
the coastlands with iron and steel implements, and through
their Carib debtor-clients had extended their trading to the regions
further inland. There is little doubt but that the importation of
such wares was begun immediately upon the first real contact
with the Spaniards.
Knives were so highly prized by the Arawaks at that time,
that they willingly exchanged cargoes of more than two arrobas
of cassava for a knife, when they voyaged to Margarita to trade. 2 )
They even traded slaves to the Spaniards "por hachas 0 por otros
herramien tos" . 3)
\Ve have already stated that the shell mounds along the coast
of British Guiana originated from the Arawaks. Consequently,
it only remains for us to seek amongst them for the types of stone
1) Nachr. von Surinam, p. 175.
2) RODRIGO DE NAVARRETE's Report in A. de I. concerning los Aruacas, from
1544 or 1545, translated into English by RODWAY, Timehri, Part I, 1895, p. 1Z.
:l) OVIEDO, Histaria, Vol. II, p. 266.

celts that were used by the Arawaks. The material is scarce, but
according to stone which 1M THURN has excavated, it would seem
that the petaloid celt does not predominate. He, himself, in
Among the Indians oj Guiana says that Pl. X, jig. ], the axe with
marginal noches and broad butt, is the type found most frequently
in these mounds, while the type shown in jig. r, ranks second in
frequency. The latter form is still found among the Indians and
was found by 1M THURN in the upper layers of the shell-heaps he
investigated.I ) The object in question is a with pointed butt celt
that could very well have been imported from the Antilles. 1M
THURN shows different types in his pl. X. BRETT found four fragments
of celts. Among them can be observed only the butt of
one petaloid ce1t.2) Near them he found a complete celt with
blunt point,3) apparently made of Guiana sandstone. Fine examples
of celts from Surinam, both with pointed and blunt butt,
can be found in the work of H. F. C. TEN KATE Jr., entitled
On West Indian Stone Tmplements and Other Indian Relics, Tijdschr.
van het Nederl. Aardsrijk Genootschap, z:e Serie, Part III,
r888, see plate VI.
ROTH has published three types of celts from British Guiana,
one long and straight with pointed butt,4) another small, short
and wide with a blunt point,5) and the third with truncated butt.6 )
The first type could be called petaloid. Although it is longer
than the usual almondshaped celts of the Greater Antilles, nevertheless
it is also found 011 these islands. A fourth type consists
of assymetrical, curved celts7) 'which according to ROTH could be
used as hand-axes;8) The last type does not occur in the "Vest
Indies.
If we do not know exactly the reciprocal age of the perserted
celts on the one hand and the axes with marginal notches lashed
') Ibid., p. 424.
2) The Indian T"ibes of Guiana, p .. +38.
") Illustrated in Ibid., p. 439.
0) WA1/fER E. ROTH, An Introductory Study of the Arts, Crafts and Customs
of the Guiana Indians, 28th Ann. Rpt. Bur. Amer. Ethno!. 1916-1917, ·Wasll.
oJ Ibid., PI. 3, C-R
0) Ibid., PI. 3, P--H.
') Ibid., PI. 3, A, B. A specimen is found in the Brit. lYIus.
8) Ibid., p. 73.

to the handle, in exchange, we know at least, that these two
greatly differing types existed contemporaneously up to a recent
time although in diverse localities of Guiana.
The perserted celt is particularly characteristic of the coastal
lands, where in ancient times it belonged essentially at least to
the True Caribs in Surinam. I )
In the British Museum there are two clubs with axes inserted;
in the one club a celt of stone,2) in the other of wood.3)
In the Western Carib Cordillera, particularly in the Cerrito
culture around Lake Tacarigua, the celts were of various types,
those with pointed and blunt butts predominating. This is
indicated by MARCANO'S description and also by his illustrations.4)
It is worthy of note that MARCANO, in his division into types,
differentiates as follows A, "des celts tres aplatis d'avant en arriere
et se terminant rarement par une crosse pointue" ,5) or flat
celts, and B, "de surfaces tellement convexes que la coupe est
ovale", or almond-shaped celts. The celts in the Mus. du Trocadero,
from this same region all have blunt points except No. 5096,
which has a pointed butt. In the Museum of Copenhagen there
is an effigy celt of a resonant jade, without an edge, excepting for
a slight curvature, it is rectangular, 13 cm. long and 5'l2 cm.
wide. It has two little holes for suspension and was considered
to be an amulet, only. The eyebrows, nose, and also the nostrils,
are drawn rectangularly in one continuous line, a thing that is
somewhat usual in the representations of the human face in the
pictographs of this cordillera. That is alsc the case with the
pictographs on the well-known "Piedra de los Indios" at San Este-
') H. TEN KATE, Encycl. van Nederl. Westindie, p. 541.
2) According to SPITZLY, I. A. E., Vol. III, these small inserted blades in
the specimens which were presented by Sir Robert Schomburgk, are similar to
his own, seen in fig. 9.
3) HODGE Handbook, fig. 263, e, and 1M THURN, Am. The Ind., p. 425, fig. 43.
4) Ethnographie Precolumbienne du Venezuela, Vailee d' Aragua et de Caracas
Mem. de la Soc. d'Anthrop. de Paris, ze Ser., Vol. IV, 1889, p. 47, see Fig. 9, a
flat celt with blunt point, Fig. 10, a round celt with blunt point, Fig. II, a round
celt with pointed butt.
5) By this MARCANO means that the flat celts (in the Cerrito culture) as a
rule have blunt points. \Ve shall return to this tendency of the flat celts
later on.

an on the road from Puerto Cabello to Valencia,!) as ,vell as on
the stone in Copenhagen, which came from the Valley of San
Esteban. In Copenhagen there is also a celt with a blunt point
which is made of schist and comes from the region of Puerto
Cabello. ERNS'l' describes a large, finely polished celt of nephrite
with a broad butt (weight 155 grams) which he sent to the Ges.
fur Anthrop., Ethnol., und Urgesch., of Berlin,~) without indicating
with much exactitude its place of origin, which, to judge from
circumstances related, must be located somewhere in the mountainous
regions of Northwest Venezuela.S) RIVET mentions "haches
simples neolithiques" from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta
among the A ruacos, as well as in Venezuela from Maracny and from
the districts of Tocuyo, Caracas, Aragua and along the Orinoco.4)
The celts from the tracts of I,. Tacarigua as figured by RE­
QUENA (p. 135) are all oblong and rather flat with blunt butt.
Not a single specimen is petaloid, still less amygdaloid.
In the Chibcha Collection in the Berlin Museum, the celt
forms surpass the axe-forms with incurved sides.
As far as can be judged from the material presented by J OSSE­
LIN DE JONG in Cura,ao and Aruba there were only celts, either
with blunt point or pointed butt.5) Sometimes they were replaced
by axes of shell.~) Not only celts7) but grooved axesB) as
well are found on Jli argarita; the "winged types" of the I.,esser
Antilles do not occur. One celt has a planed underside and thus
1) Sec GARRICK JliIALLERY, Picture Writing of the American Tndians, loth
Ann. Rep. of the Bur. Amer.Ethnol., \Vasll. 1889~I890 and I~R"S'r Photo­
(;mphie der Piedm de los Indios, Z. E., Vol. XVII, p. 267~268.
2) ?:. E. Vol. XVlT, Discussion on p. 127.
3) Sierra de Tvl erida must also be taken bto consideration. ERNS'r advised
Sievers to search for nephrite there. The sounding bat plates made of nephrite
occur not only near L. Tacarigua, but above all in the Sierra de lVI erida. A collection
of these from this region and partI y from Bocon6 can be seen in thc 1'vl us.
f. V6lkerk. in Berlin.
4) Ethnographie Ancienne de l'Equateur, p. I40.
5) T. A. E .. Vol. Xl V, PI. XXII--XXVI, Compo p. 95, where the celts are
divided the same way by him as by .YIARCAXO.
6) Ibid., PI. XXVIII, [--12. Four of these are broken off intentionally, so
that they 11a ve blunt points.
') DE Booy, Arch. oj Alargarita, PI. IV, a---··-f.
B) Ibid., PI. V, d-f, and Fig. 12.

I43
is an adze,!) like several others from Trinidad, the Lesser Antilles,
and St. Croix. The raw material used throughout all Margarita
seems to have been old eruptive rock.
The axe with marginal notches exists in three examples.2)
In all of them, the sides of the blade converge, moreover a thing
that is usual in this type. DE Booy refers to them as "the Guiana
or Brazil type, as they are found in large numbers in the great
region between the mouths of the Orinoco and the Amazon."
The type can not have come to Margarita from the Andean regions
of Colombia; from whence it came, I do not know.
In the site at Hato Viejo, dep. Falcon, only a few petaloid
celts were found. Various forms of broad adzes predominated.
No incurved axe is mentioned or illustrated.
Trinidad. From the finds in the shell-heaps of Trinidad it
appears that the petaloid celt must have been the
principal type used by the Arawaks of the island. It was found
exclusively in the shell-heaps at Radix Point.
FEWKES says: "A number of almond-shaped celts, like Porto
Rican petaloids were collected in Trinidad."3) But he also mentions
"axes"; JOYCE illustrates a celt with blunt point.4) I know
five celts from Trinidad in the British Museum. Only, one of
these, Trinidad 3, Pres. by Han. A. Gordon, has a pointed butt.S)
The others have blunt points. One of them, Trinidad 2, Pres.
by Hon. A. Gordon, made of the same eruptive rock with grayish
weathering crust as the above-mentioned, like them is moderately
thick. 6) Another, 8S4I Trinidad, Pres. by R. G. Whitfeld,
rather long and made of eruptive stone with a white-yellow oxidized
crust, is entirely flat on the under side and may have been
an adze. 7) This can also be the case with M IOI, presented by
1) Ibid., PI. IV, a .
• ) Ibid., PI. V, a-c.
3) Amer. Anthrop., Vol. 16, NO.2, p. 216.
4) Centro Amer. And West Ind. Arch., Fig. 57, b.
5) A very small celt of medium thickness, 8 % cm. 1., 4 cm. W., made of eruptive
rock with a thin, somewhat ferruginous oxidized crust.
6) Length 10 V. cm., width of butt 3 % cm., greatest width 5 % cm.
7) L. 23 cm., greatest breadth 6 1/. cm. breadth of butt 21/2 cm., fairly proportionately
broad.

144
Sir "Y. C. Trevelyan, which is ground flat on the back-side. This
specimen shows one peculiarity, which I have found only in the
southernmost ",Vest Indies, namely a butt having a cross-section
of considerable thickness is ground completely flaU) No. I5.8.I870,
pres. by Hon. A. Gordon, shows the same peculiarity.2)
An oblong, large, round celt of porphyry, G. M. 16.5.52,
with pointed butt 1. 32, w. 7 )'2 cm was found washed out on the
shore close to the layers of cultural remains near the plantations
of St. Bernard and St. Joseph, Trinidad. Another celt, G. lVI.
I6.I5.I of diorite is petaloid, 1. 24, w. 7 cm.
Trinidad did not reJnain free from complications with the South
A mericanmainland. Nevertheless, this island has really remained
in the pure celt stage.
J,esser Antilles. According to material collected by the Heye Museum,
it appears to me as if on the southernmost,
volcanic Lesser Antilles, celts not only of indigenous younger
lava but also of foreign old crystalline minerals such as diorite,
nephrite, jadeite, and porphyry were just as numerous as axes
which are always made of native lava or proper andesite. This
opinion has become more decided than before, through the study
of the many specimens from St. Vincent and Grenada, which the
Heye Museum sent to the Gothenburg Museum. The older collections
from the southern I~esser Antilles, which are made up above
all of axes of young lava, have really given us a false conception
of the comparative frequency of axes and celts. Apart from Guadeloupe,
the material of celts from the southern Lesser Antilles,
which I knew previously from European museums, is now insignificantly
small almost to the point of being considered non-existent
in comparison to the accession, sent by the Heye Museum, and
originating in Grenada and St. Vincent. This is clearly seen by
the following list of celts that I know from the different islands.
Tobago.
Some few celts in the British Museum.
1) I •. 20 cm., greatest width 7 cm., cross-section of surface of butt, 1.4 cm.
w. I 12 em. A right thick celt of coarse gray sandstone.
2) L 13 % cm., gr. w. 7 cm., cross-section of bntt snrface, 1. 3 % em. w.
I ~~ cnI.

145
Grenada. A collection coming from the Heye Museum, a
part of which is in the Gothenburg Museum. Of
these celts, 73 are of old crystalline rocks; one of them, G. M.
22.6.7I, with blunt point, is made of sandstone or quartzite and
24 of lava. Among the green celts of crystalline rocks, specimens
of light-green jade are more abundant than those of dark-green
nephrite, which is so characteristic of the Greater Antilles as
material for celts. Celts of old crystalline rocks of all sorts, are
generally almond-shaped or round Celts. Still, some of the little
ones are ground flat. Celts of andesite, are as a rule flat, of different
size and thickness, of unlike proportions between length and
width, and have a round or blunt butt. Scarcely more than one
example, G. M. 22.6.I2, is really almond-shaped. The same as in
the preceding ones, the under side is sometimes ground flat. One
little blade of jadeite, G. M. 22.6.57, is similar to those which,
according to SPITZLY, the Caribs fixed in their clubs.I ) The
examples with the butts ground flat will be cited later.
Besides these, there are several celts with pointed butt in
the Brit. Mus. and one with broad butt and broad blade. There
are three of diorite and also four of shell in the M. f. V., Berlin.
In addition, FEWKES publishes a petaloid ce1t. 2)
St. Vincent. A collection from the Heye Museum, a part of
which is in the Gothenb~trg }vhtseum, also: there
are 26 celts of old crystalline minerals and 73 of lava. As to
the relation between types and material, what has been said
about Grenada holds good here, speaking in a general way; still,
there are more variants from St. Vincent. Particularly noteworthy
are the quite large specimens from this island, made of andesite,
triangular in form with very widely curved edges, G. M. 22.6.I59,
I60 and I6I. A small specimen, G. M. 22.6.I69, with a very
blunt head and relatively broad and curved edge, must be
regarded as a transition to the hoe-shaped axes with shank.
A crooked butt and oblique cutting edge has G. lVI. 22.6. I28,
") Not only along the coast of Guiana, bnt also among the Island Caribs
it should happen that a slllall celt of greenstone was fixed into a houtou. See
BRETOX, Op. cit., p. 446.
2) Fmnu:s I. PI. XX, a.
10

made of andesite. Celt No. 3 of Plate VIII, which is made
of diorite, has the edge so displaced to one side that the specimen
almost looks like a knife. Celts with butts ground level will be
mentioued later. Several celt blades appear suitable to be inserted
in clubs.
There are several celts in the Rritish lVI useum. Only one of
these has a pointed butt, 1\1 I I94, which is moderately flat and
thick.I ) JllI I95, is a flat celt of nephrite, with a blunt point. 2 )
Like the rather symmetrical, broad celt of nephrite, M 1, 105,
Langeau Valley, it is ground flat on both sides and well polished. 3 )
Celts with the butts ground flat are found in St. Yincent as well
as in Trinidad. M I, 92, is a round celt. The butt, which is
ground flat, has so large a surface that the celt can stand alone4)
The round celt, Jl!1 I 23I, has a finely ground flat butt. The surface
of the butt is somewhat oblique.
F'urthermore, 1 wish to recall the celts published by 1M Tm;RN,
in Timehri, Vol. I, Pl. II, I-6, all of which are from St. Vincent.5)
Nos. 4 and 5 must be polished, petaloid celts. Nos. 2
and 3 have typically blunt points.
SPITZL y pictures a celt with a pointed butt 6 ) from the collection
of the Ethnographic Museum of Leyden and a small, finely
polished celt-blade of nephrite with blunt butt,?) exactly like two
from Surinam, published by DE Gm:JE.8) Both of these are from
St. Vincent.
According to Fewkes' almond-shaped celts of the same type
as occurs on Puerto Rico are rare in "the St. Vincent region. "9)
Celts of another form he calls "chisels". He gives this name not
only to celts that have not pointed tips, but as well to those with
blunt or oblique points. He pictures many unlike celt-types,
1) L. 16 em., greatest width 8 cm.
2) L. I r cm., greatest width 512 cm., butt 3'/2 cm. wide.
3) L. [7 em., width 7 cm.
4) L. 10 1.2 em., w. 5 1/2 em., surfacE' of butt 1.4 em., VI'. 11/3 em.
5) See Ibid., p. 260.
6) I. A. E., Vol. III, PI. XVIII, 8.
') Ibid, fig. 9.
8) Ibid., Vol. XIX, Pl. II, :5 aml 7. SPI'!'ZLY has pointcd out the similarity
to thc blades fixed into clubs. in the British Museum. See aboye.
9) Island Culture Area oj A merica, p. 94.

I47
among them an adze,l) which type we have already learned to
know from Margarita and Trinidad. Rectangular celts occur 011
St. Vincent, but not on te Tainan islands.
St. Lucia. In the treatise by SPI'rZLY, from which we have
just cited, there is a flat petaloid celtZ) and a
badly photographed companion celt of greenstone, with a somewhat
broken butt. 3 )
Guadr}uupe. The Gtiesde Collection; GrESDE says: "Celts are
scarcer than axes in Guadeloupe. Most of them
are made of handsome harder material than that used for axes,
such as serpentine jade, or jadeite. The fine glazing of the stone,
also, is found only in celts. I have some large and small, made of
volcanic stone used ordinarily for axes. These are wellpolished,
but not glazed."4) \Vhat GUESDE says about grinding and polishing
is in accord with what I, myself, have observed, especially in
regard to the material collected from St. Vincent and Grenada by
the Heye Museum. Moreover, from the citation it appears that
the petaloid celt made of greenstone is more frequent on Guadeloupe
than those of the native andesite. MASON pictures a petaloid
celt from Guadeloupe.5) In the portion of the Guesde Collection
in the Copenhagen Museum, there are many finepetaloid
celts, various incomplete specimens of the ordinary Guadeloupe
andesite, as well as one light-green, almond-shaped celt of jade.
K. M. O. IOI3 is an adze, ground flat on the under side.
In the Altisee du Trocadiro there are three celts, one almondshaped
Tr. 3903 of diorite, a small almond-shaped specimen,
Tr. 5669 of greenstone, and a third with a wide butt, Tr. 5670.
Barbados. In addition to 56 of shell,3) in the British l~;ft£seum
there are 7 small celts of greenstone, and one with
a wide butt that is made of andesite. In the j1;[tiseum of Gothenburg
there are 24 shell celts. According to the existent whorls,
') Ibid., PI. 12, A.
2) I. A. E., Vol. II, Pl. XVIII, II.
3) ibid., fig. 10.
4) :MASON, The Guesde Collection, p. 737.
5) Ibid., fig. 9.
3) See Chapter n.

two of these are evidently of Stromb1is Gigas; nine of them are
shell celts only in respect to material, and thus real celts. The
greatly predominating frequency of shell celts on Barbados is due
to the lack of suitable stone material. On Barbados a part of the
whorl of the shell is often retained, and we get from there what
1M THURN called "the shoehorn type". However, of the 56 shell
celts from Barbados in the British Museum (I9IZ) only IZ are of
this type.
On the Florida Keys also, they made celts with blunt points
ill which shell only served as materiaP)
St. Kitts-Nevis. From the northern Lesser Antilles, we only have
material from St. Kitts-Nevis. Here the petaloid
celt seems to have been the prevailing type, as it remained on
the Greater Antilles also. In the British Museum in the Graham
BY1:ggs Collection there is an andesite celt with a blunt point,
which shows that the oblique cutting edge hade penetrated to
this island. Yet this is not so surprising as even axes of the
Guadeloupe type, which BRANCH calls "hatchets",2) occur here.
They are "not usually made of such a hard stone as the petaloid
celts."3) I take it for granted that they are made of andesite, as
those from Guadeloupe. Furthermore, partly because they occur
on St. Kitts-Nevis so sporadically and partly because they have
such perfected forms, with finely elaborated crowned bird of preyheads
and beautifully marked axe-blades, similar to the Guadeloupe
axes, it seems to me more probable that the best of them are of
Guadeloupe workmanship, although it must not be forgotten that
andesite occurs on St. Kitts-Nevis also.4) At any rate, the influence
from Guadeloupe is unmistakable.
I have never seen BRANCH'S collections, but the hypothesis
that the petaloid celts are made of the diorite species of stones
belonging to the north Antillean central zone, seems very natural
to me. However, one cdt with a broad butt, is of sandstone.5)
') Celts with hlunt points, presented hy ;VIoore in Ig07 to the British Museum.
2) Amer. Antlwop. N. S. & Vol. 9. No.2, PI. XXIII, 1-17.
") Ibid" p. 3I9.
4) Ibid., p. 3 1 7 .
.5) Ibid" PI. XXIII, 17.

149
On St. Kitts-Nevis, celts were also sometimes replaced by shell
axes. I ) FEWKES knows of some petaloid celts, but winged axe
types preponderate.2)
Virgin Islands
and St. Croix.
British ]vluseum, 19 celts with pointed butts from
the British Virgin Islands: Copenhagen Museum,
the celts from the shell heap at Salt River, St.
Croix, in addition 45 specimens, of which about three-fourths
are from St. Croix and the rest from St. John and the British Virgin
Islands; apparently only one example is fro111 St. Thomas.
Celts preponderate numerically, and among them those with
pointed butts in different variations.3) Some celts of nephrite
from the American islands are finely glazed, as K. M. O. D. Ig. 3I
and 85, both from St. Croix, somewhat rounded but with an unground
cutting edge, or 58, from St. John, a little longer and narrower
in proportion.
In one case, the celt of nephrite was made into a salt-axe,
Pl. III,] having a ~weight of 2.68 kg. BAHKSON describes it as follows:
"An axe of gray-green mineral with a pointed butt. This
object, which is distinguished by its size, was found in a lagoon,
near Fredericksfort, St. Croix." Salt was an important article of
commerce among the Tainos. It appears from what OVIEDO says,
that the caciques of Espanola had lagoons, from which salt was
obtained.4) This is the only salt-axe of the celt type that I know of
from the Americas. ERLAND NORDENSKIOI,D presents only axes. 5 )
The same observations with respect to the relation between
form and material can be made about the celts in the Copenhagen
Museum, coming from the Virgin Islands, as from other places
in the Antilles. Among the nephrite celts, round ones with pointed
butts predominate. If the celts are of an iron-oxidized, probably
slaty mineral they are thin unel flat, and the poiuted butt is
more marked, as i n O. D. Ig 62, from the British Virgin Islands,
or Pl. VI, I from St. Croix \vhich resembles FEWKF;S II, Pl. 2I, D.
I) Ibid .. p. 322·~323.
2) FF,WKES n, p. r()o.
:l) About the same as DrERDJo;x, 1'1. I, or FF,WKJo;S I. PI. XXII, Cuba.
4) HUoria, Vol. I, p. 143.
") 1'1'dcolmnhische Salzgewillllung ill Puna de JUJuy. Z. E ... If)02.

150
The type with really pointed butt occurs actually only in celts
made of nephrite. Nevertheless, the later characteristic of grining
away the apex of the butt was so foreign to the Virgin Islands,
that scarcely a celt with a truly straight point can be shown
from there, even when the material seemed to prove this. Moreover,
in sandstone celts a slight rounding can be noted, as in 0 D. I 5I,
from St. John. The oblique axe, 0.977 from Salt River, is the only
one that has an almost blunt point.
The greater part of the material that FEWKES acquired
on St. Croix were "petaloid celts which vary from almond to
spearshaped forms." At least one celt had a groove around it,
"and others are like edged tools of triangular form", like my
Pl. VI, I.
FE"WKES, who is of the opinion that the culture on St. Croix
was once Taino-Puerto Rican, calls attention to the general likeness
between the celts from St. Croix and Puerto Rico. I )
I know of only one adze with the under side ground flat,
coming from St. Croix. 2)
Vieques.
There are two celts with pointed butts in the
Copenhagen Museum.
Puerto Rico. Judging from the material accessible up to the
present time, the petaloid celt is to be considered
as predominant in Puerto Rico. The southeastern influence is
only slightly noticeable, and not once in the same degree as on
St. Croix. As is evident in FEWKES I Pl. XI, there are notable
variations as to length and breadth in the form of petaloid celts.
HAEBERUN also gives us different variations of this type.3) In the
southern I,esser Antilles, the Virgin Islands, and St. Croix as has
been previously noted, differences in form are as a general rule
due to differences in material, even if not always inseparable
from them, so that almond-shaped celts made of andesite, as
well as flat celts made of jadeite belong to the Heye Museum col-
1) FEWKES II, p. 168.
2) A specimen in the National ::\I1uscum, Copenhagen.
3) Amer. Anthrop., N. S., VoL 1

151
lection, coming from St. Vincent. FEWKESl) and HAEBERLIN2)
have both illustrated fine specimens of almondshaped celts from
Puerto Rico, and FEWKES, flat celts, also.3)
Of the other Greater Antilles, only on Espanola can be shown
secondary southeastern influences in the types of celts.
Espanola. It is very unfortunate that the material from Espanola
is so limited. To judge by that in the
Musee du Trocadero, the southeastern influence must have
been more noticeable on Espanola than on Puerto Rico. I know
of only three petaloid celts (without grooves) from there; one in
the Merin04) Collection, another Tr. 5564 from Ofoa, the third in
the Copenhagen Museum. According to KRIEGER, the almondshaped
celt is found widespread throughout the whole Espanola.
Another polished greenstone celt, with uniform, slender, oval
section and straight cutting edge has an equally wide distribution
in Haiti" .5)
Bahamas. Petaloid celts made of nephrite or jadeite were
exported from the Greater Antilles to the Lucayan
islands, where suitable stone material for their production
was lacking. DE Booy found one of them in a cave at J uba
Point, on the Island of Providenciales. 6 ) BROOKS reproduces a
nephrite celt from New Providence. 7) I know of one from the same
island, which was in the collection of the late JOHN. F. ANDER­
SON. WARREN K. MOOREHEAD The Stone Age In North America,
London 19II, reproduces in Volume I, Fig. 226, two plates of polished
celts of jadeite, two black ones "from Andros and New Providence
Islands", and in fig. 223 of Vol. II there are two "from
the Bahama Islands."
1) FEWKES I, PI. XII and XIII a-d.
2) Amer. Anthrop. Ibid., fig. 23 and 24.
3) FEWKES I, PI. XXX, band d.
0) FEWKES I, PI. XIII, g .
• ) KRIEGER., p. 499.
6) Amer. Anthrop. N. S., Vol. 14, No. I, p. 91, fig. 3 d.
7) Mem. Of Nat. Ac. Of Sciences, Vol. IV, Wash. r888.

152
Cuba. The material from Cuba which is accessible up to
the present time only confirms the presumption
that the petaloid celt was predominant there, FEWKES also has
presented various different types,l) MONTANE two beautifully
polished celts with pointed butt.2) In the Museum fur Volkerkunde
there is a large of serpentine, celt presented by MONTANE, so
highly polished that it reflects the light like a mirror. Its weight
is 538.2 grams, length 19 cm., and the cross-section measures 5.23)
cm. There are two large a1mondshaped celts of nephrite in the
Copenhagen Museum. HARRINGTON finds that the peta10id celt,
"usually very symmetrical and often highly polished" is typical
of the Tainan culture in Cuba.4)
Jamaica. In the British ll1useum there is a large collection
of celts from Jamaica, 99 with pointed butts, and
only two with flattened ones. DUERDEN and JOYCE describe
variants of the different types, with pointed as well as flattened
butts.5) DUERDEN also gives information about the various
rock-materials used.~) In BASTIAN'S collection from Jamaica,
which is in the Museum fiir Vi:ilkerkunde in Berlin, only celts
are found, all with pointed butts with one exception. LONGLEY
has brought home to the Museum of Natural History in
New York 260 celts, which he excavated from the middens in
the parishes of St. Ann and Clarendon. Petaloid and especially
almond-shaped celts predominate. 7) The type variants are the
same as on Puerto Rico. 8) Spindle-shaped forms also occur on
J amaica. 9 )
1) FE\\'KES, Amer. Anthrop. N. S., Vol. 6, ::-.ro, 5, PI. XXI, I.
2) Congr, Intern, d'Anthop, et d'Arch" Monaco 1906, Vol. II, figs, 114 & IIS.
3) z, E, 1895, p. 365.
') Op, cii" p, 386; PI. 77, 78,

153
Hafting of the RIVET'S designation "haches simples neolithicelts.
ques" is well justified by the form, as wel1 as with
respect to the hafting. MASON, moreover, has
called the normal West Indian celts "perserted celts."l) Too
much importance must not be given to the prefix "per", for
if the end to be hafted is very thick, the axe does not go entirely
through, as is evident from HENRY HILLYER GIGLIOLI,
On Rare Types Of Hafted Stone From South America In 1'vfy Collection,
I, A, E., Vol. IX 1896, Pl. III, fig. 6, "from the Kaingangs"2)
and fig. 7 "from the Guayaquiles; a wild and little known
tribe, who wander in the forests along the upper course of the Parana
River, in the territory of the Paraguay Misiones."3) It is
hardly necessary in this connection to refer to the fact that the celt
blades, which are fixed in the tiki-clubs of Guiana, never pass
through the club. If the head of the tiki club is very broad, then
celts of considerable size can be inserted, as is evident from the
specimen GIGJ4 IOLI, Pl. III, Fig. 2," obtained many years ago in
British Guyana, 1110st probably fro111 the 1I.lac~tsi Indians of the
upper Essequibo River, by Mr. G. North."4) Fig. 4 was "obtained
on the western borders of Dutch Guiana or Surinam from Indians
living on the Cutari River, an affluent of the Corentyne River,
in all probability Pianoghottos, a branch of the 1\11 aC~tsi Caribs. "5)
The perserted or inserted hafting of celts, in which the ligature
plays a more subordinate role than in general, was on the
whole, the same in the West Indies as in South America,6) North
1) Other methods of hafting are also found among celts. In the ::YIus. f. Volk.
there is a flat celt with a blunt point from Marquez (on the Lima) that is bound
to the handle in a groove. See KRICKEnERG. Fig. 154 a, BUSCHA:'\:, Ill. V6lkerkunde,
Vol. I, Sec. l~ditiol1, Stuttgart 1922. There also are celts with squeezed
hafting in a splited handle.
") Ibid .. p. 8, Nat. Mus. of Rio de Janeiro.
3) Ibid., p. 9. The haft-ends of both of these. especially of Fig. 7, are \'Cry
similar to the Tainan. A rchivos Do Al'useu Do Rio de Janeiro Vol. VI, p. 487,
shows other forms of thick haft-ends where the celt does not pass entirely through.
coming from the Bacairys; also cylindrical and pear-shaped ones from the Otis
(Provincia de Parana).
4) Jbid., p. 4.
5) Jbid., p. 5.
ri) The above-cited GIGI,IOLI, PI. III, Figs. 6 & 7 and the really perserted
Fig. 5,"collectec1 011 the left bank of the lower Xingu." See also Tbid. p. ,.

I54
America,l) or in the western,2) central,3) and northern4) parts of
Europe during the Neolithic era.
In Ovnmo will be found an illustration of a Haitian celt attached
to a haft. 5 ) To judge from this, it would seem that the celt
was forced through the split handle until its upper end spreads
out crosswise; within this cleft the celt is firmly held by a strong
ligature. Thus a form of squeezed hafting. However, all archeological
records indicate that persertation or insertation of the
celt prevailed in the Tainan islands. MASON reproduces a hafted
celt from Turk's Island.6) with the following particulars. The upper
part of the handle, into which the celt is fixed, is the thicker
end. At the top of this is a curved crest?) while the other extremity
terminates in ball-like lump, which serves to keep the handle
from slipping out of the ~and. These three peculiarities all have
their analogies in Europe, and in North America. S )
In conclusion, we get to know the hafting of West Indian
celts by a study of the monolithic celts, which are founded more
or less on their prototype, the hafted celt.
Up to the present time perserted monolithic celts have been
found on several of the islands that were formerly Tainan, and
what is more in such numbers that they can not be considered
isolated attempts to copy hafted petaloid celts. With the exception
of the ceremonial variants from Janica, Santo Domingo,
') HODGE, Handbook, Vol. I, p. 535, "Celt hatchet with wooden handle from
a Michigan mound." See MOOREHEAD, Vol. I, Fig. 352, a perserted donbleaxe
"found in Indiana." Other hafted North American celts, see further below.
2) British Museum. A Guide to the Antiquities of the Stone Age, London 19II,
p. 138, Fig. 161, Solway Moss.
3) Swiss Lake-dwellers. See D. J. BUSHNELI, Jr., A mer. A nthrop. , N. S.,
Vol. 8, No.8, Fig. 2.
4) Denmark. See OSCAR MONTELIUS, Kulturgeschichte Schwedens, Leipz.
1906, p. 29, Fig. 30.
5) Histaria, Vol. I, PI. I a, Fig. 12 a. Camp. p. 170.
6) The Lat. Call., Fig. 12, Ann. Rep. of Slliiths. Inst. for 1876, Wash. 1877.
') About Tainan monolithic celts, first of all see HAMY Congr. Intern. d'Anthrap.
et d'Arch., Monaco 1906, Vol. II, Fig. 123, Caicos Island.
S) See MAC CURDY, The Wesleyan University Collection Of Antiquities From
Tennessee, Proc. of the Nineteenth Intern. Congr. of Americanists, held atWashington
1915. Wash. 1917, p. 75, Fig. 2, Mound on William Island and BUSHNEI,I"
Ibid., Fig. 2.

155
reproduced by HAMY,l) the same general type is predominant in
Cuba, Espanola and the Caicos Islands, which are the islands
where the perserted monolithie celts have been found up to the
present. Now and then they represent hafted celts so inexactly
and with such a lack of beauty that we ask ourselves if these monolithic
celts were not used for work. As a general rule, the crest
on the head of the haft, which by the way is not always to be
found on the prototype, is missing,2) and the solidity of the upper
end is often not promineut. The upper portion of the monolithic,
JOYCE, pl. XXIII, in the British Museum from the Bahamas,
where the blade is perserted, is ground noticeably flat with the
top tapering, the specimen being executed in a natural manner.
The monolithic perserted celts from the Southeastern Stutes
can be classed with those from the West Indies: as they are found
in North America in the Southeastern States that are adjoining the
West Indies, but there in regions separated from each other by
great distances, so that they must have been widespread in this
region.3) Monolithic celts can not be considered as isolated attempts
in these states, any more than in the West Indies. Through
SAVILLE our knowledge of the propagation of monolithic axes
in the region of northern South America and Central America
has been greatly increased.4)
The following perserted monolithic celts from the West Indies
are known to me:
Cuba. MONTANE, Congr. Intern. d'Anthrop. et d'Arch., Monaco
1906, Vol. II.
Fig. II6. Like the rest of MONTANE'S examples, the specimen
is from the caves between Baracoa and Cape Maisi - HARRING­
TON, Cuba before Columbus, P. 60, Fig. 3, in the Montane Museum,
Habana, from a cave at Ovando, in Oriente.
1) HAMY, Ibid., Fig. 127 and 128, "Haches sceptres en jadeite."
2) See A. Short Guide To The American Antiquities, London 1912, Fig. 45, OT
JOYCE, Centro Amer. And West Ind. Arch., PI. XXIII, 4; also those in HAMY,
Ibid., Fig. 124, and FEWKES, PI. XIV, b.
3) See particulars in Chapter V.
4) MARSHALL H. SAVILLE, Monolithic Axes and their Distribution in Ancient
America, Contributions, Heye Found., Vol. 2, NO.5, New York 1916.

Puerto Rico. FEWKES II, figs. 29 and 30.
Espanola. HAMY, Ibid., Vol. II, Figs. I27 and I28, "Haches
sceptres en jadeite" J anico in the province of
Santiago de los Caballeros. - Fig. I24, (in FEWKEs, I, Pl. XIV b.),
Fig. I25. (FEWKES I, Pl. XIV c); SAVILLE, Pl. III, 6, Mus. Amer.
Ind., from the south coast of Santo Domingo, not far to the east
of the city of Santo Domingo; Pl. IV, 4, Peabody Museum, from
Santo Domingo; Plate XI Tr. I233I, San Tomas de Tanilo.
Bahama Is- HAMY. Fig. I23, Hache sceptre en jadeite, Cailands.
cos Island (Nat. Mus. in Washington)l) - DE Booy,
Amer. Anthrop., N. S., Vol. 14, No. I, p. 91, Fig.
3 d. Cave at Juba Point, Island of Providenciales. - FRANK
CUNDALL, Journ. Inst. of Jamaica, Vol. II, 1894, Fig. 7, "found
in a guano cave deposit at Conch Bar, Grand Cakos."
In addition, two specimens whose place of origin is unknown.
HAMY, Fig. I29, Musee du Cinquantenaire, Brussels, (typically
West Indian but with a double cutting-edge.)
British Museum, A Short Guide etc., Fig. 45, (JOYCE, Centro
Amer. And Eest Ind. Arch., Pl. XXXIII, 4).
Guadeloupe. Indian Notes, vol. 4, 1927, Fig. I23.
The North American examples are:
South Carolina. An example mentioned by JONES, citing from
MOORE, Certain Aboriginal Remains Of The Black
Warrior River, J ourn. of the Ac. of Nat. Sciences of Philadelphia,
Vol. XIII, 1905, p. 134.
Tennessee. JOS. JONES, Exploration of the Aboriginal Remains
of Tennessee, Smiths. Contrib., No. 259,
Wash. r876, p. 46, Fig II. (The same as in JONES, Antiquities of
the Southern Indians, p. 280, Pl. XII and described by HAMY in
Congr. Intern. d'Anthrop. et d'Arch. prihist., Monaco 1906, Vol. II,
1) MASO~, The Latimer Collection, Fig. I2; compare p. 373.

I57
p. I61.) Ii'rom the vicinity of Nashville. SAVILLE, Ibid., Pl. 1,2,
from the vicinity of Jonesboro, Polk County.
Also two of flint in MOOREHEAD, The Stone Age, Vol. I, Figs.
16r and 163.
Alabama.
MOORE, Ibid., Fig. 6, from Moundville
Arkansas. JONES, citing from MOORE, Ibid., p. I34. -SAVII;LE,
Ibid., Pl. I, 3, United States lvIusetMn, "found in
the Calvary Mound," in Mississippi County."
11onolithic axes are found in the following localities in South
America and Central America.
The Coast between SAVILLE, Pl. V, I and 2.
Santa 11larta and
Rio Hacha.
lUosquito Coast. SAVILLE, Pl. V, 3,4 and 5. NO.3 is published as
coming from "Honduras", but it is of the same
type as the other two. - SAVILLE, ]1;Ionolithic Axes from Nicaragua,
Indian Notes, Vol. II, No. I, I925, three examples, fig. IS, A-C.
~icaragua High- One example in Gothenburg 1YI useum. - Anoland.
ther in the British AIu,seum, JOYCE, Centro Amer.
And TiTest Ind. Arch., Pl. I, I, Dept. of Chontales.
- SAVILLE, Pl. VII, five examples,
All these different monolithic axes reproduce the different
kinds of hafting occurring in the various regions. The Tainan
examples show perserted celts with pointed butt. Particularly
realistic is the example from Caicos Island with the crest of the haft
well executed. Otherwise the Tainan axes are for the greater
part carelessly conventionalized and are incorrectly proportioned.
The monolithic axes from the Southeastern States show also
perserted celts, both with pointed butt as well as with blunt or
straight form; besides having diversely shaped butts, the are also
unlike as to form.
The examples from Santa Marta show inserted celts.
SAVILLE states that the examples from the Mosquito Coast are
axes. Presumably these axe-blades should be considered as being
T-formed, with the invisible arms bound into a grooved haft. He

also mentions that axe-blades of the same kind as those represented
by the monolithic axes, are found along the Mosquito Coast. The
blades from that coast in the Gothenburg Museum are all celts.
The monolithic examples from the Nicaragua Highland show
an axe with double blades, the incurved neck being pressed into
the haft.
With respect to the distribution of monolithic axes, consideration
should not be given so much to the differrent forms, which
are dependent on axe-blade types and methods of hafting, but
properly to the idea itself which is the representation of a hafted
axe, all in stone.
The big monolithic celt discovered on Guadelope no doubt
is an import. Its origin from one of the Tainan Islands is indicated
by the material used for it, )}hard green stone )}, as well as by
its shape. On the top there is a head, the perserted celt has a
pointed butt, at the bottom of the handle there is a knob to prevent
it from gliding out of the hand, all traits found in Tainan
monolitic celts, or in celts with shafts. I have no record of any
monolithic celt or axe of native origine in the Lesser Antilles. But
here I will call attention to the three kinds of monolithic representations
which, each individually, could be looked upon as
analogous to monolithic axes. The last two of which are only
found on the Lesser Antilles.
The monolithic object, FEWKES I, Pl. XXIII, e, Gabb Collection,
from Santo Domingo, represents a round blade mounted in
the top of a haft which is broader at the top; round this upper end
at the point where the blade enters it, there seems to be a twisted
ligature. FEWKES calls "the spatulate stone", Ibid., j, Lat. CoIl.,
Puerto Rico, the equivalent of the preceding object. I would not
call the "problematical implement", from Guadeloupe, two views
of which are shown by FEWKES II Figs. 24 and 25, equivalent to
the two previously mentioned, although its profile shows similarity
with that from Puerto Rico. FEWKES interprets this specimen
from Guadeloupe as a kind of "grinding implement".l) The two
monoliths from Santo Domingo and Puerto Rico seem to show the
form of a battle-axe with the blade fixed at the upper end, as in the
1) FEWKES II, p. 150.

159
ceremonial axes, with blades of jade, from New Caledonia, except
for the fact that the ligature on the Antillean was not complicated
by two holes in the axe-blade, as is the case in New Caledonia. The
prototype of the almost circular axe-blade in these two monoliths,
moreover, is not known by me from the \Vest Indies.
Another monolithic group resembles, standing in profile, a
macana or boutou, into which a small celt is fixed. I refer to FEW­
KES II. Pl. 7I, C and The Guesde Collection, Fig. 46, both from
Gz(adelmtpe, together with FEWKES II, Pl. 82, A and B, from St.
Kitts. But the similarity is limited to the profile. Where one
would have expected to find a flat upper side to the macana, instead
there is an edge, while on the other hand, the supposed inserted
celt has a flat front-side, instead of an edgeJ) FEWKES II,
P. 7I C, shows that the edge on the upper side of the macana itself
is worn, wherefore the object must have had a practical use.
Nearly related to these is FEWKES II, Pl. 46, C, Fancy, St.
Vincent, made of pumice stone with a little celt fixed into the thick
haft, which is flat in its upper part. This celt also has a flattened
front-side instead of an edge.
As is well-known, at times, the Indians of the coastland of
Guiana had a small celt blade fixed into a handle, which could also
among the Island-Caribs.2). All these tribes, as well as the Tainos,
had clubs of the macana type. It is therefore highly probable
that the Igneris had them.
It seems to me that the question could be asked if a kind of an
anchor-like club type with long handle, is not also to be regarded
as monolithic, for instance FEWKES II, P. 72, B, Guadeloupe,3)
with its long, flat stone shank. Another one from Guadeloupe,
MASON fig. 24, aproximates the following specimen from St. Kitts­
Nevis, excepting that the upper surface is not flattened. No. 4380,
from St. Kitts-Nevis, in the Briggs Collection in the British lViuseztm,
appears as, a heavy monolithic double-club of anchor-form,
with a thick stone handle, diminishing towards the end. The
ends of the axe's blade are not so bent as in the example from
Guadeloupe.
") See cross-section, FEWKES II, PI. 82, B.
2) BRE'I'OX, Op. cit., p. 446.
3) Another, Fig. 72, A, Guadeloupe, is more or less worn and broken.

60
These anchor-like monolithic double clubs with stone handle
from the Lesser Antilles have nothing to do with anchor axes
of the Ges tribes with their shank inserted into the handle.
Ihom the above it will appear that a connecting bridge for
monolithic axes can be established over the Lesser Antilles.
Moreover, it is hardly presumable that a phenomenon so unique,
as are monolithic axes, should have been developed independently
in two different localities. Of course, the Southeastern States
have had oversea relations with the Tainan islands. There
must have been communication by sea between Santa Marta and
the Mosquito Coast. Before their conquest by the Caribs, communication
with South America was carried on over the chain of
I,esser Antillean islands., resulting in secondary cultural influences
that can be traced back to Colombia, the land of their origin. This
gives us occasion to consider the occurrence of monolithic axes as
a geographical unitary phenomenon. It becomes far more difficult
to answer the question where the idea, to make such objects first
originated.
Distribution to the regions near the southwestern Caribbean
Sea appears to have been along the coast. Santa Marta was an
Indian centre of importance. The Mosquito Indians have always
been capable navigators in canoes and could make raids on the
neighbouring tribes. The district in the highland of Nicaragua
where the Nicaraguan type of monolithic axe is found, borders on
the low coastland of the Mosquitos; for that matter, the Nicaraguan
type is also found along the coasU) 'The Indians of the highland
regions of the interior must have gotten the idea of making
monolithic axes from the coast. No monolithic axes are found in
the Mexican cultures. It is likely therefore, that the Indians of
the Mosquito Coast, who are culturally developed only in a low degree,
got the idea from the South by way of the coast. Monolithic
axes are not found in the higher, cultures in the Andean region of
Colombia. Santa Marta must have obtained the idea through her
connections along the coast.
\Vith regard to the question of priority within the two northern
regions, it seems to me that there are more grounds for think-
I) JOYCE, Centro Amer. And West Indian. Arch., p. 18.

161
ing that it appeared first in the complex of the late cultures of
higher development in the Southeastern States rather than among
the Tainos. But that can not yet be proved with exactitude. The
higher cultures of this group of states were superior to the Tainan.
Moreover INhere the late North American elements can be established
archaeologically on the Greater Antilles, a certain precision
is manifested and the artistic superiority lies with the Sontheastern
States. Such must also have been the case with monolithic
celts. An example so artistically perfected as MOORE'S from
Moundville is vvithout counterpart either in the \Vest Indies, or any
other place. The cultural region of the Southeastern States was
also greater territorially. It was situated at a distance from the
\Vest Indies, and as a matter of fact really first began in northwestern
Florida and southern Alabama. 'l'ainan cultural elements only
reached the parts of North America nearest to the Tainan islands,
the semi-tropical section of Florida, in particular. These elements
are such that they only satisfy tropical requirements. The climate
and nature are not tropical where the higher cultures are
predominant in the Southeastern States. Tainan stone sculpture
has had no influence on this group of states, moreover. In such
a case, the only exception wonld have been monolithic axes. Therefore,
I am of the opinion that monolithic axes were first made
in the Southeastern States, and that the idea crossed from there
to the Tainan islands, also that it reached South America by way
of the arc of Antillean Islands, where it advanced by sea along
the coast of the Caribbean Sea; then passing over Santa Marta,
it came to the Mosquito Coast, and from there penetrated some
distance into the interior of Nicaragua.
SAVILLE believes that monolithic axes had religious significance
in the Southeastern States, especially with the burial of the
dead. He cites a case from Humphrey County, Tennessee, "in
the center of the stone grave district". "The ceremonial character
of the cache is indicated by the general occurrence of its objects in
pairs, among which were two examples of monolithic axe."l) He
also states that in the burial mound at Black \Varrior River,
South Carolina, where Jones' monolithic axe was found, lay two skel-
11
1) op. cit., p. 1.

etons, male and female, the first with the axe under the head. But
in the Southeastern States, the axe can not be considered altogether
as the customary burial property, placed in the grave for
the use of the deceased in the other world. \Vhen the axes in the
grave lie in a circle with the edges turned outwards, the grave is
magically protected from the attacks of evil spirits.
HAlVlY'S hvo axes from Janico and the example from San Tomas
de Tanilo must also have had religious significance. At the
top they have a backwards-looking ape-like face, resembling those
that are found in the Tainan pottery. There is a North American
specimen,l) which has also a face, even though it faces towards the
edge. The three axes from Santo Domingo have to a certain extent
the character of idols, an impression that is not lessened by the
fact that one of them, HAMS, Fig. I28, can be stood upright.
Still, the religious significance of the axe must have been of a
different kind among the Tainos, than in the Southeastern States.
It is likely that it entered into the zemiistic ceremonies.
Eng-raYed Celts. Certain examples of petaloid celts have human faces
engraved or carved on their surface, or an entire
figure is represented.
St. Thomas.
FEWKES, II, Pl. 88, C, (Berlin).
Espafiola. JOYCE, Prell. Antiq1tities from the Antilles, in the
British Jluseum, Pl. IV, [-4. Figs [ and 3 according
to positive information, while the two others approximate
them in form and presentation. - FEWKES, 1. Pl. XV, a, (Merino
Collection), Santo Domingo. - 1"EwKES II, Pl. 88, B, Rep. of
Haiti (Berlin) - FEWKES, Engraved Celts from the Antilles, Fig. 4,
a "dirk", (Heye Mus.); a "dirk" from Santo Domingo, Blackmore
Jf1tSMtm, S'alisbury. - Pl. III, I, from Santo Domingo (Nat. :.Ius.,
Copenhagen) .
Cuba.
FEWKES 1, PI. XV, B, (Santiago Museum)
1) Ibid., PI, I, 6.

Bahamas. DE Booy, Lucayan Artifacts from the Bahamas,
Amer. Anthrop., N. S., Vol. 15, 1913, p. 6, fig. 5.
In addition there are two which are only marked "from the
Antilles." These are FEWKES I, Plate XII, I, Mus. du Cinquantenaire,
in Brussels and XII, 2 Mus. Tr. Both are to be assigned to
the Tainan culture.
The extent of the human form represented on the axes varies;
as a general rule we can distinguish the entire body, the knees
being drawn up, but also sometimes only the head and arms are
represented. Dirks are found in Espanola only. FEWKES also calls
attention to the fact that the figure on CHARLEVOIX'S map of Espanola,
dated 1731, represents a dirk. The edge of the celt is usually
located below the figure. The two celts from Espanola, both
with claw-like feet!) and in which it is placed above, are exceptions,
as are also are the two marked "Antilles", that are in the Trocadero
and Musee du Cinquantenaire.
Two representations of figures made of greenstone and coming
from the Bahamas, resemble engraved celts but are completely
perfected idols, seeing that in place of a cutting-edge below there
is a little notch so that two short legs appear.2)
Two axes are not really figure-axes but have at the point a
head that is turned backwards. The one, which has a human head
and arms, is from Maisi, Cuba,a) while Pl. III, 2, with the head
of an animal is from Santo Domingo. Otherwise boath are of
different types.
In the West Indies figure-axes belong entirely to the Tainan
islands. That such objects have not been found on Puerto Rico
up to the present time may be accidental, all the more so as one
has been found on St. Thomas.
That figure-axes had a zemiistic significance among the Tainos
is evident from similarities in the representation of the figure to
the stone masks, which FEWKES pointed out from Santo Domingo.4)
As has been previously stated, there are plazas that have pillar
stones, occasionally in the form of an axe, carved with zemiistic
1) Plate III, r, and FEWKES II, PI. 88, B.
2) MoOREHEAD, ap. cit., Fig. 223 band c.
3) FEWKES II, PI. 93, E, and HARRINGTON, ap. cit., Fig. 2.
4) FEWKES, II, p. 184--186 and Plates 93 and 94.

faces. The male character of the axe-zeml appears plainly in
Plate III, I.
The pedigree of the figure-axe is of ancient origin in Mexico,
wherefrom it radiated in different directions and even made its
way to the 1'ainos on the northern Greater Antilles and Bahamas,
which is precisely the region in \vhich the 1'ainan culture reached
its highest development and where the Mexican influences are most
discernible. Its appearance in Mexico dates from archaic times.1)
These archaic figures are unqualified, like the 1'ainan. In a remote
period of time there was fashioned in Mexico an idol-form
with two short legs separated by a groove,2) like the two previously
cited specimens from the Bahamas. l

ability is increased because the conception among the jibaros
of Puerto Rico and also the rural population of Oriente in Cuba,
that stone celts were piedras del rayol) or thunderbolts, was of
Indian origin on these islands, although the same idea was found
among negroes and Spanish colonists.
Polished stone-idols resembling axes, likewise of greenstone,
have been given as votive gifts in Mexico to the mountain and
rain gods.2) However, as far as I know nothing has come to light
in the Greater Antilles that would justify such a conclusion.
The Grinding Thick round celts from the Lesser Antilles occasionally
had butts that were ground perfectly flat,
of Butt until
Flat. the result being a broad surface. In the British
Museum several such celts are found, such as
111 I IOI from Trinidad, and three specimens, "presented by
Hon. A. Gordon, 1870, M I 105 (I.ucayan Valley), M I 92 and
::vI: I 231 all from St. Vincent. In the Gothenburg Museum is
found a similar specimen from Grenada, 22.6.49, of andesite, and
two from St. Vincent, namely 22.6.89 of porphyry and IS6 of lava.
Conclusions about
the Distribution
of Celts in the
~West Indies.
The investigation of the occurrence of celts
in the West Indies resulted in the following
conclusions, which I will state concisely:
I. The celt is the oldest form of axe in the West Indies. This
would follow from the peCUliarity of its geographical distribution.
It is to be considered as predominant on the most remote islands,
Cuba (only with sporadic exceptions) and Jamaica; beside shellaxes
the only form of axe in the Lucayan Islands; as predominant
on Espanola, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands; and as the
normal type for cutting on St. Kitts-Nevis.
It can be shown in rich abundance on the volcanic Lesser
A ntilles not only made from native material of various kinds of
lava, but also from the fine-grained, hard, durable old-crystalline
rock of foreign origin.
") FEWKES I, p. 94; HARRINGTON, Op. cit., p. 30 cites RODRIGUEZ FERRER.
2) SELER, Die Ausgrabungen des Haupttempels von Mexico. Ges. Abh. II, p.
852 and fig. 50.

66
In Barbados, where there are other geological conditions,
petaloid celts of nephrite were imported to supplement the far
more numerous shell-celts, but on the other hand, there was hardly
an importation of the lava axes that were so characteristic of the
near by Lesser Antilles.
The celt was always predominant among the Arawaks on
Trinidad, even when their pottery was very highly developed.
Only in rare instances can it be shown that other types had entered
there.
Passing over to the mainland, the Arawaks of the litoral of
Glliana had come into a region with influences from the regions
of the western Amazon and Ecuador, which were only slightly
felt in the West Indies.
Celts can be shown to have dominated in the archaic culture
around Lake Tacarigzta and on Cura~ao and Aruba. Celts occur at
Hato Vie/o, dep. Falcon, Venezuela.
In the far more highly developed Chibcha-culture in the high
basins of the Eastern Cordilleras of Colombia, the celt is likewise
predominant, although in smaller quantity.
II. There are reasons for the probability that the ancestors of
the T ainos bYO'ught only celts with them when they emigrated from
the north coast of Smtih America to the Antilles.
Here I cite the same reasons as in mmn. I, but particularly
that the celt is found universally throughout the entire \Vest
Indies, where it predominates not only in the North, but also on
Trinidad and Barbados. I )
I II. The difference between almond-shaped celts and flat celts
is chiefly a l1~atter of material. Nevertheless there are certain things
which indicate that the ancestors of the Tainos emigrated from the
mainland at a time when generally speaking, there were only celts
with pointed or rounded butts, and they did not take the trouble to cut
or grind off the rather superflumls butt.
In the archaic cultures in South America around Lake T a­
cariglta and also on Cura;ao and Aruba as well as in the Chibcha
culture a quantity of celts with blunt points have found. Evidently
these cultures lasted into the period of discovery. In
") Moreoyer I knmv of celts from Tobago, but not of one single axe.

the West I nd£es, the specimens with blunt points on the Lesser
Antilles in the South are of material of andesite and occasionally
it is not unusual to find them of old-crystalline rock. I ) It would
seem that those with a blunt point were most common on the
islands furthest south and in closest proximity to the mainland,
and that they became scarcer the further "forward" we advanced.
Now, if the celts on the Greater Antilles were made only
of neprithe, this circumstance would have been less peculiar,
for the hardness and toughness of that kind of rock makes
the grinding away of a somewhat superfluous apex an arduous
work. In whatever place in the world celts of nephrite or of
similar material have been found, all have the same tendency
to be almond-shaped. On the Greater Antilles the celt has a
pointed butt, no matter ,,,,hat kind of hard, tough rock it is made
from.
IV. Also, there are certain grounds that allow us to suppose
that the c~tstom of c~ttting off or grinding away the b1dt of the celt
gradually spread from the mainland of South America northward
into the islands. The butt which was ground until flat must have
arrived there last of all. This can only be shown as far north as
St. Vincent.
A peculiar stage in the development of the upper end of the
celt is the type with a bent butt. It was pointed out first of all
by MASON in a specimen from G1tadeloupe. 2) Mason also called
attention to the similarity of form with the shell blades. He
supposes the possibility, that the idea had occurred to the Indians
not to strike off the bent butt at the time of its manufacture.
Nevertheless the type does not seem to be accidental, nor a characteristic
peculiar to Guadeloupe, as since then FEWKES has
illustrated a celt with a bent butt from Grenada. 3 )
1) Gothenburg klusew/11, Nos. 22. 6. 64, 65, 66 and 67 of volcanic rock and
22. 6. 7I of sandstone or quartzite, from Grenada and 22. 6. Io6 of lava,
22. 6. 9I of lava. 22. c,. 110 of jadeite, 22. 6. I27 of lava rock with its cuttingedge
somewhat displaced, 22. 6. IS7 of lava with the underside ground flat, 22. 6.
I67 of lava with an oblique cutting-edge. Furthermore I will refer to the specimens
which have been mentioned previously.
2) The Guesde Collection, Fig. 15.
3) FEWKES II, PI. 9, A, H.

168
V. Another thing, very typical of the Lesser Antilles, is that
the celts often have an 'Under side that is gro'Und flat. I can explain
this circumstance in no other way, than that here we are dealing
with adzes. Now if in addition the blade is curved longitudinally
like the cited specimen from St. Croix, the inferences are increased.
I Melanesia, the adze is bound (usually above) or inserted
into a knee-shaped handle. In North America there was an applied
hafting with knee-shaped handle. MOOREHEAD, Vol. I, fig.
232 pictures a recent specimen coming from the Indians of the
Northwest. Moreover, the region for the knee-shaped handle on
the South American continent is situated far from the \Vest Indies
and it can not be proved that it advanced as far as to the Caribbean
Sea. According to P. \VILHELM SCHMIDT it included Peru,
Ecuador, the northern part of the upper Amazon and Cayary­
Uaupes.1) Several types among the thick adze-blades described
by GLADYS NOlVIl,AND and found at Rato Viejo, Venezuela, indicates
also-that they must have been bound above a knee-shaped
handle. But none of these types passed over into the Antilles.
In Brit. Guiana ROTH came accross adzes that merely are perserted
or inserted celts arranged "by the simple device of shifting
the handle fixation from a vertical to a horizontal plane". Adzes
hafted in such a way he knew previously from Queensland. 2 ) The
Mexican codices picture the adzes of the pulque gods as perserted.
In the Lesser Antilles adzes do only occur as celts with the
under side ground flat. Such a celt is also G. ':\I. 27.7.33, Brit.
Guiana. It is quite probable that the adapting of celts into adzes
reached the Lesser Antilles from northeastern South America,
and that the hafting remained to be inserted or perserted similar
to that in Brit. Guiana.
1) Z. E. 1013, p. 1082. Cayal,),-Uaupes see KOCH-GRi'XHERG, Zwei Jahre
etc" Part I, p 350, Fig, 225. There are in the Gothenburg Jluseum two example
whose blades are bound to knee-shaped hafts, The blade of one of these is iron
that of the other, as preyionsly mentioned, is of wood, It is interesting that the
wooden blade is planed flat on the underside, These axes \,-ere brought by XOR­
DEKSKliiLIJ from the Qucchuas, who still use them yery commonly, The modern
one with the iron blade has a counterpart in the M. f. V., which is old and has
a copper blade; it was found in Pachacamac. See KRICKEBERG, Fig, I54 b, in
RCSCHA~, Ill. V6lkerkunde, Vol. I, Sec. Edition.
2) A rts and Crafts, sect. 12.

169
Celts with 0 b 1 i que e d g e are met within the range of the
Lesser Antilles as far north as to St. Croix, but on the contrary
I know of none that have been found in the Greater Antilles.
In the same manner an overlapping edge belong to axes from
the Lesser Antilles.
The relation to South America is shown clearly in the forms
of the axes with incurved neck, with or without raised butt,
"wings'',!) or neck-groove, and with the sides either curved or
rectilineally radiating, which in many variations, their characteristics
differently combined and developed, were found in the
soil of the volcanic southern Lesser Antilles. They have their
prototypes in the Andean regions of Colombia, or still further
away in Ecuador. 'the difficulty lies in finding the ways in which
these reached the Lesser Antilles.
Although these axe forms which in the Lesser Antilles were
made of andesite, did not spread to the Great Antilles in which
more recent eruptive rock is scarce, we notice in the celts of the
North certain detailes, characteristic of the axes of the Lesser
Antilles. This influence is less prominent the more we advance
towards the northeast. The last traces are found in Espai'iola2)
and Cuba.3) The axe, in the types just described, in the West
Indies is characteristic of the volcanic southern Lesser Antilles
where, so far as I know, they occur without exception only in material
of young volcanic rock.
The grooved neck is a characteristic which really belongs to
axes. This is probably connected with the fact that they were
mounted in cleft handles (the axe pressed into a haft split open at
the top and the two parts thus formed bound together with a
ligament). When the celt was driven directly through a wooden
handle, there was no need of a groove. If celts have grooves,
these must be the result of an influence from the notched axes,
possibly in consequence of the method of mounting in cleft handle
with a ligament. This seems to be demonstrated also by the
1) IM THURN'S "winged types". See Notes On West Ind. Stone Impl. Timehri,
Vol. II, Part II and in Journ. of the Anthrop. Inst., Vol. XVI, p. 194.
2) Several exampler in Mus. du Trocadero.
3) HARRINGTON, Op. cit., Fig. 27, Valle de Guamacaro, near Matunzas, Fig.
II 0, Mesa Abajo, near Maisi, Fig. II I, Banes, near Holguin.

170
geographical distribution of grooved celts. 'fhey are entirely
lacking on the most distant islands, Jamaica and the Bahamas,
to which the grooved axe never reached. Even in the Lesser
Antilles only a few grooved celts are found.
The grooved \Vest Indian celts that I know are
the following:
St. Vincent. FEWKES II. Pl. I9, G, stands with its raised
butt a specimen showing transition to the axe;
also Pl. 20, B. whose apex is provided with a small notch; JOYCE,
Centro Amer. }Vest. Ind. Arch., fig. 57, C.
Dominica. One in the British Museum, HE""RY MARSHAN,
3.77, L. 9 1/4 cm., greatest breadth of the blade
61/ 4 cm. Breadth over the groove 51/4 cm. Comparatively proportionately
broad with a blunt butt.
Guadeloupe. One in the Guesde Collection in the National
l'vhtseum, Copenhagen, somewhat proportionately
broad with blunt butt. L·ength I4 cm., greatest breadth of the
blade 8 1 / 4 cm.
St. Thomas.
St. Croix.
Puerto Rico.
A specimen in the Nat. 1\;htseum, Copenhagen,
Pl. IV,S.
DE Booy, Arch. Virgin Islands, Fig. 29.
MASO"" , The Latimer Collection., Fig. I6.
Santo Domingo. FEWKES I, 1)1. XIII, h, the back near the groove
being raised.
\Vhen I speak of later foreign influences in the grooved celts
of the Antilles and bring them into relation with the grooved axe
because of their South American origin, I do naturally not mean
that grooved celts could not have exist at all, without such relation.
For they are found ill many parts of the world and in regions
where every sort of grooved axe is unknown. They were
even found in Sweden, made of diorite.l )
1) ::\fOXl'ELIUS, Kulturgeschichte Schwedens, p. 28-29. Fig. 4Ci. "Steinaxt mit
Vertiefung fiir den Stiel", Dohusliin.

I7 I
Axes. The general type of the notched axe is characteristic
for America; but the notches are not indispensable,
as projections may be of the same practical value
for the hafting. I)
In what precedes, I have shown that the celt with pointed
or rounded butt is the oldest form in the \Vest Indies, and that
axe-types came there at a later time and through influences
from South America. Now even if the celt is a very old form
in America, and the only one known originally to the ancestors of
the Tainans, still there is no reason for any assumption but that
the axe also, especially the type with the raised btdt, must have
been a very old form there also. Indeed, its geographical extension
warrants this belief.
::Vloreover as everything, not taking into account the conditions
of indigenous development, indicates that notched axes
reached the Antilles from the South, I will summarize concerning
Nor t hAm e ric a in a few words, although I never have had
the opportunity of studying any great quantity of material from
there. BEUCHA'r mentions what RIVET designates as "haches a
gorge", as general west of the ::V1ississippi2) but this is giving too
narrow a limit to their extension, as they have also been found in
the states east of this river. It is a well-known fact they are
often found in the Atlantic States particularly in New England,
but even as far south as North Carolina. Frequently they are
large notched axes with a raised butt and a blade with sides converging
against the cutting edge, so that this is not so broad as
the butt; this is a form very characteristic for Oregon3) but also
J) I know analogies in the Old 'World only from KAHUN, Egypt. Brit. ivIus.
A Guide To The Stone Age, p. IIO, Figs. II3 & II4- In Egypt this type is "at·
trilJUted to the twelfth dynasty (about 2450--2250 B. C.)." It exists in the same
place in lmmze also. See in addition \v. M. FLI:-mERS PETRIE, Tools and TVeapons,
London 1()17. PI. II, IV, V, VII. The Peruvian T-form axe stands nearest to
the Egyptian. See also ERI,AND NORDENSKIOLD, The Copper and Bronze Age in
South America, Gothenburg I921, p. 154 cites Flinders Petrie. In Gothenburg Museum,
there are four bronze axes of four different types, from 'reben all of which are
represented in Andean South America. One axe has a typical T-form. The others
haye their counterparts in stone also, in South America and the I,esser AntiHer.
2) 114 anuel etc. p. 133.
3) Representatiyc axes from Oregon are found in the Ward Collection, Mus.
£. Vi:ilkcrk., Berlin.

172
for Wisconsin, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky as well
as for the New England States including Maine.
As general rule the axe with raised butt, neck and groove
is to be considered as "perserted", the same as the celt. But
while the celt usually passes through a hole in the haft that remains
in one piece, in this type of axe the neck or the groove is
held fast in the fold of a superimposed osier and has a ligature
underneath, or is fixed in a cloven handle with the parts strongly
united by means of a firm binding. In this connection I wish to
say that I regard as misleading and ambiguous the expression
"lashed to a handle", which MASON uses.
I will willingly concede that hafting with osiers is particularly
suitable for the treeless lands of the Great Basin in North
America, as well as for the great punas in South America, 1)
where proper wood for handles is lacking, and probably it was
necessary to adapt the type of axe to a haft made by binding
it securely between willow-twigs, which could be found along the
water-courses. Imposing notched axes with raised butt and groove
for binding and made of coarse-grained volcanic stones are to be
found in these two regions, that lie so far apart and yet rather
similar morphologically. Often these axes are so alike that it is
difficult to decide whether the specimen originated in Oregon or
Puna de Jujuy.
Nevertheless the notched axe did not reach the West Indies
in precisely the same form that is found in the great highlands.
The only example that can be placed in this category is Plate
IV, 3, from St. Croix.
The type that reached the volcanic Lesser Antilles and was
further developed there, was of an entirely different sort, as a
rule of a thinner cross-section, with rounded blade and cutting
edge and generally with curved butt that frequently ends in
"wings." Because of the thinness which predominates throughout,
the butt, in many cases, is no more raised than the blade. If the
posterior part of the axe is distinctly elevated above a blade without
neck, then FEWKES uses the term "axe with cap".2)
') Axes in the Mus. f. Volkerk., Berlin, from Puna de Jujuy and the salt-axe
of NORDENSKIOLD that has been already mentioned.
2) FEWKES II, p. 100.

173
In judging the method of hafting, the presence of a round
butt and "wings" is of decisive importance. There can be no question
of lashing the axe to a groove in a handle when there is a
rounded butt. This way of hafting, on the other hand, in connection
with the axe with marginal notches, has spread far over the
lowlands of the upper Amazon. An old man among the Tsoloas 1 )
in the region beyond the Apaporis, described this method of
hafting to KOCH-GRiTNBERG.~) Veritable axes with marginal
notches are not found in the work of KOCH-G-RUNBERG, but on
the other hand, types which because of their form make possible
the use of the method of hafting just described.3 ) He cites the
one w£th truncated butt, a notch at each side or also with a shallow
encircling groove for hafting as the usual form of axe of Cayary­
Uaupes.4) Surely the region must represent different cultural
stages and influences from various directions. Still appears to
exist in that locality tribes with ancient custom from the period
of si'mple celts, such as the Tschiuaiaxpu, who use celts as instruments
for dancing.5) Into this region also types with thin crosssection,
rounded butt and curved sides and cutting-edge succeeded
in making their ,yay; these apparently can be traced back to the
same land from which the same class of axes advanced to the
I{esser Antilles, although somewhat changed in the regions through
which they passed. 6 )
Moreover there must have been many kinds of hafting used
in the Cayary-Uaupes region. Previously knee-shaped hafting
has been mentioned from P. \V. SCEVIID1' and KOCH-GRUNBERG.
In addition, the axe-blades just described and which recall the
types of the Antilles are not fitted for the kind of hafting that the
old Tsoloa described to KocH-GRli"NBERG.
It seems to me that the land from which the axe with a rela-
') A BE'toya tribe.
2) Zwei Zahre etc .. Vol II, p. 274-275. Compo NORDENSKIOI,D'S description
of the hafting of a Huachipairi-axe, Ymer 1905. Vol. 3, p. 18.
3) KOCH-GRtc\BERG. Ibid., Vol. I, Fig. 95 and Vol. II, fig. 52.
4) Ibid., Vol. II. p. 90.
5) See the first four in the bottom row, Ibid., Vol. II, p. 90.
G) See ibid., Vol. II, p. 90; in Fig. 95 of Vol. I, farthest to the right also
there is a specimen with atl axe-cutting-edge which recalls the types of the Lesser
Antilles.

I74
tively thin cross-section and rounded butt, with or without "wings"
or predisposition to them originated and then reached the Lesser
Antilles can be identified. It might well be the valley of the
Cattca.
Nevertheless I will not enter into a discussion of the question
of whether the type originated in the region just named, or in
different regions of South America. I will merely mention here
that in certain sambaquis along the coast of Santa Catarina, types
of axes with thin cross-section, curved blade and more or less
rounded butt can be found.l ) But I can give no facts that indicate
that the type advanced from that region to the Antilles.
DALTON and RIVET have demonstrated the similarity of type
in axes between Ecuador and the Antilles. Later on we will deal
with these purely Peruvian-Ecuadorean types, which existed also
in the West Indies, as was first shown by DALTON.2) In this connection,
it might be interesting to know that he cites as common
and general types, those with round butt3) or the depression at
the butt.4) Nevertheless I cannot agree that I, h. 5 ) is a Antillean
type, strictly speaking.
Of RIVET'S6) "haches a gorge complete" from Ecuador, Pl.
XIV, Fig I, La Tola, made of serpentine with rounded neck
but with straight sides converging against the cutting-edge
(that is, in just this feature not Antillean) and fig. 5, Laguna
de Minas with slightly rounded butt, curving sides and widely
swung cutting-edge,7) can be cited as types with Antillean relationship.
It is also of interest that RIVET also called special
attention to a type with strongly rounded butt in the United
States. 8) On the other hand serious confusion will result, if we
follow RIVET when he brings together under the designation "la
hache a oreilles" axes that require such different haftings as the
') Collection in the Museum f. Viilkerk .. Berlin.
2) An Ethnographical Collection from Ecuador, Journ. of the Anthrop. lnst.
Vol. XXVII. London I902.
3) Ibid., Fig. I, j. (Quito).
4) 1. d (Coyambe).
5) Quero near Riobamba.
6) R. VERNEAU et P. RIVET, Ethnographie ancienne de rEquateur, Paris I9I2.
') An andesite axe from Guadeloupe. Fig. e, Tr. 5666 is cited for comparison.
8) Fig. 6, Newport, Kentucky.

175
"winged types" with rounded butt of the Lesser Antilles on the
one hand, and on the other hand, the T -shaped Peruvian axe
and the axes with marginal notches from the Upper Amazon.
\Vith respect to the \Vest Indies, this confusion is plainly seen
when RIVET places side by side types from the Lesser Antilles and
a T-form axe from Jamaica. 1 )
\Vhen we search out what extension the above-mentioned
types with affinity to the I,esser Antilles could have in Andean
Ecuador, vve find the veritable area of distribution in the northernmost
part of this country. Above all things, axes with halebard
edge are characteristic of the North. Nevertheless RIVET'S specimen
from I,a Tola has sides that converge towards the cuttingedge.
But in the Copenhagen Museum there are three axes
vdth diverging sides, namely Pl. V, I, 4, & 5, from Angel, that
is, close to the boundary of Colombia. Only in Figs. I and 5
are the sides and the cutting-edge somewhat curved. Fig. 4 has
straight sides with a broad, curved cutting-edge. The rather
wide butts make it seem probable that hafting with lashing
was used, perhaps in a vertically grooved haft, especially for
Fig. 5, which has moderately long arms.2) There are axes of the
same types in the Brit. Mus., Whymper's CoIl., Nos. 295 & 271,
Otovalo.
A specimen in the British Museum which comes from Quero
near Riobamba (No. 1599), has a decidedly rounded butt without
any predisposition tovmrds wings, very deep groove and beautifully
rounded blade and cutting-edge. DALTON'S specimen
from Quito also, has a rounded butt. In fact, the round butt
seems to be rather characteristic of the central part of Andean
Ecuador. Herein should lie some connection with Colombia, but
because of lack of material it can not be demonstrated. Yet the
connection seems broken off by the predominance of types with
clearly square butts in northern Ecuador.
Marked similarities to the Lesser Antilles types are very
eyidellt when I've pass over to Colombia, especially in the valley
of the Ca%ca.
1) Ibid., p. 154
2) A beautiful T-fonn stone axe from Angel, Copenhagen )vluseum, o. 1364.
inuicates that hafting by lashing waS used in this region.

'l'he axes from Ikuador differentiate from those of the Antilles,
most particularly, through their predominating thick crosssection.
The reason for this is that in this country there were
hard, tough and resistant rock that could not be easily cracked.
FlatT-shaped axes, therefore, could only be produced by slow
grinding. Taken as a general rule, the thick cross-section is
observed in Colombia. But as a common thing the Colombian
axes are ground flatter and not so round as those of Ecuador.
Lpon the whole, the principal type found in the northern
part of Ecuador with the relatively straight butt can be traced
back to Colombia, only in the latter country the blade is more
ronded, as can be seen in Plate V, 2. In the Copenhagen Museum
it is not included among the number of those found in the
excavations in the region of Manizales, but like the Colombian
collection of this museum in general, must have come from the
Cauca Valley about, ill the region between :;Vlanizales and Antioquia.
From this same region, perhaps somewhat further to the
North, came the Cauca specimens that are in the ),lus. f. Volkerk.
of Berlin. There also, are to be found axes of the type mentioned
as coming from the northern part of Ecuador. Two axes with
long, rounded blades that come from the region of Cartago and
are of the same sort as shown by UHLE, Kult. und Ind., Vol. I,
Pl. I3, Fig. I4, Pasto, Cauca, are very interesting indeed; one of
them has a butt that is broken off flat, but the other has a short,
round butt with a predisposition towards "wings" and a very
slender neck, so that it resembles the Guadeloupe group, preferably
the type of Fig. 48 of the Guesde Collection.
The wide, rounded butts also appear in the Colombian axes,
together with the curved blade and cutting-edge. In the Gothenburg
Museum there are two of these.l ) Unfortunately, as there
were no records kept in the year r87"1, when the collection
was presented by the Colombian Nicolas Pereira Gamba, it is not
possible to obtain more exact information as to the place of its
origin.
So long as there are such considerable gaps in the archaeology
of northern Colombia and Venezuela, it will remain uncertain how
1) Nearest in type to JliIASOX, Guesde Collection, Figs. 92, 98, 99, 100, etc.
although they are without raised butt and grooyed neck.

177
the axe with the rounded blade advanced from the Cauca Valley
to the Lesser Antilles. We must set aside the Orinoco route which
is still uninvestigated. I thought of these axes in connection
with those mentioned by KOCH-GRUNBERG, which suggest that
types with rounded blade and cutting-edge as well as rounded butt,
had made a way at least into the lowlands. But I doubt very
much if their origin lies in Andean Colombia. Their type shows
a striking resemblance to the specimen British Museum, No.
I599, from the region of Riobamba.
According to the collection in the M. f. V., Berlin, the Chibchas,
as has already been said, have truly shown themselves as
representatives of the celt stage. However, one axe is seen here
which is of the same type as the cited specimen in the Copenhagen
Museum, shown in Pl. V, 2. VICENTE RESTREPO publishes
three celts that are relatively long, ground moderately flat with
straight sides which diverge slightly and butts only weakly
rounded. 1 ) But he also pictures two other axes, Pl. XXXVIII,
I07 and Io8. Fig. Io8 is the less interesting of these and with its
thick, almost circular blade is an Ecuadorean type that is unknown
in the Antilles. Fig. I07 shows a greater Antillean affinity.2)
The few axes from the mountainous country in northwestern
Venezuela I am acquainted with because of their greater flatness
and thinner cross-section approximate to those from the southern
Antilles more than do the Colombian types.
A reaction from the Lesser Antilles is shown in the attempt
to imitate the bird of prey-heads in the "wings". It is noteworthy
that this influence was felt to the Westward as far as Lake
Tacarigua. It can be seen that the bird of prey-heads in the axe
Pl. V, 3, Varinas near Valencia, must have been intended. Nevertheless
this axe preserves a South American form by the straight
butt, which the "heads" do not excede.
In type this axe stands near M. f. V. Berlin, V A. IIo95,
Cumana. Yet it has not well marked "wings", the neck is more
reduced and the cutting-edge is oblique.
12
1) All. Arq., PI. XXXVIII, IOg-III.
2) Compare with The Guesde Coli. preferably with Fig. 25.

Still greater resemblance to the southern Lesser Antilles is
noted in two axes from "Guanaco, Estado Sucre,!) Venezuela",
now in Berlin. V. A. I4060,2) found in a shell-heap, has between
the heads the depression that is, indeed, the distinctive mark of
the southern Lesser Antillean axes. Among the published axes,
types similar to this, are for the greater part, mostly from St.
Lucia. The nearest approaching it is seen in 1M THURN, Timehri,
Vol. II, Call. Rousselet, St. Lucia, Pl. 6, jig. 2, or SPITZLY, 1. A. E.
Vol. III, Pl. XVIII, 7, St. Lucia. Moreover the large axe. V A
I4069,3) that was found in a cave, could be from one of the southern
Lesser Antilles. If it once had "wings", they are now destroyed.
Among-types that have been published it approximates nearest to
SPITZLY, Ibid., jig. 4, St. Vincent.
The leading type of axe that issued from the north Andean
region, followed the coast also, passed by Trinidad and reached
the coast land of British Guiana, where it occurs sporadically.
In the British Museum there are two axes that are exactly alike,
which were "dug out of a kitchen midden of vVarreimuri, Morruca
River, Boundary between Venezuela and British Guiana."4) These
very broad axes with straight sides diverging in a direction towards
the cutting-edge and with "wings" only slightly indicated,
are rather like Fig. 23 of the Guesde Collection, except for the
fact that in the axes from Guiana the butt is somewhat rounded
and a tendency towards bird-bills is lacking. Another axe, No.
8778,5) Guiana, Pres. by Dr. J. M. FOSTER, with its broad butt
1) I was not in a position to be able to localize this name. The typical
similarity of these axes to those of the southern Lesser Antilles does not permit
us to search for the source of their origin at a too great distance from these islands.
I am inclined to consider the coast of the Paria Peniusula as the original
home of these two axes. We are told that one of them was found in a shellheap,
the other in a cave.
2) The length, reckoned from the depression is 10 cm., the width of neck
5 cm., maximum width at the beginning of the cutting-edge 8 cm.
3) Length 22 Yo cm., width of butt 10 Yo cm., (the butt is broken off at the
sides), width of neck 9 Yo cm., maximum width at the beginning of the cuttingedge
15 Yo cm. The sides of the blade run straight.
4) L. 12 cm., width of butt 10 Yo cm., w. of neck 5\'2 cm., max. w. at beginning
of cutting-edge 8 Yo cm.
5) L. 9 cm., w. of butt 4 cm., w. of neck 31/2 cm., w. at beginning of cuttingedge
5 Yo cm.

I79
belongs to the same type as the previously mentioned axe from
Cumawl, even if the neck is less marked and the cutting-edge not
so oblique. They suggest each other by their flatness, size and
form.
It is probable also that the obliquely ground cutting-edge Oflginated
in Ecuador.
A cutting-edge ground very oblique, like DALTON, Fig. I g,
"Olallo near Quito", is found in Ecuador. As far as I know, this
does not occur in axes from Colombia or I •. Tacarigua but, on the
other hand, in the axe from Cumana recently cited. On the Lesser
Antilles it is not so extremely oblique. I) In place of this, in the
southernmost Lesser Antilles the straighter side has, as it were,
forced the cutting-edge to displace the other side, which thereby
becomes concave.2) An example of this was even found on St.
Croix. 3) This development reached its height on Guadeloupe,
producing what MASON calls "blades with hooked edges". The
displaced cutting-edge ends below in a hook. In the G'ltesde Call.
fig. n8, (A'larie Galante) the entire blade with the cutting-edge is
twisted to the other side by the hook.
Here appears to be presented tendencies towards the development
of a type of stone knife. One side is straight and dull, forming
the back of the knife. The cutting-edge extends laterally part
way up the other side. That it is not continued further in an
upward direction, might very well be·because the knife was grasped
there. Plate V III 3, St. Vincent, is a knife-form, but unfortunately
the cutting-edge is entirely destroyed. Moreover it has
a pointed celt butt and the knob which indeed distinguishes objects
of this cathegory from Guadeloupe, is entirely lacking.4) None
of these forms are to regarded as sharp cutting-utensils.
In the Lesser Antilles there are many variants of the axe with
curve sides or straighth ones radiating against the cutting-edge.
1) The Guesde Coil. Fig. 77, 78, 79, 8I. The best example is Fig. no.
Plate XXIV, 6, in JOYCE, Centro Amer. and West Ind. Arch. is extremelyoblique.
It is from St. Vincent.
') G. M. 22.6. 3, 73, 75, Grenada; I33, St. Vincent.
3) Plate VI, 1.
4) Guesde Coli. Fig. 77. An entirely different type, Fig. 5I, ::YIASON likens to
an Eskimo women's-knife.

180
\Ve have already pointed out that the model itself came from the
Southwest, from Andean Colombia In the majority of cases, it
would appear impossible from the axe-type as in the Lesser
Antilles to have been combined with the method of hafting
by lashing, into a groove of the handle, as in the T-form
Peruvian axes.
In the first place, the common axes there have the ro,unded
butt which at times is bent dO

181
I~ashing is not conceivable in a very complicated Guadeloupe
type, Guesde Call. Figs. 64 and 65 as well as in a bird of prey-head
group, !tid., Figs. I23-I29 and finally in the types with dentated
butts, which I know only as coming from Guadeloupe and seen in
Guesde Call., Fl:gS. 30 and 58. There is ground for thepresumtion
that these distinctively developed forms must be very late. Generally
all axes with bird of prey-heads protruding from the
butt must have been perserted.
In this general investigation, I cannot, like MASON and FEWKES
present in detail the differences among the Antillean axes, all the
more as my problem is really to investigate to what extent the axe
penetrated the Tainan islands. I only adopt hI THURN'S general
division into axes with straight-sided blades, and "a rounded
blade-type."!) For the types with straight sides, I wish to discern
strongly, if the sides turn inward or outward to the edge. The
former characteristic reveals its Andean origin, but it is not even
Columbian. It is often met with also in Guiana. The type with
converging sides does not have' 'wings" and is found in both American
continents, as has already been said. From the \Vest Indies I
only know of two examples of axes with sides turning inwards,
namely the one pictured from St. Croix as the normal type in North
America and ill Puna de Jujuy, and an axe with marginal notches
from St. Kitts.2) The type with straight sides turning outwards
against the edge, is the common one 011 the Lesser Antilles.
We must regard it a specifically Antillean characteristic, that
the "wings" are developed into bird of prey-heads.
As is shown by the historical sources, the Spaniards found
large eagles of gold among the Indians living in the Carib highland
to the east of Cumann. These gold eagles had reached there from
the \Yest. If these are similar to the ones found in sepultures in
Chiriqui or in Costa Rica, yet they were designed in the first place
to hang on the breast and to be seen en face, even if sometimes the
prominent outstanding eagle-head is executed with such detail
that it has eyes on the sides and makes an excellent appearance in
profile. 3) Nevertheless, I know of no head of a bird of prey in
1) Timehri, Vol. II, Part. II.
2) JOYCE, Centro A1ne1. and Tv'esl Ind. Arch., Fig. 56.
3) Brit . .i\lus., A Shori Guide, Figs. 27 and 28, Costa Rica.

I82
gold which could be the prototype for the clearly and finelyelaborated
heads as those shown in the Guesde ColI., Figs. 37 and 38 from
Guadeloupe or in DUERDEN, Fig. 9, from Grenada. I have introduced
this discussion here also for the reason that the ornamental
figures of eagles of stone on the tobacco-pipes from MOORE's
excavations at Moundville, or a bird of prey head from HRDUCKAS
excavations in the ruins at Totoate (Jalisco) have the same feathers
protruding from the back of the head l ) as can be seen on the
golden eagle-figures. 2 ) These points represent feathers standing
straight out, as can plainly be seen in many eagle-heads of the
Mexican codices or on an eagle-head (the neck-feathers) on a
vessel from Isla de los Sacrificios, in the British Museum.3) In all
these cases the crested eagle or harpy eagle is reproduced. The
bird of prey profiles on the Antillean axes do not represent the
eagle, a bird which does not belong to the fauna of this group of
islands. Meanwhile the bird of prey character is obvious from
the curve of the beak, as In Guesde Coll. Figs. 37 and 38, FEWKES
II, Fig. 3, Guadeloupe, and Pl. 20 A, St. Vincent, and DUF:RDEN,
Fig. IX, Grenada, and many more. The vulture-character is
obvious in BRANCH, XXIII, I9, St. Kitts-Nevis. The square ornamentation
on the crown, which has a very tasteful appearance in
profile, is characteristic of the "crowned" bird of prey-heads of
the Antilles. Moreover, this is not only peculiar to the heads on
the axes of the Lesser Antilles, but also appears again in the wooden
bird-figures of the Greater Antilles, as for example, JOYCE,
Centro Amer. And West Ind. Arch. Pl. XVI I-2, Jamaica, or Brit.
111us. A Short Gttide, Fig. 48. This square ornamentation on the
heads of the Antillean axes did not penetrate to the \Vest Indies
from the Southwest, but from the Southeast and through ceramics,
as medium. In tegards to this, I will state that the clay vultureheads
in the Erin Bay culture, on Trinidad, have a "protuberance"
1) :;VIOORE, l'vIoundville Revisited, Fig. 86; HRDI,rcKA, Amer. Anthrop. N. S.
Vol. V, No. 3, PI. XI, I.
2) This can be observed excellently in UHLE, Kultur und Industrie siidamerikanscher
V61ke,' (M. f. V. Leipzig) Vol. T, Berlin r889, PI. 22, Figs. 2-2 a,
Popayan. UHLE is inclined to regard this figure as that of a water-bird, as it has
broad, flat feet.
3) A Short Guide, etc., PI. VI, c.

on the head, as well as the large clay vulture-heads of the Lower
Amazon, where it appears in richly elaborated forms.
The tomahawk was the weapon of the eagle demon in North
America. I will only mention here figures on copper plates and
shell-gorgets. 1 )
I know of no myth or representation in the West Indies that
indicates a relation between the axe and and a bird of prey. To
what extent the bird-heads on the axes had a religious signification,
or if they were only used for ornamentation, can not be decided.
The variation of axe-types is very great on the southern
islands of the Lesser Antilles with their suitable andesite material,
especially on the islands from which they are so abundantly
represented, Grenada, St. Vincent and Guadeloupe. Trinidad and
Barbados lack this material and the axe is also seldom represented
as coming from these islands. The axe-influence passed around
Trinidad and reached Grenada directly.
Trinidad. During the entire Indian period, the celt was the
normal form on Trinidad. I only know of one axe
from there, namely JOYCE, Centro Amer. And West Ind. Arch., Pl.
XXIV, I,2), and this belongs to a type, that is from the southern
volcanic Lesser Antilles. I regard this as an importation, all the
more as it is a highly wrought specimen, decidedly of a type of the
Lesser Antilles, and up to the present time lacking a counterpart
in Trinidad. This axe belongs to an especially characteristic type
with a short butt having "wings", which must represent birdheads,
protuberances above and below the groove under which
there is a distinct part before the proper blade begins to curve outward
This type is represented in Grenada, St. Vincent and Guadeloupe,
islands of the volcanic Lesser Antilles. Type-variants just
like the specimen from Trinidad are FEWKES I, Pl. XIX a, St. Vincent,
and JOYCE, Centro Amer. And West Ind. Arch., Pl. XXIV
4. The Guesde Coll., Figs. I23-I29 show types from Guadeloupe.
In addition I recognize this from Grenada through Plate VIII,I.
1) GEORGE GRANT MACCURDY, Shell-gorgets from Missouri, Amer. Anthrop.
N. S., Vol. 15, 1913, Fig. 72, copper plate, Etowa group, Georgia, Fig. 74, shellgorget,
Missouri.
2) NO.2, in a profile-drawing, Journ. of the Anthrop. lnst. Vol. XXXVII.

FEWKES names, "several axes with wings on their heads and
notches on the bodies", together with a small number of celts.!)
J~esser Antilles. From the Lesser Antilles I lack material from
such large and important islands as 1.11 artinique and Dominica. 2 )
However I am acquainted with material from the following islands.
Barbados. From Barbados I only know one andesite axe,
G. M., 05. 17. 221, brought home by ERLAND
NORDENSKIOLD; see Plate VIII, 2. This must certainly have been
imported into Barbados from one of the islands of recent volcanic
formation. It is badly worn away and for this reason, Nordenskiold
assnmed that it had been used for a long period on Barbados.
Grenada. JOYCE, Centro Amer. And West Ind. Arch., Pl.
XXIV, 8 of the same type as FEWKES I, Pl.
XXI, e (adze); DUERDEN, Abor. Ind. Rem. In Jamaica, Pl. II,
Fig. IX, similar to Guesde ColI., Fig. 37 from Guadeloupe; FEWK8S I,
PI. XXI e; FEWKES II, Pl. 30 (S, together with axes from St. Vincent);
33 axes from Heye 1.11usetl11t, now in the Gothenburg Afusetlm.
Only Plate VIII, I, is a highly qualified specimen, the type being
the same as Guesde Call., fig. 124, Guadeloupe. Moreover this is
the only one with raised butt, which is so common in Guadeloupe.
The types with broad, straight butts which resemble those of Colombia
and Ecuador, at least those with oblique cutting-edges, I have
already treated. 22.6.54 vvith very slightly curved butt, insignificant
"wings", no neck, and sides a little divergent, taken as a
whole belongs to the same type as Timehri, Vol. II, PI. 6, 4, Union,
St. Lucia. 22.6.33 has two upward-directed knobs with a depression
between them, as in 1M THURN., Am. The Ind., Pl. X, 6, only
somewhat more blunt. Hoe-shaped with scarcely perceptible "wings"
are G. 1\1. 22.6.I, I8 and 77 with almost blunt butts and 46 ,vith
round butt.3 ) Types with "wings" occur with curved as 'well as
straight radial sides. 'fhe axes with heads of bird of prey all ha'\'e
straight blade-sides, however a little divergent, so that G. M. 35
and 36 are almost rectangular.
1) FIlwKIlS II, p. 78.
2) ;VI. LOUIS GOESDE, Introd., p. 735, mentions celts from these islands.
3) Preferably like Guesde Coil. :Figs. 25 and 72,

I8S
In FEWKES I, pl. XXI e, is seen a most interesting specimen
with a short butt chiefly consisting of two upturned horns, grooved
neck and two notches for the attachment and rounded blade with
a convex upper surface. This type is indeed an adze. Contrary to
the adze-celts the upper as we11 as the central parts of this blade
seem to have rested on a secondary handle, and the horns to have
origina11y embrached the primary vertical handle. Such horns
are also seen in a specimen from St. Vincent and fIgured by FEW­
KES II, pl. I2, K. It has a neck-groove as we11, and in the upper portion
of the blade marks of having been used are observable, caused
by the ligament. Another specimen with horns, from St. Croix, is
seen in Pl. VII, 2, but this one has no neck-groove. A11 three specimens
are adzes that have been hafted in the above described
manner. As mentioned before, knee hafts do not occur in British
Guiana. Then there only remains the possibility that this method
of hafting has reached the Antilles from Venezuela. The nearest
place from which I know of axe blades fit for knee hafting is Rato
Viejo, dep. Falcon. But none are similar to the Antillean adzes with
horns.
St. Vincent.
The material is abundant.
FE,VKES I, Pl. XVII, XVIII, XIX, a-e, XX b-e, XXI b-d.
FEWKES II, Pl. 9, 23, 25 D, 28, 30-32.
SPI'l'ZI,Y, I. A. E. Vol. III, Pl. XVIII, 4, 5.
JOYCE, Profile in Jotm~. of the Anthrop. Inst. Vol. XXXVII
corresponding to numbers on Pl. XXIV, Centro Amer. And West
Ind. Arch. in parentheses: I (3), 3,9(6), II, (S), I5, also "The Caribs",
marked 8, IO, I3.I )
106 axes from the Reye Museum and now in Gothenburg NIziscum:
the same is true of these types, speaking generally, as was
stated about the co11ection from Grenada. Amazingly is the
number of axes with rounded butt and entirely without
"wings", such as G. l'vI. 22.6.93, IOI, III, I29, I38, I44, ISO and
I5I. To distinguish them from similar axes without '\dngs"
from Guadeloupe, their sides are always round. G. 1\11. 22.6. I39
") According to the Journ. of the Anthrop. Inst., ibid., apparently the cntire
collection from St. Vincent.

186
and I66 are hoe-shaped with broad butt, shank, and broad,
rounded blade. Contrary to those from Grenada, their are many
bird-axes ,vith curved blades, G. ]VI. 22.6.98, IOO, II6 II7, I32
and I36; not one of these bird axes has an especially marked head
and curved bill. Moreover in Grenada, it will appear - to judge
from G. }I. 22.6, ~39 and I48 - that they have straight and
almost slightly-divergent sides. This last seems to me worthy of
note, inasmuch as with its regular elevations and depressions of
the butt, the type shows a transition to a development which finally
is represented by a scalloped butt, as for example G~tesde
Coll. Figs. 58 and 30, which peculiarity I only know from Guadeloupe.
One small axe has the butt knob-formed as Guadeloupean
axes.
The variation of types, which on Grenada was rather considerable,
shows itself to be very great on St. Vincent. The material is
sufficient to warrant separation into certain groups of types.
I have already said, that the types with a broad neck and scantily
developed "wings" differed little from similar axes in Andean
South America. And what is more, we must look upon the forms
with rounded butt, with or without "wings", and curved blade as
closely related to Cauca prototypes. There are many of these in
the collection from the Heye Museum. As I do not illustrate any
of these specimens, I refer for examples to SPITZLY 5, JOYCE II,
(5), FEWKES I, XIX e and XX e.
The types with close to another stranding, and for the most
part upward-looking and uncrowned bird-heads, slender necks,
and curved blade and cutting-edge, as FEWKES I, XIX, band d,
XX i, JOYCE I (3), and the others already mentioned as come
from the Heye Museum, can be placed together in one group
in addition, the bird of prey axes with well marked heads and
beaks, and straight sides only slightly diverging in a direction
contrary to the edge, such as JOYCE; 8, two in G. M. already mentioned,
and some less marked, as FEWKES I XVIII c, XIX, c,
XXI, c and d, as well as many that have come from the Heye
Museum. JOYCE, 3, is a halberd axe.
These groups are not inherent to St. Vincent, but appear
general throughout the Lesser Antilles. I do not need to discuss
the common, undecorated group with rounded butt which differs

least of all from the continental prototypes. The bird-axes with
strongly curved blades we find again in the NIus. du Trocadero,
No. 36.343, St. I~ucia, and with broader blade in the Guesde
Call. Fig. 3r, Guadeloupe. The bird of prey-axes with sides only
a little divergent in a direction contrary to the blade are represented
in JOYCE 8 (8), Grenada, some Grenada axes sent from the
Heye Museum, and also the Guesde Call. Fig. 34, Guadeloupe.
Beautiful halberd axes with bird of prey heads are the specimens
from Grenada already cited from DUERDEN, the Guesde Call., Figs.
35--39 and 76, Guadelonpe, as well as JOYCE, Briggs' Call. 7 (9),
Nevis-St. Kitts.
Since the time that FEWKES published the Heye Museum's
material from St. Vincent, the great variation of types in Guadeloupe
no longer appears so unique. To judge from axe-types and
other objects of stone, the points of resemblances between St.
Vincellt and Guadeloupe are more numerous by far than the
differences.
Here I will allow myself to deviate for a time from the discussion
to mention two kinds of stone objects, formerly really only
knovm from Guadeloupe, but through FEWKES' later monograph
we get to know many examples from St. Vincent. One of these
is the "crescentic stone implements".1) Similar ones occur also
on Grenada.2)
It is of great interest that FEWKES can demonstrate to us
that these were a kind of knife.3)
Also, the so-called "ship's block" is common for St. Vincent4)
and Guadeloupe 5 ). Other peculiar objects could also be named,
but I can neither occupy myself with them, nor with the correspondence
of objects which are less individual. Instead I return
to axes.
A xes with hooked edge occur both in St. Vincent6) and in
I) FEWKES II, PI. 29 and T, PI. XXIII, k, both from St. Vincent; Guesde
Coli., Figs. H)O and I9I, Guadeloupe.
2) FEWKES II, p. I07.
3) Ibid., p. 107 and I08.
4) Hid., pI. 24 H.
;') Guesde Coil., Figs. I5I-I54.
6) FI

81:\
Guadeloupe. I ) Only in St. Vincent, on the other hand, does
it happen that edge is drawn out into a fin-like projection.2)
On the southern Lesser Antilles the hooked edge is presumably
an independent development. It is true that the hooked edge
occurs in northern Ecuador at Coyambe and Otavalo, but only
in one particular axe-type,3) and not so fully developed as in St.
Vincent and Guadeloupe.
Axes with ears developed into bird-heads, in certain cases crowned
bird of prey-heads, are common to both islands, but in dissimilar
forms. On the other hand, one misses from Guadeloupe the
ordinary St. Vincent "axes with caps", often provided on the
butt with a sculptured figure, almost so conventionalized that
it is almost impossible to identify what it represents.4) A birdhead
that is upturned, is found on the posterior side of an axe
from St. Kitts-Nevis. 5)
I was unable to decide for certain which bird is represented
on the axes from the Lesser Antilles. The bird on an axe from
St. Kitts-Nevis, proves to be a vulture, but this is not the case
of the bird's head on the majority of axes. I am inclined to
think that the head represented on these axes is that of a falcon.
It cannot very well be that of an eagle, since that bird does not
live on the islands.
The axe-forms of St. Vincent have been transformed in a high
degree by influences from the Southeast. In St. Vincent they
are more richly represented than on Guadeloupe and for the
most part have not reached further than to St. Vincent, as far as
can be ascertained from discoveries made up to the present time.
The shank-axe, with well individualized semicircular blade,
which is found, besides, in its pure form in the coastal regious
of Guiana 6 ) is found on this island.
1) Guesde Call., Fig. rI8, Marie Galante.
2) FEWKES II, pI. 22 E and F.
3) VERNEAU ET RIVET, ap. cit., Fig. 59, Nos. 6-8; D.U,TON, ap. cit., Figs.
n-p.
4) A great find made by Huckerby, at Fancy, St. Vincent. See FEWKES II,
pI. 38-6r.
5) JOYCE, Centro Amer. And West Ind. Arch. pI. XXIV, 10.
6) For example, ROTH, An Introductory Study, Etc., pI. 4, F, the coast of
Guiana. Other examples with longer neck in GIGJ.IOLI and TEN KATE.

189
The semicircular blade appears very distinctly separated
from a long neck in FEWKES, II, pl. 20, E; it is less detached in
pl. 20, D and H, much broader than the neck in pl. I5, J, all of
these axes coming from St. Vincent. In other cases the blade is
fan-shaped and well separated from the neck.!)
The specimen from St. Vincent in FEWKES' II, pl. I2, C is is
especially remarkable as being unique in the West Indies, but
revealing the southeastern influence of the shank-axe with individualised
blade.
For the rest, I will not touch upon the numerous variations,
that were developed on St. Vincent through dissimilar combinations
of soutwestern, approximately Colombian forms, and southeastern
forms which approach those of Guiana.
Unique in the West Indies is pl. 32, C, St. Vincent, which is
rectangular with a thick posterior side that is ground flat, and
also has three ridges with two grooves between them for the ligature.
Pressumably this type of axe or rather grooved celt must
be sought in Guiana. It occurs in lower Amazonas.2)
Capped forms, where the blade grows immediately out of
the raised butt without an intermediary3), as far as I know, is
found only on St. Vincent. Since that form from the continent
reached St. Vincent some curious ornamentations have been added
to the back side of it.
FEWKES II, pl. I4, G, with straight elevated butt, resembles
to an Ecuadorian type.4)
An Ecuadorean and not properly Colombian characteristic
is to bore a little hole through the axe. In certain cases the ligament
must have passed through this hole. In St. Vincent this
can be found on the posterior side of the axe.5) In other specimens
of axes from this island, a hole is found in the blade itself. 6 )
') FI!WKI!S II, pI. 30, D, which approximates pI. 10 H, St. Vincent.
2) Goteborgs Museums Arstryck, 1923, Fig. I, no. 7, lower Xingu.
3) Ibid., pI. 25 D, 17 G, J, & H, 18 D, F, B.
4) VI!RNEAU et RIVI!T, op. cit., pI. IV, 2, La Tola.
5) Ibid., pI. 30 D. This axe is so very small that it might have been suspended
with a cord, as an amulet. But pI. 20 G might have been designed for
ligature.
6) Ibid., pI. 12 J. This axe is so very small that it could have been suspended
as an amulet.

190
Sometimes only one hole is boredl ) yet this gives the impression
of being so complete that the intention can scarcely have been
other than to produce a hole. A somewhat larger hafting-hole
never occurs, as in Ecuador and Peru.
'I'he adze with "horns", FEWKES II, pl. I2, B, which evidently
has been fastened to a knee haft, has two fellows. one
from Grenada and the other from St. Croix.
St. Lucia. Timehri, Vol. II, six axes, pI. 6; SPITZLY 6, 7;
M. du Trocadero, Nos. 36342-36348.
I know of no proper bird of prey-axes. There are only examples
with complete "wings" that suggest the heads of birds of
prey. Tr. 36343, 36342 and SPITZLY 7 differ very little from the
continental prototypes. Extremely well-made with butt, groove
and straight diverging sides to the blades is Timehri, 6, I, from
Grand Cul de Sac. A raised butt is also seen in No.6 (as well as a
grooved neck) from Ciceron and NO.7, from Cul de Sac.
Martinique and FEWKES is of the opinion that the culture on
Dominica. these islands stands nearer to that of Guadeloupe,
than of St. Vincent and Grenada,2) but does not
enter into the subject, nor give illustrations.
Guadeloupe. The Guesde Coll. in the Mus. f. V6lkerk., Berlin
and in the Copenhagen lV!useum.
Mus. du Trocadero in the Schoelcher Coll., Nos. 390I, 3902,
5664 5666, and VERNEAU ET RIVET, Ethnog. Anc. de l'Eq., pl.
IV, 3, rather similer to Guesde Coll., Figs. 90 and pl. VI, 6.
Figs. 29, 6I, 66, 7I, 89 and 95 of the Guesde Coll. are from Marie
Galante.
On Guadeloupe, likewise, the variation of types is very great.
But the forms that ought to have arrived at St. Vincent at a later
period from the continent, are observed less on Guadeloupe, and
in many cases they never appear so pure as on the first-named
island. It looks as if on Guadeloupe they had preserved the
Colombian forms, which were presumably of older date on the
') Ibid., pI. I3 G.
2) FEWKES II, p. 128.

I9 I
Lesser Antilles. \Ve find this to a greater degree among the plainer,
undecorated axes. The broad, rounded, raised butt does not
retaine its original form on Guadeloupe. It has become more
or less reduced and finally turned into a knob.
As a result of Guianan influences, belonging to shank-axe
forms a marked semicircular blade, such as the G~tesde Coll., fig. 39 1 )
may be observed. 'fhe two fine axes with "crowned" bird of preyheads,
Ibid., Figs 37 and 38, it is true, have the blade separated
from the neck in a horizontal line on either side, but do not possess
rounded sides. Instead of these, they are so downright divergent.
that the entire appearance resembles that of a broad-axe.
An especially fine conventionalism is seen in a group of bird
of prey axes from Guadeloupe. Only the beak and "cro-wn" of
the two bird heads remain, and these parts alone occupy the whole
of the axe's short, embossed butt, behind the groove.a) This
graceful conventionalized form developed is produced only on
Guadeloupe. Other forms, where the axe's raised posterior side
is occupied entirely by two conventionalized bird of prey-beaks,4)
can have their counterparts on St. Vincent or Grenada. 5)
Axes with lobate posteriors are found on Guadeloupe6) as
well as on St. Vincent. 7 ) This is a form that sprang up on the
southern Lesser Antilles without South American relations. Boring
through of the axe's posterior is found between the two bird
of prey-heads on Guadeloupe. 8) Perforiation of the blade occurs
in one case only, among these bird of prey-head-axes, and then
not in the middle but in a cornerY) Other objects with holes
bored at the top, of which some have the axe-form,lO) are so small
that they could only have served to hang from a collar. Sometimes
1) Also with short neck in Ibid., 72, 75, 76. \,hile the blades in Figs. 73 and
74 are more fan-shaped.
2) Ibid .. Figs. II9--12I.
3) Ibid., 126-129.
4) Ibid., Figs. I23--125.
5) FEWKES n, pI. I9, B, K; 30 E.
") Guesde Coli., Figs. 30 and 5S,
7) FEWKES 11, PI. 14 D, 15 A.
8) Guesde Coll., Figs. 34, 36, 39, 76.
,,) [bid.,. Fig. 39, has moreover such a perforation between the bird-heads.
In) Ibid., Figs. 175-ISO.

192
bored holes occur in Guadeloupe in different sorts of circular
objects. I ) As in St. Vincent the hole the rotation-method with
wet sand was used.
Guadeloupe marks the northern end of the row of the larger
volcanic I-(esser Antilles to the South. These islands were the
real area of propagation of axes in the \Vest Indies.
As the axes 0/ Guadeloupe and other islands are altogether
things discovered in the ground, by these means no real chronology
can be established. For this reason, a typological description loses
essentially in value.
\Ve can only point out the forms and influences which have
reached the Lesser Antilles either from the western or the eastern
part of northern South America.
St. Kitts- BRANCH, Amer. Anthrop. N. S. Vol. IX, No.2,
Nevis. PI. XXI, II - 17, XXII 7 and the hammers
19-32, and XXIII, 19--21 and 25. In the British
AI'Use~mt: Briggs' Call., from which JOYCE pictures axes 4 (2),7 (9)
and 17 (10).2)
The islands of St. Kitts-Nevis are a very interesting ground
for the investigation of the diffusion and frequency of celts and
axes. Nowhere in the Antilles are these two principal types of
such equal birth. In addition, the axe made its way to St. Kitts­
Nevis in perfected forms. The axe-culture was entirely indigenous
here, and as material the island's own andesite was used.3 )
To judge from BRANCH'S material, nevertheless, in addition the
number of celts of the harder kinds of stone of the oldcrystalline
zone of the Antilles, was proportionally larger on St. Kitts-Nevis,
than in the Lesser Antilles further to the South. On St. Kitts­
Nevis the axe-types seemed to have been used above a11 as
hammers. M.any types of these were found here. BRANCH finds
the number of pounding implements remarkably large. Great celts
were "adapted for use as pestles after the edge had been worn
down.' '4) In the same ,vay, axes also were utilized as hammers.
1) Ibid., Figs. 182, 183. 185. FEWIG.;S II. PI. 73 C, 74, B_
2) Concerning the meaning of the double numbers, see aboye St. Vincent.
3) BRAXCII, Ibid., p. 317 and 319.
4) Ibid ... p. 318.

I93
Above all things, the great number of genuine axe-hammers
of different kinds in St. Kitts-Nevis is striking. See BRANCH,
Ibid., pl. XXI, I9-J2 and the fine examples from Brigg's Call.,
Brit. Mus., No. 438I1) and No. 43822).
The transformation of the axe into the hammer has already
been completed on Guadeloupe in many forms. Only a broad
groove remains of the former neck of the axe3) in these hammers
from Guadeloupe, fit to fix the implement firmly within the haft.
Other hammers of this group are developed from shank-axes.4)
In the majority of cases the axes with middle axle from Guadeloupe
and St. Kitts-Nevis lack an edge. 5)
St. Kitts-Nevis represents the true zone of contact between the celtand
axe-culture. The islands themselves lie in the volcanic zone but
near them are islands of the old-crystalline formation, from which
celts could easily have reached St. Kitts-Nevis by way of trade.
The andesite axe, generally speaking, is found on these islands
in the same principal forms as in the Antilles further to the
South. Moreover, there are genuine bird of prey-axes. The
one head of the fine specimen shown in BRANCH, XXIII, I9 that
has not been broken off, represents a vulture. JOYCE 7 (9)
is a "crowned" bird of prey-head-axe of the same kind that is
common on Guadeloupe, and also occurs on St. Vincent. In
JOYCE 4 (2) the semicircular blade can be observed; this is a
Guianan characteristic, which formerly was very prominent in
both Guadeloupe and St. Vincent. I assign JOYCE I7 (IO), with
the upward-tomed birdhead to the capped form, which also is
characteristic for St. Vincent.
It is evident that the axe-culture with the most part of the
types previously developped on the southern Lesser Antiller could
') For such examples, see BRANCH, Ibid., XXI, II-14. Compo p. 318.
2) Of blistered lava. Length 14 cm., the "headside" raised, the butt weakly
rounded and 4 cm. broad. The neck of it 3 Y2 cm. The shoulder then became
always broader as far as the raised "cutting-side", where it was 7 Y2 cm. The
"cutting-side" 8 Y2 cm.; the butt slightly rounded and ground perfectly even, so
that the object can stand on it. Approximately Branch, Ibid., XXI, 19.
3) Guesde Coll., Figs. 136-140.
0) Ibid., Figs. 144-145.
5) British Museum, Briggs Coil. 438I, Nevis, and 4382, St. Kitts. The type
rather resembles FEWKES II, PI. 78, E, Guadeloupe.
I3

194
penetrate St. Kitts-Nevis also, because of the existence of andesite
there. The more southern of the I,esser Antilles only contain
andesite material. This may have been the reason why the axe
was preferred to the celt in all cases where the former was capable
of doing the work of the latter. Andesite is much more brittle
than the harder nephrite. Because of this fragility, the cuttingblade
must be made larger, in order to make the grinding of a
new edge possible, or occasionally so as to be able to utilize the
portion that has not been destroyed. As the cutting edge in the
brittle stone is easily broken, an andesite celt with a narrow one
could be rendered useless with one blow.
It is directly the opposite when the front and back parts
of the implement are of nephrite. The material is hard,
tough, and does not flake easily. But if the cutting-edge is really
worn away, the little hard, round celt must be laboriously ground,
in order to make it usable again, in case such a tiresome and wearisome
piece of work is worth while.
The nephrite celts of the Greater Antilles were more durable
and must have been in use longer, but, on the other hand, they
were more difficult to make and their production took more time.
The andesite axes of the Lesser Antilles were used up more rapidly,
but new ones could be made quickly and easily. The consumption
of axes must have been greater on the volcanic Lesser Antilles,
than that of celts on the crystalline Greater Antilles. 11r. Guesde,
who was accustomed to this from Guadeloupe, was surprised
at the relatively small amount of celts found in Puerto Rico,
where he "never came across an axe."I)
So far as I can conclude from the material available, when we
turn to the old -crystalline islands we can no longer talk of a hom-
0geneous axe-culture, but only of isolated objects. Nevertheless,
I must state here that unfortunately I am unacquainted with
any material that comes from those of the Leeward Islands of
the old-crystalline zone. But the southern influences notably
decrease towards the Northwest in a rapidly diminishing scale.
It is strongest in St. Croix and the Virgin Islands, becomes far
weaker in Puerto Rico, Espaiiola and Cuba: and cannot be observed
at all on the Bahama Islands and Jamaica.
1) Annual Rel)ort of the Smiths. Inst. for 1885, p. 735.

I95
St. Croix. PvIuseum oj Copenhagen: PI. 2-4, PI. 3, PI. 2,
RAFN, Caraibiske Oldsager, Antiquarisk Tidskrijt,
I852-I854, two examples on p. 438, a double hammer not illustrated.
St. Croix, with its nndonbtedly greater resources and connections,
shows itself superior to the proper Virgin Islands. Only on
this island are to be fonnd forms that definitely show the influence
of the axes from the Lesser Antilles.
Plate IV, 2, St. Croix of eruptive stone, is an axe, with a
semi-circular blade, similar to those of St. Vincent, Guadeloupe
and St. Kitts-Nevis.
Plate VII, 2, of old eruptive rock, must have been an adze.
and could only have been used in a knee-shaped haft. The grooves
caused by worn-out bindings can be seen on both sides. From the
Antilles I know of only one similar arrangement with two horns
turned backwards, FEWKES II, pl. I2, K. St. Vincent, and I, pl.
XXI, e, Grenada. I can not find any South American connection.
Arrow-shaft wrenches in the central Mississippi States presented a
somewhat similar outward appearance. I ) But this applies to an
entirely different class of objects. Therefore we must continue
to lock upon the posterior horns of adzes as something specifically
Antillean.
'rhe grooved axe, plate IV, 3, with its converging sides and
made of coarse-grain, reddish old eruptive stone, is decidedly North
American, as to type. This specimen is nnique in the \Vest Indies.
Very comprehensible is an influence from Guadeloupe in what
BAIU,SON calls "kolleformede redskaber", that is, club-shaped
implements.
Plate IV, 4, made of nephrite, is a rubber with two outwardturned
bird-heads, close together, quite in conformity with Guadeloupe.
St. Vincent and Grenada.
Some peculiar "club-shaped tools" fro111 St. Croix that are
now in the National :\Iuseurn of Copenhagen, have a shank in the
middle, and the projection jutting out from this is finished in a
bird's hill. These implements are peculiar to St. Croix, whereas
") CI,AREXCn B. MOORE, Some Aboyi{',inal Sites on Green River, Kentuckt'.
Jonrn. Ac. Nat. ;Sc., Philadelphia, Vol. XVI. 19H1. Fig. lC), and :\lo0REHE:\D, Op.
Cit., Fig. 254. Indiana, Illinois, Kentncky, and 2'i7. ::VIissomi, lllinois, Kentucky,

196
parts of them, shanks and bird-bills, are adaptations from the Lesser
Antilles. In one example, instead of the beak of a bird, will be
seen the curved points of the blade of an anchor-shaped axe. These
specimens are treated, but inexactly reproduced, by RAFN.
The double hammer with the cylindrical shoulder, also, has
made its way into St. Croix from the Southeast.
Such a hammer from St. Croix, resembling BRAXCH, pl. XXXI,
23, St. Kitts-Nevis, or ill a lesser degree the Guesde Call. fig.
[.:1-9, can be found at Copenhagen.
An extreme and interesting adaptation of the impulse from
Guadeloupe is seen in Plate VI, 3, St. Croix it is of diorite, finely
polished, and has a short cylindrical shoulder and an obliquely
placed but proportionally strongly reduced, posterior head. Such
a short shoulder is unknmvn on Guadeloupe.
Puerto Rico. The material of celt types is proportionately abundant,
especially because of the collections that
I~E\VKES brought to the U. S. National Museum at Washington.
But only a few objects betray Lesser Antillean influence. Therefore,
there is no reason for any other hypothesis other than that
the influence of the axe-culture could not make itself felt to any
important degree on Puerto Rico. Only one axe, Tr. 5563, belonging
to the Pinart ColI., shows any resemblance to the axes
of the Lesser Antilles, with bird-heads and broad blades. In
this specimen, a notch that is continued a bit lower down as
a groove, runs between the two indistinct heads.
Espanola. Seeing that the influence of the axe-culture shows
itself to such a proportionately slight degree in
the comparatively abundant material from Puerto Rico, it is
rather remarkable that it can be demonstrated at all in the scanty
material attainable from Espanola. In conjunction with the native
celt type, a unique axe-type has developed with a cross-bar
between the butt-end and the neck (somewhat resembling the hilt
of a sword). The butt, which tapers just above the cross-bar,
always keeps the typical slender point of the celt. On one of the
specimens pictured by FBWKES, the cross-piece appears more like

197
a ridge, and the projection is sharP) When they are longer, the
back part of the axe begins to look like the hilt of a sword, which
is the case with Tr. 444902), 55603), and I0907.4) All are from
Santo Domingo, 5560 from Higuey.
KRIEGER reproduces two large axes with two edges, that have
the neck in the middle, marked by two round incisions. They
were found at Petite Saline, near Monte Cristi, and must represent
salt-axes. The blunt edges are worn away. Also FEWKES I., Pl.
XIII, f, Santo Domingo, which he moreover describes as twoedged,5)
are of this type.
Cuba. Three axes are published by HARRI",,"GTO",,", each
of a different type. His j£g. IIO, from :vlesa Abajo
near Maisi, approaches nearest the celt-type, but above all things,
its broad rounded blade with the wide, round cutting-edge reveals
its relationship to the axes of the J-

198
I am not acquainted with allY axes from J amaica,l) nor from
the Bahamas. The 'I-form axe from Jamaica will be treated later.
The Axe with I have adopted this term, used by FEWKES, in
lUarginal Notches. Cltltlire Area, and employ it instead of nick-axe,
which appears in my first edition. I have already
discussed the type's close relationship to the 'I-form axe.
This has made its ,yay from Andean Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador
into the Amazon region and reached Guiana. Then, as near as we
can judge, it must have passed over to Trinidad and the Lesser
Antilles. It only occurs sporadically in the \Vest Indies.
SPITZLY is the first that especially distinguished and placed in
connection with the Lesser Antilles this type from Guiana, when he
brought into prominence an axe with marginal notches like those
from Guiana, a specimen from St. Kitts ,2) which is now in the
Briggs, Coll., Brit.lvil{seuJn. He calls the attention to the "undoubtedly
intentional asymmetry in both specimens. » By this he
must surely have meant the oblique end, which moreover characterizes
all three of Spitzly's axes from Surinam3) as well as the
one from St. Kitts. Spitzly sees a Carib connection in this type.
But this need not necessarily be the casco
I know the axe with marginal notches in many examples from
G 11 ian a, even made of the poor material of the native sandstone
fonnd there, so reasons enough exist for regarding the type
as completely naturalized there.
The following material was at my disposal:
1M THURN, Am. the Ind., Pl. X, 2;
SPITZI,Y, I. A. E., Vol. III, Pl. XVIII;
H. F. C. TEN KATE, J1TN., On vVest Indian Stone Implements
And Other Indian Relics, Tijdschr. van het Nedrl. Aardrijsk. Genootschap,
2nd. Ser. pt. III, PI. I--IV.
F. P. & A. P. PENARD, De Jl enscheneneetende Aanbidders
der Zonneslang, 7 specimens in Part I, p. 51.
1) DUERDEN'S Fig. VII lacks information as to locality, and he does not knm,­
"whether it was originally found on the island or not."
2) Finally published by J oyer" Centro A mer. & West Ind. Arch. Fig. 56; camp.
P. 2:;8.
3) I. A. E., T'ol. III, Pl. XVIII, I, 2, 3.

199
DB GOEJE, I. A. E., Vol. XIX, Plate II, 6;
WALTER E. ROTH, 38th Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol., Pl. 4,
A & B;
BRITISH ?lIFSEul\r: Eight axes of Guiana sandstone, one small
of greenstone, a rather long, narrow axe of finely polished porphyry.
Aside from the fact that in a great many cases the material is
undeniably from Guiana, the native production is indicated because
that the rather square celts, such as TEN KATE, V. t. K. 10
\V. I and before all M, 2, might well be half-fabricated axes
with marginal notches. In PI. II, t. K. 18, such an axe with marginal
notches can be seen in its imcomplete form. l )
DHLE and after him DAL1'ON and RIVET are of the opinion
that the axe with marginal notches in Ecuador is a form which
penetrated the highland from a less civilized race on the eastern
slope of the Andes. 2 ) NORDENSKIOLD arrived at the same conclusion
in regard to Bolivia and Pern.3)
Our continental material is still too insignificant for an intimate
acqaintance of the route, ,vhich the nick-axes took eastwards
to Guiana. UHLE has indicated the exportation of stone axes
from the Upper Amazon to the stoneless central regions.4) RIVE'!
mentions the existence of the axe with marginal notches in
the lowland region along the Amazon, in Ecuador, among
the Zunag, }vlacas, and Muratos (a tribe of Jibaros)5) He also
establishes the axe with marginal notches in the lower valleys
of the Amazon. KATZER, also, publishes good examples from the
.!.V1undruGz{s, at Tapajos.6) In addition the axe with marginal
") There is an unique collection in Gothenb. JI/[U5., brought home by Erland
Nordcnski6ld from Butoro, a workshop of the Stone Age, located 670 meters above
the sea, somewhat below the base of the Bolivian Andes. This collection shows
just how the half-fabricated axes, which resemble broad celts ,,,ith square butt,
were completed. See ERLAND NORDEXSKIOLD Arkeologiska Undersokningar i
Perus och Bolivia" Criinstralder, 1904'--1905, Kungl. Svcnska Vetenskapsakademiens
Handlingar, Vol. 42, ",0. 2, PI. 7, Figs . .'), 7, 8, 9 and 10. Compo p. 58-59·
2) DALTON, Jo1trn. of the Anthrop. Tnst., Vol. XXVII, p. ISO; VERXEAU &
RIYE't, Ethnog. Ancienne De l'Eq. p. 148.
3) The Copper and Bronze Ages, Etc. p. 141 and 144. Camp. Map. 2.
4) DALTON, Ibid., p. 150 cites Uhle.
5) VERNEAU et RIVET, Ibid., p. 148.
ti) Globus, Vol. LXXIX, p. 39.

200
notches can be found in BARBOSA RODRIGUE'z illustrations of the
finds from Dep. Grao Pard. On the other hand as already mentioned,
I am inclined to the opinion that the KOCH-GRuNBERG
axes from the Cayary-Uaupes region, with the notches not very
marked and having rounded blades and cutting-edges, can be
ascribed preferably to influences from the Andes in Northern
Ecuador. RIVET does not mention any axes with marginal notches
from the Andean regions of Colombia.!)
In the Gothenbttr'g Museum, Nimuendaju Coll., from Santarem
and neighbouring regions among other types will be seen not only
notched axes and winged types, but also axes with marginal notches
and T-form axes.
AU these were found by NIMUENDAJU in the ground.
No. 30 Baixo Tocantin, one of the notched axes, is an undeveloped
type of celt.2). Little developed is also the thick No. 20, from
Curua,3) with slightly converging sides. No. 17, Cunti,4) has so
convergent sides that it much resembles the Puna or the North
American axe-types.
Three axes from the east of the Para River, Nos. 315) 32,
Isabel and No. 33, Marapanim, all have round butts. Although
they have slightly divergent sides, yet just because of these exactly,
they resemble, especially No. 31, a type with slightly divergent
sides.
Of these axes with marginal notches, Nos. 8 and 12, Alto Iriry,
and three have straight sides. No. 22, Curua,6) has a pointed butt
and the entire blade and cutting-edge round.
NO.7, Alto Iriry, and No. 25, Curua, with slightly and NO.9,
Alto Iriry, No. 24, Curua, and No. 28, Baixo Iriry, with very
converging sides that are clumsily made and little marked, belong
1) Compo VERNEAU et RIVET, Ibid., p. 148-149.
2) A thick axe out of coarse-grained crystalline material, very difficult to
work. The type about like RIVET, IV, 7, Riobamba, although the Tocantin example
is shorter.
3) On the east side of the mouth of the Para River.
4) Black, somewhat oxidized eruptive stone.
6) Very fine-grained, black eruptive, polished and carefully worked out.
0) A tendency towards something similar is found also on one side of the
poorly-made No. 13, Curua, No. 10 is reproduced in Goteborgs ll.fuseum, Arstryck,
1934, Bild IS·

201
to the T-shaped axes. The butt of NO.9 is worthy of note, because
it is ground flat. No. IS, Curua, is a very distinctive example,
that excels the best T-shaped axes from Guiana.
The large, broad axe, NO.5, Alto Iriry, with its converging,
straight sides, seems to be an example of' half-finished axe with
marginal llOtches. 1)
The stone-axe material in LADISLAL:' NETTO, Investigar;oes
sabre a archeologia brazileira, Archivos Do Museu N adonal Do Rio
de J aneira, Vol. VI, 1885, is of very little use, as it "vas brought
together from various parts of Brazil and no exact information is
given as to its sources. However, it is a matter of ce1tain interest
for our theme, that axes with notches ct£rved in the form of a comma
must have found their way out into the 10wlands.2) Yet this type
in particular has not passed over to the \Vest Indies.
It is of great signification for Guiana that there are axes with
marginal notches along the Lower Amazon. As has already been
explained, the Arawaks first established relations through trade
with tribes there, that were related to them in language, and then
later 011 the Caribs undertook voyages down to the river's mouth.
But the axe with marginal notches can also have reached Guiana
by the Rio Branco route,
Unfortunately TEN KA'l'E gives no information as to places oJ
origin, so that we can not even distinguish the axes that come from
the coast from those originating in the interior. That t. K. So. I7,
Pl. II "was obtained from Carib Indians on \Vayombo River"3) and
besides only that the others" were all collected in different parts of
Surinam with the exception, of course, of those obtained in British
Guiana by 1fr. Young and which come either from the coast,
or from Demerara ... and Berbice rivers" ,4) is all that \ye learn.
The sources of the material that I know however, indicate that the
axe with marginal notches reached Guiana rather by the land route
than from the coast. Lubbock's five axes, made of Guiana sandstone,
and No, 2, "British Guiana", also of sandstone and now in
the British l1htsewm, reveal by their material that they were pro-
1) Length 12, breadty at butt 33, and at the edge 5 % Cll.
') See p. 493.
3) P. 154.
4) P. ISS.

202
dnced in the interior of the land. SPITZLY'S Pl. XVIII, I, is
from "Montana near Berg en Dal on the upper Surinam River".
DE GOEJE'S example, I. A. E. Vol. XIX, Fig. II, b, of greenstone,
belongs to the axes that he obtained from the Ojanas, and which
. in part were found along the Pal1£11w River.
It is more interesting as far as the vVest Indies are concerned,
that the axe wit marginal notches was found in the great shellmounds
along the coast of British Gttiana. I refer the reader to hI.
THURN, Am. the Indians., Pl. X, 3, \vith a level posterior side,
which, although made of sandstone from the interior of Guiana,
yet, it was "found in a kitchen midden at \Varramura; Morucca
River, boundary between Venezuela end British Guiana".
Kone of the axes with marginal notches from Guiana, known
to me, have notches curved in the form of a comma. This special
form of "haches a encoches", must have their 1'-form counterpart
in VERNEAU and RIVET'S Pl. V, a specifically Andean type. I know
of no examples of these two related types from Colombia.
It may perhaps be worth while to remark that 'l'EN KATE,
Pl. I, S. H. 7 has little notches over the large ones. Because of
this it resembles somewhat the "double 'l'-form axe" (of copper),
an old type in Bolivia and Northwest Argentine. According to all
indications, this characteristic came from the lower Amazon, along
the coast to Surinam. I refer to the example from Alto Iriry mentioned
above.
N ORDENSKIl')LD regarded the "hache a encoches" as "closely
related to the l' -shaped axe. "1)
In the districts all the lower and central part of the Amazon
as well as in Guiana the axe with marginal notches and the
1'-shaped one are met with together, and both are fitted to be
hafted ill the same manner, i. e. by a lashing into a groove of
the handle.
Only three axes with marginal notches are published from
the W est I n die s :
FEWKES Amer. Anthrop., Vol. I6, Fig. 72, ErinJ?ay, Trinidad.
FEWKES II, Fig. I2, Do'minica.
JOYCE, Centro Amer. And Trest Ind. Arch., Fig. 56, St. Kitts.
1) NORDENSKli)LD, Ibid., p. 14I.

203
The Trinidad specimen was found in the Erin Bay shell-heap,
which is of Arawak origin. As for the example from Dominica,
no information is given as to the circumstances of its finding.
l'he St. Kitts axe was found in a mound.1) It is made of the
common andesite, found in the I,esser Antilles, which also occurs
on St. Kitts, and is therefore not an imported article. Both of
the last-named have sides converging towards the edge, which
can also OCCllt in Guiana.2) The only Antillean axe, besides, that
has this same characteristic is Pl. IV, 3 from St. Croix.3 )
I see no reason why the axe with marginal notches should
be assigned to the Caribs, even provisionally, while the facts we
know justify the hypothesis that the type passed over to the
Arawaks on southern 'frinidad and to the Arawak Igneris on the
Lesser Antilles, through their relations with the True Arawaks
on the coastal plains of Guiana. The type occurs in the \Vest
Indies only sporadically. Like the Peruvian T-shaped, nearly
square axe, with its straight posterior side, it must have been
lashed into a groove of a handle. It is in itself foreign to the
\Vest Indies and cannot be seen to have had any influence on
the development of the rich variations on the sonthern Lesser
Antilles, where the axes with raised bntt and with rounded backside,
or eared types together with divergent or rounded sides,
have the predominance.
The T-form
Axe.
Still more sporadic than the axe with marginal
notches is the l'-form axe in the Antilles. It
occurs only in one example, and that from J a­
maica. Its solitary occurrence on Jamaica can scarcely be attributed
to association \vith the South American continent over the
curve of the Antilles, by which route moreover, no other axeforms
can be shown to have reached Jamaica. On the contrary,
Jamaica has stood in communication with Central America. N a­
tnrally it is more logical to seek the origin of the type rather in
that direction.
1) FEWKES II. P 125.
") TE.:

204
T -shaped axes occur in Surinam, but not the most developed
type with long arms and smoothly-ground surface, that is, the
kind that resembles so strongly the Peruvian axe, made of metal.
The transition from the axe with marginal notches to weak T­
shaped types, can be observed in Guiana. All examples on TEN
KATE, Pl. VII can be considered as standard T-shaped axes. The
transition is best seen in T. K. 7. TEN KATE'S T-shaped axes,
also have sides slightly divergent towards the cutting-edge. Even
if Sijpest 2 and S. J. v. L I have moderately rounded sides, nevertheless
they do not contradict the impression of belonging to the
same principal type, as the other examples from Ten Kate.
Two T-shaped axes, one in the museum of Georgtown and photographed
by OTTO THULIN, Gothenburg, from "the coastal region
of Brit. Guiana", and another found "on the east coast of the
Barima River" have a long incurved neck and individualized half
circle shaped blade. These two seem to represent an intermediate
or hybrid type of the common T-shaped axes with the shank-axe. 1 )
Axes that are T -shaped in the proper sense of the word, did
not pass over from Guiana and reach Trinidad and the 14 esser
Antilles, as far as I can ascertain.
Circumstances are entirely different in Jamaica. On this
island has been found the T-form axe, in its completely developed
model, but not its related type, the axe with marginal notches.
As it can not be shown that the T -shaped axe made its way from
South America over the I,esser Antilles, its occurrence in Jamaica
must indicate that it reached here by some other route over Central
America.
In this connection, we have nothing to do with the original
center of expansion of the T -shaped axe in the Andes. It is
enough to say, that in the territories that came under the dominion
of the Incas, NORDENSKIOLD considered it a pre-Inca type,
coming originally from the South.3) In its true form with long
arms, it is scarcely possible to think otherwise, than that it was
produced by the hammering out of the arms in copper and the
elimination of the superfluous metal; afterwards it was copied in
1) See NETTO, op. bit., p. 492, Fig. 2.
2) A n Introductory Study, Etc., PI. 4, F. "east coast Barima River."
3) NORDENSKIOLD, Copper and Bronze Age., p. 59.

205
stone. FUNDERS PETRIE says: "The Egyptian, like the Peruvian,
,vas inventing this form in the copper stage, when hammering was
the process rather than casting; hence both went on the natural
lines of lengthening the blade along the handle, to give a larger
bearing and means of firm lashing."I) NORDENSKIOLD, also, considers
"more credible"2) the theory that the meta11ic T-form was
the prototype of the one made of stone. He says "The T-shaped
axe that is to be used for practical purposes has actually a shape
that is much more natural in metal than in brittle stone."3) That
the stone T-shaped axe finally had a greater expansion in the
Andes, than the metallic ones I consider on a11 force will the
greater extension in F:uropa of the stone halberd-axe, hafted
through a hole, in comparison to that of its prototype of metal.
110r our purpose it is sufficient to establish the fact that the
perfected T-shaped axe of stone, with straight sides diverging
towards the edge, is general in the North of Andean Ecuador as
far northerly as Angel, from the graves of which place many
such were taken and can now be seen in the Copenhagen
Museum. On the other hand, only a sporadic expansion seems to
have been begun over the high mountainous region between
Ecuador and Colombia very difficult to cross. I only know of
one insignificant example from southern Colombia.4) Moreover,
there are no grounds for the theory that the perfected T -shaped
axe could have reached Central America by way of Colombia.
And at the same time, I know of no T-form axes from Central
America, but that region is still too little investigated archeologically
- especia11y the sections along the Atlantic, which must be
closely surveyed, where Jamaica is concerned. As has already
been stated, the monolithic axes from the Mosquito Coast are
'r-shaped. 'I'he type mnst have reached here via the Peruvian
maritime trade by way of Panama. "A specimen quite exceptional
in Chiriqui"5) on the other hand, can not be called T-shaped,
') KORDHNSKliiI,D, Ibid., p. 154, ::'-Jote I, cites FI,INDERS PETRIH.
2) Ibid., p. 29.
3) NORDHNSKIOI,D, Ibid., p. 144.
4) UnI,H, J{ultur und Ind. PI. 13, Fig. 19.
5) HOI,MES, Ancient Art in the Province oj Chiriqui, 6th Ann. Rpt. Bur. Amer.
HthllOl., Wash. 1888, Fig. 18.

206
with its rounded raised butt and round blade. It belongs to the
type that occurs in the Cauca Valley, with which locality the
Chiriqui culture moreover shows a strong affinity.
I only know of one T-shaped axe that has been found in the
soil of Jamaica, but this was of a highly-perfectioned type. It is
B. 11,1. 96-905, "F'ound in Highgate, St. Catherine, by Inspector
Church"; DeERDEN reproduces it, greatly reduced, in Fig. IV, 3,
and describes it on p. 34. I vvill only add that I have never seen
in any specimen of the \Vest Indies an object made of exactly the
same kind of stone as the material of this axe. The rock is yellmv
green with dark, somewhat folded strips. Although the example
in Jamaica stands alone, nevertheless the possibility exists that
it is made of native material. Duerden says: "A metamorphic
siliceous green rock resembling jade, and taking a high polish is
met with, sometimes with light and dark bands."I) That the butt
is really ground flat, does not appear in the reproduction, nor
does he say anything about this.
This grinding flat of the butt I consider a very important
characteristic of the genuine T-shaped axe. This must stand in
close relation with the hafting of the axe by the lashing
method.2)
The stone T-shaped axe in Ecuador does not alw'ays end, as
a matter of fact, with a flat surface, and for this reason cannot
always have been hafted with lashing.3 ) Yet there are a considerable
number of examples with flat posterior side, not only
of the l'-shaped type, but also of axes with marginal llotches.4 )
Ii DT:li;RDEN, Ib£d., p. 32.
') Camp. KORDFXSKIOLD, Jbid., Fig. 5(), after BOMAN.
3) The large greenstone axes with triangular fictive cutting-edge from the
coast of Ecuador really han' a posterior side \vith sharp edges. An example of
this form, also of greenstone even if smaller than those from the coast, is R. :\1.
::'\0. 147 I, from Coyambe.
4) For example, the flat T-shaped axes of porphyry, Copenhagen ellusellill
o 1384, Angel, 0 1244--1931 "'ere found in the vicinity of Angel, for the most
part in graves. There are many similar axes in this collection but none so finl'
as the above-named. ~Iany other 1'-fofm axes with flat end from Ecuador could
be added to these Axes \yith marginal notches, and having flat butts occur in
many examples in B. ;11. IFhymper Coil. Such is ::'\0. I392, lHachachi, 1598 L
"near Riobamba", 1587 G "Gnana ncar Riobamba," Ko. 7758, eastern I\cua,lor.
and 9476 from the el;[acos Indians art the east slope of the Andes.

207
If we return to Guiana, the previously-mentioned example
of Lubbock's, M. I. I36 from a kitchen-midden on the coast and
made of crystalline rock, as well as the long example in the British
Museum with narrow notches and a fine polish. Straight butts
and apparently also wide, flat posterior sides have TEN KATE'S
axes, Pl. I and II, S. H. 4, t. K. I8; SPITZLY'S three axes from
Surinam, DE GOEJES' examples and 1M THURN'S X, I, and ROTH'S
Pi. 4, A and B.
Even if the single T-shaped Jamaica axe should prove to be
of native rock, the type cannot have originated in Jamaica. Future
researches and finds may be able to help us to solve the
question from where it came to Jamaica, or what influences it
has been subject to, if manufactured in that island.
Native Factors From what precedes, it is shown how the axein
the Genesis types were developed on the Lesser Antilles under
of the Axe. influences from the South American continent,
mainly from the Southwest, that can ultimately
be traced back to the Cauca Valley, and partly from the Southeast,
as nearly as can be deduced from Guiana.
But the material of the Guesde Collection, published by
Mason, is not so incomplete that it precludes the deduction that
the axe, above all was originally native to Guadeloupe.
Particularly owing to North American finds, I got the opinion
that the axe with round butt, neck (and groove) and round blade
was not in the beginning an axe-type in America, but a primitive
double-hammer type, whose central groove represented the
later neck. As they changed to the use of the single hammer,
the end that received the blow was made larger on account of its
rapid wearing away. It kept its round form and finally the axeblade
with round sides and round cutting-edge came out.
Large hand-axes were used in North America for mining,
They were used in the pun as of Argentina, and presumably in
the Great Basin, also, for mining salt. It is altogether likely that
the great double-axes from the north coast of Santo Domingo are
also salt-axes.
Its symmetrical prototype with central groove, or as in Santo
Domingo, a contracted neck in the middle, I certainly do not know

208
as coming from the southern Lesser Antilles. A one-edged axe
from St. Vincent, with contracted neck, but with the blade somewhat
larger than the head part, comes closest to iLl)
Grooved hammers are found in many types from Guadeloupe.
Some reveal direct derivation from the grooved axe. 2 ) Others
have departed more from the axe-form. The blade-part has
lost its round form and become flat-backed while the butt of
the head remains constantly round.3) Symmetry occurs in
Guadeloupe only, by grooved hammers of compressed appearance.
In certain instances, both heads are retained on
them, and the bladeparts rounded,4) and they look like double
hammers. But I do 110t consider that these were directly derived
from double-axes, but rather are a link in a secondary development
within the hammer-group itself.
On the volcanic I

209
influences complicated the development, especially through the
shank-axe with long neck and separated semicircular blade.
N ow there is something more to be added. Many of the
Antillean axes have straight sides that diverge against the cuttingedge.
This can not be explained by an according-to-rule development
like the one cited above.
Plastic decorations on axes, as for instance sculptured figures
behind on the capped forms from St. Vincent, together with
the evolution of ears into bird-heads must be regarded as later
additions that arose on the southern Lesser Antilles, without
being influenced by the mainland. On St. Vincent, pumice stone
has been formed into all sorts of plastic representations, as is
shown by HUCKERBY'S rich finds from Fancy. Among these occur
not only animal-heads, but also copies of both bowlsl ) and axes.2)
They also formed in pumice-stone bird-heads with "protuberance"
on the crown,3) as on the Erin Bay clay-heads of vulture. Afterwards
such "crowned" bird-heads, in profile, must have been
transferred to the stone axes. In conclusion, it seems to me that
we must seek the origin of the axes with bird-heads on St. Vincent,
which, moreover, is the island where plastic figure-decorations
on axes occur in the greatest variations.
\Vith reference to the above statements, I will summarize my
opinions about the diffusion of the axe in the \Vest Indies as
follows:
I. The axe has come into the southern Lesser A ntilles through
southwestern influences from South America, originating from the
Cauca Valley. These are above all forms with rounded butt and "ears".
2. These impulses have been complicated with other forms,
that came origl:nally from the Ecuadorean and Peruvian Andes and
reached the Guianas whence some of them passed over to the vVest
Indies. H ere belongs preferably the shank-axe with semicirc'ular
blade, ,['hich on the southern Lesser A ntilZes gave rise to a a 'multitude
of complica#ons and Zlariations. The axe 'with marginal notches,
which however occurs in the vVest Indies only sporadically, also
arrived here by the same rottle.
") FEWKES II, Pl, 94 B and Co
2) Ibid., Pl. 37 and 42 B.
3) FgWKES II, Pl. 44, C, a swimming bird.

210
3. The expansion of the axe on the Antilles is really connected
with occurrence of lavas, above all andesite. Thus the axe-cttlture,
together with the accompanying plastic decoration of the bach
p~tshed on from the Southern Lesser A ntilles in a norterly direction
towards and including St. Kitts-Nevis.
4. Sf. Croix and the Virgin Islands, where otherwise celts
prevail have produced a 'PI-umber of varying f01'111s, which betray
obvious infll~ence derived trom the axe-forms of the Lesser A nWles,
lihewise those that are based on the axe with middle axle. Presumably
this influence has been present ever since the Igneri era, and
because of it the older pottery of these islands also shows a distinct
resemblance to that of the Lesser Antilles.
5. So far as we can hnow from the material extant to date, the
axe never reached Jamaica and the Bahamas. On Puerto Rico and
ESpa11.ola the axe is most noticeable in its influence on the celts. In
this connection on the last-named island a type peculiar to it, namely
the axe 'with a cross-piece, has come into existence.
7. The axe is remarked sporadically on Cuba. An e."fample
fOlmd as far away as western Cztba approximates the highly developed
axes with heads of bird of prey from the Lesser Antilles.
Flint.
While the 1'ainans reached a high degree of perfection
in the polishing of their celts, and the
Igneris taught themselves to work up the andesite of the Lesser
Antilles into many varieties of axes, often very finely shaped, it is
striking what a slight knowledge the Island-Arawaks had from the
beginning about working flint into actual implements or points.
1'he old authors leave us in ignorance as to the cutting implements
of the 1'ainans. Such implements of flint can only be demonstrated
in Cuba, Espanola, and possibly on the Caicos Islands.
FEWKES sees in the crescentic stones from the southern Lesser
Antilles, a kind of "sacrificial knife". But these are not made of
a species of flint and with their blunt edge, as Guesde Coll, jig.
190, Guadeloupe, they hardly are fit to have been cutting tools.
As a rule the Tainans had dart-points of fish-spine; indeed,
they often contented themselves with just burning the end of a
wooden spear to a point. 1'hose with stone points were on
Espanola the exception.

211
As flint occurs in the Lesser Antilles, only locally and in the
majority of islands not at all, it is possible that the Islalld-Arawaks,
after they settled down on these islands lost the ability to
make artifacts out of such a material. Still, on Guadeloupe and
St. Kitts they not have showu themselves to have possessed the
art of flaking flints into a primitive standardized kiud of cutting
implements. But nothing like it, especially dart or arrow points,
are known from the Lesser Antilles. In the interior of British
Guiana they advanced far in the expert treatment of agate for the
production of arrow-points!). But it is likely that here we have
to do with a later phase of development that never reached the
coast. In the Arawak middens on the Aruka Hills, near Moraw­
Hanna, nevertheless were found seven small pointed, triangular
arrow-points with tangs and barbs.2) ep to the present time
only one find has been made on the I,esser Antilles, namely at
St. Kitts, which possibly reveals a commenced arrow-point. It is
possible that later finds vvill bring to light arrow-points. The
Igneris must have been in active communication with their Arawak
kinsmen on the coast of British Guiana, which fact is already
revealed by influences on later axe-forms originating by way of
that country.
The few finds that we know up to date from the Lesser Antilles
show only an experimental elaboration of flint. For the first
time when we advance further to the Greater Antilles, genuine
standardized flint artifacts appear on Cuba and Espanola, a
veritable flint culture of cutting tools. On the other hand, no
South American connection is present there.
The islands from which I know flint artifacts are as follows:
Guadeloupe. On Grande 1'erre, GeESDE found "two tools of
flaked flint -- a knife and hacking knife." He
only knew that flint was lacking "in Grande Terre or Guadeloupe"
and for this reason considered that the tools he had found must
result from "a migration of men from the Valleys of the Orinoco
1) WAr/tER R ROTH, Additional Studies of the Arts, Crafts and Customs of tlie
Guiana Indians, Bur. Amer. Ethnol. Bull. I9, "Vash. I929, PI. I, c.
2) In the British Museum.

2I2
towards the Islands. "1) Nevertheless, his presumption was false.
Flint occurs on Grande Terre 2 ) in the limestone deposits. Because
of this, there is no reason for presuming a foreign origin for the
artefacts. Unfortunately there are no illustrations to show how
Guesde's flaked flints appear. All we hear about them that they
probably served as cutting-tools.
St. lUtts. In his F1:g. 22, BRA~CH presents a "worked flint",
found in a midden. He regards this as a sort of
knife. It is formed like an arrow-point. It does not appear to
have been succesfully made. Knives which resemble arrow-points
are to be found in the Eastern States. In regards to flint knives
in North America, HODGE says, "The flaked knifeblade of flint is
straight like a spearhead or is curved like a hook or sickle and it is
frequently bevelled on one or both edges. "3)4) It is not necessary
to seek North American influences in this flint artifact from St.
Kitts. For it was the natural thing to use the sharp side of a
flaked flint as a knife.
Cuba.
HARRINGTON, Figs. 7 a, and b, scrapers of flint,
mound near the Cienaga de Zapata; 46, scraper
or knife of flint, 47, scraper of flint, and 48, these three from a
village site at JVlonte Cristo, 52 scraper of flint, from a cave near
Boca Ovando.
In Cuba good access to flint is found in the Eocene limestone.
1'he island's old-time inhabitants, the Siboneys, immigrated
from Florida and it is probable that they \vere already familiar
with the use of flint before their migration. The foundation for
the development of a veritable flint culture was laid even in the
pre-Tainan period in Cuba.
Although flint artifacts appear even in late Tainan dwellingsites
5 ) on Cuba, they must in every case be looked upon as being
") The Guesde Call., p. 740.
2) RAU,ItT, La Guadeloupe, Vol. I, 3, p. 281.
3) HODGE, Handbook of A Iller. Ii/dian Vol. I, an example on p. 718, TeIlnesee,
or E. \'1. HAWKES and RAT,F LINTON in Amcv. Anthrop. Vol. 19, ~·o. 4,
PI. XII, d, e, and f.
4) 1'0 tooth-range can be observed on BR"NC'U'S flint artifact,
5) HARRING'l'ON, p, 203-207, ~Ionte Cristo Sit", Gran Tierra de Maya,

213
linked to the Siboneyan culture. HARRr:NG'l'ON found types that
were common to both cultures. He found that the flint objects
were most comm011 in Siboneyan sites, but "by no means rare
throughout the Tainan deposits." Five of the artifacts occur in the
sites of both races. HARRINGTON found them to be as follows:
I) "sharp-edged and often pointed flakes", clearly used as
knives, but one of which he considers could have been" a dart or
arrow-point;' '1)
2) a kind of borer;
3 ) knife-scrapers ;2)
4) "round, discoidal scrapers, with a sharply bevelled edge";
5) I."arge pieces of flint, "roughly chipped on one side, probably
choppers or improvised hand-axes made to meet temporary
need. ".
A sixth kind of artifact with a concave edge,3) "as for dressing
down arrow- or spear-shafts" was found by HARRINGTON, "perhaps
by chance", only in Siboneyan slites.4)
HARRINGTON does not give further particulars about the culture
of chipped chert in Florida, from which the Siboneyan must
have originated. So we do not know in what measure it can have
been developed after the migration to Cuba.
Cutting tools prevail in Siboneyan flint culture on Cuba. As
yet dart or spear points are not certain to have been found. In
mounds in north-eastern Florida containing the remains of a
primitive culture without ground celts and pottery spear and
dart points are rather common. Cutting tools of little standardized
types are scarce. Evidently the primitive culture in northeastern
Florida have not much in common with the primitive Siboneyan
culture of Cuba. From the southern part of Florida
where the Siboneyan culture of Cuba is likely to have had its
origin, primitive cultures are not yet archeologically established.
Discoidal stone scrapers even asymmetrical, are met with in the
higher cultures of the Southern States as well as in the primitive
Siboneyan Culture of Cuba.
1) Ibid., p. 20G, Fig. 48.
2) Ibid, Fig. 46.
3) Ibid .• Fig. 52.
4) See Ibid., p. 392.

214
'i'he higher cultures in northern Florida present a decidedly
neolithic character. Points are the predominating artifact, and
as a rule these are provided with tangs; in other cases they have a
semi-lunar base for insertion into shaft. Scrapers play scarcely
any greater role also in these cultures.
The Cnban flint-culture presents a certain late-paleolithic
stage of development. HARRINGTON lays stress on "little or no
secondary chipping." An interesting parallelism with the latepaleolithic
or mesolithic cultures in western and northern Europe
is presented insofar as the discoidal and elongated scrapers with
straight edges, such as HARRINGTON Fig. 46, appear contemporaneously.
In Sweden, to begin \vith, only the discoidal scraper
appears in the oldest knmvn dwelling-sites on the coast of northern
HallandJ) In the somewhat younger sites as Sandarna near
Gothenburg and Gottskar on the coast of northern Halland, not
to speak of the kitchen-midden-culture and neolithic sites, occur,
contemporaneously, the same as in the site at :vronte Cristo, not
only the recently mentioned elongated scrapers with dentated
edges, but also assymetrical discoidal ones with small incisions
forming small teeth on the outward side; the lesser curving side,
which was held by the fingers, lacks teeth just as HARRINGTON,
Fig. 47. Both of these artifacts are contemporary with and
very frequent notably in the kitchen-midden culture. Such a
parallel development reveals similar requirements. Discoidal
scrapers occur in different cultures in the United States, where
they had flaked and chipped tools. :l\Ioreover the discoidal
scraper is found in the highly-standing flint culture of Tennessee,
scrupulously circl'Jar in form and having the greater part of its
periphery dentated.2) But the assymetrical discoidal scrapers in
different cultures in the United States in finish as a general rule,
do not even come up to the specimen from Monte Cristo. I do not
know any exact companion to this from the North American
mainland, nor to the elongated scraper with straight, dentated
edges, likewise from Monte Cristo.
") NILS NIKLASSON, Rd6 ack Varberg. Archaeological studies dedicated to
H. R. H. Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf, Stockholm, I932, Fig. 3, Rao, and 6, Varberg.
2) MOOREHEAD, Op. cit., Vol. 8, Figs. 160, 161, 162.

215
Flint artifacts on Cuba are almost always cutting tools. Only
the primitive borers, of which Harrington publishes no illustration,
are excepted, together with Fig. 48, from the Tainan village site
at :\lonte Cristo, which he suggests may be a "projectile point."
Unfortunately it is broken off at the base, so that such an alternative
is very difficult to decide. As the ridge between the only
two large chips that have been struck off is not straight (we do
not know how the object looks on the other side) and also because
of the obtuseness of the end, a cutting utensil rather than a point
is indicated.
Santo Domingo. KRIEGER I, pl. 7: 6, 7 Monte Cristi Prov.; pl. 9,
six flaked object of chert and greenstone, Samana
Province caves. HATT, Notes Arch. Santo Domingo, Geogr. Tidskr.,
35 Bd., 1932 , jig. I5, Las Barreras, near Azua.
A lack of material suitable for chipping prevails in Santo
Domingo. 1 ) As a general rule chipped objects must have been
made of chert.2) Lack of material on the island is shown by the
fact that they tried to flake greenstone into cutting or boring
utensils.3)
Of six flakes from a cave on the south shore of Samana Bay
moreover, only two are plainly chipped, namely KRIEGER I,
pl. 9, figs. I and 2. It is possible that fig. I is a perforator and a
genuine artifact. In the same cave KRIEGER also found "shell
gouges of the shoe-horn type, plates and ladles of shell, .... toggether
with a few isolated undecorated potsherds."4)
The realistic representations of birds and fishes in Cueva del
Templo on the southern shore of Samana Bay reveal an interest
in animals which certainly is not met with in the Tainan pictographs
It possibly may be that the natives who made these representations
were a primitive fishing people, in the same cave are found
1) KRIEGER, The Aborigines ot the Ancient Island of Hispaniola, Smithson.
Rep. for 1929. Washington 1930 , p. 499.
2) F. C. CALKINS, Geological Survey at the Dominican Republic, .M~emoirs, Vol.
I; A Geological Reconnaissance ot the Dominican Republic, 'Washington 192 I, p. 83,
mentions chert from the province of Azua; but on the other hand, no flint from
the island.
3) See KR1EGtR I, PI. 9, Samana Province.
4) KRIEGtR II, p. 66.

216
human figures in Tainan style. I wish to emphasize that KRIE­
GER I, pl. 5, j£g. I4 from that cave is a typical Tainan conventionalisation
of man in Borinquenan pictographs. I refer the reader
to FEWKES I, pl. IX, pt. 2, r.
If these finds really do denote a primitive pre-Arawak people
on Santo Domingo, nevertheless there is no apparent reason for
identifying this people with the Siboneys on Cuba. The halves
of the large conch-shells which KRIEGER illustrates (Pl. 8, Samana
caves), could not be considered equivalents to the shell vessels
of the Cuban Siboneys, "made completely out of single snailshells
by widening the orifices."!) Nor has the broad triangular
type of shell-gouge, "formed of the lower spire of the conch",
so characteristic of the Siboneyan culture of Cuba,3) been shmvn
up to the present time from the island of Espanola. Furthermore,
as no mortar holes with or without traces of red hematite have
been found up to the present time in the surface of the rock in caves,
no evidence has yet been established of the former existence of
a pre-Arawak population in Santo Domingo, similar to that
pointed out in Cuba. Moreover, celts of shoehorn type have
as a matter of fact in the \Vest Indies been shown to be Arawak
finds.
KRIEGER I, pl. 7, figs. 6 and 7, show two genuine chipped
artifacts from Monte Cristi Province. Fig. 6 is a crude one-edged
knife. The one-edged scraper that Harrington reproduces from
a Siboneyan finding-place near the Cienaga de Zapata 4 ) is of
another type. Fig. 7 with a ridge running through the center
from end to end does not stand far distant from HARRINGTON,
Fig. 48, :\lonte Cristo, Oriente; but while the Cuban example
has had hvo large chips struck off from both sides of the ridge, the
Santo Domingan object is worked out with small incisions. This
latter is more pointed than the leaf-shaped Cuban specimen and
has possibly at the base a broken tang. Up till now no real and
unmistakable dart point of stone has been found on Espanola.
Yet Las Casas informs us that the Haitians had dart points too
of stone.
1) For both types see HARRINGTON, PI. XXXIV and eVIII.
2) See HARRINGTOX, PI. IV, Fig. 38, and PI. eVIlI.
") HARRINGTOX, Fig. 7.

2 17
KRIEGER does not give any information about the CIrcumstances
of the finding of these two artifacts from Monte Cristi
Province. Presumably they are Tainan.
Furthermore HATT'S investigations clearly show us that the
Tainos of Espanola had stone artefacts. I am very much obliged
to him for placing at my disposal in a letter the fact that the
stone artefacts which he discovered at La Barrera near Azua
(HATT, fig. IS) were found in a site containing Tainan pot-sherds
and earthenware heads which belonged to these vessels. At the
same site he also found petaloid celts. In his letter Prof. HATT
tells me that 7 stone artefacts from an Indian site north of Portau-Prince
(HATT ibid. p. 7) which were presented to the National
Museum of Copenhagen by Mr. Walter Nyholm, a Danish manager
of a sugar plantation, must be of Tainan origin since Mr. Nyholm
found pot-sherds of Taino types in the same site.
With the exception af an axe which had been newly begun,
HATT'S artefacts from La Barrera are knives and scrapers. They
are not merely unfinished tools, or refuse, like KRIEGER'S from the
south shore of Samana Bay but real artefacts, and "show marks of
use along edges or along a short edge". I cannot say that HATT'S
knives as seen in fig. 7 a, b, c, f, g, h, the latter two elaborately
worked, have much in common with the straight one-edged Siboneyan
knives from Cuba. They all possess a pronounced point,
a and b even have a back curved blade. Fig. d, a straight oneedged
scraper, corresponds in these respects with those from Cuba.
Fig. i is a two-edged specimen with a ridge lenghtwise similar to
HARRINGTON'S knife in fig. 48, the former, however, lanceolate,
Harrington's leave shaped. HATT also points out "one flake with
concave scraper edge", evidently referring to fig. j. According to
HARRINGTON (comp. his fig. 52) scrapers with this kind of edge
are found on Cuba in Siboneyan sites only. Furthermore HATT
found a disc-shaped piece, evidently fig. k, which had been used
as a scraper. The fully elaborated disc--scraper provided with
incisions on one side only, is found in Cuba. A straight oneedged
scraper, fig. d, corresponds with those of Cuba.
The lengthwise flakening of these artefacts is similar to that
of the artefacts found in Cuba.
In all probability the Tainos of Espanola learnt the technique

218
of flint chipping from their kinsmen in Cuba who in their turn
learnt it from the Siboneyes, and the artefacts are of the same
kind and were similarly used. Each kind of Cuban artefact has
its complement in Espanola, although the knife types do not
approximate. No single kind of artefact found in Espanola, is
missing in Cuba. The flint culture of the two islands can be said
to be equivalent.
It is interesting to see that the flint culture of La Barrera
was discovered in the province of Azua, the only place in Espanola
where chert is found as far as we know at present. HATT's finds
reveal in Espanola the only place where the influence of the Cuban
flint age on the Haitian one can be satisfactorily established. The
chance of discovering at other places in Espanola some more,
complete series of flint cultures is not great. Other finds hitherto
made on Itspanola are of lesser importance.
A proper flint culture with standardized artefacts did exist
on Espanola, and judging by the artefacts it was of Cuban origin,
but the lack of suitable material prevented a larger extension in
this island.
Caicos Islands. In a cave on North Cakos Island, DE Booy found
"one brown flint hatchet-head and one black
flint chisel with cutting-edge."l) Unfortunately he presents no
illustrations, so that the find can not be judged with exactitude.
The limestone of the Bahamas is of recent formation,2) and I know
of no information about native flint being found there. The abovementioned
objects, therefore, must have been imported, or at
any rate their material. Two chipped implements from Providenciales,
made of jadeite3 ) and in form like spear- or arrow-points
must have been imported, in all probabillity from Santo Domingo
where they also worked up greenstone into cutting implements.
However I do not know this type from Santo Domingo. DE Booy
regards one of the objects as a knife, "with a cutting edge and
highly polished (Fig. 3, b), and on which can be seen two small
1) Lucayan Remains of the Caicos Islands, Amer. Anthrop., N. S. Vol., 14,
1912, p. 94-95.
2) SHA't1'UCK and LE Roy MILI,ER in The Bahama Islands, p. 17.
3) Ibid., Figs. 3 a and b.

2Ig
nicks by which to secure lashing."I) Unfortunately he gives no
measurements. If the objects is sufficiently small and an edge
occurs at the base, then it is altogether possible that it could
have been a spear-point, and was intended to be inserted into the
handle at the sharp end.
Jamaica. DUERDEN, Fig. II, two flaked flints.
M. t. V., Berlin, Bastian Coll., IV C, b, I502, one
point from] a11Iaica, Jlontego Bay, June Ig04.
I,OVEN, Stone Dart Points tram the District of Old Harbour
(Jamaica)2) , Plate, Figs. T--6,' there are 75 specimens in all, the
greater part in the Gothenburg Museum, PI XII I-IO.
In regard to his fig. II IkERDEN says that chips are found in
"practically all kitchen middens" on the island.3) The core of
flint from which they were struck off is often found. 4) '''l'he flint
is of the same character as that occurring abundantly in the white
limestone in most districts of the island.5)". The flakes reproduced
by DUERDEN have no intentional form. It is therefore a question
if they can be regarded as more than coarse chips.
In Ig20, when Captain A. F. SCHOLANDER of the Swedish R
Navy was in Jamaica, he had the luck to obtain 75 arrow-heads
from a Swedish sailor who asserted that the had found them in a
mound near Old Harbour. 1'hese are in part finished points, but
there are specimens in the different stages of manufacture.6)
DUERDEN states that "in most shell-heaps" on the island 7 )
flaked flints are foundS). They are usually made out of "small
fragments, an inch or so across, broken off some large block.".
Moreover, sometimes a core from which flints have been struck, is
') Ibid., p. lOI.
2) Rcvista del Instituta de Etnologia de la Universidad N acional de Tucuman
Vol. II, p. 133-~I 38. 1932.
3) Op. cit., p. 36.
4) Ibid., p. 7 and 36.
5) Ibid., p. 7.
6) Compare with the mound "Venera Prieto" near the Cienaga de Zapata,
Cuba, FER)l"A)l"DO ORTIZ, Histaria de la Arqueologia Indocubana, Habana, 1922. On
p. 35 COSCULLUEI,A is cited.
7) Op. cit., p. 7.
8) Fig. II. Both from sites near Falmouth on the north coast.

220
found. The material is indigenous, as the flint is "of the same character
as that occurring abundantly in the White Limestone in
most districts of the island."l) Yet DUERDEN asserts that "shaped
flint implements are not known in Jamaica."
1933 are flaked flint implements found in Jamaica by Dr.
THOMAS GANN "on a stratum on the sea-shore at Morant Bay,
which he considers as indicative of inhabitants long anterior to
the Arawak". They are published in the "Gleaner" of the 25 of
January 1934 by Dr. THEODORE MAC COWNS. Two implements
"show irregular but quite definite secondary flaking."2) They are
called a "scraping tool" and "a scraper". To judge from the general
description these do not appear to be scrapers of standardized
types as is the case in Cuba and Espanola.
A triangular dart-point with slender tang belonging to the
Copenhagen Museum and published by me at an earlier date,3)
must have been localized faultily and did not originate in J amaica,
but in some Mayan region, possibly British Honduras, Peten
or Tabasco.4) In addition, with the exception of a single stone
point found at Montego Bay in 1904 by BASTIAN and REICHARDT'S
expedition and which is indiscutably Jamaican, I previously
was not aware of any other point from this island. This point
has a broad, short tang set off only by incised notches, and thus
differs from the larger part of the flint points with tangs smaller
than the base of the blade, which were published in my paper,
about dart points from Jamaica.
SCHOLANDER'S collection is made up entirely of points,
which for the most part are not wholly finished. But some are
completed, so there can be no doubt but that Indians of J a­
maica produced at least one type of qualified artifacts, namely
points, as a native industry. But so far as I know, moreover,
3) Flint is found in Montpelier beds in "chalky limestones and marls with
flint nodules "of the later eocene or oligocene period". See statement by Dr.
C. A. MATLEY in FRANK CUNDAI,L, "Jamaica in 1928", London 1928, p. 169.
From the map on p. 171, it appears that white limestone formation exists to thc
west of Old Harbour and also in the peninsulas on both side of Old Harbour Bay.
I do not know in which extension the flint occurs.
4) FRANK ClJNDALT" Handbook at Jamaica tor I932-34, p. 5.
5) Ueber die Wurzeln der Tainischen Kuitur, PI. VII, 3. Compare p. 196.
6) Presented together with incense-burners from Tabasco.

221
this is the only kind of artifact recorded up to the present time
from Jamaica.
Old Harbour points differ in type not only from BASTIAN'S
from Montego Bay, but also from the doubtful one previously mentioned
from Santo Domingo. Indeed, the principal type must be
regarded as triangular, even if there are a few specimens among
them with somewhat rounded sides. If they are completed and
not merely half-finished. they have tangs. An important exception
is Pl. XIII, fig. I, a little, fine, thin, light arrow-point. It is
of a dark flint with a concave base which is sharpened to permit
of its fastening into the shaft, and it has dentated sides. If the
dart points are finished, they are flat, thin and so light as to be
suitable for darts projected by means of a spear-thrower. For the
most part the material of the points is light, ferruginous flint; in
some cases it is reddish flint. The larger broken point, fig. 2, is
of reddish quartsite. It may not have been too heavy for a dart
when it was complate. One point, fig. 3, is broken off transversely
at its lower end. The necessary thinness and lightness could
scarcely be produced here because of the hard quartz material
which was very difficult to flake.
Both sides of the flakes are manifoldly flaked. The existence
of well marked tangs show that the Jamaicans were familiar also
with secondary percussive chipping methods.!) It can be questioned
if the Jamaicans arrived indepedently at percussive method,
or if they learned them from Yucatan, with which peninsula they
must have been in direct communication. Pinzon, during his
temporary absence from the fleet at the time of the first voyage of
Columbus, learned that "Yamaye" lay about 10 days canoe-journey
from the mainland, where the people wore c1othes. 2)
Moreover, triangular arrow-points with tangs occur in the
highly developed flint culture of the northern part of British Honduras.3)
The more finished points show a detailed flaking on both
1) Compare \V. H. HOL~IES, Handbook ot Aboriginal American Antiquities,
rart I; Introductory to the Lithic Industries, \Vashington 1919, p. 303, Fig. 170.
2) Compare KAVARRE1'E, Coleccion etc., Vol. I, (sec. ed.), Madrid 1858, p. 174.
3) Compare THOMAS \V. F. GANN, The Maya Indians of Southern Yucatan
and Northern British Honduras, Bur. Amer. Bthn. Bull. No. 64, \Vash. 1918, Fig.
19, c; also a specimen shown in PI. VII, 3 of my German edition.

222
sides. By this as well as by its pronounced tangs, Jamaica represents
a neolithic stage.
These points from the mound near Old Harbour show that the
Jamaicans living there at one time used such points with tangs for
their darts. By means of these tangs the darts were made to sit
more firmly and securely in their shafts. They did not abandon
this so important contrivance, but made all their points with
tangs. Moreover, they could produce two small horizontal, blunt
barbs at the end of the broad tang (figs 5 and 6), and dentate the
sides of the blade (figs I and 5). But not a point in the collection
indicates that the Jamaican hads advanced as far as pressure
chipping,I) by which they could have produced very pointed, sharp
points with two long, sharp barbs and slender tangs like those
of the more distinctive and finely shaped from Mexico, Andean
South America, and in the northeastern South America as far
easterly as into the interior of British Guiana. Such points must
have been designed in most cases for arrows to be used with bows.
Nevertheless in Jamaica darts were projected from spear-throwers,
their real longdistance weapon in battle. Big game did not exist
on the island, so that hunting spears were scarcely necessary. Only
the above-named little, fine point, fig. I, must be intended for the
arrow of a bow. With this exception, these Jamaican points as
a rille show by their size and weight that the darts themselves
must have been rather large. Furthermore, the Jamaican triangular
points with tangs are hitherto unique. No connection with
the flint culture in Cuba and Espanola can be inferred from
this Jamaican material.
It appears as if the Tainos, did not have any chip­
ped stone artifacts at all, before their emigration
from South America. In the mounds of northern
The Flint Culture
on the
Antilles.
British Guiana are found only arrow-points, made unskillfully.
Genuine scrapers or knife artifacts of stone are entirely lacking.
In northeastern South America occur cutting utensils of different
material. Among the Island Arawaks the contact with the
Siboneyes had altered this condition somewhat on the island of
1) Compare H. HOI,MES, Ibid., Fig. I69.

223
Cuba, and in second hand for Haitian Tainos. The finding of a
boar's tusk in a cave on an island lying so far distant from South
America as the Caicos Islands,I) indicates the continuation of old
South American traditions. On this continent peccary teeth are
often used as cutting tools, while this animal is not included in
the fauna of the Antilles.
No veritable flint artifacts are found on the Lesser Antilles,
nor on Puerto Rico. The Tainos adopted a flint culture, already
developed by the Siboneyes, only after their migration to Cuba.
There is reason for that the Tainos handed it on from Cuba to Espanola.
Jamaica has nothing to do with this original North American
flint culture. The predominating occurrence of tangs on J a­
maican flint points, indicates a certain maturity in development,
which may be explained by influences originating from the Mayas
and likely from British Honduras. As the workshop at Old Harbour
proves, the Jamaicans advanced so far as producing points
with tangs, by themselves.
1) DE Boo\", Lucayan Remains on the Caicos Islands, p. 84. HARRI:S:Gl'ON,
ap. cit. p. 164, found "a bone of peccary" in an aborigi;nal deposit near l\Iaisi.

CHAPTER IV.
Ceramics.
It is through the pottery, above all, that we have come to
discern an archaic era in Mexico, Central America, and also in
South America.
In the West Indies, the archaic pottery arrived from the northeast
of South America with the Arawaks. Since then it has developed
on the different islands more or less independently. The
ceramic moulded lugs in the form of grotesque human heads
characterizes the proper Tainan culture, that came into existence
on Puerto Rico and Espanola. The ceramic evolution has been
most individual on Jamaica, which lies somewhat apart from the
other islands. The I,esser Antilles that were inhabited by the
Igneris, in a by far higher degree than the Tainan Cireater Antilles,
have been exposed to later South American influences. Pottery,
painted before firing, made its way northwards from Trinidad at a
late period and replaced the archaic ceramics of the Igneris. On
the Greater Antilles, however, the pottery remained always archaic,
even up to the time of the Discovery, when its development
ceased. \Ve have found genuine archaic pottery in the Arawak
shell mounds along the coast of British Guiana, which in its pronounced
moulding is nearly equal to the proper Tainan pottery.
The American archaeologists are agreed that the archaic era
in Mexico and Central America must have embraced a long
period of time. \Vhat they comprehend as archaic ceramics in
Mexico, possesses very different qualities and grades of development.
SPINDEN has shown us the different stages in the representation
of the eyes of the little clay figures.I ) In the archaic ceramics
of Mexico and Central America may be ranked pottery with
') See Notes on the Archeol. at Salv., p. 453, and Anc. Cit'. of }vlexico etc.
Fig. 15.

225
painting of good quality, not only with lugs, but also with handles
l ), with permanent tripods, etc. The vessels are "heavy and
simple in shape" and as to form open or "globular with a constricted
neck".2) Both lugs and handles occur. The decoration
is essentially moulde. The clay head may be more naturalistic
and artistic than the ones that occur in the archaic ceramics of
South America and also in the West Indies, and extends into the
middle cultures,3) which include a large part of what earlier was
designated by the term "archaic culture". In South America
such archaic clay heads are attached to the open vessels where
they are turned towards the interior. However, up to the present
date no pottery has been found either in Mexico or in Central America,
that is so primitive and of such poor quality to correspond
to the first archaic ceramics of South America. This must therefore
have reached South America at a very early stage of
development in Central America.
When we are considering the ceramics of the lowlands in eastern
South America, we ought not to give the designation "archaic"
the same extension as in Mexico and Central America.
The archaic pottery in South America is of coarse material.
The decoration is incised and moulded. The modelled heads or
faces are turned towards the interior of the open vessel. The still
more primitive pottery is undecorated. No well-grounded motive
exists for tracing this to Central America, and thus on the whole
the invention of pottery from Mexico and Central America. LINNE
gives an account of the different methods of building up vessels in
America. Of these the moulding method can be counted out in
this connection, as it is found only among "peoples of more advanced
civilization 4 )." The archaic pottery of South America is
made with the coiling method. In western South America it
preceded the ceramics of the higher civilizations. The direct
shaping method Linne regards as "undoubtedly the simplest and
typologically the most primitive one." Among relatively primitive
1) SPINDEN, Anc. Civ. of Mexico, p. 55.
2) SPINDEN, Anc. Civ. of Mexico, sec, ed., New York, 1922, p. 55.
3) See GEORGE C. V AII,I,ANT, Excavations at Ticoman, Anthrop. Pap. Mus.
Nat-History, Vol. 32, pt. 2, New York 1931, some on PI. 58, PI. 66 c, PI. 68 d-f.
') The Technique of South American Ceramics, Gothenburg, 1925, p. 81.
15

226
races in South America it therefore occurs. I ) Basket-moulded clay
vessels are found in isolated instances in a region occupied by
primitive tribes in eastern Brazi1. 2 ) However, this is not the
place to discuss the different centers, where pottery can first
have been made in South America. In the following account I
take into consideration the expansion of archaic ceramics in
South America only as it affects the \Vest Indies.
The oldest provable archaic influences trom Central America
seem to have effected an entrance on the Pacific side of South
America, passing by the inaccessible mangrove coast of Colombia.
On the west coast they must first have taken possession of the
open maritime region of Manabi. It is true that no purely archaic
culture has been found there, but mounds in Jl.1anabi have presen'­
ed many archaic characteristics.3) In the Andes of Ecuador in
some places archaic ceramics can be pointed out. Sites with purely
archaic pottery are met with for the first time a long way dovvn
the Peruvian coast, such as at Supe's lighthouse, "en el shellmound
mas antiguo de Ancon", a site at Bella Vista in the
Valle de Lima, on the shore at Chorillos, etc.4) Agriculture has
not accompanied the archaic pottery along the central coast of
Peru. Dhle designates the people as "archaic fisher-folk". He
characterizes their ceramics thus: "a pottery of simple type, with
a red polished surface, and a simple decoration in the form of some
lines and a series of engraved points."5) He does not mention the
clay head in this connection, although such are found in the shell
heap at Ancon. 6 )
Because of lack of finds, we do not know by what routes the
archaic ceramics afterward made their way from the Peruvian
coast over the highland into the Amazon country. But DHLE
1) Ibid., p. 74-76.
2) Compo I,INNE, Ibid., p. 93 cites KOENIGSWALD and AMBROSETTI.
3) According to UHLE, Las Antiguas Civilizaciones de Jlanta, Bn!. Ac. Kat.
Rist" VoL 12, Quito, 1931, p. 25, in Chiquilanchi, Macaju, and San Sebastian,
Comp, J. Jijon y Caamario, Ibid., VoL I, Quito, 1

227
points out that the finding of "a cape made of the feathers of
the Ara Macao in one of the graves of the archaic fisher-people
of Supe" reveals association with the tropical lowlands in the
:gasP)
However we must not overlook the fact that the archaic
ceramics might likewise have made their way from Central America
into the Andean regions of Colombia, or reached Venezuela
by the Atlantic route. No archaic finds have been made in Andean
Colombia; the known pottery from that region shows a high
grade of development. In the Chibcha ceramics, the frogs are
tnrned towards the interior of the vessel, and that is an archaic
characteristic. Mnch of the archaic has been preserved in the
pottery at 1.(. Tacarigna. The pottery of the Dntch Leeward
Islands and Margarita shows in addition the stages of evolution
with painting, which spread to the Lesser Antilles. Other western
influences came in to Trinidad previous to painting from the
Dutch Leeward Islands.
"Archaic pottery" does not represent a certain period in
general, but a stage of development. It remained demonstrable
on the Greater Antilles into the Spanish period.
A short snmmary of the occurrence of archaic ceramics in
South America follows below. Presumably the Arawak races
propagated it in the Amazon regions after they learnt to know
it from Peru. This does not go so far as to explain its existence
among the True Arawaks, as these lastnamed could have received
it both from the Lower Amazon or along the coast of Venezuela.
Ancon. The archaic culture of Central America advanced
to the Andean regions of South America at a
very early epoch according to Mexican parallel. SPINDEN considers
UHLE'S cultural find in a shell-heap, now located high above
sea-level at Ancon but which probably indicates where the shore
lay in the epoch of its production, as "similar if not identical
with that of Central America in the lowermost level."2) UHLE
says of these finds of potsherds and clay heads.3) "They repre-
1) Ibid., p. 25.
2) Anc. Civ. of :vlexica and Centro Am., p. 58'-59
") Comptes Rend. DII Congr. Int. Des A mir, Stuttgart fC)04, Pigs. XVnI~ XX.

zz8
sent the remains of an ancient and up to now unknown culture,
which I place in close temporal proximity with the oldest known
of the Incas." As has been said, the shell-heap lies high, and
presumably at the time of its origin the shore lay close by. The
people that produced it must therefore have been a tribe, whose
principal pursuits were fishing.
The pottery of Ancon does not bear a typical resemblance to
that of the West Indies. Only one small clay head in VHLE, Fig.
XIX, below and to the right, possesses concentric eye-rings,
which characteristic, moreover, distinguishes the \Vest Indies,
and is especially peculiar to I£spailola. But at any rate, it is very
important to establish the fact that this feature was peculiar not
only to the archaic ceramics of the tropical lowlands east of the
Andes, but to the \Vest Indies. Moreover, the eyes are punctured
by means of a thorn. The faces are realistic and not so hideous
as those of the \Vest Indies. The representation of the eyes by
simple punctures is indeed not unfamiliar in the West Indies.
Finally, I will say in addition that UHLF~ now brings this pottery
at Ancon into connection with the overseas influences of "la
cultura primitiva maya" .1)
The incised decoration on the potsherds2) is far richer and
more complicated than in any archaic pottery in the West Indies.
Many pieces resemble the Arawak ceramics in Trinidad, which
can by no means be classed with the most primitive of the \Vest
Indies. One potsherd from Ancon:l) has an ornamentation representing
loose basket-work, although plaited designs are on the
whole unfamiliar in Atleon pottery. This sort of decoration must
have been a local characteristic only, in Ancon.
Northern
Argentine.
A black archaic pottery, which NORDENSKIOLD
dug up in the San Francisco Valley, has moulded
heads with concentric eye-rings.4)
1) Origines Ceniroamericanos. Bo!. of the Nat. Acad. of Hist., NO.9, Quito,
1922, p. 5·
2) UHLE, Las Antiguas Cil!. de ;Wanta, PI. 6, Figs. 1-8, and II.
3) Ibid., Fig. 2.
4) Stockholm, R. M. 033.

229
The Parana The Argentine investigators have established three
Delta. cultural layers in the delta of the Parana. The
oldest contains "a pottery poor in regard to forms,
smooth or with incised ornamentation and in exceptional cases
showing traces of painting in monochrome bands."I) 'the birdheads
with crooked beaks look towards the interior of the vesseP)
METRALX is of the opinion that an Arawak influence can be traced
in the archaic pottery of these regions.3)
Chimayo Important resemblances with the West Indies,
but quite more to Mojos, are to be found in a
pottery, that NORDENSKIOLD excavated at CmMAY on the upper
Beni River, near Covendo.4) On fragments found in a site, G. M.
I5. 2. Io6, heads that look towards the interior of the vessel can
be pointed out. The eyes, approximately like SPIN DIm's types
of development, Fig. I5, I, and 2, are placed obliquely and in this
respects recall certain day heads from the sites of Erin Bay,
Trinidad,5) or Grenada,6) or even Puerto Rico,7) and Vieques, Plate
IX, I.
This pottery is not painted but engraved. Nevertheless in
tV'.:o peculiarities it is superior to that of the purely archaic stage
of development; real pot-handles occur and also permanent feet,
of the same type as in Mojos.
Two whole bowls from the graves at Chimay reveal similarities
to vVest Indian ceramics. The larger, G. lYI. I5.2. I04,
from Grave No.2, found on the head of a skeleton that was resting
on its left side in a crouching position, has a large moulded
head turned towards the interior of the vessel, with eyes that
have concentric rings around them. It stands on four firm feet,
") FELIX F. Oun;s, An. De 1

just the same as can GCcur in the dishes in Mojos,l) where beyond
anything also this characteristic distinguishes the more primitive
ceramics. 2 ) This head must be feminine, as it has two long braids
along the exterior of the dish, which are tied together with a knot
at the end. In this we must see Peruvian influence, as that sort
of plaited hair is not found among any of the women of the lowlands,
that have not been directly influenced by the culture of
Peru. The little bowl, G. M. 15.2. 103, B I, from Grave No. I,
stood in another behind the head of a skeleton that was lying
on its back. It has a sort of double head looking towards the
interior, a feature that is also found in the older pottery in the
Velarde Mound, in Mojos,3) and on the Antilles as wel1. 4) Hands
are indicated on either side of the head, a thing which can also
be observed on the Antilles, for example in Puerto Rico5) and
Santo Domingo.6)
The 'r-shaped Peruvian stone axes prove, as contemporaneous,
the association with the Occident at a time ,vhen this axe-form
was completely developed on the plateau. Moreover a Tiahuanaco-beaker,
G. M. 15.2. 106 c, was found on the site; this shows
traces of a dark painting in lines.
TefM.
METRAUX, L' Archeologie du Cours Sup. et Moyen
de l'Amazone, p. 146-152, treats of the material
that CONSTANT TASTEVIN excavated from the locality near the
junction of the River 'reffe and the Parana-mid. Clay heads of
human beings and of animals, that had ben affixed to vessels,
were found in large quantities. 7 ) Fig. I must be the neck of a
bottle with the spout above a human head, a characteristic that
occurs in Santo Domingo, while the rectangular face in itself,
occupying the whole front side of the spont, with its widely separ-
1) NORDENSKIOLD, in Baessler's Archi\'. Vol. III. Pt. 5. Pl. V, 3.
2) Ibid.,. p. 220, Figs, 66 and 67.
3) NORDENSKIOI,D, Ibid., Figs. 47, 50. and 64.
4) FE\VKES I, n. LXXIII f. Cueva de las Golondrinas.
5) DE Hos'tos. Amcr. Anthrop .• N. S .. Vol. 21, NO.4. Fig. 49 j; FEWKES I, 1'1.
LXXVII, d.
6) FEWKES, Ibid .. c; JOYCE. Centr, Amer, And rVest Ind, Arch .. I~ig. 62 a .
• ) Ibid,. Pigs. 2. 3. and 4.

23 I
ated eyes on a level with a conical nose, is of an Amazonian type,!)
which never passed over to the Antilles. The vessel in PI. II with
its low, outward-bent neck is of a form, foreign to the \Vest Indies,
but common in Chiriqui. The decoration consisting of broad ornaments
in relief separated by wide grooves, is also unkno,vn in the
\Vest Indies. It must represent an imitation of Colombian stamped
ornamentation.2)
lUanaos. Manaos, where the Rio Negro route starts, was an
important Arawak center in Indian times. While
the Amazon has low igapo-shores, for a great distance above the
junction of the rivers, Manaos is situated I6 kilometers from the
mouth of the Rio Negro on comparatively high ground.
How long the Arawaks were inhabitants here is for some
future archaeological investigation of the culture sequences to
establish. The material from the Trocadero Museum that has
been published in JVH/£RAUX, Jb£d., p. I53-I64, is mainly archaic.
Here, the same as at Teffe, during an archaic stage of development,
a higher cultural influence from the Northwest had already
begun to make itself felt. 3) Heads and faces are seen on the
vessels. On the potsherd, Fig. I9, is a face turned towards the
interior of the dish. This interior is decorated with a meandering
relief ornamentation, of the same description as has been previosly
mentioned from Teffe.4) One pot ear 5 ) has a head over it, a characteristic
that is common in Tainan ceramics, especially on
Puerto Rico.
In general, it can be said that the archaic pottery from Manaos
resembles closely that of Teffe.
') Compo Hid ... Figs. 35 and 38, grave-urns from the R. Vapura and Itacoatyara
below :\lanaos.
2) Compo VICEXTE RESTREPO, Atlas, Plate 36.
") Compo the bowl with circular base and Colombian form, :Fig. 12.
4) The development follows that of the 1\1ana05 ceramics. The space between
the meandering, tortuous lines is filled with white colouring, while later the decoration
is only painted, dark on a white background. See NORDENSKIOLD,
L·Arclt. du Bassin de I'Amazone, Paris 1930, PI. 12 and 13.
5) Fig. 22.

232
Baixo Iriryand A dense Arawak population must have settled
Santarem. near Santarem in days long gone by and remained
there for a great length of time. ,!'he numerous
sites in this region contain quantities of pottery, archaic as well
as more recent. Here is found from time to time, the same
kind of richly moulded younger pottery as in the lower Amazon,
which was Arawak in historical times.
The G. M. Nil1u~endaiu Collection Nos. 64--71, from Deolindo
at Baixo Iriry, consists of potsherds, clay heads, etc.
The walls of the receptacles in this pottery are free from decoration,
but polished.
It can be plainly seen that the face iVO. 66, with protuding
mouth resembling Lesser Antilles ones is turned towards the
interior of the dish. There is also a clay head, namely No. 64.
The three faces have round eyes. The concentric eye-rings occurring
in Taiman pottery are lacking in all three. The heads give
an impression human, not grotesque.
The archaic serpent also appears on the outside of the fragment
of a vessel, No. 69,1) from Deolindo, although with dots
instead of the normal notches on the back, as in MASON, Latimer
Collection, Ftg. 8.
A noteworthy archaic specimen is No. 602), Baixo Iriry, Lario
de NI14hms, some distance below Deolindo. 'fhis large fragment
has a large human head that is turned tovvards the interior of the
dish. This head is hollow on the under side, so that it can be used
very practically as a handle. It is very well made and with such
attention to details, that it has holes bored through the ears for
pendants, as well as nostrils. The walls of the dish are unpolished
and have retained the gray colour of the clay; it thus gives the
impression of having been only slightly burnt. The clay is coarse
and contains pebbles of considerable size.
By NIlYIUENDAJ1J'S later finds, not only is an archaic pottery
established at Salltarem, but also a later, richly moulded or painted
ceramics that characterize the Arawaks of the lower Amazon. 3 )
1) Gotcborgs Museums Arstr. 1923. p. 60, Fig. I, 4.
2) Ibid., Fig. I, 6.
S) Goteborgs Museums Arstr. I923, Fig. I, 3.

233
The archaic heads reproduced by NORDENSKIOLD,l) have mainly
the eyes and nose placed side by side. As a rule the eyes are round
and protuberant with an embossed ring around them, not craterformed,
which is otherwise so general in the ceramics of the Amazon.
Oblong eyes, placed very obliquely, occur in an animal-head.2)
The vulture-heads in most cases with a protuberance on the
crown,3) was found in large numbers, but I do not know if they
occurred in Santarem at a time when the pottery was still in the
archaic stage, as in British Guiana, at Erin Bay, and on Carriacou.
NORDENSKIOLD, supported by the new material, which was not
in the Gothenburg Museum at the time that I prepared the first
edition of this work, has shovm several affinities that exist between
this pottery and Antillean.4)
A richly moulded pottery followed the archaic one of Santarem,
NormENSKloI~D found within this later Santarem pottery
bottles of the same fundamental form as certain ones from Santo
Domingo, namely with widely protuberant female breasts on the
sides, together with a face on the neck of the receptacle. I will
return to this, later. I will only state here, that I have never
found exactly the same form, from any other part of South America.
Still I am inclined to the assumption that in this case no
coherence could have prevailed between Santarem itself and
Santo Domingo, but that rather a place of common origin for
these forms is to be found, possibly in northwestern South America,
whence the influence advanced to Santarem and even to
Santo Domingo.
'i'he resemblance between the pottery of the lower Amazon
and that of the Igneris shows itself very strikingly in two cases.
A pot-handle with an animal-head from Carriacou5) is practically
identical to several from Santarem.6 ) The conventional semicircular
figure in front of the eye, which occurs on this head is also
1) L'Arch. du Bassin de Z'Amazone, PI. 30, and 31.
2) Ibid., PI. 30.
3) lhid., Fig. 3 and PI. 32.
4) NORDENSKIOI"D, L'Arch. d1t Bassin de Z'Amazone ~Fig. 5.
5) NORDEXSK10LD, Ibid., p. 29.
6) FewKEs II, PI. 66 c.
7) NORDEXSKIOLD, Ibid., Fig. I A--R; L1XNE, Congr. Int. degli Americanisti,
held at Rome 1

234
found on a clay monkey-head from Carriacou. On the clay vulture-heads,
both from Trinidad and Santarem a cavityl) is often
found on the crown. That this hole was originally provided for
the fastening of the feather decoration, even if as a rule it was
only decorative, NORDENSKIOLD can show with good reason through
comparison with a bird-head on the stool of a medicine-man that
NIMUENDAJU obtained from the Arawak tribe the Palicours. 2 )
Furthermore NIMUENDAJU found day vulture heads (NORDEN­
SKIOLD, Ars Americana, fig. 36) in the district of Brazilian Guiana
now inhabited by the Palicours.
I don't share NORDENSKIOLD'S opinion that the jaguar head
with its outstreched tongue serving for a lug as seen in fig. 5 A
and originating from Cocal on the lower R. Trombetas, has anything
in common with the human head which is placed just above
the grooved handle of a vessel from Maisi and illustrated in fig. 5 B.
In the Cocal jaguar head the tongue makes one piece with the
head. In open Tainan vessels the handle runs from the rim of
the vessel to its body. NIMUENDAJ1J tells me that in the lower
Amazonia jaguar heads with outstreched tongue are often met
with in ceramics, but as a rule the tongue does not serve for a
handle.
The clay head from Santarem with its eyes standing far
apart from each other and nose on the same level with them,
corresponds very closely with the previously mentioned archaic
ceramics from Manaos and Tefff.
\Ve shall now pass over from the Amazon regions to the
Orinoco.
Venezuela. In a preliminary report New Data on the Archeology
of Venezuela, (Proceed. of the Nat. Ac. of
Sciences, Vol. 2,) SPINDEN has given us an account of his excavations
of archaic pottery along the lower course of the streams of
the Llanos, and along the Orinoco in many places between Apure
and Ciudad Bolivar. As I have no exact information about these
ceramics. I can not pass a judgment over their eventual relation
to those of the West Indies.
1) JOYCE, Centro Amer. and West Ind. Arch., Fig. 64, e.
2) NORDENSKIOLD, L'Arch. dtl Bassin de l'Amazone, PI. XXX.

235
And I know just as little about SPINDEN'S archaic pottery
from other regions of Venezuela. ERNST does not reproduce any
archaic pottery that is of special interest to the West Indies and
:VIARCA)W'S large grave-urns from the region of the rapids have no
special \V est Indian affinity.
Lake Tacarigua. The types from the region of L. Tacarigua are
rather numerous. SPINDEN assumes a long chain
of development for this reason. "A development over a long
period of time doubtless took place of somewhat different types."I)
But through it all certain archaic characteristics were
preserved. No painting has been found. The pot-handles are
small and rare. 2)
\\'hat comes to view above all in these archaic finding-places
are usually the clay heads. The modelled heads of clay of the
Lake Tacarigua region often show very typical resemblances to
the \Yest Indies. I will mention here two heads in the Copenhagen
11'[ usewn from San Diego near Valencia. On one of them,
a human head, No. OD! i 98, the eyes are moulded like craters
while the nostrils are merely punctured holes, the same as on a
predominant Puerto Rican type that will be discussed later. The
other, probably a human head also and numbered OD! e 98, has
marked embossed eyebrows that unite in one line with the nose,
so typical of archaic faces on the clay dishes in different regions
of South America. This kind of face first made its way to the
West Indies at a comparatively late period. It has' never reached
Jamaica. Very interesting for the \Vest Indies were the clay
heads in the burial-place at Et Zamuro, in the vicinity of I"ake
Tacarigua,3) which because of the remains of a sacrificial meal
found there, showed a striking resemblance to the 'Nest Indies.
The most interesting fact is that these grotesque heads of clay
from E1 Zamuro, M. f. V. Berlin, V. A. 15200, partly human and
in part apelike, have far greater and more extraordinary resemblances
to those grotesque clay heads found in such abundance
') SPINDEN, Ibid., P. 326.
2) KORDEXSKliiLD, Eine geogr. und ethnogr. Analyse etc., p. 222, No. 16 cites
~Ian~ano.
3) See V. d. STEINEN, Globus, Vol. 86.

on Puerto Rico and Espanola, than to the few published up to
the present time from the I.,esser Antilles. According to apperances,
it would seem that this art of modelling was first developed
on the mainland, in the northernmost part of South America
and from there made its way to Puerto Rico. But up to the present
it has not been determined by what stages this happened,
for the material from the Lesser Antilles is still too scanty.
v. D. STEINEN, Globus, Fig. 19, a face on a tobacco-pipe found at
El Zamuro shows close relationship to the Antilles. It has a "headcovering,"
a thing which can often be seen in Antillean sculptnre.
The eyebrows and nose run into one line, also, a peculiarity that
reached the Antilles. The eyes are placed very obliquely, a thing
that can be pointed out not only from the site of Erin Bay in
Trinidad,!) but also from Grenada.2) Very oblique oblong eyes are
found, moreover, in the \Vest Indies as far distant as Jamaica. S )
An outward turned face ''lith three points placed on the upper
part of a spherical dish, No. Od. I e II7, :\,lus. of Copenhagen, and
corning from the region of Valencia, has certain Antillean similarities.
On its posterior side this dish has an applied hoof-shaped ornament
in relief, which we find again on the Antilles and in some
of the other archaic ceramics in northern South America.
RAPHAl

237
In Antillean vessels \ve often meet with a pair of eyes instead
of a face. In REQUENA'S figures these eyes are seen only in representations
of rock carvings (p. 2§6). But they are found on a vessel
in the Copenhagen Museum, No. 0 D e II6, "Valencia", which
otherwise shows no Antillean characteristics.
Of additional accessories which have reached the Antilles, I
wish to mention the high annular base (p. I59) and the spout,
(p. 77 and 125).
All bottles have an even, funnel-shaped spout (p. 99, 101, 107
II3, 171 ).
Painted ceramics in the style of the Dutch Islands, or of ::Ylargarita
are not met with, but a dish, p. 127, with two slender prominent
lugs, one of which is broken off, resembles closely hard baked
dishes belonging to the late-Ignerian ceramics of the Virgin Islands
(HAT1', fig. 6 b and e).
The ceramics from the tracts of I,. Tacarigua thus have much
in common with the ceramics of the Lesser Antilles. But this area
was also influenced by the Chibchas. V. D. STEINEN calls our attentioH
to the numerous clay figurines wearing the headgear of
the goddess Bachue. Some of the Tacarigua vessels are similar to
those of the Raudal district. Those complication met with in the
Tacarigua district have nothing to do with the pottery from the
\Vest Indies.
Aru ba, Cura­
-rao, Bouaire.
The ceramic finds on the Dutch islands of Aruba,
Cura

Among these later peculiarities which the Dutch Leeward Islands
shared in part with the West Indies, are to be mentioned the
annuular bases of which Ibid., Figs. I8, I9 and 20 are very similar
to those of Trinidad.
It is of great significance that slip of the painted vessels is
white,!) which also occurs in Trinidad. But a white ornamentation
on a dark background also appears.2) Only on potsherds is
painting found and not on the clay heads as at St. Bernard, Trinidad.
The colour is applied before firing the clay.3)
In the cave near Fontein on Aruba was found a bulging, bottleshaped
vessel, Plate XV, IO,4) with a large face below the neck of
the bottle this feature is exceedingly frequent along the coast of
Peru and may be observed towards the North as far as Andean Colombia.5)
Eventually it from South America, reached Santo Domingo.
In the face on this vessel from Aruba the eyebrows and
the nose run together in one line; yet with its short and distinctly
marked nose that ends above the eyes, it appears somewhat typical
of a vessel "from the western end of Porto Rico" ,6) on which the
nose descends and ends some distance below the eyes. Oblong
eyes placed very obliquely, like those on the clay head from the
southern Lesser Antilles, are found. 7 ) Moreover, the semicircular
Amazonian face with the eyes set far apart, occurs. b ) \Vith round
eyes the eye-ring appears in relief.9) One face recalls the Mexican
ones in its natural representation.1°) The remains of the clay heads
authorize us to distinguish the archaic pottery on Bonaire, Cura

239
Margarita. THEODOR DE Booy, La Isla de 1vfargarita, Venezuela,
Bol. Un. Panam. Julio 1916; Notes on the
Archaeology 01 lvfargarita Island, Contr. Heye Foundation, Vol. 2,
NO.5, 1916. The heads on page 41 of De Booy's first mentioned
article, are primitively archaic to a great degree, while the two
pieces on Page 39 demonstrate a pottery considerably developed.
On Page 41, c and 1 have rings around the eyes that are not applied
but are simply round, sharply incised circles, as on Trinidad and
the southern islands of the Lesser Antilles. Moreover, this pottery
on Margarita was developed under the influence of that of Erin
Bay, Trinidad. At the same time, we say nothing about the representation
of eye-rings, which have a greater expansion in the
Antilles and are by no means a peculiarity of Erin Bay. F, on
Page 4I, has two protuberances on the crown of the head, a characteristic
that is decidedly the distinguishing mark for the settlement
at Erik Bay.I) R recalls the usual archaic ceramics of the
\Vest Indies. Striking indeed is the similarity in the strongly curved
pot-handles g and h, especially in h which is ornamented above
with a head, perhaps looking towards the interior, identically the
same as is usual in similar pot-handles from Erin Bay.2)
In his other article DE Booy emphasizes the abundance of
burens in the shell-heaps.3) He finds no difference between these
and others in the Museum of the American Indian, New York,
"from Cuba, Jamaica, Santo Domingo and several of the Lesser
Antilles."
The engraved decoration of the potsherds in Fig. 7 he considers
to entirely similar to those that were found in the middens of
the St. Bernard estate, suggesting that "the Carib raiders left some
of their pottery on the site they had destroyed." He also regards
as originating from the Caribs similar fragments in the Afus. Amer.
Indian from Carriacou and St. Vincent. I can not agree with these
opinions of DE Booy. The Arawaks lived on the tract at St. Bernard
in historical times. 4 ) If the fragments from Carriacou and
St. Vincent in the ;.lfus. Amer. Indian, cited but not reproduced by
1) See for example FEWKES, in Amer. Anthrop., Vol. II). No.2, Plate XIX L
2) FEWKES. Ibid., Plate XIV b-f. All these heads look outwards.
3) Contributions Hcye Found., Vol. 2, NO.5, p. I3 and 20, Fig;. 8.
4) See Chapter I, Trinidad.

H8 Booy, are indeed similar to those from St. Bernard, then these
also must be of Arawak origin. On the other hand the potsherds
in the above-mentioned museum from Carriacou and published by
I"ewkes, resemble more closely the ceramics of Erin Bay. Moreover,
to support his theory of Carib origin, DE Booy states only
that he found split human bones on Margarita.
Margarita's widely extended western connections are shown in
DE Booy pictures of the bowl, Plate 7, a and b, representing bats
with outspread wings. He refers us to the Venezuelan plates in
the l"vh£s. Amer. Ind. that also represent bats. The resounding
nephrite plates characterize Sierra de Merida; at Lake Tacarigua
bat-ornaments are found but of different material. Margarita was
the centre of the pearl-fisheries and pearls were used as a mean of
exchange for other things along the coast of Venezuela.
On Margarita DE Booy found three hard-baked potsherds,
which were identical with the pottery of which he found 800 fragments
at St. Bernard on Trinidad. l )
The Coast Regions
of Northern British
Guiana.
JOYCE: has pointed out similarities between
Carriacou and Trinidad, and the material in
the British Museum from sites "throughout
the basins of the Aruka and Araau tributaries
of the Barima River, not far from Morowhanna," in respect to
ceramics. Fig. 64, d, one of the two potsherds that he publishes
from this part of British Guiana, resembles closely similar heads
from the site at Erin Bay, and his f also is as carefully engraved
as the "lugs" of the same place.
In the Gothenburg Museum there are some potsherds from a
settlement site on the W aini River, British Guiana. The majority
of these fragments are badly weathered, and in many cases for this
reason their original fine execution has been destroyed. The pottery
is red and unpainted. As a rule the clay is coarse. An exception
is made of the fragment G. M. 22.I2.22, which with its distinct
engraving 2 ) approximates, the nearest yet, to the Erin Bay culture.
Like no. I2, it has a face on each side, the large holes of the eyes
1) DB Booy, Arch. Inv. in Trinidad, Amer. Anthrop., Vol. I9. p. 484.
2) Probably the representation of an animal in profile, in relief, incised and
with a very exact, round eye.

go completely through, it is fired hard, burnished and made of a
much finer clay than all the other fragments on which, however, in
some places the remains of a coating of a gray clay can be seen. I )
Only exceptionally is it possible to discover exact similarities
to Erin Bay; nevertheless in a few cases it can bee done. A
bird-head, the last-mentioned G. lVI. 22.I2. IO, which to judge
from the fragment was located on the exterior of the vessel, has a
protuberance on the crown like that of the above mentioned Fig.
64 d, of Joyce and also the clay heads from the dwelling-site at
Erin Bay.2) It is possible that resemblances to Erin Bay could
also be found in the other heads that are more weatherbeaten and
battered, C. 11:1. 22.I2.1, has above on a pot-handle an outward
turned head, showing in this a relationship to Erin Bay, which I
have already alluded to in regard to Margarita.
As exact information concerning the origin of these fragments
from the region of the Waini R. is lacking, I must take them en
bloc. With the exception of perhaps No. 22.12.22 they could not
be considered to represent the Erin Bay culture.
In 1931, vVALTER ROTH supplied to Gothenburg Museum important
ceramic collections, in all 400 specimens, from the middens
of British Guiana; our knowledge with indoubtedly bee considerably
increased by a study of these. As ROTH himself was working
on them, in preparation for pUblication, I shall only discuss here a
few specimens that are of interest in connection with the development
of ceramics in tye West Indies.
Moreover, since I wrote the first edition of this work, ROTH
himself has published a portion of his ceramic finds from sites
along the British Guiananlitora1.3) The clay heads he reproduces,4)
present very marked likeness to the vVest Indian ones only, in exceptional
cases. As a rule, the eyes are widely separated, as in the
archaic clay heads from the Amazon. Crater-shaped eyes5) seem to
be general, just as they predominate in the Amazon countries.
1) Compare with Grr,IJ, cited further along.
2) FEWKES, Ibid., PI. XV, e, aside from the fact that the heads with such
knots are more developed and varied.
3) An Introductory Study of the Arts eic., 38th Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. EthnoI.
1916-1917, Wash. 1924, Chapt. VIII.
4) Plates 21-'-25.
') Pl. 23 c, 24 b, 25 b.
If>

Only one eye-ring occurs,l) and not several concentric rings around
the eyes, as is found among the Tainan ceramic specimens. Oval
eyrings are found 2 ). They are common on the Lesser Antilles, but
occur also on the Greater Antilles .. The large, circular, wide open
mouths are foreign to the West Indies.3) Along the coast of British
Guiana they had a peculiar way of placing the entire figure on the
vessel, a characteristic that occurs only in the form of head and
extremities in Tainan pottery. As in archaic Amazonian pottery,
animal representations are numerous on vessels. They are also
abundant in the Erin Bay culture, on Trinidad, where however
they consist mainly of birds. Clay heads of parrots are found on
the southern Lesser Antilles but the influence from Brit. Guiana
must have stopped here, in this case. The head of the coco on
Puerto Rico, as well as of the parrot and a rodent on Jamaica,
are endemic phenomena.
The two whole basins published4) by ROTH are plain and without
modelled heads.
ROTH'S archaic material in the Gothenburg Museum from sites
in the lower Barima region, represents one and the same culture,
identical with that to which his previously published clay heads
belong. The clay head of Amazonian type with eyes placed widely
apart and mose on the same level, preponderate by far, over the
few others with affinity to the Erin Bay culture. Several heads
occur with two protuberances, the same as at Erin Bay. In addition,
a vulture-head in the style of Erin Bay is found. 5) It is indeed
worthy of note that these heads of clay in Erin Bay style
are found in several sites in Guiana where otherwise Amazonian
forms predominate.
Many high annular bases to cups are found, just as at Erin Bay
and Radix Point on Trinidad, and on Cura

243
the inverted bottom-side of no. 26r an intricate figure like a labyrinth
is incised, while not particle of the side walls is left on two
other fragments.1) I shall treat the "labyrinth" in connection with
Antillean figure-stamps as a female frog symbol of rain and fertility
on the Antilles. These vessels with high annular bases from
Guiana must have been ceremonially connected in some manner
with the water and raincult. The high annular base must have
reached British Guiana from the \Vest and from the proximity of
Trinidad. Moreover the high annular base is also found in the
Amazon regions, whither it must have arrived ultimately from the
Andean countries. 2 )
Two large clay heads vvith faces of the Amazonian type show a
remarkable conformity to Tainan sculpture, owing to that they
have cacique-head-band. In ROTH, Plate 24 E, only oblique, slanting
lines in relief are seen, presumably indicating that the band is
hvisted. The same sort of triangle and angular ornamentation
that is generally used on fillets in Puerto Rican stone-sculpture is
observed on C. lvI. 3I.24.I35, from Kamakusa. I do not know any
specimen which in this case forms the connecting link in the transit
from the Tainan culture to the litoral of Guiana by way of the Lesser
Antilles. The hvo heads from Guiana are in conformity, in
that straight ridges issue from the nose; in C. M. no. I35 they are
narrow and redoubled, while the mouth stands out in an open circle.
On the back of this last-named example there are four zigzag
figures in relief, possibly a representation of flashes of lightning.
The only painting that can be see is white, and then merely
such as is used for stressing incised lines. This occurs in several
sites.3)
Of the whole vessels from Issororo Hill, C. 1.11. 3I.24.7 has an
animal-head that is turned inwards for a handle, while no. 3I.24.3
has an outward turned head with oblong eyes above the pothandle.
Such eyes distinguish above all the ceramics of the Igneris,
but they are also found in 'l'ainan pottery The archaic pottery
excavated in Brit. Guiana agrees with that of the Tainos, in
that sculptured heads and not faces are general, but differs from
1) Kos. 75 and ro6, Kamakusa.
') See LINxf;, Darien in the Past, Map 6.
3) G. ]\II. 31.24.30. Issororo, III, II], TL4, Kamakusa, I84, Mabaruma Hill.

244
Tainan ceramics in that these heads are unlike the Tainan fantastic
heads with eye-rings.
The custom of placing a head above the pot-handle has
reached the Tainan ceramics. Especially characteristic of Guiana
however, is the representation of a pot-handle in the form of a halffigure.
The bowl G. 1\1. 3I.24.7 is elliptical; this form occurs in the
West Indies, from Trinidad to Jamaica. No. 3I.24-4 has a flat
bottom, which also is found in Tainall ceramics. Flat bowls from
St. Croix and St. Thomas are known in great abundance at the
present time through DE Booy and HATT. 'l'hose that are entirely
open are not so deep as the ones from Guiana. Receptacles with
walls sloping inwards at an angle, so general in 'l'ainan ceramics,
I do not know in the archaic pottery from Guiana. That characteristic,
moreover, we meet sporadically in the Erin Bay pottery
on Trinidad.I ) Its proper center was in the West Indies within
the Tainan ceramic.
As has already been said, the clay heads of the Barima region
are in the majority of cases of an Amazonian character. The
head with eyes placed far apart occurs as well on Trinidad2).
Oblong, as well as circular eyes with elevated ring, are found not
only in sites in British Guiana, but also on Bonaire-Cura

245
Important ceramic developments had taken place in northern
South America, but as yet no proofs have been found in the West
Indies that they advanced as far as the Greater Antilles.
The More Recent
Pottery in Venezuela
and Guiana.
Apart from the shapes of vessels the two essential
characteristics that distinguish the later
potteries in the eastern lowlands of South
America are: Painting, and that before the
firing, as has been shown by N ORDENSKIOLD, and Varnishing.
Painting. In the first case, I refer to NORDENSKIOLD. 1 )
Moreover, all probabilities point to an Andean origin of that
painting. In the West Indies pottery that was painted before it
was fired advanced along the islands by way of Trinidad and at
least as far as St. Kitts and Virgin Islands and that, already
in the time of the Igneris.
Varnishing. On the other hand, varnished pottery seems to
have first come to the Lesser Antilles with the Caribs. Varnish
must be an invention of the tropical lowlands, for it is only there
that the necessary resin is found.
SPINDEN emphasizes the sharp difference between the archaic
ceramics that he excavated in Venezuela and »the varnished pottery
now made by the civilized Indians of southern Venezuela».2)
Nevertheless, there were varnished ceramics in the Orinoco regions
in ancient times.
The Orinoco. This can be demonstrated indeed, at the time
of the arrival of the Spaniards at the middle
course of the Orinoco. \\Then Ordaz was turned back by a
whirlpool about 100 leagues above the mouth of the Meta,3) he
chanced upon a warlike race, whom the Spaniards believed to
be Caribs,4) apparently because they slaughtered and ate their
prisoners of war, but who might have been of an entirely different
origin and in their warlike culture approximated nearer to
') Eine Geogr. und Ethnog. Analyse etc., p. 226-229, with Map 41.
2) New Data on the Arch. oj Venezuela, p. 326.
3) SIMON, Seg. Not., p. 124.
4) OVIEDO, Vol. II, p. 219.

the Gulpunavis and tribes of the north-western Amazon. I ) The
Spaniards had the opportunity to study the town of these
Indians closely. At that time they observed the beautiful
pottery. })Hallaron lo

247
as their pottery seems to have been little influenced by immigrant
tribes. GILl} states that the clay of their dishes was coarser and
that they smoothed out the rolls of clay of which their vessels
were built up, to a lesser degree than the other Orinoco races.1)
Their pots for boiling the oil out of turtle eggs2) were not beautiful,
but of a solidarity that the neighbouring tribes could not copy.3)
They also sold plates and bowls to these neighbours.4) Their pottery
had, indeed, thick walls and was very durable in comparison with
that of the other tribes, but their superiority must have consisted
in their ability to manufacture a strong crockery for domestics
use. \Vith their primitive, and simple methods, they never arrived
at a finer pottery. Gn,T} names the 'l'amanacos as their extreme
opposites in the progressive treatment of the clay-rolls. Their
vessels are distinguished for their exceeding thinness. Their large
paivari-vessel must for this reason be reinforced by wicker-work
of bark fibres:;) Involuntarily one thinks of the Htoral of
Guiana in this connection.6 ) The Tamanacos mnst be considered
as representatives of the Carib races that immigrated there at
a late date. In connection with that fact, their pottery could
have had close relations with that of the True Caribs on the
coastlands of Guiana. That the Tamanacos were able to maintain
the high ceramic standard in their new conntry, must result
from the fact that fine clay was accessible to them. GILl} says
that the clay along the Orinoco itself was not suitable for the
manufacture of fine pottery. It was necessary to seek it in the
interior and carry it to the towns. This clay was fine and of a
somewhat ash-gray colour.7) Indeed the Tamanacos did not live
on the main banks of the Orinoco itself, but on the land along
the lower course of the southern tributaries, a district partly
flooded in the rainy season.
1) Ibid., p. 317-318.
t) They sold this oil in gourds to the neighbouring tribes, especially the Achaguas.
RIBERO calls the Otomacos Totumacos. I presume that this, their oldest
name, comes precisely from totuma, gourd, and refers to their trade.
3) Ibid., p. 3 15.
0) GUMILLA, El Orinoco flustrada, p. 19I.
5) GILIJ, [bid., p. 317-318.
6) Compo 1M THl'RX, Among the Indians, p. 274, Fig. 19 B.
') GILlJ, Ibid., p. 316.

True Caribs
in Guiana.
The True Caribs have brought varnished pottery
to Guaribiche and to the Lesser Antilles.
A collection of varnished vessels from the coast
of Guiana is at the Copenhagen Museum. They are red or bright
yellow. These last are shallow, for the most part elliptical effigy
bowls. They are made of a fine-cleared clay, have thin walls and
resound when struck. If there are painted ornaments or figures,
black is the only colour used. One bowl has on the interior primitive
faces. This is a characteristic that can replace the modelled
inward-looking heads or faces in archaic pottery, in the first stages
of the development of painting (black).
According to 1M 1HURN, the brilliant varnish is only found
among }}some of the True Caribs}}.l) Indeed, QUANDT speaks of
}>an enamel with resinous crust}} and mentions as a specialty of
the Caribs »gay-colored dishes, which were also used as drinkingvessels.
}}2)
So then, the True Caribs carried this brilliant varnish for
pottery with them from the coast of Guiana into the territories
where they settled.
Guaribiche. PELLEPRAT, who worked for some 5-6 months,
counting from August 1653, as a Jesuit missionary
in the interesting Galibi colony at Guaribiche3) , also describes the
ceramics of that place as varnished. }}Quoiqu'ils n'aient pas l'usage
du plomb, ils ne laissent pas de vernir leur vaiselle presque aussi
proprement que nous Europeens. Ce vernis est gris, rouge, jaune
et de plusieurs aut res couleurs. »4) These Galibis had emigrated
from the coast of Guiana, and for that reason, I think, the
varnish in Guaribiche was of the same kind as in the former
place.
1) Amon/? the Indians, p. 277. Camp, ROTH, And Introductory Study of Arts
and Crafts, 1

249
The Island­ \Ve learn very little from French sources about
Caribs. the ceramics of the Island-Caribs. But that the
varnished, painted pottery was carried over to
the Lesser A ntilles from Guiana by the Caribs is shown by the
narration of ROCHEFORT. He speaks of the glazed, charmingly
painted eating and drinking \Tessels of the Caribs.I ) However,
the lack of kaolin clay on the I.esser Antilles must have prevented
them from producing this fine pottery there.
The French were astonished over the frequent usage of gourds
by the Island-Caribs for eating- and drinking-vessels and at the
engraving, polishing and painting of the gourds. 2 ) The Indians
of the savanna at Roraima make use of gourds exclusively for these
purposes. We are tempted to believe that this was the case to
a certain degree with the Island-Caribs.
We find statements about clay vessels for precisely those
purposes where gourds can not serve as substitutes. BRETO~ has
a good note about boutalli = budare. 3 ) He often mentions tomali4),
a cooking vessel. But most imposing of a11 to the French were the
large chicha vessels, or canalli, of the Island-Caribs. The French
could not copy these canalli, made as they were of good rich clay5) ,
and so they exchanged other goods for them.6) DE LA BORDE,
Figs. 8 and [0, show us the form of these canalli. In the lowest
part can be seen the characteristic point, probably for the purpose
of making the vessel stand better in the sand. I think that this
type of vessel may have been copied originally from Spanish
olive-oil jars, owing to Spanish traders being first in the field,
before the English or French settled there.
1) ROCHEFORT, op. cit., p. 507.
') ROCHEFORT, p. 490; BRETON, Diet. Car.-Franc., p. 435, Red painting; p.
439-440 Painting; p. 254-255. J 98--I99, .55, I26. the different kinds of gourds;
DB LA BORDE 20 and 23.
3) Dict.-Car.-Franc., p. 93-94.
4) Thus Ibid .• pages 14, I07-10il, 160, z()6, 477. The connecting syllable
alii in Callinago is characteristic for a word that designates different kinds of
clay vessels. In tom ali it is compounded with /oma, sauce. Tomali can also be
often translated technically by pepper-pot, of which many examples can be cited
fro111 Breton.
5) Compare BRETON, Ibid., p. 156.
6) ROCHEFORT, Ibid.

In conclusion, we must not forget that the Island-Caribs had
a good substitute for drinking-cups in their couis, i. e. small bowls
of crescentia-calabashes.
The Pottery of All the ceramics that I know archeologically from
the Island-Ara- the West Indies must be ascribed to the I sZandwaks.
Arawaks. \Vith respect to this, it must be taken
into consideration that different epochs are represented
in the various finding-sites, which, so long as no real stratified
are presented to the view, can be taken practically only as evolutionary
and in addition only determined as relatively chronological.
In spite of the scanty material, it can be deduced that the
Island-Arawaks must have come to the \Vest Indies at a time when
their pottery was still purely archaic;l) that this people developed
variants on the different islands; that some peculiarities were introduced
from South America later; that some affinity with the
Southeastern States can be shown in proper Tainan ceramics. So
far as can be concluded from material accessible up to date, FEW­
KES' preliminary classification of culture centres, is well grounded
above all through the pottery, such as it appears in the finds made
up to now. 2) The archaelogical investigations however are so incomplete,
particularly on the Lesser Antilles, that sequences in the
evolution can not be presented exactly, but only set forth, without
formulating them, conclusively. The islands from which ceramics
have been published, or from which I know such from museums
are:
Trinidad. FEWKES I, Plate LXXXV a and b-b', Victoria
Institute at Port of Spain, described in the appendix
to CaLLENs' Guide to Trinidad, I.ondon 1888, and found in the
same year at Erin. See FEWKES, Ibid., p. 190.
FEWKES, Prehistoric objects from a shell-heap at Erin Bay, Trinidad,
Amer. Anthrop., N. S., Vol. 16, NO.2.
DE Booy, Certain Archeological Investigations in Trinidad, Brit­
'ish West Indies, Amer. Anthrop., n. s., Vol. 19, NO.4.
1) Prearchaic or sub-Tainan pottery in western Cuba; see later,
2) Bull. of the Amer, Geogr. Soc., Vol. XI

25 I
G. M. I6.I5.20, Nordlund Call., which I discussed including
ceramics in Chapter II, under d,velling-sites at Radix Point.
In this chapter I wished to demonstrate that the pottery of
Radix Point in its entire nature was different from that of the nearby
St. Bernard, but shows a primitive stage, anterior to the pottery
of l

vated from the shell-heaps at St. Bernard "do not differ materially"
from those that were published by Fewkes from Erin Bay, or
even from Margarita. The only two heads that he reproduces
from St. Bernard, he considers "uncommon in type and are of a
variety not previously figured."l)
The differences between Erin Bay and St. Bernard are shovm
above all by sundry important characteristics.
While not one single dish from St. Bernard has a circular base,
the high annular base is generally characteristic not only for Erin
Bay, but for Radix Point as well. In this we can perceive an influence
from the South-West. A study of the probable origin of
the Tiahuanaco-beaker at this point cannot be of any importance
in regard to the \Vest Indies. I limit myself therefore to the statement,
that the high circular base was very general on various vessels
in inter-Andean Columbia, among the Chibchas,2) at Popayan,
and in the Cauca Valley as far south, at least, as in the location of
lvl anizales. It is found in G. M. I6.3. 38I and 382, from graves
on the Rio Frio in the vicinity of Santa Marta. Furthermore, it
advanced to the Dutch Windward Islands3) and into the Lake Tacarigua
region. 4)
Erin Bay's boldly executed moulded pottery seems to me, moreover
to have certain characteristic common with ceramics of.
AI arajo and later Santarem, I refer to NETTO, Plates I -XX. Here
the analogies in the different ways, to represent eyes elevated on
the clay heads of the Erin Bay culture stand out particularly clear.
The head of the moulded figure on the painted potsherd, NETTO,
Vol. VI, Pl. II,5, Iga~abas de Marajo, in its totality is still more
similar to the clay heads of Erin Bay. The head on Ibid., z, AI a­
raja, has a "protuberance" at the centre of the crown. The Santarem
pottery, has just such protuberances on the crown of the
vulture-heads. 5)
') Dl': Boy. Ibid .. p. 483.
2) VICENTE RESTREPO, A !las, Figs. 79, 80, both from the Saban a de Bogotd,
and 1, fro11l Guatabita.
3) J OSSEI.IX DE JONG, p. 20, Figs. 18, 19, 20, 22 Knippe, Curai;ao. PI. XV,
15, Aruba, XVI, 5, Aruba.
4) V. D. STEIXEX, Fig. 24, 1

253
The two bird heads from Erin Bay seen in FEWKES II,
pl. 6 Band C, certainly do not possess the true vulture beak,
but since there is a swelling on the beak, which is always found
011 vulture heads on ceramics from the lower Amazonia, it cannot
he doubted that the bird represented is the white king-vulture.
I have previously mentioned the occurrence of the vulturehead
in Brit. Guiana, also.
The Amazonian characteristic of a conical nose placed on a
level with the eyes is found again for the first time at Carriacou.1)
The Amazonian lateral S-shaped ornament is found in Erin
Bay2) ceramics as well as at Carriacou. It forms an integral part
of the richly developed scroll decoration of the later Amazonian ceramics.
3 ) It passed over to Trinidad and Carriacou only as a detached
ornament.
The square Erin Bay bowl, FEWKES II, pl. J B, the body of
which runs out into four short legs, continious with the vessel's
sides, is unparelleled in the West Indies. Quite different square
bowls with walls slanting outwards, painted and without legs
have been found in shaft or cave burials in the costal region of
Brazilian Guiana.4) Moreover these bowls represent a ceramique
later than the lower Amazonian that influenced Erin Bay.
Real pot-handles are fully developed in Erin Bay ceramics.
They are flat and broad, and extend from the rim to the angle
formed by the bottom and wall of the bowl. Such pot-handles do
not belong to really archaic pottery but to ceramics of a later period.
Their proper region of expansion lies in South America as
remote as in Ecuador, Peru and the higher ceramics in Chaco
(Chane and Chiriguano). With our all too little knowledge of the
archaeology of Venezuela, it is impossible to decide if the element
entered from the \Vest, or was developed independently on Trinidad.
They did not arrive with the ceramic influences from Erin
the clay head NETTO, Pl. XIII, I and a frog, OD Ia 6I, all three pieces made of
the Same pale-red clay. vVc luwe every reason to consider the pottery presented
at Copenhagen ioentical with the Santa rem ceramics.
1) FEWKES II, PI. 8 A, Erin Bay, has a conical nose figure with crater as nostril.
2) Ibid., PI. 3 B.
3) Compo NORDENSKJOJ,D, L'Arch. du Bassin de I'Amazone, Pl. XIV a--h,
.'vIarajo; Goeldi Anonymous publ. PI. X, J6, Brazilian Guiana.
4) ROTH, An Inirod. Study, etc., p. :49.

254
Bay to Carriacou or British Guiana. However, pot-handles are
found, may be smaller, both in Tainan and Jamaican ceramics, and
therefore must have at any rate entered in over the Lesser Antilles,
where we indeed find pot-handles for the first time in the late Ignerian
ceramics from St. Kitts and the Virgin Islands.
Erin Bay pottery has incorporated in itself influences both
from western and southeastern ceramics that were developed beyond
a purely archaic stage. But the entire Erin Bay style with
the large boat-shaped dishes, on whose pot-handles sit large outward
turned heads, is an independent and individual development.
Erin Bay has been a ceramic culture center from which direct influences
can be traced in several directions. It can be shown that the
pottery of Erin Bay has exercised influences of different degrees
of strength, not only towards the Southeast (norhtwestern Brit.
Guiana) but also towards the North (Carriacou) and the West
(AI argarita). This high development of moulded pottery at Erin
Bay could not have gone on progressing by itself, without the
parallel development of appropriate utensils for modelling and engraving.
I am much inclined to see in the small and rather fragile
bone-punch, G. M. I9, Radix Point, which I have already mentioned
and which is pointed on one end and chisel-shaped at the
other, an instrument for the same purposes as DE Booy defines for
similar bone-points which he found on the Islands of Providencia-
7es. 1 )
It will appear as if the culture of St. Bernard was in the act
of passing from engraved to painted ceramics at the time of the upbuilding
of the shell-mounds.
The fragments of this painted pottery "seem to have been
sUbjected to a great heat in the firing and are far less brittle than
the specimens previously described. Three of these sherds were
found on Margarita Island and these sherds were identical with
some eight hundred fragments found in the St. Bernard middens.
It must be noted that on no other part of Trinidad have sherds of
this class been found to the writer's knowledge."2)
In addition, a great uniformity in the painting prevails in
this pottery, which NORDENSKIOLD lists among those that were
1) Amer. Anthrop. N. S. VoL 19.
2) DE Boo>'. Amer. Allthrop., N. S., Vol. 19, p. 484.

255
painted before firing. I) It has a certain polychrome character
throughout. DE Booy names "red, brown yellow and white."2)
Especial note is to be taken of the white moreover, which in
certain cases is used as a foundation colour,3) while in others for
the geometric ornamentation.4) A similar state of things prevails
in the painted ceramics from Aruba and Cura

occupies in the painted ceramics of this island. In this characteristic
also, it resembles St. Bernard.
The painted geometrical ornamentation is, in the majority of
cases - as always at St. BernardI) - an exact, true, and clearly
executed copy of an incised decoration in which the principal
motive is repeated often. Nevertheless, jOSSELIN DE JONG has
shown painted models from Aruba and Curac;ao that can not be
of archaic origin, and that have not been mentioned as from St.
Bernard and must have been of a later and probably western
origin on the Dutch Islands.
GI,ADYS AYER NOMLAND has shown us that there is a decided
similarity between the ceramics of these islands and that of Rato
Viejo, a site situated half a kilometer up the River Codone in the
department of Falcon, just opposite on the mainland. In this
resemblance the painted vessels are inclosed also. Rer paper,
Archaeological Site of Hato Viejo, Venezuela, A. A., vol. 35, p.
718-741, makes it clear to me, that two kinds of peculiarly shaped
vessels have reached the \Vest Indies from these quarters. These
painted tureen like vessel (NOMLAND, fig. 5 h) with its moderately
high annular base corresponds in form closely to an engraved
vessel from Erin Bay as figured by FEWKES II, pl. 2 A. The
over-arching of the latter, however, is angular, contrary to the
vessels from Rato Viejo with round over-arching. This vessel more
closely resembles another one originating from St. Kitts.
At St. Bernard is found an incised ornament like a scroll on a
white slip.2) The painted pottery with white slip is painted all
over, at Aruba and Curac;ao. In the archaic layers at San Miguel
Amantla, the third kind of pottery, reckoning from below, "is covered
with a white slip and is decorated with incised designs,"3)
among which is also the scroll. It seems to me that it might be
that white Mexican pottery made its way southwards and reached
Trinidad by way of the coast of Venezuela.
The ceramics of Erin Bay and St. Bernard coincide in that the
") As far as can be determined from De Booy's illustrations.
2) DE Booy. Ibid., PI. 8.
3) HER:\fAN H. HAEBERLIN, Types of Ceramic Art in the Valley of jvIexico,
Amer. Anthrop., 11. s., Vol. 21, p. 63, Fig. 3.

257
engraved figures appear very distinctly.!) The circle in FEWKES
II, Pl. 2 A, with its marked center gives the impression of having
been made with a pair of compasses. Outside this on each side
there are concentric circular lines, both of these also distinctly engraved
in relation to a central point.
The St. Bernard pottery stands very high also in respect to
its moulding. DE Booy asserts that a certain likeness prevails
between the large heads from St. Bernard and Erin Bay.2) But
the St. Bernard heads are represented by far more naturally. The
mouth is an ovalS) the same as in the archaic heads from Mexico,
and it may be that the entire natural method of representation can
be traced back ultimately to Mexico.
The moulding of the only moulded head, Pl. 7 a, and in addition
the painted one, Fig. 62, show a close conformity between
moulded and painted pottery of St. Bernard.
Dish-handles standing above the rim of the bowl,4) are found
in the St. Bernard ceramics. On the other hand, the very large
band-handles of the Erin Bay ceramics are lacking. Indeed, curved
lugs5) in the place of handles, which is a transition stage, are often
found at St. Bernard.
DE Booy found St. Bernard "a number of double paint bowl
vessels".6) These small double bowls are ought have to been used in
the painting of pottery and were intended to contain two different
kinds of colour. Their place of origin must lie to the west and on
the coast, the same as that of painting. In what follows we shall
see how they also made their way far to the North on the Lesser
Antilles.
Many ceramic peculiarities have advanced from Trinidad to
different distances in the Antilles but the strangest of all is that
for the first time we find at such great distances as St. Kitts and
St. Croix a welldeveloped, painted pottery which must have
originated under a strong influence from St. Bernard.
17
1) FEWKES II, PI. 2 A and PI. 3 e; also De Booy, Ibid., PI. 5 d and PI. 6 a.
2) DE Booy Ibid., p. 483.
3) Ibid., Fig. 62, PI. 7, a and b.
4) DE Booy, Ibid., PI. 5 a.
b) Ibid., PI. 8 d, painted.
6) Ibid., p. 482 and PI. 6 d.

258
Barbados. I know only the material in the British AI useum,
all presented by R. G. J. CHESTER I2-8-69, St.
Joseph, Barbados.
Two objects from there are illustrated in JOYCE, Centro Amer.
and West Ind. Arch. Fig. 64 a-b and C.
The clay stamp JOYCE, Fig. 64 a-b is treated in Chapter
XII, Religion.
Fig. 64 c is the best of the »moulded human faces» that
are found in the Chester ColI. JOYCE is of the opinion that it
is »of a character far more naturalistic than anything found in
the rest of the islands ». The interior of the piece of vessel to which
the above mentioned face belongs, is blackened. It would appear
from this that the inhabitants of Barbados had large moulded
human faces placed on the exterior of vessels.
In the collection are also found two rather large clay fect
for cooking-vessels. '1'he clay foot, Ji. I. 153 1 ), comparatively
broad, has such a level under side that it can stand upright by
itself. This straight clay foot must have been used in a completely
vertical position against the cooking-pot. It is blackened below.
The clay foot M I, I55 2 ) , on the other hand, has a protuberant
and slanting under side extended somewhat in the form of a seal.
\Vhen alone it would recline at an angle; therefore bases of this
type must have been placed obliquely against the vessel.
In addition, there is the clay head of a turtle, 11,'[ I I6I, apparently
once turned ouhvards on a shallow bowl, to judge
from the fragment. This circumstance, in addition to the fact
that it is a turtle's head, indicates that \ve are not far from
southern influences, particularly from Trinidad.
If the ceramic finds are sufficient to warrant setting apart
Barbados as a specific cultural region 3 ) as FEWKES does, I am
unable discuss this subject as I do not know the material. To
me also, the »moulded human faces» from Barbados seem peculiar,
up to the present time, in the entire \Vest Indies, and as far as
I knO'w, their like is not to be found in the nearer regions of the
') Length

259
South American continent. They certainly are of a type that has
passed beyond the purely archaic representation of the face.
Decidedly, for this reason, they must proceed from a later cultural
influence.
Grenada and FEWKES I, Pl. 84, Grenada; FEWKES II, Pl. 62-68,
the Grenadi- according to the inscription from Carriacou, but
nes.
in the text the pot-handles PI 63 Band C, the clay
heads Pi 64 A and B, and the clay head together
with pottery fragment shown in Pl. 68 A, are attributed to Grenada,
while the shallow, oval bowl fragment, Pl. 68 B, is from
the Grenadines.
JOYCE, Fig. 64 i, Grenada, g and h, Carriacou.
The portion of the pottery from this group of islands that
is published by FEWKES, resembles that of Erin Bay in so far as
the potsherds reveal open bowls with large, moulded heads. In
general it can be said that these last are presented with a coarser
touch and with less taste than the Erin Bay heads, but the accuracy
in the manner of representation is nearly as great. The style
is not so original as that of Erin Bay, influences from the' later
archaic style of the Amazon appear to be more direct. As unbroken
vessels have not been found, the placing of the clay heads
can only be studied on potsherds. These are turned towards the
interior,!) as in the older archaic pottery, or face outwards2), as
is generally the case in the ceramics of Erin Bay. Pot-handles
with bird-head above also occur.3) The frog-head4) has the same
trapezoidal form as at Erin Bay.5) The high circular base6) occurs
here, just the same as at Radix Point and Erin Bay.
In common with St. Bernard, Carriacou has the double bowl.?)
Characteristics in common with I-/ower Amazon as with Erin
Bay are observed on Grenada and the Grenadines; the conical
.') FEWKES II, PI. 65 C, 66 A; FEWKES I, PI. 84 c.
2) FEWKES II, PI. 66 C.
3) Ibid" PI. 63 A and B.
4) Ibid., PI. 64 A and B.
5) Ibid., PI. 8 c.
") Ibid., PI. 62 A.
') Ibid., PI. 62 C.

260
nose on a level with the eyes!) and also the S-shaped ornament.2)
The two almost identical representations mentioned in the foregoing,
to which NIMUENDAJlJ calls attention in his index in
the Gothenburg Museum, i. e. the one from Carriacou representing
an animal's head with a handle, illustrated by FEWKES II, pl.
65 C, and NORDENSKIOLD'S specimen from the Santarem district
in Ars Americana, fig. I B must have been subject to the same
influence, even if not similar one has been found on Erin Bay.
The Santarem specimen has a red slip similarly to the Erin Bay
ceramics. Most of the ceramics collected by Fewkes in St. Vincent
is )red ware ). The colour of this ware is not water proof
and has evidently been applied after the firing.
Influences from the Tainan culture in the Northeast can be
observed in a lesser degree. The head, FEWKES II, Pl. 65 B, is
Tainan in character but much larger by far than the Tainan clay
heads usually are, and as well much better moulded and in harmony
with the ceramics of Carriacou and of Erin Bay with their
more highly developed technique.
In the scanty material found in FEWKES I and JOYCE similarities
to the 'l'ainan culture in the representation of clay heads
can be observed. At the same time it must be said that these
clay heads are not in exact conformity to the Tainan but something
of the Ignerian style persists. Here belongs a small, finely
modelled head from Grenada, FEWKES I, Pl. 84 e. An intermediate
position is taken by JOYCE, Fig. 64 h, Carriacou, which has
protuberances on the head as in the Erin Bay pottery. But the
eye has a sharply incised spiral for an eye-ring, in whose continuation
the mouth is engraved also. The custom of surrounding the
eye with an incised spiral is Ignerian. In the large parrot-heads,
FEWKES I, Pl. 84 d, and JOYCE Fig. 64 i, the eyes are entirely represented
by spirals. 'l'he method of expressing a portion of the
shape of the head by sharp engraving is foreign to Erin Bay ceramics.
Moreover, large parrot heads of that sort are unknown in
Tainan pottery. 'fhey must have reached the southern of the
1) Ibid., PI. 65 C, PI. 66 A, PI. 67 D, FEwKES I, PI. 84 f.
2) Ibid., PI. 65 b.

26r
Lesser Antilles from the Southeast, ultimately from the lower
Amazon.
I regard the potsherd, JOYCE Fig. 64 g, Carriacou, as purely
Ignerian pottery. The face on it in low relief on a shallow and
level depression in the interior, is triangular in form and has a
pointed chin. Such triangular faces, indeed, have great extension
in Andean South America,!) and must have reached the Antilles
from the Southwest. But the form has been assimilated into
the Ignerian culture and occurs also in the Tainan culture on St.
Croix.2) The representation of the face on the fragment from
Carriacou must be considered as purely Ignerian.
At the present time no stratified investigations are recorded
which support the possibility that the pottery of Grenada and the
Grenadines, showing Erin Bay influences, is younger than the
purely Ignerian ceramics. But because of the latter's resemblances
to the Tainan ceramics, we have good reason for the assumption
that such is the case. Archaic pottery from a common source
has been developed differently among the Tainos and the Igneris,
but the ceramics of these two races stand nearer to each other than
to that of Erin Bay.
FJ

St. Vincent. JOYCE, Fig. 64, e l ) in the 13 r it ish Mus e u m and
belonging to the same collection of B. ]VI. FRANK,
St. Vincent, I5.7.76; .:.vf. I. 26I, a large face of clay; 2I4 and 2I5,
clay feet; 17 round stamps with concentric designs scarcely
recognizable, 272 and 69, the clay heads just treated; in addition
a clay spindle and some clay heads. FEWKES I, Pl. 84, the
day head, c, turns inwards over a potsherd.
The accessible material from this island is so limited that I
take them all en bloc, all the more as Grenada and St. Vincent, united
by the Grenadines, together form one group. Already in 1907
F.KWKl

are occasionally representend as a point within a broad circular
figure in low relief, FEWKES I, Pl. 84 c and f and also in certain
cases in Erin Bay ceramics.
3) The method of representing the eye in a spiral, as JOYCE
Fig. 64, h, Carriacou, and i; also FEWKES I, LXXXIV d. The
two last-named are very similar to the parrot-heads of Grenada.
The same characteristic, which can only be pointed out on these
most southern islands of the Lesser Antilles, can also be demonstrated
on the northeastern coast of South America. Compare
JOYCE, Fig. 64 f, AIorowhanna, and also a painted face in NETTO,
p. 372, Fig. I4, from Louya, Alaraio.
4) The triangular face occurs all JOYCE fig. 64 g, Carriacou.
This same influence has advanced still further in the
Antilles and in my paragraphs about the Virgin Islands, I
mentioned a similar face from the shell-heap at Salt River,
St. Croix.
5) The large clay face, B. M., 1\d. I. 26I, St. Vincent, has the
arched eye-brows with a short, proportionately broad 'nose which is
finished with distinct nostrils, running in one line while the mouth
follows much further below. I have already stated that this trait
of handling eye-brows and nose in common is to be considered
A lldean, in its entirely. As regards the Antilles, it is nevertheless
difficult to decide if this characteristic came from the Southwest
or the Southeast. In support of the southwestern theory, J OSSE­
UN DE JONG, Pl. XV, IO, Aruba, can be cited; for the southeastern
NORDENSKI()LD, Sydamerikas Indianer, Fig. I46, Counany (according
to Goeldi) ROTH, 38th Ann. Rept. Bur. Amer. Ethnol., Pl.
28, C Brazilian Guiana, Coastal Region, and NE'rTO, Fig. on p.
327, ::\Iarajo. I will consider the question with greater precision
in respect to Puerto Rico, as such a face, has been found there on a
complete vessel.
6) The occurrence of clay feet on St. Vincent. Since they are
blackened underneath, they must have belonged to cooking-pots,
as on Barbados. The clay foot, B. i'VI., AI. I. 2I5, is a peculiar
type, being short and thick.!) The narrower underside has been
flattened so that it can stand by itself. It can be seen that the
smoke came from below and made it black. The foot is made of
') Length 4 em., breadth below 1 3/ 4, above 33/. em.

coarse, non-viscous clay and singularly enough, is perforated in its
whole length, like clay feet from Rato Viejo and Mexico.
The clay foot, B. M., M. I. 2I41) is conical and has a flat underside
that slants a trifle.
These clay feet, as well as those previously named from Barbados
and the Barima district in British Guiana must be attributed
to a cultural influence from the West, probably from Venezuela.
LINNE has made a map of tripod vessels in America.2) Re
cites such in Venezue1a as coming from Sierra de Merida and
Trujillo,3) clay feet occur also at Rato Viejo.4) Although no tripod
vessel has yet been found either in British Guiana or on the southern
of the Lesser Antilles islands, we may well presume that the
detached feet belonged to such. I know of clay feet also from
St. Croix.
Guadeloupe. Guesde Coll. Fig. 209, 2II, 2I2, 2I3, and 2I4.
MASON in speaking of these dish fragments, says:
"They do not differ at all from those found throughout the \Vest
Indies. The material is poorly worked but well baked." (p. 835)
However, the most remarkable thing about these potsherds is,
that the ceramic finds on Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo can be
considered as their equivalent. Points engraved at the ends of
the chevrons as in Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo certainly do
not occur, but there are such at the side of them, as in Figs. 2I2
and 2I4. It seems to me that Figs. 209 and 2I2 represent a kind
of pottery which approximates that found by RAEBERUN on a
fuego de pelota at Utuado, Puerto Rico. 5)
The fragment in fig. 2I4 of the Guesde Call. is the neck of a
bottle of a kind which has been found in Santo Domingo only.
The sherds which MASON published belong to the proper
Tainan pottery, and I doubt indeed that they were found on
Guadeloupe.
1) Length 71/. em., Br. below 1 1/. em.
2) Darien in the Past, Map. 7.
3) Darien in the Past, p. lI5 and 116.
4) NOMI,AND, Op. cit., p. 732, two hollow as the feet belonging to Central
American tripod vessels.
5) Amer. Anthrop., N. S. Vol. 19, No.2, Fig. II.

St. Kitts-Nevis. BRANCH, Amer. Anthrop. N. S. ~o1. 9, No.2,
Pl. XXII and XXIV and hgs. I~28; FEWKES I,
Pl. LXXXIII c~f, a find from an Indian grave at Westfarm,
St. Kitts. FEWKES II, Pl. 84, J and K, PI. 85 A, E, C, D, and E
are drawings of clay heads and complete vessels in the Connel
Collect1'on, that are not found illustrated in Branch's work.
From BRANCH'S representations it seems to me to be demonstrated
that he did not find two distinct layers of ceramics,
but rather, that at the same time that cooking utensils and "baking
slabs", i. e. burenes, were made out of the coarse clay, the
finer dishes were being formed out of better, viscous clay, baked
harder and painted.
Our greatest interest must be directed towards this painted
pottery.
Fortunately, with respect to the forms of these vessels, the
fragments from the Indian grave at \Vestfarm were sufficiently
large to permit of an immediate comprehension of how the receptacles
must have appeared, when they were complete. Furthermore,
in Fig. 29 BRANCH has presented a reconstruction in drawings
of the open vessels. These last are not only round, but
also oval, as in FEWKES I c and d, or in BRANCH'S Fig. 29, b. In
his Fig. 29, c, and also FEWKES II, Pl. 85, A, the high anmtlar
base can be observed. Very noteworthy are the cup-like types
with outward-curved lips, like the reconstructed beaker in BRANCH,
Pl. XXIII) or the upper part of the vessel, presented in Fig. 26.
Probably we have also here to deal with influences from Trinidad,
to be traced ultimately to Andean Colombia.
A tureen like cup "vith moderately high annular base, the
outlines of which have been sketched by BRANCH, closely resembles
the specimen from Rato Viejo in NOMLAND fig. 5 h, and belongs
to that kind of painted ceramics which has reached St. Kitts­
Nevis. The somewhat remote similarity to a certain Erin Bay
vessel I have discussed in the foregoing.
As a rule, vessels from St. Kitts have only lugs. FEWKES II,
Pl. 85 D has veritable pot-handles on the short portion of the dish
that is bent over in an angle. In this respect, namely that lugs
1) With exactly the same figural painting as FmvKES I, PI. LXXXIII f.

266
predominate, the ceramics of St. Kitts are in accord with those
of St. BernardI) and Aruba. 2 )
If northwestern South American influence can be pointed out
in the bowl-forms on St. Kitts and kinship with Erin Bay it is
conceivable at least through the occnrrence of the high annular
base, on the other hand the influence from St. Bernard stands
out still more strikingly in the painting of the vessels.
In the ornamentation on St. Kitts, the same as at St. Bernard,
a combination of "incised lines and paint"3) occurs. The
general character of the painting Branch describes as follovvs:
"The patterns are in white or sometimes light blue on a red ground
or on the depainted reddish c1ay."4) "The surface of the pottery
\vas often carefully smoothed, especially when paint was to be
applied."5) DE Booy is astonished oyer the hard firing of the
painted pottery of St. Bernard, BRANCH is struck by the care
taken in firing the painted fragments found on St. Kitts.6) Furthermore,
as KORDENSKIOLD placed the pottery of St. Bernard
under the classification of painted before firing, naturally there
are good and sufficient reasons for the assumption that the St.
Kitts pottery, which resembles the first-named so greatly, is also
painted before fining.
?\mv we will investigate exactly wherein similarities exist
between St. Bernard and St. Kitts, in respect to painting. The
first and most extensive appears to lie - as I have already mentioned
in my comparison between St. Bernard and Aruba, Ctira~ao -
in the predominating use of white, not only as foundation colour, 7)
but also in the geometrical designs. 8)
In the latter case the white painting follows the engraved
lines. This is the only kind of painting that I know of, coming
from the shellheaps of the Barima district, Brit. Guiana. The
1) DE BooY, Fig. VIII, d.
'j A. J. VAN KOOLWIJK, De Indianen Caraiben van het Eiland Aruba, (\\'est
InClie') p. 224.
:3) BRANCH, OJ), cit., p, 327.
') HId.
') Page 32(J.
'I Page 327.
BRANCH, on Platc XXII, a fragment with u Cliugonul cross.
8) FE\\'KES, c. d, e, and f.

267
same characteristic, moreover, we find again in the St. Kitts
pottery, which is more complicated by far in other respects.I ) At
St Bernard however, the feature occurs only exceptionally2). The
engraving on St. Kitts is done with the same great precision as on
'Trinidad, yet the lines are thinner.
On St. Kitts also, the decoration can be found on the inside
of the bow1.3) On the Greater Antilles this occurs properly in
connection with inward-turned archaic faces and their engraved
appurtenances. The same sort of hafted spiral, incised on a white
slip that is found in the St. Bernard4) pottery, occurs on St. Kitts
as well. 5) Less colours are used in St. Bernard than on Cura~ao
and Aruba, and on St. Kitts still fewer than in St. Bernard.6)
Of great interest indeed is the figure with eyes on the reconstructed
beaker, BRANCH, Pl. XXII, or on the potsherd, FEWKES, I,
Pl. LXXXIII f. It appears to have its prototype in engraved
faces on Tainan wood sculptures similarities with such on some
duhos are not lacking.
The continuous and elegant design is often confined within
a zone enclosed within a border at the top of the bowl,7) in St.
Kitts. One gets the impression that on this island they were
familiar with many kinds of meandering ornamentation. 8) In
some cases the decoration seems to have a symbolical meaning and
its complicated figures combined with the meander, possibly to
express the heavenly clouds and atmospheric phenomena. In this
case, a certain likeness to Pueblo and potteries in Mexico should
be present, or at closer range with the highly developed, painted
Chibcha pottery.9)
The figures on the beautiful bowl, KRIEGER III, Pl. 45,I,
St. Kitts, also give a symbolical impression. In respect to this, it
1) St. Kitts-fragments in FEWKES I, PI. 83.
2) DE Bom:, PI. 8, b.
3) FEWKES I, Ibid., two bowls.
4) DE Booy, Amer. Anthrop. N. S. Vol. I9, PI. 8, a.
5) Three fragments in BRANCH, PI. 22.
6) According to BRANCH, white or sometimes light blue on a red ground, or
on the unpainted reddish clay.
7) BRANCH, Fig. 26.
8) Ibid., Figs. 26 and 29.
9) VICENTE RESTREPO, Los Chibchas, Atlas, PI. XXV, Guatabita.

268
is suggestive that they stand each in their own especial, separate
places. The rectangular face to the right with an undulating line
below, must represent some zemi. Inexplicable from a purely
decorative point of view is the oval figure with one half of it intentionally
pushed to one side. A third figure consisting of an inner
broad ring and a narrow outer one and having two small eyes at
the sides, looks like a conventional sign. I know of no decoration
of the conventional, symbolical kind that is found on St. Kitts­
Nevis as coming from any other of the \Vest Indian islands. 11any
things indicate that this made its way along the northern coast of
South America from the \Vest. As I have previously mentioned,
there is reason to believe that all this kind of painted ceramics
advanced over the Dutch I{eeward Islands, Margarita and Trinidad,
and ultimately reached St. Kitts-Nevis, also. But going
westward in northern South America, I only know af symbolical
decoration first when we come to the Chibchas, whose culture
moreover was strongly encompassed towards the Norths by
hostile tribes, so that cultural elements could have pressed
forwards along the River Magdalena to the coast, only with the
greatest difficulty. At Santa :Marta the painted pottery is monochrome,
either red or black.I ) For that reason the polychrome
ceramics' conventional figures could not occur here. But the conventional,
symbolic figures on painted pottery could indeed also
have come from Central America, and, passing by Santa :Marta,
have made their way forward along the north coast of South
America towards the East. UraM., which .vas a noted place in the
Indian epoch, still remains to be investigated. In the painted pottery
that LINN}~ excavated ou the Isla del Rey, Pearl Islands,
distinctively expressed conventionalized figures that occupy the
whole surface, are found on the inside of the bowls. 2 ) But here
we are on the Pacific side of Panama. It remains to be considered
that they could have been indigenous to St. Kitts Nevis and are
irrelevant to this continental region. In any case, however, the
1) J. AI,DEN MASON, A rchaeological Researches in the Region of Santa JVI arta,
Colombia, XXIe Congr. Americanistes, denxi

269
polychrome ceramic on which they occur has advanced from the
small islands along the north coast of South America, and by that
route have made their way to Trinidad and the Lesser Antilles.
BRANCH publishes only two clay heads. Of these the turtlehead,
Fig. 28 St. Kitts, which is only the usual knob-form somewhat
embellished, is similar to DE Hos'I'os, Fig. 45, a-b, Puerto
Rico. The other head, BRANCH, Fig. 27, is in three colours. Involuntarily
one receives the impression that these two heads
were located horizontally, protruding from the exterior of
the vesse1.
FEWKES II, Pl. 85 A has an outward-turned bird-head
(there must have been another on the shattered opposite side),
which with its long beak forms a pot-handle. The two clay heads
FEWKES II, Pl. 84 K and ], the author considers similar to "Grenada
ware" .1) The "hollow clay cylinder", FEWKES II, Fig. II
has a face with eyes, nose and mouth represented with affixed
lumps of clay the same as on the two clay heads originating from
St. Kitts.
FEWKES II, Pl. 85 publishes six entire vessels from St. Kitts
and Nevis.
The vessel 85 B has a spout as well as handle. The other
vessels with spout from Carriacou and Hato Viejo that I know of,
have no handles. The vessel in question is made of coarse ware. ;rhe
unbroken spouted vessel in NOMLAND'S fig. 5 f, Hato Viejo, shows
the kind of decorative painting which is met with on vessels of
differing shapes on St. Kitts-Nevis. The spout as well as the
method of painting the vessels before firing, reached the West
Indies from the west, travelling along the coast of Venezuela.
The previously mentioned D, found in a grave on the Mills
estate, has the upper part of the wall of the dish bent inwards at
an angle as in Tainan pottery; the bottom is flat. B, a "large
food bowl of reddish colour has a wide flaring orifice slightly turned
back". The circumstances of its finding betray its Indian origin.
"This bowl was found upside down about 2 feet below the surface,
covering a vertebra of a fish, II flint scrapers and 3 small chisels."
The bottom is flat.

270
Figure A, which has already been treated, must also be an
Indian bowl. It was found "on the Brighton estate, Cayon, St.
Kitts." It is a vessel on a high circular base, and an outwardturned
bird-head with its beak, forms the one handle that has not
been destroyed.
The scoop C, found "at the botanical station on the island of
Nevis" must be considered as Indian because of the ornamental
figures on the handle in the decoration style of St. Kitts-Nevis.
This also has a flat bottom. A scoop was likewise found on
Grenada.1) This last is however boat-formed, like a bowl from
Erin Bay, and its one remaining handle stands out horizontally;
indeed, we do not know if it ever had another. In any case,
the Nevis-dish had only one.
The peculiar dish G-H, I will not discuss. Neither does
FEWKES mention it in his text.
Flat base seems to have been general on St. Kitts-Nevis.
Southwards one encounters it in Trinidad, not only in the
St. Bernard ceramics 2 ), but also at Erin Bay.3) Moreover, the flat
base is usual for the doublebowl. We find it on the continent in
the shellmounds of the Barima district. 4) The flat base is common
in the later, potteries of the lower Amazon, and also in Andean
Columbia. With our present knowledge, it is difficult to decide
if the flat base reached Trinidad from the West or the Southeast.
Moreover, its presence is indispensable for dishes that have the
flower-pot form, such as FEWKES II, Pl. 2, B, Erin Bay, and
Pl. 85, E, St. Kitts. I shall speak later of its occurence in Tainan
ceramlCS.
I hold decided opinion that the painted pottery of St. Kitts
is A rawak and not Carib. I have already stated the reasons that
I agree to FEWKES' theory, that the culture of Erin Bay was
Arawak. As far as I can see, that of St. Bernard must had the
same derivation. The moulded and engraved pottery found there
shows affinity to that of Erin Bay, while its painted ware is in
accord with St. Kitts. The painted ceramics of St Kitts pictured
1) Ibid., Pi. 63 and p. IIg.
2) DE Booy, Pi. 6, B.
3) FEWKES II, PI. 2, B.
0) G. M. 32.24.3, Ossororo Hill.

27 1
in FEWKES II, Pl. 83 c-f are exactly the same as BRANCH
found in an Indian grave at \Vestfarm. There is good evidence
that the grave was Arawak, and that for this reason all the
finely decorated and delicately executed pottery of St. Kitts­
Nevis is Arawak.
In the \Vestfarm grave, BRANCH found the skeleton of an
Indian with a strongly deformed forehead and lying in a crouching
position, with clay vessels placed at its feet.1) Near one of the enclosures
at Utuado FEWKES found a grave, whose contents he describes
as follows: "One of the best preserved of these skeletons was found
in a sitting posture, with the legs drawn to the chest and with
ceramic objects lying at one side. The frontal bones of the skulls
were abnormally flattened, as in those from the caves in the northern
part of Santo Domingo, described by Dr. Llenas (Decouverte
d'un crane d'Indien Ciguayo a Saint Dominique, Nantes 1891)"2)
Utuado lies in the interior of Puerto Rico, in a region that it is
entirely improbable that the Caribs ever inhabited. The hardbaked,
thin, fine painted ware is found on the Virgin Islands under
the Tainan culture. This shows above doubt, that it must have
been Ignerian and did not belong to the Caribs, who were the
successors of the 1'ainos on these islands.
Virgin Islands. MUSEUM IN COPENHAGEN, Fragments from the
shell-tnound at Salt R1·ver. St. Croix, Plate I, figs. 3
and 4, Plate II, figs I-4 and 6--9. Plate X, a large dish found
011 the plantation Concordias luder, St. Croix. THEODOR DE Booy,
Archaeology of the Virgin Islands, Indian Notes and Monographs,
Vol. I, Ko. I, Heye Foundation 1919, Figs. 9-27, Pl. VI--RIII,
CrDML-ND HA'l'T, Archaeology of the Virgin Islands, XXIe Congr.
Int. des Americanistes, Session de la Haye, 1924, Figs. 2-7, and 20.
ALANSON SKINNER, Archeological Specimens from St. Croix,
Virgin Islands, Ind. Kotes, Heye Found., 1925, figs 50-.53, from
kitchen middens on Mrs H. C. Hark's estate on St. Croix.
HATT'S excavations on St. Croix and St. Thomas in ICj22-I923
had the important result of ciemonstrationg for the first time that
') Page 337.
2) Amer. Anthrop., N. S. Vol. 5, Xo. 3, page 457.

272
the Ignerian culture on these islands was overspread by the
Tainan culture, that came in from Puerto Rico.
The ceramic objects found, show that the Ignerian Arawaks
living on the Virgin Islands had advanced very far in ceramic
development, when the Borinquenos settled on St. Croix and St.
Thomas.
The Igneris who were living there at that time, had painted
pottery of the same kind that we have already learned to know
from St. Kitts-Nevis and St. Bernard on Trinidad. HATT found
"painted decoration comparatively rare in the Magens Bay-Salt
River group but not entirely lacking. "1) He found black and red
painted ornamentation" on some shallow dishes and plates of the
type shown in Fig. 2, g." The hard-baked painted pottery on St.
Kitts-Nevis is likewise comprised for the most part of shallow,
oval dishes. The Magens Bay - Salt River culture is Tainan and
lies above the Ignerian. It is therefore of the greatest interest
that HA'f'f found painted ceramics" already at the bottom" in the
Magens Bay and Salt River deposits. Seeing that fragments of
this pottery extended upwards into the layers of Tainan culture,
this shows decidedly that the Borinquenos came to St. Croix and
St. Thomas when this kind of ceramic objects was in vogue
amongst the Igneris, who evidently at that time stood at the
peak of their ceramic development. Possibly the Borinquenos
married the Ignerian women and in that fashion came to adopt
their kind of clay utensils, while at the same time they held principally
to their own far less developed, archaic, Tainan pottery.
On the other hand the fine ceramics, which were painted before
firing can at present not be shown to have ever reached Puerto
Rico. As regards dish-forms, the painted ware on St. Croix and
St. Thomas approximates the same kind of pottery as on St.
KittS-Nevis, having similar shallow dishes, oval or circular.
The same sort of hafted scrol12) that occurs on St. Kitts-Nevis
and also at St. Bernard, Trinidad, is found in the decoration.
Just as at St. Kitts-Nevis, the painted decoration is often
found on the inside of the dish.3)
1) HATT, Arch. Virgin Islands, p. 32.
2) DE Booy, Arch. Virgin Islands, Fig. 2I, Magens Bay, St. Thomas.
3) DE Booy, Ibid.

273
That the thin painted ware on St. Croix and St. Thomas originally
was Ignerian can be concluded, furthermore, from the fact
that it occurs in the greatest abundance in Ignerian sites. Hatt
says: "The use of painted decoration is much more prevalent in
the ceramics of the Coral Bay- Longford group."
The pot-handles on vessels of the late Ignerian ceramics on
the Virgin Islands are as a rule slender. A handle of a vessel from
Coral Bay (HNn, fig. 7 d), is, however, very broad and flat, running
from the rim to the lower part of the body, similar to the
handles of the Erin Bay ceramics.
HArT mentions Fig. 2 c, lVIagens Bay as one of the few vesselforms
that are common to the Tainan as well as the Igneriall ceramics
on the Virgin Islands. The upper part of the wall slants inward.
Closed vessels having walls that slant inwards at an angle
are likewise general in the Tainan pottery. In the late Ignerian
pottery of St. Kittsl) they also occur in isolated cases. Such a
bowl was also found at Erin Bay, Trinidad.2) St. Croix and St.
Thomas are remarkable for "the thinness and fineness of the ware"
found there. This belongs therefore to their late Ignerian ceramics.
On the Virgin Islands3) is also found the archaic I gnerian pottery,
with the flat face turned towards the interior of the dish. A bowl
on a high annular base is also found in the I gnerian pottery on the
Virgin Islands.4)
The Borinquenos brought over to St. Croix and St. Thomas
their own archaic Puerto Rican ware. HATT mentions as characteristic
of this" certain types of bowls with round or flat bases and
the upper parts slanting inwards, boat-shaped vessels, certain in-·
cised ornaments and elaborate pottery handles, shaped like fantastic
or zoomorphic heads and reminding more of Porto Rico than of
Trinidad. "5) As elsewhere in the 'fainan ceramics, these heads
possess the archaic characteristic of being turned towards the interior
of the bow 1.
It is worthy of note that the double-vessel belongs to the T ai-
18
1) FEWKES II, PI. 85, D.
2) FmvKEs II, pI. z A.
3) HATT, Arch. Virgo Isl., Fig. 8.
4) Ibid., Fig. 7 c, Coral Bay, St. John.
5) J bid., p. 40 and Fig. S. 4.

274
nan ceramics at lVIagens Bay and Salt River; "none were recovered
in the Coral Bay-Longford group."i)
The potsherds from the shell-heap at Salt River published by
me, must all be Tainan. I shall discuss them below only to such a
degree as they can complete HATT'S published material.
Plate I, 2 is boat-shaped of the kind that HATT assigns to the
lVIagens Bay-Salt River group.2) Plate I, 4, has in relief the archaic
S-shaped snake incised with oblique grooves, that is also
found in archaic ceramics from the Amazon. Plate II, 6 has in
relief the triangular face, that I have already mentioned from Carriacou.
This characteristic need not be interpreted here as Ignerian,
as it has also passed over to the 'l'ainan pottery.
The decorated fragments Pl. I, 3 and Pl. II,6 show that they
belonged to small round dishes with flat bottoms and low walls
ascending vertically forming a right angle, a dish-form resembling
::.vlexicall molcajetes. It is found throughout Tainan ceramics.
However, in mentioning this resemblance I do not mean to suggest
the presence of lVIexican influence. Chili sauce was unknown to
the Tainos; on the other hand they had the pepper-pot, in which
aji is used as a condiment, and which remained constantly in a
cooking-pot over the fire.
Burens for drying the mandioca-meal were found in abulldance
in the midden at Salt River. DE Booy publishes such a buren,
entire and without rim, like the pieces found by Ramsing,
from this place.3)
Through the excavations of DE Booy and HATT, a large Humber
of complete vessels have been unearthed in the Virgin Islands.
The majority of these were taken from graves4) that belonged to
'l'ainos. For the most part, these are vessels for food and drink,
undecorated domestic utensils. \Vc miss on them the lugs in the
form of fantastic human-heads, that are so general in the Tainan
1) HATf, Ibid., p. 32 and Fig. 2 j, only one bowl left. ="otably enough this
seems to have a rounded bottom, unlike similar bowls on Carriacou and Trinidad.
Flat bottoms like the last-named are found in DE BODY, Arch. Virg, Islauds, PI.
8 a, on the other hand.
2) Camp. HA'fT, Arch. Virgo Islands, p. 32 and Fig. 3 C.
3) Arch. Virgo Islands, Fig. I5.
4) DE BODY, Ibid. Figs. 9--II and PI. VI, from the Tainan sites at Salt
River on St. Croix and Magens Bay on St. Thomas.

275
pottery. They are not always found in connection with a skeleton;
if so, the latter is entirely disintegrated. This being the case, other
whole dishes also, ,,,hich cannot be designated with certainty
as burial vessels, in themselves give the impression of having
corne from graves. 'Ye find among DE Booy's burial vessels
aUas, among these also some with wall arched over,l) that were
water vessels, as well as open food-dishes. 2 ) Particularly the
overarched vessels discovered by DE Booy in graves on Salt River
and lVIagens Bay pro,'e that these graves are Tainan. \Ve shall
find considerable differences when we compare the burial vessels
from Salt H-iver and ::.\lagens Bay belonging to the Taillan culture,
with a later presentation of 'l'ainan burial vessels from the tract
of Samana in Santo Domingo. To my knowledge there is no
bowl from Florida which is exactly of the same shape as the
one from Salt River containing a child's skeleton vI;hich is represented
in Hp:rT's fig. 20 having a broad decorated rim bent
inwards in angle.
\Vhen I wrote the first edition of this work, I knew of no other
bowl from the \Vest Indies of the same form as Plate X, found on
the plantation of Concordias J uder on St. Croix. During his excavations
of the midden at Salt River, HATT found such a resembling
bowl over the skeleton of a cild. It is on the other hand painted
with beautiful red scrolls, indicating influence from the late Ignerian
painted ceramics. Hatt found on St. Croix a few more
round bowls of this form with six groupes of three points, now in
the National :Museum of Copenhagen.
DE Booy, Fig. 24, 1VIagens Bay, St. Thomas, is on the other
hand a potsherd from a platter ,vith a well marked corner, on
\vhich sits a Tainan head with hands. 'l'he form of the platter
presents clearly connecting with Florida.3)
') DE Booy, Ibid., PI. VI, L, Salt River, St. Croix, with a rounded overarchiug
portion, and Fig. I I,iYlagens Bay, St. Thomas, whose upper palt overarches
at an angle.
') Ibid., Figs. 9, l\IagellS Bay,
") Compo MOORF" Certain A bOI". ~1Jounds, A ppalachicola River, J ourn. Ac. of
Sciences, Philadelphia, \'01. 12, Fig. 100, mound near Chipola Cut-off; Certain Aboy.
Rem, Florida N. W, Coast. Ibid. Vol. II, Fig, 51, mound near Jolly Bay, both
five·cornered, The resemblance of these potsherds from St. Thomas to a sixcornered
platter, MOORE, Ibid" Fig. 22, mound at 'V alton's Camp, is still greater,

That it was not very easy to make such large bowls as
PI. X can be concluded from the fact that along the north coast
of Espanola, they were very eager to barter with the Spanish for
wash-basins at high prices.l) These bowls from St. Croix are rather
thin, and seem to be hard-burned and not so easily broken as the
usual Tainan pottery.
I have pictured the interior of the dish Pl. X, so that the decoration
can be observed. Its principal motive comprises six groupes
of three small points, which can also be seen on the archaic
pottery of the Antilles, or in many places on the tropical lowlands
of South America, for example at Mojos, bnt not in six groupes.
Two lines run parallel along the interior between these groups of
points, a not unusual characteristic on Island-Arawak potsherds.2)
It is a matter of great interest that the groups of points, each of
which must replace faces or heads directed towards the interior of
the bowl, are six in number and not just two, located opposite to
each other, as in the common 'l'ainan pottery.
It is very probable that the regular symmetry in the decoration
of the edge can be attributed to North American influence.
Dishes and plates with rythmic decoration of figures and parallel
lines along the outer edge of the inside, are found in Alabama
and Florida. "Stone discs" have been found in Alabama, which
have around the edge a groupe-decoration of projections and notches
at regular intervals, while within these are parallel concentric lilles;3)
and also, a clay dish with a similar design along the side.4)
The significance of the number six in the formation and decoration
of bowls in Florida, is shown by the fact that there are hexagonal
dishes with rhythmical sixfold decoration on the inside, very
close to the edge.5) In other cases the sixfold ornamentation is
1) See further under pottery of Espanola.
2) For example, DE Booy, Amer. Anthrop., N. S., Vol. 15, NO.3, PI. XXXIII
I, e and g, Jamaica.
3) MOORI" Black Warri.or River, Figs. 19, 23, 65, 66, III and II6. To judge
from the drawing in profile Fig. 107, they appear to be shallow basins with a
rather protuberant rim.
4) Ibid., Pig. 92.
5) MOORE, Certain A boriginal Remains ot the N. W. Florida Coast, J ourn. Ae.
Nat. Sciences of Phila., Vol. II, Sec. Ser. 1897-1901, Fig. 22, Mound at 'Walton's
Camp.

277
found on the outside close to the edge of an engraved bowl from
Alabama, in the form of six figures interfoliated by parallellines,I)
and over the entire outside in Florida, only with alternate light and
dark painted figures. 2)
To the bowl with rounded overarching (HA'I''I', fig. 2 i)
there are exact analogies in Georgia.3) The type is characteristic
of the Tainan culture.4)
The bowl, HA'l"l.', fig. 20 found together with the skeleton of
a child at Salt River is of a form with broad decorated rim bent
inwards in an angle not at all uncommon in the southeastern
States. The rimdecoration consists of trapezoide figures in low
relief bordered by incised lines, also occurring in the southeastern
States.
If we consider together that these pecularities of form and decoration
of the large dishes above treated, are common to the Tainan
culture of the Virgin Islands and to the higher culture of Florida
and Alabanta, and that such dishes at Salt River were used for infantile
burials and also that the same burial cttstom is met with in the
southeastern States, mOr(07)er that in the T ainan culture on St.
Croix and St. Thomas have been found in abundance shell ornaments,
which although simpler, recall sitm:Zar ones from these same States,
then we can conchtde that a cultural Floridian in/Zztence of considerable
intensity, impressed itself on these islands during the Tainan
period. The same conditions are true of the tract of Samana, in
Santo Domingo, details of which will be given later.
In the kitchen middens on Mrs Hark's estate on St. Croix
Ignerian as well as Tainan pottery were found. SKINNBR on p.
IIS mentions numerous »grotesque heads and faces of the familiar
types found in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo, and Haiti.
(Compare HATT, fig. 4, Magens Bay, and f£g. 5, Salt River). The
»frog-like bowl» (SKINNER, f£g. 52), »covered with a crimson slip »,
one handle of which represents »a frog's head in crude bas-relief»
') MooIn:, Aboriginal Sites on Tennessee River. Ibid., Vol. 16, 1913-J9IR,
Fig. (iI, near the Cox Mound.
2) MOORE, Florida Sand },founds, Ibid., Vol. la, 1894-1896, PI. XI,V.
3) MARGARET F.. ASHLEV, A Cneh Site in Georgia, Heye Found. Indian
);'otes, yol. IV, numb. 3, 1927, figs fl6 and R7.
4) Camp. Krieger III, pI. 51 c, from cen:etary Andres, pray. of Santo Domingo,
and H.-\.RRIXG'tOX, fig. 44, "Taino Yillage site at lYIOlltc Cristo."

has its relatives in the Tainan culture as well as in Puerto Rico.
The shallow elliptical bowl in F1·g. 5 with a turtle's head turned
outwards may be Ignerian.
Of great interest is the earthemvare stand in fig. 53 with its
two legs, which have not been fasten to the stand but project
from it. SKI:c-mER is of the opinion that originally there must have
been three of them, and that one leg was broken and with it part
of the stand. These legs vvith a wide bottom are of the same
shape as those from Barbados and St. Vincent in the collections
in the British Museum. Considering its legs projecting from the
stand I judge it to be Ignerian.
A typical representative of the late-Ignerian painted ceramics
with dark, isolated, rhythmical figures on a background of
light colour is seen in KRIEGrm III, a vessel from St. Croix.
It has a broad and flat handle, a trait of late date which has
found its way from the south oyer Trinidad and the Lesser Antilles.
(Compare the broad and flat handle of a vessel in HATT'S
fig. 7 from the Ignerian site on Coral Bay, St. John.)
Vieques. Plate IX, I. This head, of those that I know from
publication, is most like HAEBERLIN, Amer.
Anthrop. Vol. 19, No.2, Fig. 39, Puerto Rico; this only goes to
show that at one time there vvas on Vieques a culture similar to
that on Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico. MASON, The Lahmer Call., Figs. I-9; FEWKES I,
Figs. 34, 35, 36, Pl. LXXIII Cueva de las Golondrinas,
LXXVII a, a', Utnado, b, Salinas, c, Utuado, d-d' Cueva
de las Golondrinas, LXXVIII, "cave near Aguas BUenas, not far
from Caguas," LXXIX, the same as Fig. 36, "from western end
of Puerto Rico;" HAEBERLIN, Amer. Anthrop., N. S. Vol. 19,
No.2, Fig. II, juego several miles northwest of the town of Ftuado,"
I6, I7, Ctteva de la Seiba, 27, 28, 35-39; DE HOSTOS,
Ibid., N.S. Vol. 21, NO.4, Fig. 4I, a-i," from the Joyua shellheap,
western coast of Puerto Rico," 42 a, Joyua shell-heap, b,
Puerto Rico, 43 J oyua, 44 a--e, "Cabo Rojo region," f-It and j, 45,
46, a, b, Puerto Rico, e, Joyua shell-heap, 47, 48 a, "the Ostiones

279
Point shell-heap", b, "in an old Indian grave near Cabo Rojo at
Ostiones Point," c-j, 49 a, shell-heap at Ostiones Point, b, Pzterto
Rico, c, Ostiones Point, "near Guayanilla", e, f, Porto Rico, g,
Ostiones, Point, h, near Guayanilla, i-m, Ostiones Point, n, Puerto
Rico, o-q. Ostiones Point, and 5I, Puerto Rico; FEWKES II, Pl.
II8, A; KRIEGER III, Pl. 33,3, 5; S. K. LOTHROP, Two SPecimens
from Puerto Rico, Indian Notes, Vol. IV, NO.4, Figs. I33, bird
bmvl Camuy and I34, modelled bird motives. G6TEBORGS Mus.
24. 25. I--9, vessel sherds with clay heads, gift by DE HOSTOS,
Ostiones Point and from the coast of Guayanilla Bay.
DE HOSTOS says: "Although a study of the stratigraphy of
the Ostiones heap was not included in the author's programme,
an observant eye was kept for differences in type and technique
in the sherd found." At the very top, he found pottery "painted
after firing, as the pigment easily dissolved when cleansed with
soapy water. Other layers contained, in their respective order:
unpainted, but polished ware with relief decoration; coarse ware
with incised decoration; undecorated specimens and lastly fingerpressuremade
ware of the coarsest kind."!)
Among the potsherds presented to the Gothenburg Museum
by DE HOSTOS, there are painted as well as unpainted sherds. The
unpainted specimens G. M. 25.24. Nos 3, 4, 5 from the Ostiones
shell-heap have monkey-like human heads facing the centre of
the vessel. NO.9, another unpainted sherd, has a monkey-like
head NO.7, from "Guayanilla Bay", with a human face, turned
upwards, serving for a handle, and projecting horizontally from
the narrow end of the elliptical dish.
KRIEGER, whose investigations were published later than
those of DE Hos'l'os, knows two kinds of painted ware in Santo
Domingo and Puerto Rico, "a characteristically marked red ware
similar to that of south-western Puerto Rico and a polychrome,
very rare in Santo Domingo, but appearing as a typical ware on
the southern and western coasts of Puerto Rico in the vicinity of
Ponce. Polychrome designs on earthernware vessels, from Puerto
Rico are geometric."2) Unfortunately not one single specimen of
that polychrome pottery from Puerto Rico was published. How-
") Both citations are from DF; HOSTOS, p. 383.
2) KRIEGER III, p. 58.

280
ever KRIEGER would consider such polychrome pot-sherds from
southwestern Puerto Rico, as well as "burnished aboriginal pottery
from eastern Santo Domingo" equivalent to the polychrome
caramics from the Lesser Anti11esJ) He attributes that kind of
ware on these last-named islands to the Caribs. It is evident that
by that he has in mind the polychrome Ignerian pottery on St.
Kitts-Nevis and the Virgin Islands, and not the varnished ceramics
that I have already stated the Island-Caribs brought with
them from their fatherland on the coast of Guiana, where it remained
up to very late time. Now if this had really been the case,
that the pottery with painted decoration advanced to Puerto Rico
from the Virgin Islands, then on Puerto Rico it should also be
painted before firing. But the painted pottery known by DE
Hos1'OS was certainly painted after firing, wherefore it can not in
the least be considered equivalent to that on the Virgin Islands.
S. K. I~OTHROP (1927) knows "on the southern part ofthewestern
coast" "a two-or-three colour painted ware, which is best considered
a sub-variety of the brown ware".2) Now as LOTHROP found
the brown ware at the bottom of the shell-heaps, and as he considers
that pottery made "of a coarse and porous clay" to be the
oldest Tainan ware on the island,3) then the two-or-three coloured
ware in western Puerto Rico to say of the least can not be looked
upon as being equivalent to the fine-grained, painted Ignerian
pottery 011 the Virgin Islands. Moreover, LOTHROP divides Puerto
Rican ceramics into:
I) Brown ware, found in all parts of the island.
2) Red ware, found chiefly in the west and south.
3) Bull ware, found chiefly in the south.
Unfortunately I can not discuss the merits of LOTHROP'S classification
in the following presentation, as I have never seen his
Puerto Rican material.
In the rest of his dissertation, Dl~ Hos1'oS seems to be interested
chiefly in moulded pottery. vVe must content ourselves vvith
the informatiou that the clay heads were found in a fourth ceramic
layer, reckoning from the bottom. Not a single illustration
1) Ibid., p. 51.
2) LOTHROP, p. 326.
3) Compo Ibid., p. 324 and p. 331.

28r
does he publish of the "finger-pressure-made-ware". Entirely
apart from that, if this pottery really were the oldest known in
Puerto Rico up to date, then a closer knowledge of it in reference
to other regions would be of the greatest importance. In a market
on St. Kitts, FEWKES purchased a modern saucer "ornamented
with fingertips". It belongs to the vessels that he considers "closely
resemble pottery found in the middens of St. Kitts".!) In
this case, we must ask ourselves if here we have not to do with the
modern negro manufacture of clay vessels. Finger-pressure ornamentation
is indeed also typical amongst the Guarani tribes.
Nailprints, moreover, are found on many sherds in the Goteborg
Museum, coming from the Barima region. Because of this, there is
reason for the hypothesis that the Island-Arawaks, when they
emigrated, introduced this kind of primitive decoration with them
to the \Vest Indies, a theory which the excavations of DE HOSTOS
on Puerto Rico might be said to corroborate. Perhaps also, without
any connection with the Guaranis, the ornamentation made
by finger-pressure existed in the Manabi, culture. The investigations
made by S. K. LOTHROP make intelligible, that incised pottery
was anterior to moulded pottery on Puerto Rico.
RAEBERUN found exclusively incised pottery in the fuego in
Quebrada de las M edinas on Puerto Rico,2) but equivalent to the
moulded pottery. It is possible that these pot-sherds were only
from the broken household utensils thrown out of the huts that
lay alongside the batey. The juego with its pot-sherds must be considered
as remnants of proper Tainan culture.
Up to the time of the excavations made by DE ROSTOS, the
known complete vessels, were very few in number. But owing to
them, our knowledge of the types has been considerably augmented,
as also through the larger fragments that permit us to see
in perspective others. In regard to this, I will refer to Fig. 48 a­
c and e-i, and 49 c; and in addition, to what he says about dishforms
and their uses on pages 380-382.
Ris statement that Fig. 48 b with the characteristic horizontal
lobate handle is a cooking pot, is very interesting. FEWKES I,
Pl. LXXIII below at the right, pictures the same kind of handle
1) Bull. at the Amer. Geogr. Soc., Vol. XLVI, p. 675.
2) HAEBER4IN, Some Archaeological Works in Porto Rico, p. 218, Fig. II.

282
from the excavations in the Cueva de las Golondrinas.1) Others of
the same kind will be found on the thick-walled pots, DUERDEN,
Pl. 5, Figs. 6 and 7 from the caves of Jamaica. There is plenty of
evidence to designate these Jamaican vessels, cooking pots. Nevertheless,
the Puerto Rican pot with its contracted and arched
upper part, represents a more highly developed type than the
entirely open ones from Jamaica.
DE HOS1'OS, Fig. 48 a, is a very individual type, completely
new for the entire West Indies. These peculiar flasks that end
below in a long, conical spigot, DE HOSTOS numbers with the
"water-jars. Because of this long plug, it can not stand alone
and therefore it seems to him to be "requiring for its use a
wooden support or tripod. "2) But I rather believe that the long
tap served to stick it into the soil, and that the bottle was
made to stand firm in this manner. A vessel finished below in
a spigot is, moreover not a singular feature on the Antilles.
This terminal tap is the distinctive mark of the Carib canalli
for ouicou.3)
The hitherto published vessels from Puerto Rico must be
considered as proper Tainan; in conformity with that, the pottery
is distinguished by its relative abundance of closed vessels
In some over-arched closed Puerto Rican vessels the arch is
so low that the top looks as if it had been pressed down, and the
aperture is surrounded by an almost flat surface (FEWKES I
pl. LXXXIX, and HOSTOS, fig. 48 b). In Florida and Alabama
it is a common thing to meet with vessels with still more pronounced
over-arching, which encloses the mouth in a horizontal
ring. In all probability the Puerto Rican vessels have in this
characteristic been subject to Floridan influence.
In the Ignerian culture and on Trinidad the over-arched
bowls are far more rare and the arch only accentuates the rim in
many cases. The previously mentioned carafe from Salt River,
which type HATT found pervading both the Ignerian and Tainan
cultures, is the most over-arched of all the vessels from the Virgin
1) Compo pages 88-89.
2) DE ROSTOS, Ibid., p. 380.
3) DE LA BORDE, Fig. 8.

Islands. In the Igncrian sites, Longford!) and Spratt HaIP) on
St. Croix and Coral Bay on St. J ohn,3) angular over-arching is
still found. But with the exception of HATT, Fig. 6, h, the incurving
is not of such great importance, but that the bowls remain
open. The same is true of a dish from St. Kitts.4)
It is on Puerto Rico that we first find over-arching bowls,
either so made that a bovvl is crowned with an upper part contracted
in an obtuse angle, like DE HOSTOS, Fig. 48,i and h,
both from the shell-heap at Ostiones Point, and HAEBERLIN,
Fig. 28, or with a ronnd arched reduction as Fl':WKES I, LXXVII
a--a', "found in a cave not far from Utuado"5) and LXXIX,
a-a' "from western end of Porto Rico."
The last-named, FEWKES interprets it as "an effigy of a bird,
the wings and tail taking the form of relief areas crossed by incised
lilles. "6) But the face is nevertheless human. I have already
drawn attention to such faces, in which the arched eyebrows
and nose run into one, in connection with St. Vincent.
When they occur on the South American continent, they stand
on the neck of a bottle-vessel. This is the case at Marajo.7) On the
Puerto Rican vessel, the face is located on the bulging part of the
vessel, but this is not a genuine bottle-type. However, I know
of no bottle, nor a piece of bottle-neck, that has been published
from Puerto Rico, resembling the Santo Domingo ones.
I do not believe that this vessel from Puerto Rico is unique
in itself. It is rather a type that is found in northern South
America. ERNST has illustrated a modern vessel from Chaimas
near ~Uat'lirin, that is fundamentally of the same type as the
Puerto Rican. It represents a real bird, with the tail placed
obliquely,S) the same as on the old Puerto Rican example. A
great red vessel evidently of the same form, O. D. I e I33 in the
") HATT, Fig. 6 band h.
2) Ibid., Fig. 6 e.
3) Ibid., Fig. 7 d.
4) FEWKES II, PI. 85 D.
") PnwKIls I, p. r83.
6) Page 186.
') Np;'l'TO, pictured on p. 327. This dish is completely figured.
8) ER:"ST, Vene"uelanische Tonge/"sse and Tonfiguren, 1. A. E. III, PI. XIII
Fig. 7, mUCllra, water-vessel.

Copenhagen Museum, from a grave at Manizales, has a human
face on the bulging part.
Further more, DE ROSTOS and LOTHROP lay stress on the
important role that moulded representations of birds play in
Puerto Rican ceramics. Effigy bowls of birds also occur. LOTH­
ROP considers his Fig. II3, "evidently is an effigy of a bird,
perhaps a pelican."!) DE ROSTOS emphazizes as typical of
Puerto Rico, representations of the now extinct bird called
the coco. 2 )
FEWKES II, Pl. II8 A, a round, open bowl, rather shallow
and having straight vertical sides ornamented with an elegant
engraved decoration, is of the same form as DE Booy, Arch.
Virgo Islands, Fig. I3, Magens Bay, St. Thomas, which is presumably
Tainan. Round, open bowls are common in the Tainan
as well as in the Ignerian ceramics of St. Croix and St. 'l'homas.
:.vIeanwhile, material from Puerto Rico is too meager to admit of
comparison. With the exception of that complete bowl from the
latter island, I know of only two sherds sufficiently large to
allow of conclusions as to the form of bowl in question. These are
the boat-formed with the short, vertical upper wall, FEWKES I,
LXXVII c, "from a burial mound at a dance place near Utuado"
, and the very shallow dish with bottom entirely flat, DE
ROSTOS, Fig. 49 c, from the shell-heap at Ostiones Point. I refer
to the descriptions of the two last-named authors on page r84
and on page 383 respectively of their works. According to RATT,
the boat-formed bowl also is characteristic of the Boriquenan
culture on St. Croix and St. Thomas.
Among the Boriquenos it seems to have been a rather general
custom to deposit colecibi3) as well as other ornaments and beautifully
polished celts of nephrite,4) in half-closed vessels with walls
that curved inwards. Such "jewel-pots" are DE HOSTOS, Fig.
48 h;") Ostiones Point, and FEWKES 1. Pl. LXXVI! a-a'.6)
1) P. 328.
2) Comp. LOTHROP. Fig. I34. d.
3) See FE\vKF,S II, PI. XXXI a.
4) See Ibid., p. 94 and 109. also pI, XII a, and b.
5) See page 382.
Ii) Page r83; also pages 94. and log.

285
Our knowledge of Puerto Rican clay heads has been notably
increased through the work of De Rostos.1)
Although the variations in the clay heads on Puerto Rico are
abundant, even if not so numerous as on Espanola, still we are
able to establish certain types of them. DE HOSTOS, Fig. 5I a-h
belong to the same type as four of the heads in HAEBERLIN, Fig.
38, G. M. 24.25. I, 4, 5 d unpainted pottery, and 7 painted pottery.
Raeberlin says "The prognathous jaws make the face look
like of monkeys.' '2) On all these faces there is a nose with open
nostrils, and thick lips. The eyes are surrounded by broad, flat
eye-rings. Entirely different is the type of clay head that DE
HOSTOS points out on the southern coast at Guayanilla.3) The
character of the eyes, placed obliquely, recalls the clay heads
of the southern Lesser Antilles and unites them with the culture
of Erin Bay.
There are, fully developed pot handles in FEWKES I, Pl.
LXXIII, Cueva de las Golondrinas and HAEBERLIN Figs. I6 and
I7, Cueva de la Seiba. These, flat pot-handles must have reached
Puerto Rico by way of Ignerian pottery of the Virgin Islands.4)
Above, on the pot-handle, Fig. 16 has a figure which I have already
pointed out from Trinidad, Margarita and the Waini River.
Moreover, NORDENSK10LD also cites this feature from the archaic
ceramics of the Amazon. An entirely different sort of handle
is that which is represented by a round hole in a vertical-standing
lug. 5) As is common in Tainan ceramics, in Puerto Rico we
have a large number of lugs, in place of the pot-handle. But on
this island we know of no tendency to develop these lugs into
hooks as on St. Kitts, which finally might become closed pothandles.
"At Cerro de las Mesas near Mayaguez" were found the
remains of a "tripod vase with simple cylindrical legs." I have
1) He describes their character on pages 389-390. Previously clay heads of
the now entirely extinct Puerto Rican bird, Coco, an ibis, were wholly unknown
See pages 381 and 386.
2) P. 238. The resembling head KRIEGER III, PI. 33.5 Lat. ColI., Puerto
Rico, is still more ape-like.
3) P. 390, Fig. 49 d and h.
') HA~~, Arch. Virgo Islands, Fig. 7 d, Coral Bay, St. John .
• 5) DE Hos~os, Fig. 45, C.

286
already mentioned clay-feet from St. Croix, Barbados, St. Vincent,
and the Barima region.
Our knowledge of incised decoration on Puerto Rican ceramics
was also greatly increased through DE HOSTOS. Very striking
similarities to Santo Domingo also appear here. On both
islands it was customary to end the lines with pot'nts, or Pits, made
by presst£re. This feature characterized not only Puerto Rico and
Santo Domingo, but St. C1'Oix as well.
Other ornamentations from Puerto Rico, are not found on
Santo Domingo, and vice versa. The ornament of an S ill a
recumbent position,!) so well known on the outside of the painted
ceramics of the 10\ver Amazon, whither it must have reached in
the course of time from the painted pottery in lVIexico,2) is also
found in Puerto Rican ceramics, engraved on the inside of the
vessels. I have spoken previously of its occurrence further to the
\Vest Indies. I do not know it in Santo Domingan ceramics.
However, there are two engravings of S on a stone ball from
lVIoncion, south of Puerto Plata3) so that the ornament must have
been known even among the Haitians. The spirals on Fig. 48 h,
from the shell-heap at Ostiones Point, seem to be engraved only
to complete the tails of the serpent-bodies in the relief. Meandering
patterns in flat relief are found on the pot-sherd G. lVI.
24.25. 9, as well as 011 those from the southeastern States.
The fragments of painted vessels vi,hich DE HOSTOS (p. 377)
cites as found on the surface of Puerto Rican shell-heaps, seem
to me to have no connection whatever ,vith the highly-developed
painted pottery of the Virgin Island, St. Kitts-Nevis, and St.
Bernard on Trinidad. DE HOSTOS does not seem to treat of
painted ornamentation at all, but only of "the uniform painting
of the ware with a simple color - red, yellow or brmvn." The
painting on Puerto Rican ceramics was done after the firing, and
DE HOSTOS found that it could be washed away with soap and
water. In this matter the Borinquefios had not progressed from
an older stage of development. This circumstance also explains
') DE HOSTOS, Figs. 42 a and 43.
2) AlYRE]) M. TOZZJ.;R, Excavation of a Site at Santiago Ahuizotla, D. F. JJexico.
Bur. Ethnol. Bull. 74, I92J, PI. 18, and I9.
3) Copenhagen Museum, o. 3949.

how the Tainos, after they had established themselves in the
Antilles, failed to keep pace with their tribal and cultural relatives
in South America with regard to development?) and in this case,
also with their Ignerian kinsmen to the farther north on the
Virgin Islands.
Espanola. FEWKES I, PI. LXXIV, I,XXV, LXXVI b,
LXXVII e-e', LXXX, LXXXI, LXXXII e-m,
LXXXIII a and b; DE Booy, Amer. Anthrop., Vol 17, NO.1: PI.
V-IX Figs z3-z8, Salado caves; JOYCE, Centro Amer. and vVest
Ind. Arch.: Figs. 61 and 6z, Santo Domingo; COPENHAGE::--< :I\fc­
SEUM, PI. IXz--4, Santo Dom£ngo, 5 and 6, region of Puerto Plata,
7, dwelling-site excavated by SCHOMBURGK from vicinity of Saman~l,
8, dwelling-sites excavated by SCHmiBURGK on the banks of the R.
Yaqu1: at Vega Real, g, 10, 13, SCHOlVlBl;RGK at Samana, II, lZ Yaqui,
and 14, 15, 16, Santo Dom£ngo; Mus. VOLKERK., BERLIN,
clay heads, a large one IV C b, Dondon, Rep. Haiti; DE Booy,
Santo Domingo Kitchen "~~/Iidden and Burial Mound, Indian Kotes
and Monographs, Vol. 1, No. z, 19l9, PI. IV--X-V, and Figs.
5-6; KRIEGER I, PI. 18-Z7; KRIEGER II, PI. 14-Z7; I-Li.TT,
Notes Arch. Santo Domingo, (~eogr. 'l'idskrift, Copenhagen, 193z,
Figs. 1-6 and 8; HATT, Nationalrnuseets Bog, Copenh. 19z5, Figs.
36, 37 c, and 38 a, not illustrated in the article just named; FEW­
KES II, Pl. II8 B, C, and IIg; KRIEGER III, PI. 6, Constanza, province
of La Vega, and A ndres, province of Santo Domingo, PI. 7,
Dominican Nat. JYlus. principally from Arawak cemetery at Andres,
PI. 8, lower rmv, clay head, Dam. Nat. Mus., from vicinity of Puerto
Plata and Santiago, PI. 9, two bottles, cemetery at Andres, PI.
ro, three bottles, Andres, PI. II bottles Andres, PI. II bottles
Andres, P·uerto Plata, Santiago, PI. IZ, neck fragments of bottles,
Constanza, PI. 13, figurine heads, Andres and Constanza midden,
PI. 16, figurine heads, Alonte Cristi prov., PI. Z3, figurine heads on
potsherds, Samana Prov., PI. zg, conventionalized forms of headdress
etc., SaJnana and ~ltl onte Cristo provinces, PI. 30, headdress,
Jl;Ionte Cristi Prov., PI. 31, figurines representing small mammal
forms and birds, Constanza, PI. 33,1-7, clay heads, Constanza, PI.
36,4-8, potsherds from Santo Domingo and La Vega proc'inces,
") Compo NORDEXSKIOLD, Einc geogr. und ethnog. Analyse, p. 229 and :\Iap 4 T.

PI. 38, incised rim patterns on earthenware plates, Monte Cristi Pro
PI. 39, aviform representations applied to rims of earthenware
vessels, Monte Cristi Province, PI. 40, I~2, a potsherd from Samand
midden and from the midden at Andres, PI. 42,4,6, trenchershaped
yellow ware, cemetery at Andres, PI. 43,I,2, northern Santo
Domingo, PI. 46, four bowls, from Monte Cristi Province, PI. 48,
two bowls from Andres, PI. 5I, three bowls from provo of Santo Domingo,
PI. 52, six vessels, from provo of Santo Domingo, PI. 53
buren, from provo of La Vega, PI. 54, eight bowls, from Andres and,
La Caleta, provo of Santo Domingo, PI. 55: 7-9, figurines from
midden near Constanza, PI. 56, eight bowls Constanza and
G. M. 24.25.IO-I9., south coast of Santo Domingo.
On Espanola real flask-vessels are found; these appear in
abundance at Andres.
If we consider the question of a foreign origin of the developed
bottle-form vessel on Espanola it appears at first very difficult to
come to any decision, because good bottle-types have been excavated
in North America as well as South America. Yucatan
appears to lie entirely out of the question.
The isolated appearance of bottles in Santo Domingo I will
place in connection with influences from the Southern States. The
neck-types, that are usual in Santo Domingo however, certainly
resemble more directly South American forms; but especially the
thickening of the pipe so that it becomes what Krieger calls "bulbous",
as on a soda water bottle, I consider to be an indigenous,
Santo Domingan development. The nearest places in South America
from whence one is acquainted with bottles are Aruba and at
L. Tacarigua.1) In both these localities the tube however is smooth
and funnel-shaped.
We will first of all consider North America.
Well-fashioned Indian bottles have been excavated in the
central part of the Mississippi Basin2), and in the southeastern part
of Missouri3) and Louisiana,4) as well as in the mounds at Mound-
1) JOSSEI,IN DE JONG, I. A. E., Vol. 24, PI. XV: 10; REQUENA, see further
on, and previously.
2) See MOOREHEAD, Fig. 637, 638, 640 and 680.
3) Ibid., Figs. 641 and 650.
4) Ibid., Fig. 660.

289
ville in Alabama.!) This latter place is of great importance to our
subject, as from there ceramic correspondences with the Greater
Antilles can be shown. Bottle-types, although not with a narrow
neck, were excavated by Moore in the vicinity of the Gulf Coast of
northwest Florida.2) This region lies still nearer the "Vest Indies.
Ceramic affinities with the Greater Antilles could be pointed out
from there. Especially with regard to bottles, there are nevertheless
no typical similarities with Santo Domingo. From transition
forms it can be seen how in Florida bottles were developed from
vessels with the same kind of simple cylindrical or slightly expanded
necks, occasionally even curved somewhat outwards. The
same can also be shown at Moundville. Similar phenomena of
endemic development can also be shown for the finding-places in
the Mississippi Basin.
Among these North American bottles, there is not one that
possesses such characteristics, as are particularly distinctive of the
Santo Domingo bottles. The course of evolvment on this island
must have proceeded in a way essentially different. The complications
are shO\vn to be independent of North America.
I do not take very much into consideration the form of the
vessels in this matter. A somewhat globular form of vessel is less
worthy of notice as it is distributed over a vast region in America
and there combines readily with the bottle-form. Judging from
their form, water-vessels must also have often had a cujete for a
modeP) Nevertheless in Santo Domingo this supposed cujeteform
has for the most part been changed in another direction. It
is particularly to be observed, that there the bottom is entirely
flat,4) evidently so that the vessel can stand more securely.
All other features, that are especially distinctive of Santo Domingo,
can be traced back, on the other hand, to Andean Soztih
1) Cl~ARENCE B. MOORB;, Certain Aboriginal Remains, Black Warrior River,
Journ. A. N. S, Phila., Vol. XIII, Figs. 15,72 a portable vessel and 128; ]','!oundville
Revisited, Ibid., Vol. XIII, Figs. 20 and 72.
2) MOORE, Certain A boriginal Remains of the N. W. Florida Coast, J oum.
A. N. S. Phila., Vol. XI, Figs. Ro, RI, 106, 110.
3) See, for Sal1to Dom·il1go, DE Dooy, Amer. Anthrop. Vol. 17. No. T, p. 92.
4) FEWKES I, PI. LXXX a-a', c, d; LXXXI a-a', b; DB Booy, PI. V a
and VI.
19

290
America, where at least one of them, at any rate the face on the
neck of bottle, is predominant in the Peruvian coastlands.
The peculiarities of the Santo Domingo bottles that I whish to
take under consideration here are:
I) The vessel itself is sometimes adorned with mammae;l)
2) on lower part of the neck is often found a moulded or engraved
face;2)
3) The neck itself has at the top a ring-formed thickening,
very similar to that on our modern soda-water or beer-bottles.3 )
\Ve will now investigate to what degree these three characteristics
in the bottles can be traced back to Andean South
America.
Personally I do not know of any vessels in North America
that have faces below the neck and female breasts on the principal
part. A spherical vessel in HODGE Handb. of Amer. Ind., Vol.
2, p. 299, above and at the lefthand side, from Missouri, is adorned
with a female half-figure that has curving breasts and nipples.
There is only a narrow and scanty neck-rim. This vessel must decidedly
be reckoned among the bottle-vessels.
From Andean South America, on the contrary, I know a bottle
that has both the Haitian peCUliarities, namely the face on the
neck and the female breasts on the main part of the vessel.
Already I have mentioned a vessel from a grave at M anizales,
with a face on the bUlging part, similar to one from Puerto Rico.
A bottle with face below the neck and curved breasts on the vessel
itself, now in the Copenhagen Mus., OD Ie I3I, was excavated from
another grave in the same region. But it was not so skilfully delineated
as on the two previously mentioned specimens from Santo
Domingo. On the opposite side of the vessel from Manizales with
the face, there are indeed two breasts, but there is no face below
the neck of the bottle. All these four mammae lack nipples. Globular
breasts without nipples are a characteristic that does not pertain
to the clay images of the female idols in Andean Colombia,
1) FEWKES I, PI. LXXX a-a'; DE Booy, VII d, see further p. 92.
2) FEWKES I, LXXX a-a', c, d, LXXXI a-a', b; DE Booy, VI a, VII a,
c, and d.
3) FEWKES I, I.XXX a-a', c, LXXXI a-a'; DE Booy, VI a, VII a, and
Fig. 26.

29 I
nor at L. Tacarigua,l) and on the Chibchan goddess Bachue.
Instead, these last have often clearly marked nipples. A dish in
the form of a female figure, Copenhagen Mus., OD Ie 135, found in
a grave at lVIanizales, is no exception in this respect to similar
ones from Colombia or at T,. Tacarigua.2)
On the South American continent, the L. Tacarigua region is
the nearest place from which I know real bottles. V. D. STEINEN,
Fig. 14, »Camburito », has, however, an entirely smooth neck. I have
already mentioned numerous specimens with plain funnelshaped
neck, pictured by RF:QUENA. The next bottle-vessel with a face beI01£'
the neck is one that has already been mentioned, J OSSEI~IN DE J ONG,
Pl. XV, lO, Aruba. Then comes Copenh. Mus., OD Ie I3l, fromlVIanizales,
which has also been mentioned. Otherwise, I know of no
bottle coming from the Cauca valley that has a face below the neck,
but only effigy-vessels with relatively short tube above the head.3 )
In the Eastern Cordillera west of the Sabana de Bogota sacred
bottles, which by far excel the rest of the Chibcha pottery in quality,
were found in the ancient domains of this tribe. These bottles
are round, almost spherical, with handles and long bottle-neck.
Above all, their decoration is painted very artistically in a scale
from dark-brown to yellow. On the neck itself just under the rim,
there is a painted face, framed rectangularly in a decoration, and on
the upper part of the vessel proper an uninterrupted wreath of
figures, without doubt expressing divine attributes.4)
1) VOK D. STEINEK in Globus. Vol. 86 on pages 105 and I09, Figs. 18--23;
Copenh Mus. aD Ie 98, San Diego near Valencia, is very similar to STEINEX, Fig.
2 I; aD Ie 114, near Valencia, with its linear decoration on trapezoidal headdress
and strongly oyer-driyen body-form is the most interesting of that sort of
clay-idol that I knmv from this region.
2) In its upper pnrt it resembles y. d. STEINEN, Ibid., Fig. 20, Call1burito,
but with legs drmvn up high and the completely flat bottom l'HLE, J{ull. Ulld
Ind. Vol. I. Fig. 5, Pereira (Car/ago viejo), Cauca.
3) CUI,E, Ibid., PI. T, Fig. "2, Ansnma Vicja. Caura and the cited figure-vessc-l
from Pereira.
4) rIlLE, I bid., '1'01. T, PI. 2, Fig. 4, Subachaqlu:, C1tJldinamarra, soutll\\"estcrn
part of Zipaquira, VICE:-I'fE RES'fREPO, /lilas, Pl. XXlV, Cayc at Saito de Tequendama,
in which the Chibclws held religious ceremonies. In PI. XXV the face
is made in accord with the common spun-gold technique of the Chibchas aull is
continued in an entire figure, representing the Chibclw god with skeleton arms
and legs.

292
I know of no further vessels from Colombia with a face below
the neck, but on the other hand with a face occupying a side of the
neck. BOLINDER has obtained black pottery from the graves on
. the Rio Frio, at Santa Marta. Among his finds, three vessels with
four legs, G. M., I6.3.379, 384 and 387, have a moulded face on a
large, broad, round tube.1) Certainly this peCUliarity at least,
a face occupying the whole of one side of the neck - must stand
in close relation to the figure-vessels. It can also be found on certain
vessels in other places in Colombia besides Santa Marta.2)
Still more frequently it appears in inter-Andean Ecuador, to say
nothing of the coast of Peru. Real bottles are nevertheless very
rare in the section of Ecuador just mentioned.3) I know of no
bottle from there with a face at the lower end of the neck.
SAVILLE, Vol. II, Pl. LXIX, Cerro de Jaboncillo pictures a
bottle from M anabi with a smooth neck. But I am not acquainted
with any from this region with a face on the neck. The region of
expansion on the South American continent for the bottle with a
face at the lower end of the neck is properly the coast of Peru.
They are abundant in the black pottery, and frequent in the red as
well. In the Tiahuanaco-culture cemetery at Ocucaje in the Ica
valley, UHLE excavated a globular vessel with a face under the
short rim of the neck. 4) The face on the upper part of the neck
must be an old characteristic of the Peruvian coastlands. Finally
it is apparent that a face on the neck of a bottle 5 ) is no indigenous
peculiarity of Espanola, but that it originated from Andean South
America by some route or other towards the Northeast, and at
last reached the Antilles.
1) Spherical carafes are found there with necks of different width; 384 has
a tube with a horizontally flaring rim which is so narrow, that the vessel can be
reckoned among the bottle group without further ado .
• ) JOYCE, South Amer. Arch. PI. III, 14, Cauca; UHLE, Ibid., Vol. I, PI. 4,
Fig. 1, Bttga, Cauca, PI. 5, Figs. 1-4 and 12, Tacueyo (Popayan) Cauca.
3) UHLE, Ibid., PI. 7, Fig. 4, Quito, is a double-bottle with smooth neck and
Fig. 5. Calpi (Riobamba) with smooth, outward-flaring neck and handle. Both
are rather late Peruvian types.
4) Zur Chronologie der alien Kultur von lea. Journ. de la Soc. des Amer. de
Paris. n. s. Vol. X. PI. XI, 1.
5) From Santo Domingo can also be cited a large fragment of a carafe, DE
Booy, PI. V, b, Salado caves, that has a face that covers a large, round neck below
a short, narrow border.

293
Far more difficult is the question whether the neck peculiarly
increased and strengthened at the top is indigenous Espanola
or not. I know this only in cases from South America, namely W.
REISS'S and A. ST1TBEL'S Das Toten/eld von A-ncon, Vol. III, Pl. 98,
Fig. 8. This is indeed rare in the carafe of the coast of Peru, the
upper part of whose necks is conic. 1 ) I incline very much to the
opinion that it in Santo Domingo was used as a support for the
knot of a befuco, with the bottle was plunged and drawn, up, when
they got water from a spring.2)
Bottle-vessels occur also in the later exuberant, moulded ceramics
at Santarem. These recall those of Santo Domingo not only,
that there is a face below the neck of the bottle, but above all because
they have strongly salient mammae, in characteristic likeness
to FEWKES I, Pl. XXX, a and the sherd Dl~ Booy, PI. VII, d.
YIoreover, in the Santarel1l exnberant pottery, the mammae are
garnished with moulded animals,3) KORDENSKIOLD is also of the
opinion that these bottle-vessels are of Andean origin. Possibly
they came to the Lower Amazon with the later culture-wave,
which he, himself, established. Their occurrence in Santo Domingo,
however, I think, has come by way of Venezuela, and not from the
I-(ower Amazon's highly developed later ceramics, which have not left
behind any distinct marks on the archaic pottery of the \Vest Indies.
In Santo Domingo were also found bottle-vessels with broad,
smooth funnelshaped tube, DE Booy VIII e and /,4) both similar
inform to The Guesde Call., Fig. 214, BATT, Fig. 6, La Vacama near
R. Maimon, a water-vessel FEWKE:S I, PI. I ... XXX, b-b', and DE
Booy, Pl. V a. Vessels with such necks are abundant both in andine
South America and Southern states and Mississippi valley
also.
Well-founded reasons indicate that the combination filtersieve
hottle from the Salado caves, is native to Higuey. DE Booy
1) Just as 011 the large carafe, C. il1. 20.7.90, Pisco, with painted face on
lower, thicker portion.
2) Compare LAS CASAS. Apoi. Rist., Ed. Serrano y Sanz, p. 10, about the way
the Spaniards drew water out of the jagueys in Higuey.
3) KORDENSKI()LD, L'Arch. du Bassin de l'Amazone, p. 29-30 and Figs. 10,
II, PI. XXIV, XXV.
4) Reveals itself to be a portable vessel through its still existent single large
handle.

294
expresses the opinion that it served "to remove the lime" from the
cave water, through a layer of charcoal. In arid Higuey, sheltered
from the trade-wind rains, passing over the north side of the
mountains, it could happen that for long periods of time, there
was only cave-water accessible for use. The invention must have
been caused by local conditions.
KRIEGER'S excavations on the peninsula of Samanal ) and in
the province of Monte Cristi2) brought to light bottle-necks similar
to those of the bottles from the Salado caves. FEWKES I, Pl.
II9, A, Merino CoIl., Santo Domingo, with its two moulded faces
approximates DE Booy, Amer. Anthrop. Vol. 17, p. 93, Fig. 26,
Salado caves and KRIEGER I, Pl. 25, Fig. 2, Monte Cristi ProvinceY)
Therefore, in Santo Domingo bottles were not solily limited
to Higuey. Bottle-necks with filter-bottoms are, however, only
known from the Salado caves in Higuey.
I.INNE'S map illustrating the expansion of vessels with filterbottoms
in America4) shmvs that the regions where they are found
lie widely scattered, so that in this connection, it conld not be the
question of a single invention that was propagated continuously
from a certain center. 'rhey are found in Colombia on the Pacific
Coast near Panama, but they have not been shown to exist further
eastward through Colombia to Venezuela. I,INNE cites a vessel
from MOORE, which comes from southern Alabama.5) This last
has a large, thin neck which is moreover placed high up on the
body and seems scarcely suitable for the filtration of any liquid.
In Brazilian Guiana, vessels with filter-necks just like those on
the bottles from the Salado caves6) are found along the coast.
") KRIEGER II, PI. IS, p. 82·-83.
2) KRIEGER I, PI. 25, Figs. 2 and 3.
3) The whole bottle, FEWKES I, PI. LXXXI, a-a', Imbert Call. Puerto
Plata, described on p. 187 as "obtained on the north side of the island", is also
from this province. Two other bottles, FEwlms II, PI. LXXX c and d, ::I-ferifio
CoIl., must be from southeastern Santo Domingo.
4) Darien in the Past., Map 1.
5) Certain A bOl'iginal }v! ounds. A ppalachicola River, J oum. Ac. Sciences,
Phila., Vol. 12, 19°2-19°4, Fig. 141.
6) Compo DE Booy, Pottery from Eastern Santo Domingo, Fig. 24, with ROTH,
An Introductory Study oj the Arts, eic., PI. 28 from GOELDI; E:vIILIO A. GOEI,DI,
Excava~oes archeologicas em I876, ,Hem. "~lus. Paraense, I:a Parte, Para 1900,
Pl. I I, Figs. I9 band I8 b, Cuyuni.

295
GOELDI found these large, ta11 vessels with neck and filter-bottom
in the burial caves in Cuyuni. They are not exactly bottles, but
rather carafes. Presumably they originated from an old Arawak
tribe. Later NIMUENDAJlJ also found similar vessels, in a burial
sandstone-cave in the Ukupi hill, on the R. Aracua.1)
There is nothing indicating that these vessels were used as strainers.
NIMUENDAJU is of the opinion that the bones of the deceased
may have reburied in them.
The arrangement of the filter below the neck of the bottle
and not in the bottom of the vessel itself, I know only in Santo
Domingo from Riguey.
Supported by the most abundant and geographica11y considered
comprehensive material that has ever been published up
to date on Santo Domingo pottery, KRIEGER has worked out a
classification of "three kinds of water-bottles, characteristic of as
many distinct subareas." His first type is "a hemispherical,
plain form occurring on the north coast; it has a constricted neck,
plain form and bulbous oral region and is frequently covered
with a white slip." The second type is "the heart-shaped, thickwalled
water bottle with bulbous neck section surmounted with
bilateral animal or anthropomorphic figurine heads and is characteristic
of eastern Santo Domingo." The third type is "the large
globose canteen which may reach height of one or more feet, and
is the most developed of the three types. 2 )" It is difficult to
establish what KRIEGER means with his "hemispherical type"
seeing that none of his pictured bottles has a hemispherical shape.
Plate IO, three bottles from the cemetery at Andres he characterizes
as heart-shaped; of these I find only Pl. IO; 3, of that form
and in addition Pl. II: 5, from Boca Chica (Santiago Province).
The large, globose, effigy canteen, is easier to distinguish. Moreover
the shape of the bodies of the vessels varies from globular to a
£1at-pressed3) and an egg-shaped4) form.
1) LINNE, Archaologische Sammlungen des Gotenburger Museums von unteren
Amazonas, XXII Congr. Int. degli Americanisti, Vol. I, Roma 1928, p. 584-585
& Fig. 2.
2) KRIEGER III, p. 60.
3) Ibid., PI. 10; 1.

296
One form different from all these real bottles is seen in the
carafes HATT, Fig. 6, I,a Vacama, near R . .Marmon, and KRIEGER
III, Pl. 43: 2, Cueva de Roma, northern Santo Domingo; they
are bowls overarching in an angle and with a funnel-shaped,
plain neck. That kind of neck is however general in the higher
ceramics in .Mexico and Andean South American from the Huaxtees
down to Arica, as well as along the Mississippi and in the
Southern States. The plain, funnelshaped neck is moreover
common in the Southern States that are located in the regions
lying near the \Vest Indies.I )
'l'hus probably the funnel-shaped neck reached the north and
northeastern parts of Santo Domingo from Florida. On the other
hand, I look upon the bulbous neck as an independent invention
in Santo Domingo and consider it arose in connection with the
Tainan custom of drawing up water out of the iagueyes. If the
part between the neck and body of the bottle is as constricted as
in KRIEGER III, Pl. 7 :6, cemetery at Andres, (Dom. Nat. :Vlus.)
it is apparent that the cord must have been placed in this groove
when the water was drawn up. ::Yloreover, this bottle has the
character of a two-compartment vessel.
Real bottles occur in Tainan ceramics only in Santo Domingo.
They are lacking on Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, to say
nothing of the Lesser Antilles. They are missing also in the middens
of British Guiana. I suppose that the bottles of Santo
Domingo originated from Florida, and not from South America.
The number of complete open vessels from Santo Domingo
has been considerably increased by the excavations of DE Booy,
KRIEGIm. and HATT, so that we know numerically far more of
them from this island, than from Puerto Rico. DE Booy's vessels
are excavated from a kitchen-midden on lower R. Higuamo,
Province of Saman{L For a great part, they come from graves,
and thereby we learn to know their household vessels. KRIEGER'S
') JliIOllHE • .TauI'll. Ac. Sc. Phila. Vol. II, Cert. AboI'. l1Iounds Alabama R.,
Figs. 57. 68, bottles; Ceyt. Ahor. Rem. N. W. Florida Coast, Figs. 80. 83, 101),
bottles; Cat. AboI'. ]\Iounds Georgia Coast, PI. VI, carafe; Ibid .. Vol. 12, Cnt.
AboI'. Rem. N. IF. Florida Coast, Pigs. '55, two necks, communicating vessels,
164 three necks, 170 four necks, Z I 3 monitor pipe; HOLMES, A boy. Polt. Eastern
U. S. PI. IX c-d. Jolly Bay, northwestern Florida, a water-vessel with wide
neck.

297
vessels (1928) are from dwelling-sites north of the Gulf of Samana;
a painted one is from Santiago Province. Since then, KRIEGER,
has made very productive excavations (1929) in middens in Monte
Cristi Province, and (1930) in La Vega, Azua and Santo Domingo
Provinces. In addition he has studied the abundant material of
Santo Domingo in the Nat. Museum. Hatt's vessels are from
the mouths of Rio Chavon on the southeast coast and Rio Nisibon
on the northeast coast. He draws interesting comparisons between
these two localities and considers the Chavon pottery more
highly developed and more conventionalized, than that from
Nisibon. During his excavations in the Cibao Mountains, he
found a third kind of pottery and publishes a vessel from Manabao
as typical of this sort.
The finding of an "old-fashioned iron horse-shoe" some 35
cm. deep in the one metre thick site at Rio Chavon, merely reveals
that it was inhabited in the Spanish period,!) what can be looked
upon as representative of the height of development, that a variant
of Haitian ceramics had reached there at the time when the
cultural evolution of the Indians was definitely broken off. A
potsherd, HATT, Fig. I (Chavon) is complicated, insomuch that
the large upper part of the wall bends inward in a angle and has
a vertical rim at the top. A somewhat inclined horizontal handle
is seen and below that a moulded face, consisting for the most
part of two elliptical eyes. On the body of the vessel, an ornamentation
of parallel lines with points, made by pressure is distinctly
executed. It is obvious that in form and decoration this
vessel approximates KRIEGER I, Pl. I9, I, Boca del Infierno, on
the north side of the Gulf of Samana. The two halffigures2) are
turned outwards from the vessel.
We do not know the age of the Nt:sibon pottery, and none of
the finds reveal, that it was still in use in the Spanish period. It
is presumably older than the Tainan ceramics, which also were
spread over northeastern Santo Domingo. Hatt says: "Incised
decoration played a lesser role, relief-ornamentation a greater
role. Characteristic of the Nisibon pottery are relief faces, surrounded
by representations of the limbs; sometimes the arms
1) HATT, p. 2.
2) HATT, Figs. 2 and 3.

2g8
are combined with the nose or the eyebrows in a curious way
(Fig. 4). - Flat handles with relief faces are very common." In
its tendency to represent the face in relief moreover, and not the
head, the Nisibon pottery approximates the archaic Ignerian
ceramics more than the archaic Tainan. HAT!', Fig. 4 a (Nisibon),
has in relief a triangular face of the same form as I have already
cited from Carriacou. One whole bowl, Fig. 5 (Nisibon), Hatt
finds very different from the other Nisibon ceramic objects; "It
might have come from Rio Chavoll or from another place on the
south coast. "1)
HATT explains the low grade of development of Nisibon
pottery as follows: "Rio Nisibon was evidently an out-of-the-way
place, less influenced from Porto Rico, than was the south coast
of Santo Domingo."2) He does not go into details as to what
effect of Puerto Rican influences on Chavon pottery.
KRIEGER, who excavated ceramic objects in Samana shows
us striking agreement between these earthenware fragments and
those that Fewkes dug up in Cueva de las Golondrinas in Puerto
Rico.3) In this way we come to the conclusion that at the time
before the Conquest, equivalent and closely related ceramics
existed on Puerto Rico and in eastern Santo Domingo. Because
of insufficient investigation, we do not know how far westwards
in Santo Domingo this agreement extends. Only isolated finds
reveal the high development of archaic Tainan ceramics on Vega
Real also, as well as in the Sierra de Monte Cristi.
The finds made by KRIEGER in San Juan sites and in caves
on the north side of the Gulf of Samana, show an extraordinary
resemblance to HATT'S Chavon pottery. Therefore in both these
regions, they had reached the same stage of ceramic development
and so far as regards these two potteries, the northeastern part of
Santo Domingo did not stand behind the southeastern part.
Hatt's Nisibon-ceramics must rather represent an older pottery,
or possibly a local one that did not follow the development. I
have already pointed out the striking resemblance between the
1) This bowl, HA'r'r, Fig. 5, resembles greatly KRIEGER I, PI. 20, I, from
San Juan midden on the north side of the Gulf of Samana.
2) Page z.
3.1 Compo KRIEGER II, p. 12.

299
dish, KRIEGER I, Pl. I9, a, (or II, PI. 14: 4)1) from the cave Boca
del Infierno, and HATT, Fig. I, Chavon. Furthermore, HATT
considers that his Fig. 5, Nisibon, which is moreover of the same
form as KRIEGER I, Pl. 20, a, San Juan sites, Samana Penisula,
can very well have been made in southeastern Santo Domingo.
The head with arms extending downwards on the exterior of the
dish is found in the San Juan sites,2) although not as well executed
as at Chavon. However, HATT'S few illustrations do not give
occasion to any other comparisons; but sufficient reasons exist
to show that KRIEGER'S ceramic objects from the Samana peninsula
are equivalent to HAT'I"S Chavon-culture in the southeast.
As characteristic forms for the San Juan sites, KRIEGER advances
the small vessels KRIEGER II, Pl. I4: I-3. 3 ) Fig. I I have
already treated in connection with a similar closed vessel from
Nisibon, which is also smalI.4)
Fig. 2 is a double-bowl with rounded sides and handle in the
form of two vertical ridges. The small double-bowl from the
southern 'Vest Indies, from Carriacou and St. Bernhard, Trinidad,
lack this handle, and the sides are not so rounded. Double-vessels
or several double-vessels in dissimilar combinations, with curved
sides are general in Florida,5) but they lack this handle, and where
any exist, they project horizontally.6) Vertical handles are also
found in on potsherds from Cueva de las Golondrinas 7 ) on Puerto
Rico. Likely, they belong to double-bowls. KRIEGER, who
finds likenesses worthy of consideration in the pottery from the
San Juan sites in northeastern Santo Domingo and that of Puerto
Rico, "especially the plain handles and handle lugs from San
Juan (PI. 25 and 26) resemble and in many cases are identical
with those from the Cueva de las Golondrinas of Porto Rico",
also mentions double-bowls from this place.
1) KRIEGER II, p. 75.
2) Ibid., PI. 20: 2.
3) Ibid., p. 76.
4) HATT, p. 2.
5) Compo MOORE, Certain Abor. Mounds Centro Florida W. Coast, Journ Ac.
Sciences, Phila., Vol. 12, Fig. 76, mound near Bayport, a double-bowl.
6) MOORE, Certain Sand Mounds Ocklawaha R., Fla., Ibid., Vol. 10, PI.
LXXXV: 2.
7) Potsherds, FEWKES I, PI. LXXIII, ro.

300
The clay heads from the San Juan sites are partly handles
turned insidel ) or outside the dish2) and partly moulded 011 the
outside of the wall of the vessel itself.3) Moulded heads are placed
above the pot-ear.4) As a general thing the heads are typically
Tainan, fantastic, and more or less like others from different
parts of Santo Domingo and I'uerto Rico. There are some large
ones of another sort, represented naturally but with crater-eyes.
If one did not know for a certainty that Pl. 16: 2 and 3 were from
Santo Domingo, he would consider them Amazonian.
Some fret-work handle figure-types are found in the San
Juan sites, but also in finding-places in eastern Santo Domingo.
A face within the fret-work "frame", presumably representing
curved arms that are held over the head, and at the top, two
triangular figures with "eyes", I know from the San Juan sites,
KRIEGER II, Pl. 19: 3 and 20 and also from the Samana tract.5)
Geometric open-work conventionalization of a figure turned
within the dish, is found in the San Juan sites, KRIEGER II, Pl. 23,
in the form of an open-work triangle inside of an trapezium and
in Pl. 27 is evidently the beginning of a fret-work Cross of St.
Andrew, while in a kitchen-midden excavated by DE Booy near
the Higuamo River, three miles above San I'edro de Macoris, a
fully developed fret-work St. Andrew's Cross was to be found on
the lug figures. 6) This open-work geometrical conventional form
of lug figures must be looked upon as particulary characteristic
of eastern Santo Domingo.
DE Booy's excavations \vere near the lower Higuamo River,
"about three miles above the coast town of San Pedro de Macoris."
Tide-water ascends to this point and the ancient Tainan town
which was responsible for the kitchen midden, had abundant
access to the mangrove oyster, Ostrea v£rgin£ca, which is also
found in large quantities in the moul1Cl (p. ITo). The tract must
also have been rich in cassava. The kitchen-midden which DI~
') KRIEGER II, PI. 1

30r
Booy excavated, lies in a tract of fertile land, now used for the
cnltivation of sugar-cane, and near a river rich in edible mussels
"These mounds are all near flowing springs," (p. II3). Therefore,
sufficient good reasons existed for the establishment of a thicklypopulated
'1'ai11an tovvn.
In conformity with these excellent natural endowments and
economic conditions, the pottery excavated by DE Booy shuws us,
that the Haitians of this tract also stood relatively high as regards
culture. Many characteristics reveal that this pottery must be
considered equivalent to that which HATT excavated in the middens
o£ the Chavon River, and close to that which KRIEGER found
on the Samana Peninsula. But to judge by certain complete
bowls that DE Booy excavated, the ceramics of the lower Higuamo
must have stood higher than those from HATT'S a11

302
Juan sites in respect to the conventionalizing of triangles and the
open-work Cross of St. Andre·w.
The complete vessels that DE Booy publishes must all proceed
from graves in the midden, although that cannot always be
demonstrated, owing to the skeletons have been mouldered completelyaway.
Only the small bowls, Pl. VI, a and c are expressly
mentioned by him as food bowls, standing near a skull or a child's
skeleton under "a large vessel."!) Both these dishes are decorated,
while the food bowls that HATT found in the graves of the
midden at Salt River were all plain. DE Booy found several
different types of vessels in the midden. Small. plain completely
open basins with flattened bases OCCUr.2) A large food bowl has the
upper part of the wall inclined somewhat inwards.3) The forms of
the decorated vessels are more complicated. A special group
pictures elliptical, closed bowls. Of these Plate IT' b and VI a
have flattened bases. Pl. IV a is boat-shaped with a large, extended,
moulded head at the front. Two elegant bowls, Pl. V
with rims and small handles form another group, of which a as
mentioned, has its fellows among Chavon and San Juan ceramic
objects. Pl. VII a and b form a group by themselves; they are
shallow bowls with steep sides, the first having the moulded head
turned inwards, the latter outwards. l'wo atlas occur, Plate 'VI, b
and c, very dissimilar to each other. The elliptical bO"wls, Pl.
IV, b and VI a in respect to their form stand near FEWKES I,
Pl. LXXVII, b, a stray-find from Salinas, Puerto Rico, although
the latter has no flattened base.
Another pottery that HATT excavated at 11;1 anabaa in the
Cibao Mts., in the region where the Rio Yaqui of the North has
its source, appears considerably different from these ceramics
of eastern Santo Domingo. RATT, Fig. 8 is designated by the
finder as "a typical vessel from Manabao." "Its form produces
the impression that one bO"wl is fitted into another bowl."4) Comparing
the bowl within the Tainan pottery, it approaches most
") Ibid., p. 132-133.
2) Ibid., Fig. 5.
a) PI. VIII, b.
4) H,~Tl', Notes, etc., p. 6.

nearly a Cuban.I ) Then too, in a more modified form, the shape
occurs in Jamaica, where some bowls have inner rims.2) Heads
"with big hollow eyes" are also general as lugs in the findingplace
in the Cibao Mts. That characteristic HATT considers shows
the influence of the stone sculptnre, and he illustrates this hypothesis
with a broken stone head from this tract.3) Large hemispherical
eye-sockets also occur in the ceramics of southeastern
Santo Domingo.4)
In KRIEGER III, Pl. 46: 3-4 and Pl. 48: 2 three whole vessels
from Monte Cristi Province are introduced. Of these Pl.
46: 4 and 48: 2 are open with plain rims, of which that on the
former slants outward.5) Pl. 46: 3 is over-arched and has two
moulded heads looking towards the exterior as well as a decoration
of crawling serpents, as in Pl. 47: I, San Juan sites To judge
from this material, there are no especial peculiarities in the pottery
of the Monte Cristi Province.
Far richer is KRIEGER'S material of whole vessels from southeastern
Santo Domingo, and especially from the cemetery at
Andres. I pass by the bottle-types, as I have already discussed
them. Shallow, open bowls occur in many types, more or less
complicated. Some of the forms seem to predominate in the
Tainan ceramics to a considerable degree. Simple plain dishes,
KRIEGER III, pl. 6: I and 2, and two ones on pI. 7, cemetery at
Andres, are also found at Higuamo,6) in Santo Domingo They
occur also in Tainan culture at Magens Bay, St. Thomas. 7 ) Pl.
5I: I, Province of Santo Domingo, is a reconstructed plain bowl
of a type rather general in the "nothern part of the island."8)
Its elliptical pot-handles are certainly strengthened with a decorative
moulding, hut at any rate they had reached the genuine
pothandle stage. Moreover, as in Puerto Rico, "loop handles" for
') HARRIXGTON. PI. XLIII, "from a cave near Monte Cristo. Baracoa."
2) DUERDEX, PI. 5, Fig. 3.
3) HATT, Fig. 9.
4) DE Booy, Santo Domingo Kitchen ,11iddens. PI. X, c. lower Higuamo.
5) Camp. KHTEGER III, Pl. 96. 6, Anrlres. DE Bom:. Pl. V, a and b, Higuamo,
FF,WKES I, PI. LXXX, banG b', Santo Domingo.
6) DE Rooy, Santo Domingo Kitchen Midden, Figs. 5 a, also PI. VIII, c.
7) HATT, Arch. Virgo Is7., Fig. 2.
8) KRIEGER III, p. r63.

suspension also occur in Santo Domingo.1) The smooth bowl. PI.
49: 4 from Andres, according to KRIEGER belonging to the "black
pottery", is in a state of transition to the cazuela. I know of no
form exactly like it from the Borninquei'ian culture on St. Thomas
and St. Croix, but some of them resemble it rather closely.2) A
quite similar form is KRIEGER III, Pl. 56: 3, although this has
lugs.
KRIEGER introduces many deep bowls with the upper part
overarched in a curve as well as angularly. I do not give details
about these, but rather refer the reader to his illustrations and
descriptions. All are variants of types that are general in the
Tainan culture on Santo Domingo, and up to the present in lesser
numbers are found on Puerto Rico and in Oriente, Cuba. In
another place I will discuss the type of cazuela with short, decorated
upper wall overarched angularly,3) togetl1er with its extension
within Tainan and Floridian ceramics. PI. 56: 8, Andres, is
complicated with a plain neck. On pI. 46,4 this neck flares
somewhat outwards, which in a greater degree occurs on vessels
from the Southern States. KRIEGER points out the peculiar
spout4) in PI. 54: 7-8. I have already treated of the spout on a
vessel from St. Kitts and on one from Carriacou, that however,
have a different form, but are placed obliquely on the upper
inwards slanting part of the vessel, quite as on the Santo Domingo
specimen.
An entirely new type of vessel hitherto unknown within
Tainan ceramics, and coming from Andres, is introduced in KRIE­
GER III, Pl. 52: 3-4 and 5-6, two so-called "two-compartment
bowls".5) He cites similarity in type for the former from the
Iroquois, and for the latter from Panama and Florida (page
163). Unfortunately KRIEGER does not mention any examples
to support this statement. Many different types of two-compartment
bowls are to be found in Florida, the majority of them
1) Ibid., PI. 43: I, Cueva de Roma, northern Santo Domingo.
2) HATT, Ibid., Fig. 2, Magens Bay, Fig. 3, Salt River.
3) KRIEGER III, PI. 49: 3 with rounded bottom, and PI. 50: I with flattened;
both from Andres.
4) KRIEGER III, p. 164.
0) Compo Ibid., p. 66.

30 5
very unlike the Andres-bowl, but one type, a half-closed bowl
over one that is closed1) approximates very nearly the Andresforms,
apart from the fact that the pottery is of another kind.
Clay vessels that are made in imitation of a type of bark-vessels
been found in the Iroquoian area and bordering country.2) However
these variants have nothing to do with Santo Domingo.
Their upper part is only the original bark-vessel's neck. 2VIoreover,
I know of no two-compartment vessels from Puerto Rico and the
I,esser Antilles and nothing that indicates that they might have
reached Santo Domingo along the curve of the Antilles. It is
much more probable that two compartment vessels in Santo
Domingo have their origin from Florida, whence, indeed, several
other vessel-forms have come into the Tainan pottery.
KrUEGER points out the peculiar form of III, Pl. 46: 2, "a
cylindrical vessel inserted in a shallow traylike bowl of caznela
type." "Although unique in collections from Santo Domingo,
there is no evidence that would indicate its origin in northern
Florida, where similar vessels have been found.3) BAT'r's bowl
from .lVIanabao presents the same peculiarity, although "the
inner dish" of the bowl is unlike KRIEGER'S "vessel". In respect to
character both are decidedly Tainan.
Flat handles, properly an extension of the short-sides of the
bowl, seem to be general in Andres.4) Such are found also in
the Oriente of Cuba, and Jamaica.
KRIEGI~R has also increased the material from Constanza
Valley, only HATT has published anything previously. For the
plain dish, pl. 6: I, I refer to what has already been said in connection
with dishes from Andres. Two overarching, elliptical
bowls, Pl. 56: I with a base, and 56: 2 without, are of types otherwise
general in Tainan ceramics.
The above discussion refers to the ceramics excavated from
1) HOI,MES, Abor. Pott. East U. S. PI. :LXXII, Florida Gulf Coast Group.
Ibid" PI. LXXIX, E, 6, N. IV. Fla. Coast, has the same complication of bowlforms,
but the part between is long and cylindrical.
2) Comp, HJAI,ilIAR STOT,PE. roth Congr, Int. Alll

mounds and caves in Santo Domingo. For the greater part the
finding places covers eastern parts of the island. KRIEGER'S ceramic
objects from the Samana Peninsula stand near those of the
southeast and must be considered as late Tainan. The Ciguayans
have not been archeologically demonstrated up to the present
time.
Let us now turn to the Santo Domingo ceramics that has not
been systematically excavated by experts and of ,vhich no details
of the circumstances under which it was found are known.
KRIEGI~R has assembled a large amount of ceramic material
from Monte Cristi Province, and publishes as well a painted vessel
from Santiago Prov. The vessels published by FEWKES from the
Imbert Collection, Puerto Plata, must also originate from the
northern part of the island, while the Merino Collection must
represent southern portions. Therefore, western Santo Domingo
and the Republic of Haiti remain almost unknown regions.
KRIEGER publishes three whole vessels from Nlonte Cristi
Province. KRIEGER I, Pl. 24. Fig. 2 b, is a bottle with ',,"vhite
kaolin slip" and neck strengthened with a ring, a characteristic,
which is otherwise not uncommon to the district. Pl. 25 band c,
each for itself have other forms of neck-strengthenings. In any
case, Monte Cristi has the reinforced neck in common with Higuey.
Fig. 2 c is a little olla of the same sort as DE Booy found in the
midden on the 10\ver Higuamo.1) Fig. 2 a has as lugs the same
kind of large slantingly located heads with flat backside as in
FEWKES I, Pl. LXXVn b-b'Merino Co11., Santo Domingo. To
judge from the scanty material, a close resemblance is thus established
between the ceramics from northern and eastern Santo
Domingo.
The mouldings on the pottery from Monte Cristi Province
are in the same style as those from eastern Santo Domingo. The
clay heads are turned inwards2) as we11 as outwards3) from the
dish. KRIEGER I, Pl. 22 pictures an especial group with arms
pressing the hands close against the face or the forehead. They
are not separated from the head and do not extend down on the
') DE Booy, Santo Dam. Kitchen Nlidden, etc., PI. VI band c.
2) KRIEGF;R I, PI. 2'Z d.
3) Ibid., PI. 22 c.

307
Yessels, as is the case in eastern Santo Domingo. Pl. 2I c is a face
in relief, pointed in the lower part, like my Pl. II 6, from Salt
RiYer, St. Croix. In both cases this face stands on the outside
of the wall. It can be looked upon as a Tainan variant of
the pointed face, which came over from South America to the
Antilles. The moulded figure, KRIEGER I, Pl. 2I a, :J.\10nte Cristi
Prov., placed on the outside of a wall, with its projecting lower
jaw and crouching position, recalls the figure under a stool "found
at Isabe1a, thirty miles from Puerto Plata, Santo Domingo, in
a cave inhabited by Indians in former times."I) This seems to
indicate that the Tainos represented zemls on vessels, and in
that case, an individualized one in the Monte Cristi region,
within which were found both these representations of a creeping,
monstrous male figure.
The potsherd KRIEGER I, Pl. 2I b has in high relief a grooved
semilunar snake with a head at each end. A similar one is found
on a dish from the midden on the lower Higuamo, although it
lacks the snakeheads.2) Engraved figural decoration occurs also
in the form of a frog's head, easily recognizable from its broad,
curved mouth.3)
Of greatest interest is a very over-built dish, KRIEGER I,
Pl. I9, fig. 2 from Santiago Province. It is painted within an
engraved figure. The larger part of the painting has disappeared,
so that it can be surmised that it was done after the
firing, as in the Tainan pottery from Puerto Rico. I will not
agree with KRIEGER in establishing an origin of this closed bowP)
which is of a pronounced Santo Domingo form, with the late
Ignerian painted ceramics of the Virgin Islands") and its open
vessel-forms. In this pottery the painting is never placed within
incised lines. It was complete in its development when it reached
St. Kitts-Nevis and the Virgin Islands. But we must also bear in
mind that the painting of vessels, moreover such in a higlyh de­
\Teloped state, occurs in Florida as well. Over-arched vessels
') J O¥CE, Preh. A I1tiq., etc. PI. LXX, 3, and p. 404.
2) DE ]300Y, Santo Domingo Kitchen lVIidden, etc., Fig. 6.
") KRIEGER I, PI. 26.
") Also published in KRIEGER III, PI. 45: 2, Guaya1)in, Monte Cristi Pro\".
[J) KRI1\Gl~R IIIJ PI. 45: I J St. Kitts.

from Florida's northwest Gulf Coast have the space below a
doublecurve, filled in \\'ith crosshatching. l ) On the Santo Domingan
vessel the engraved, double-arch part is made in two
adjacent halves, filled in with colour, as well as the space in
the interior.
HATT, Fig. 6, pictures a highly interesting carafe, which he
supposes to have been "a mortuary vessel"2) from La Vacama,
near the l\1aimon River. This carafe, which could also be called
a bottle, has not the spherical body that is usual in bottles from
Santo Domingo, but the wall is overarched angularly, that is, like
the ordinary closed Tainan vessels. The neck is funnel-shaped.
~Ioreover, the cranium and human limbs in relief on the wall are
most remarkable, whilst on the other side is found "the spine
and two long bones. "3) Human bones often constitute a
zeml, and such in relief on a dish 11lUSt have had a zemiistic
signification.
The remainder of the material from Santo Domingo presented
by FEWKES has not been excavated systematically, and often
lacks information as to localities and circumstances of finding.
For localization the only assistance given is that the object was
found in the tract where the collector was living, as for instance
Puerto Plata or the capital Santo Domingo.
FEWKES II, Pl. n8 C is the most primitive in appearance of
the overarched round bowls. Its handles consist only of small
holes, perforated for the cord used in carrying. The sole ornamentation
is made up of some isolated but continuous incised lines,
that terminate with a few accentuated punctuations. FEWKES
II, Pl. n8 B is a rounded, over-built dish, which with its distinct
execution of moulding and engraved decoration, reveals a perfection
comparable with the ceramics of Erin Bay. It can be
regarded as an effigy-bowl, as on one side it has a human head
with neck and on the other two feet. The olla, FEWKES I, Pl.
LXXX b-b', with its upper wall inclined inwards in a angle, as
is commonly found in Tainan ceramics, has a head on its side,
1) MOORE, CeI't. AbO!'. Rem. ~I\l, TV. Florida Coast, J ourn. Ac. Xat. Sciences,
l'hila., Vol. XII, Fig. lIS and Fig. 69.
2) Notes etc., p. 2.
3) HATT, Notes etc., p. 2-3.

and isolated from it are two hands. I ) FEWKES II, Pl. I19, B is an
open bowl. \Vith the groove around the middle and the small
holes for handles on a line with it, it shows clearly the purpose
of having been carried on a hanging cord. Above the handles
of the vessel are placed upward-looking frogs, turned towards the
interior of the dish. The semiglobular bowl, FEWKES I, Pl.
LXXVII e-e' with the large inward-turned heads and arms
with hands, I have already discussed. FEWKES II, Pl. II9 C is
pitcher-shaped, only it has a narrow rim turned inwards in an
angle and outward-turned heads. Pitcher-shaped vessels are not
general in Tainan ceramics, but, however, occur in Santo Domingo.2)
Scattered pitcher-forms occur farther southwards in the \Vest
Indies as well as in St. Kitts3) and in Erin Bay ceramics.4) Genuine
pitcher-forms occur along the west coast of Florida.5)
FEWKES I, Pl. LXXVI band c, Merino CoIl., Santo Domingo,
in form like the wooden lathe-turned Russian bowls, must belong
to one and the same pottery, presumably occurring in the
southeastern part of the island. Their light colour in the illustrations
should indicate a white slip. They are elegant not only in
form, but also because of their moulded decoration in relief on
the outside. On c, this consists of the archaic serpent with oblique
incisions in regular convolutions. b has a a natural representatlon
of human face, surrounded by four - in this case longitudinally
incised - oval lumps, placed rectangularly. This latter characteristic
is general in eastern Santo Domingo. 6 )
The bowls, Fl-;WKrts I, Pl. LXXXIII a and b could be de-
') A similar representation of sknlls and the palms of hands, I also know
from the distant ::VTississippi, Hor,MEs, A bOl'ir;inal Pol/ay of the Eastern United
States, 20th Ann. Rept. Bur. elmer. EthnoI.. PI. I,V1 b~c. As previously stated,
in eastern Santo Domingo it was customary to represent the head and hands
separated.
') DE Booy., Ibid., Fig. 5. lower Higunmo, this also with narrow oyer-arched
rim,
") FEWKES IT. PI. 85 R

3IO
signated generally as boat-shaped, although they represent different
type-variants. The broad, shallow a is a bird effigy-bowl.
b with handles of outward-turned heads, approaches more
nearly the usual form of boat-shaped bmvl, which is found ,vith
handles formed by the short-sides over-arched inwards in the
Tainan culture on St. Croix1) or by them outstanding in Jamaica. 2)
The bowl b has moreover a narrow rim ascending directly upwards
with an engraved decoration.
DE Booy pictures a fragment of a buren with low rim3) from
a grave at lower Higuamo. Another, a complete buren, KRIEGER
III, Pl. 53, Constanza, has also a lmv rim.
The heads from Santo Domingo, without information as to
locality whether used as lugs on vessels or placed on the outside
of the walls of dishes, have as a rule circular eyes. It is common
on this island for the entire face to be expressed only with a pair
of eyes, shaped like spectacles.4) Fillets above the forehead are
very common on Santo Domingo clay heads.5) Moreover, such
are not lacking on Puerto Rico. G )
I know of only one clay head from the Republic of Haiti, it
is very large and has avery projecting mouth. 7) In the Gothenburg
Museum are some from the Barima region, Brit. Guiana,
that have a protruding mouth. but yet not so large as the Haitian.
Large ape-like clay heads with protuding mouth occur as
well in Erin Bay and St. Vincent ceramics, but these dont no
resem ble the Dondon specimen. Its solitary occurrence in Haiti,
is noteworty. In the chapter on Religion, I shall talk of the
possibility of a connection with Yucatan-Mexico.
As later developments of form for the purpose of making the
1) Pl. I: 2; DE Booy, Arch., Virgin Islands, Fig. 14, JliIagens Bay, St.
Thomas, while Fig. 12, JliIagcns Bay has only the tops of the short sides overarched.
2) DUERDEN, PI. 5, Fig. 2; DE Booy, Certain Kitchell l'vliddens il1 Jamaica,
Amer. Anthrop., N. S., Vol. 15, 1913, PI. XXXII, a.
3) Santo Domingo Kitchen "~Iidden, Fig. 8.
4) FF,WKES I, PI. LXXV, Figs. 14 and IS; DE I~ooy, PI. XI. Fig. I e, lower
Higllamo, KRIEGER II, PI. 26 b, San Juan sites.
5) FEWKES I, P. 181.
6) JliIASON, Latimer Coli., Fig. 2.
') "~fus. t. VOlkerlmnd., Berlin, (1. 112, from Dondoll.

3II
vessels easier to handle, real pot-handles can be shown. l ) The small
grooved, pot-handles, as for instance on DE Booy Pl. XI, 6 and IO,
are superimposed by a clay-head. Such an arrangement is also
general in the archaic ceramics of the South American lowlands,
where the grooved handle represent an animals paws. On vessels
intended to be carried or suspended by a cord, only a very small
hole is required on the vertical-standing handles, the same as in
Puerto Rico.2) A vessel from Santo Domingo mentioned before
has also a groove round about it, as a stay for the cord.
The high annular base I do not know from Santo Domingo.
On the other hand, the food and water vessels often have flat
bottoms, so that they can stand. Affixed clay feet from Santo
Domingo are also unknown to me.3) In many respects it is interesting
to quote what Columbus said about the pottery on his
first voyage along the northern coast of Espanola, in December,
I492. In Marien, near the Bay of Acul, he knew of two different
vessel-forms and could observe how they were used. The Indians
that came out to the ship, brought water with them in "cantarillos
de barro" and "echaban un grano en una escudilla de agua
y bebenla"4), that is, in the little bowls for the Haitian corn-soup
or ector. Like the Arawak tribes, in general, the Haitians must
have had a true interest for new designs in pottery. Even the
great cacique, Guacanagari, wished to exchange a goldmask for a
"bacin de aguamanos y un jano". Columbus believed that he
wished to make others like them. S )
Nothing more can be said about incised decoration on dishes,
other than that Santo Domingo and Puerto Rico were in agreement
in the leading features. I have previously cited DF: HOSTOS,
and refer to what was said in this connection. It is of great interest
that lines closing with p·unctations can also be shown
from Santo Domingo.ll) I whish to call the attention to the
1) See Pl. IX,7 of my own.
2) Compo DE HOSTOS, Preh. Porto Rico Cerarn., Fig. 45, c.
3) In Higuey, the vessel was simply supported on stones alone, when cooking
was done. See I,AS CASAS, A pol. Rist., Ed. Serrano y Sanzo p. 11.
4) NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. 255.
5) NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. 267.
6) FEWKES I, PI. LXXXI e; DE Booy, Amer. Anthrop. N. S. Vol. IS, No. I,
Pl. VIn d, Salado Caves; DE HOSTOS, Fig. 44; Copenh. Mus., Pl. IX,9, a band-

31 2
circle with the point in the middle, made as precisely as if compasses
had been used.I) This practically perfect representation of
the circle, which frequently can represent an eye, is not a speciality
of Santo Domingo. This seems to be the distinguishing mark
of a certain kind of the higher developed archaic culture in South
America. It is found on the vessels from the shell-heap at Ancon2)
as well as those of the Erin Bay culture.3) I could not trace
later on its way in ceramics along the Antilles to Santo Domingo,
the incised circle with the point in the middle, so simple and perfect.
Yet I will refer to FEWKES I, 1'1. LXXXIII d, St. Kitts.
Some of the specimens of over-arched Dominican vessels last
published by KRIEGER, show the same sort of incised decoration
consisting of extended, compressed meanders, occasionally with
the short side curved4), which are also so customary on the overbuilt
vessels in FLORIDA. 5)
Two large vessels found in old well "pres du bard de l'Ozama"
and now in the Mus. du. Troc. are Spanish olive jars 6 ) and have
therefore nothing to do with Indian pottery.
In Santo Domingo the late-Ignerian influence is of little
consequence.
Although it has not been fully proved that late-Ignerian ceramic
pointed before firing existed in Santo Domingo, it may be
questioned if the art of making hardbaked ware with thin walls,
from well cleaned clay, cannot be traced back to the Lesser Antilles.
Of vessels as yet published there is only a single one, KRIE­
GF;R III, pl. 5I a, a bowl from the province of Santo Domingo, ,vith
a smooth surface and one or two flat elliptical handles ascending in
handle excavated IJY SCIIOMBGHGK from a refuse heap at Samana; DE BC)(JY, Santo
Domillgo Hiichen ]vlidden, PI. IX. Fig. I d, XI, Fig. 2: a, c, e, Lower Higuamo;
KRIEGER I, PI. 25, b, 26 b, c, Monte Cristi Proy.; KRIEGER II, PI. I4: I and f,
20: 4 nad 5, 2I k, 22 h, 23 b, 24 b, 26 d and 27 d; HATT, Fig. 1, Rio C11ayon,
1) DE BODY, Anzer. Anthrop. Ibid., Fig. 26 and PI. VIII d.
0) UIIT,E, XVIII, Int. Congr. of Americanistes, PI. I, Fig. 2 t.
3) Best seen in the vessel, FEWKES, Am. Anthrop, K. S. Vol. 16, "'0. 2,
Fig. 64.
4) KRIF~CER III, PIs. 54: Andres. 56: 2, Constanza Valley, 46: 3, midden near
Monte Cristi, 47: I, 54: 4 San J naIl :VIiddcn.
5) Both these types are also found in Florida. See HOI,2\IES, A borigiual Pottery
of Eastern United Staies, p. I29, Figs. 59 a and h.
6) Ibid., p. 403, such ones found in the southeastern States.

a slight angle from the rim, which can be said to resemble late­
Ignerian ceramics. The handles of this bowl, although rather
slender, have, contrary to the small handles of late-Ignerian ceramics
an additional ridge.
Cuba. FEWKES, Prehistor. Culture of Cuba, Amer. Anthrop.,
N. S. Vol. 6, No.5, PI. XX,2 the same
fragments as The Abor. of Porto Rico, PI. LXXXII, b, c, d. They
originate from Nipe Bay; HARRINGTON, Cuba before Columbus,
Figs. 12, 14, 19, 30, 31, 34, 44, 59, 66, 77, 78, 79, 82, 93, PI. s.
XI,I, XLII, XLIII, LXVII, LXVIII, LXXXI, LXXXV, c, d,
CVIII; FEWKES II, Fig. 63; KRIEGER III, PI. 44, I and 2, Maisi.
Outside the Siboneyan culture, which in and for itself lacked
ceramics, HARRINGTON has discriminated between "Sub-Tainan" and
"Tainan" culture in Cuba. As regards Cuban pottery, it can be
questioned whether by the term "sub-Tainan" is meant archaic
ceramics, without the rich development of moulding and closed
bowl-forms that characterize Tainan pottery, or possibly a prearchaic
pottery without lugs and engraved decoration. HARRING­
TON classifies Jamaican ceramics as "sub-Tainan". It is certainly
the fact that the Jamaican pottery did not follow the development
of the Tainan, and so stands nearer the archaic Ignerian.
But on the other hand, the evolution of the Jamaican ceramics
has been so uniquely endemic, that we must distinguish a Jamaican
ceramic province, just as FEWKES and DE Booy have done.
All this special development must have taken place after the
immigration of the Island-Arawaks to Jamaica.
Since Cuba is in close proximity to Santo Domingo and the
Tainan culture on the former can be attributed to a late Haitian
immigration, at this point I will say something about Cuba's Tainan
pottery, but refer to HARRINGTON for further particulars.
'rhe Tainan finds in Oriente are comprehensive. Moreover,
HARRINGTON can affirm that excavations have not been made
further west than a line drawn from Bayamo to Holguinl), with
the exception of those of JIMENEZ' at Moron, on the north
coast of Camaguey, made about 1850. HARRINGTON is of the
opinion that the finds made by JIMENEZ "must have represented the
1) op. cit., p. 426.

31.f
pure Tainan culture. "1) From the general report of J r:uENliz and
POEY of these middens, it appears that the inventory is Tainan,
including the pottery also. 2) JIMJ.:NEZ found cazuelas, sherds of
"a sort of decorated earthenware", with the usual lugs in the
form of clay heads, among them an "owl head"3) together with
"a piece of what seems to have been a burin."
If we continue further westwards, MOKTANlS; found foodstuffs,
but no food-dishes in the cave Boca del Plurial. The cracked
corojo-palm nuts lay in a primitive, stone offertory dish. But no
potsherds nor clay heads, things that are generally found in Tainan
caves, are mentioned. However, secondary burial and deformed
skulls4) indicate Arawak and not Siboneyan culture. But
that culture could scarcely have been a developed Tainan one.
n is uncertain whether the finds originate from before, or after
the Tainos emigrated from Haiti to Cuba. In any case, I am
inclined to consider them sub-Tainan.
They seemed to be badly off in regards to pottery in the
southern part of Camaguey, even at the time of the Discovery.
"When Columbus and his men visited a large town near the site
of the present Trinidad in June I494, during his second voyage,
the Indians were willing to trade their pearls, but declined to
part with their clay dishes. "Videno vasi de terra cocti, de diverso
maniere, de iquali no tolseno alcuni per bisogni 10ro".5) The Spaniards
were given fruit decoctions served in "pioderne de legno
lavorate". The culture in this case and especial festivities in
connection with the reception, reveal a striking resemblance to
Xaragua, which was also distinguished for its abundance of wooden
bowls. In the previously mentioned town located near the
present Trinidad and in the house of a chief, or perhaps it was
a house used especially for festivities as in Xaragua, many wooden
stools were found, occasionally painted ones. They drew up
') Ib1:d., p. 402.
2) Compo HARRING'fON, p. 46-49 cites JIlYl:h\""EZ and POEY.
3) Compo KIUF;GER II, PI. 2): 2, San Juan, Sam ana Peninsula, Santo Domingo.
') MONTANfe, Op. cit., p. 150.
5) ANGEI,O TRAVESAN, Venezia 21 agosto I5or, Raccolta de Doc. etc., Pt.
III, Vol. I, p. 76.

315
the water from springs in "cesti", or at any rate they did not
use clay-vessels as in Higuey.
Almost all the proper Tainan pottery that we know from
Cuba is from finding-places in Oriente and for the most part was
excavated by HARRINGTON. It is late-Tainan and in a large measure
conforms to the ceramics of Santo Domingo, as well as those
of Puerto Rico.
Speaking generally, the vessel-forms are the same as there.
Round dishes as well as oval ones occur. Different types of open,
round bowls are general. Among these HARRINGTON especially
distinguishes cazuelasI ) , round bowls with rounded walls. According
to the Spanish meaning of the word, such a bowl should be
comparatively shallow.2) But to the same group must also be
assigned the somewhat deeper dishes shown in PIs. 1,XXXI a,
and LXXXII a and b, with a lower bowl-part and short, straight
wall. Cazuelas with walls inclined somewhat inwards, are found
in the Tainan culture from Magens Bay, St. Thomas3) and Salt
River, St. Croix.4) I know of no bowl from Puerto Rico that
could be designated cazuela, which in type resembles the Cuban
ones. Cazuelas with rounded wall (KRIEGER III, pI. 51, 3), as well
with a straight upper wall. (KRIEGE;R I, 19, 1) occur in Santo Do-
1111llg0.
The deep bowl, HARRINGTON, Fig. I2, is finished with a wall
that bends inwards at an angle. The same is the case with FEW­
RES II, Fig. 63, which however is not so deep and is 1110re open.
The water-vessel, HARRINGTON, Fig. I2 "from a cave at Banes
near Holguin", has a flattened base, which is a very common
thing on Santo Domingo. vVater-vessels overbuilt with wa11s bent
angularly are so very general on this island and in Puerto Rico,
that I do not need to treat of them again here.
Shallow dishes are HARRINGTON, Pl. XLI a, b, and c (oval),
a11 three with flat handles of conventionalized figures. Pl. XLII
a, semi-globular dish "from a cave near Monte Christi", has in addition
on one side (the other is broken off) a flat handle with a dia-
') According to HARRINGTON, p. 387, Fig. 44 and PI. XI4III are cazuelas.
2) See Real. Ac. Esp. Diccionario, cazuela.
3) HATT, Ibid., Fig. 2.
4) Ibid., Fig. 3.

316
mond-shaped incised figure in relief around a decorative hole.
Handles with moulded heads occur on a plain bowl from Santo
Domingo.!)
HARRINGTON, Pl. LXXXI b, is boat-shaped with a narrow
rim. ~We also find this form of dish characterizing the Tainan culture
on St. Croix and St. Thomas, Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo
and Oriente in Cuba, not to speak of Jamaica, whose pottery, nevertheless,
is not proper-Tainan.
In Pl. LXII a and b HAIUUNGTON pictures two platters with
narrow inner rim. The quite larger inner rims occurring on vessels
of other kinds from Santo Domingo and St. Croix 2 ) orfrom Jamaica
do not resemble these ones on the Cuban platters.
KRIEG:f;R points out resemblances in form between two bowls
from Cape Maisi and the Jamaican boat-shaped vessels. They
have large, broad, flat handles, such as similar vessels might
also have in Jamaica. The same kind of handle also occurs in
Santo Domingo.3)
Fragments of burens are found not only in Oriente,4) but also
in Camagiiey.5) HARRINGTON gives only measurements; "\Vith
average of about 20 cm. in diameter, and a thickness of about threequarters
of an inch." \Ve do not learn whether they could have
had a short rim or were entirely flat.
Oriente-pottery is moulded, like the genuine Tainan. Clay
heads are abundant, but in general they are not so fantastic
as the majority from Santo Domingo. The fillet occurs in one
case.6) Open-work on the figural handles is found,7) but not in the
same degree as in Santo Domingo. The conventionalized fretwork
designs of that island, with the St. Andrew' cross or a frame
around the head, is lacking in Oriente. The eyes are represented
') FEWKES I, PI. LxxVn e and e', Merifio Coli.
') Comp. DE Boov, Santo Domingo Kitchen ;llidden, PI. VIII e, and Fig. 5 a,
Lower Higuamo; IIA'l'T, Arch. Virgo Islands, Fig. 2 b, Tain8n pottery, ::\Iagcns
Bay, St. Thomas,
3) KRIEGER III, 1'1. 44,
4) HARRINGTON, p, 108, La Giiira site, 7 miles south of Holguin; p, 207,
}lronte Cristi sites at Cantil1o,
"J Ibid~, p, 3G.
6) Ibid" 1'1. I,XVln, a, 1':1 JAndero site, near :;VIaisi.
') Ibid" PIs, XI,I, b, XI,1I a, XT,III, Fig, G7,

3I 7
by an elevated eye-ringl) or be obliquely-placed elliptic eyes in relief.
2) As in Santo Domingo, the whole face is represented by
eyes alone.3) The head of an old man is presented in an artistic
and natural style, yet with flat eye-rings, while a snake-motive in
relief passes over the face through the nose.4). This head is entirely
unique in Tainan ceramics and must be due to Maya-Mexican
influences, as indeed his habitus reveals. Another clay-head has a
large, broad mouth with big teeth, showing the imitation of small
figures in shel1. 5) The only animal-figure that occurs is that of the
frog;6) in addition there is possibly a dog7) with nose somewhat
drawn in and furnished with8 ) grooves.
As in Santo Domingo the clay heads are often combined with
arms. 9 ) HARRINGTON, Fig. 78, Big Wall Site, San Lucas, Maisi,
has, separated and further down on the wall of the dish, a pair of
legs and buttocks. On the other hand, in no case are the arms
separated from the head, as can occur in Nisibon ceramics in
northeastern Santo Domingo.
FEWKES places the ceramic finds from Nipe Bay into a group
by themselves. The representation of the two faces and one head
on these flat lugs is simple. The head 10 ) with its primitive trait of
eyes consisting only of pointed pupils and its scored mouth with
somewhat elevated under-lip, nevertheless, reminds us of others
from the fully developed Tainan culture in Oriente. H) It is customary
in Ignerian ceramics to represent the face instead of using
1) Ibid., PI. LXVIII b, Fig. 82.
2) Ibid., PI. LXXX a, Fig. 66.
3) PI. r~xvlII a.
4) Ibid., Fig. I9 b, Baracoa district.
5) Ibid., Fig. 19 a, Baracoa district, compo Fig. 87, Laguna Limones site near
Maisi. On the other side, this shell-figure has adopted eyes of relief-ellipses and
protuberance on the forehead, from ceramics.
6) Ibid., Fig. 67, village-site at La Patana, Maisi.
') Ibid., Fig. 79, from Big Wall Site, San Lucas, Maisi.
8) An animal head, KRIEGER I, PI. 18, d, Santo Domingo has on the extreme
tip of the nose, three broad cuts, possibly expressing nostrils.
9) Ibid., Figs. 19 a, 30 and 31, which is similar.
10) Prehist. Cult. Cuba, Amer. Anthrop., n. S., Vol. 6, PI. XX b.
") HARRINGTON, Op. cit., Fig. 77, head turned outward from the vessel, Big
\Vall Site, San Lucas, Maisi; the pointed eyes of the inward-turned head, Fig.
34, are extended in length.

3IB
the moulded heads. Possibly this head from the Nipe Bay tract
belongs to a "sub-Tainan" Cuban pottery, whose simple presentation
of eyes is found in part continuing in Tainan Oriente-ceramics.
In the representation of eyes also, the Nipe Bay pottery resembles
the Ignerian. Eyerings are not laid on, as in Tainan ceramics, but
formed by an eye-hole in a circular figure in low relief, surrounded
by engraved rings. This sort of representation is found in the archaic
Ignerian ceramics as well as in the Erin Bay pottery.I)
A very interesting form of face occurs on the over-arched wall
of the bowl HARRING~TON, F£g. 12, "from a cave at Banes, near Holgum.
The eye-brow consists of a large curve, in relief standing
over the ringformed eyes with their pupil, and the nose which is
only represented engraved, and has two strokes on each side of it,
possibly representing tattooing. That face in Cube must only be a
variation of the face where the great eyebrows go into one line with
the nose, such as is found in F:P:WKES I, Pl. LXXIX "from western
end of Porto Rico", also on an over-arched bowl. In the Lmver
Amazon regions, where this latter face is also common, cases can
also be found where the eye-brows are changed into approximately
a single broad curve, but the origin of the previous face is
plainly shown by the fact that the curve is broken somewhat in
the middle, forming an angle, and that in the continuation below
is found a little, short nose in relief.2) The above-mentioned Cuban
face varies from the other still more by having its two eyebrmvs
and nose made in one.
On the Oriente-bowl is found the same sort of engra\'ed decoration
of long, extended, flattened meander figures on the curved
short-sides3) as also occur 011 Santo Doming(4) and Puerto Rico,5)
as well as in the Tainan culture on St. Croix. 6 ) Another form of
1) Compo FEWKES T. Pl. LXXXIV t and c, Grenada; FEWKES II PI. (). C,
Erin Bay.
2) See NORDENSKIC)LD, L'Anh. Bassin de l'Amazone, PI. XXII, Cayian".
3) HARRINGTON, PI. XLIII, "from a eave near Monte Cristo, Barneoa;" ~FEW­
KgS II, Fig. 63; information as to locality lacking.
4) DE Booy Patt. East. Santo Dam., PI. VII e, Salado Caves; KRIEGER II,
PI. 14: I; San Juan site; Batt, Notes, Fig. 6, La Vncama.
5) BAEnERLIN, Some Arch. Work Porto Rico, Fig. 28; DB HOSTOS, Pr~h~
Porto Ric. Ceram., Fig. 41 d, e, h--j, J oyna shell-heap.
6) DE Booy, Arch. Virgo Islands, PI. 17, Salt Rh-er.

decoration, carried out on the broadside, is an extended ellipse with
strokes inside alternating with vertical lines ending with punctations.
1 )
vVe can also observe lines with pits on the clay stamps, HAR­
RINGTON, Pl. LXXX c. They are likewise found thoughout Tainan
ceramics. I do not mean to Eay by this that they can not be
found as well in other engraved pottery as in that of the Brit. Guiana
middens, and occasionally in Floridian ceramics. Decoration
with a row of punctions is found not only in Oriente,2) but also in
Santo Domingo.3)
The handle with moulded head above is predominant in
Oriente-ceramics, also.4)
It is very difficult to express an opinion about what Harrington
calls "sub-Tainan culture," because the finds from western
Cuba are still so limited in number. Perhaps Fewkes' above-mentioned
scanty find at Nipe Bay proves that the older Arawak immigrants
remained upon a ceramic level similar to the archaic Ignerian.
Real moulded Tainan pottery came over for the first titHe
with the last Haitian immigrants. Finds of that pottery are numerous
in their chief province, Oriente, but we do not know how far
west it will be found. During his expedition to Pinar del Rio, HAR­
RINGTON found almost exclusively Siboneyan sites without ceramics.
The presence of Tainos is revealed only to finds of wooden objects.
Has a plain pre-archaic pottery without engraving or moulding
existed in Cuba? HARRING'l'ON made the only find that possibly
points in this direction, under a rock-shelter in Hoyo Valtoso. He
found there together, bones of "domestic animals such as the pig
and the goat"") and also the pieces of two dishes, G) which he has
caused to be reconstrncted. 7) They are both entirely without decoration,"
crudely made and poorly fired. "8) But can these isolated
objects be considered as representing an entirely undecorated
') HARRINGTON. Fig. 44.
2) Ibid., 1'1. XLII and LXVIII h.
3) Camp. KRIEGER I. PI. 18: I and 2 .
• ) HARRIXGTON. PI. LXVIII a and h. Rl Lindero Site. near MaisL
5) Ihid., p. 322 .
6) Ibid., 1'1. LXXXV c and d.
') Fig. 93 a. Hoyo Valteso, Pinar del Rio.
8) Ibid., p. 323.

320
pottery? The place was evidently used for the preparation and
consumption of food in Indian as well as Spanish times. They are
doubtless plain domestic earthenware dishes. Undecorated domestic
ware is known at the present time in very large quantities
from finding-places on other islands that can be proved to be Tainan
in ongm. The plain rounded bowl-form, HARRINGTON, Fig.
93, is also found in Santo Domingol) on Puerto Ric02) and (decorated)
in Tainan ceramics on St. Croix3) even if these two latter
ones are deeper that the Pinar del Rio bowl. The oUa, Fig. 93 b, is
a somewhat more complicated form, inasmuch as it has an outward-turned
rim. Its counterpart is a Tainan burial vessel from
Salt River.4)
That solitary find of Harrington's and the circumstances of
its finding, are not sufficient to warrant the conclusion that an
undecorated pre-archaic pottery preceded the 1'ainau on Cuba. So
long as central and western Cuba are so little investigated archaeologically,
we can not know exactly the character of the Island­
Aravvak ceramics that ante-dated the Cuban Tainan.
From the preceding presentation of facts and material, the
conclusion may be drawn that the Oriente-pottery conforms essentially
to the Tainan on Espanola and Puerto Rico. But then
the 1'ainos come to Cuba from what is now the Republic of Haiti, a
region that is still very little known archaeologically.
The Bahama
Islands.
DE Booy, LZicayan Remains on the Caicos Islands,
A. A., vol. 14, Figs. 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, IO, II, 13, 14 and
15·
In many cases they
All these finds are merely fragments.
are so large that DB Booy ventured to reconstruct the form of the
vessels. Two of these vessels, Figs. II and I4, apparently belong
to the same type and have the same ornamention of circles joined
together in a row. Fig. IO has an ornamental relief with grooves
and vyith it the hoof-shaped archaic ornament. The upper portion
of this vessel has a reinforced rim that runs out into two downward-
1) KRIEGER III, pI. 49: 1.
') DE HOSTOS, Prehist. Porto Ric. Ceram" Fig. 48 c.
3) DE Booy, Arch. Virgo Islands, Fig. I7, Salt River.
4) Ibid., PI. VI a.

321
bent "lugs". Fig. 6. shows another sort of handle, namely a protuberant
conical lug, while similar ones on Puerto Rico are generally
flaU) On the other hand, I know of no pot-handles from the
I~ucayan Islands.
1'here is a well-made human head on the fragment Fig. 7 that
is turned towards the interior of the vessel. This has wide-open
nostrils and opened mouth, characteristics which have already
been brought into prominence by FEWKES, as peculiar to the clay
heads of Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo.2) On the other hand,
the indistinct clay heads in Fig. 5 are "barbaric" and badly
executed.
\Vhat DE Booy's finds reveal about ornamentation on the
Caicos Islands, is very interesting. Incised lines with pits made by
pressure can be seen on Fl'gs 4 and 2 d. Fig. 2 a shows a decoration
with rows of punctions which is also found on the Peninsula of
Samana, while one with a single row can be recorded from Oriente,
Cuba, Fig. 4 c, and e have small cuts instead of pits. The ornamentation
on Fig. I3, two rows of "a V-shaped figure which mayor
may not have been a crude effort to represent a bird, "3) is really
original in the \Vest Indies. The ornamentation consisting of
small engraved figures standing alone but in rows, seems to have
been very much in vogue on the Caicos Islands. 1'he most interesting
piece is Fig. I5, "as the ornamentation consists of clay over
each other in regular pattern. "4) Besides, just this kind ot decoration
is entirely foreign to the West Indies. Fig. IS shows a simple
braided ornamentation, consisting of straight bands running over
and under each other. It looks as if here we has a "rope-band decoration".
This kind can be found in the Eastern States where the
model-dishes, because of their lack of durability, were reinforced by
this braiding. 5) Therefore the origin of this phenomenon can be
assigned to North America. But braided decorations of this class
can also be pointed out in many places in South America. On the
1) DE IIoSTOS, Prekist. Porto Ric. Cel'am., Fig. 45, a·--b.
2) JlEWK}

322
outside and above on a fragment of a dish from the Dutch Leeward
Islands there is painted a simple braided decoration,l) not unlike
that on a similarly situated space on the potsherd from Grand
Caicos Island. I do not know of any vessel with a like simple
textile pattern in a space at the top of the vessel, coming from
the Southern States, where by stamping they represented far more
complicated and quite closely interwoven braided decorations, that
while running over and under the component parts, covered the
greater portion of the surface of the vessel. A clay scoop from "a
mound on Perdido Bay" on the boundary between Florida and Alabama,
nevertheless, has a continuous incised textile ornamentation
that is almost missing on the corners.2)
Already, from the potsherds found, it can be inferred that the
pottery on Caicos Island is Tainan. But how much it followed
with the development, especially in the vessel-forms, we know
very little. No fragments of a closed vessel have been published,
nor indeed any ceramic objects from the other Bahama Islands.
Jamaica. DUERDEN, Abor. Ind. Rem In Jamaica, Pl. III,
Fig. X, Pl. V, Pl. VI, fig. I DE Booy, Certain Kitchen
Middens In Jamaica, Pl. XXXII, XXXIII; NAT. MUSEUM,
COPENHAGEN, Pl. XI face view and 2, profile. Some few potsherds
in GOTHENBURG MUSEUM excavated by Nordenskiold from a shellheap
near Spring Hotel, Kingston; I,ONGLEY, Kitchen Middens of
Jamaica, Fig. p. 302, "Pottery fragments", Fig. p. 303, "Three
handles of pottery vessels"; KRIEGER III, Pl. 40: I, 4I: I, 2,
42: I, 2, 3, from caves near Kingston.
REICHARD'S and BASTIAN'S material has not yet been published.
The former has only given a preliminary report about the
extension of different types3) of vessels.
The pottery of Jamaica is unique in the whole West Indies,
indicating an endemic ceramic development. Compared with
proper Tainan ceramics, the Jamaican seems much plainer. Many
influences that the Tainos in Puerto Rico, Espanola and Cuba utilized
never reached Jamaica. Proper Tainan influences on J amaic-
1) JOSSELIN DE JONG, Fig. 25; compo p. 72.
2) HOLMES, Abar. Patt. East U. S., PI. LIV, lowest row, to the left.~
3) See Globus, Vol. 86, p. 225-226.

323
an ceramics are verv hard to establish. There could of course be
common sub-Tainan characteristics. The Jamaican pottery has
been developed out of sub-Tainan elements. In this way it has
come to remain in an Ignerian stage in many respects, although
the endemic development and absence of later South American
influences cause it to be also very unlike the archaic ceramics of
the Lesser Antilles.
The complete simplicity of Jamaican ceramics must elucidate
a sub-Tainan stage, when the Island-Arawaks first advanced to
the Greater Antilles. But no sub-Tainan pottery resembling in
its totality the Jamaican has been found on any of these islands.
Jamaican ceramics, such as \ve know them, are the fruit of J a­
maican development.
The simplicity on Jamaica, in comparison with Tainan ceramics,
presents itself first of all in the vessel-forms.
The Jamaican vessels are all open. Over-building can occur in
boat-shape vessels 1 ), but not so much that it can be called closed.
Even in Tainan ceramics, the boat-shaped vessels are not closed.
The deep bowl, KRIEGER III, pl. 41: 2, Jamaican yello\v
ware, with its rounded over-arching, its handle with loop-hole for
suspension and its applied pair of eyes with the inner joint side
representing a nose, shows affinity to proper Tainan ceramics.
The large relief curve above the pair of eyes has parallel of the
eye-brow curve on the Cuban vessel, HARRINGTON, fig. 12, previollsly
treated.
The hemispherical thick-walled vessels are cooking-pots.2)
On them is found the same sort of horizontal handle that I have
already noted from Puerto Rican vessels for cooking.
1\Ioreover, as aside from cooking-pots all other whole vessels
are elliptical. The ,yare as well as the form is different.
There are many leading forms in Jamaica, but we find then,} again,
more or less the same, in 'l'ainan ceramics. On the other hand,
many Tainan vessel forms are lacking in Jamaica. At present,
only one quite over-arched bowl has been found there mamely,
the even mentioned KRIBGER III, pl. 4I: 2, resembling genuine
Tainan ones.
1) DrERDEX, PI. 5. Fig. 4.
2) Ibid., Figs. 6 and 7.

DU:B:RDF,N'S vessels were all found in caves in eastern Jamaica
and are all of thick-walled "vare.
Boat-shaped vessels are the most common vessel-form on
this island. They are not unusual throughout the Tainan pottery.
Some types are common to both ceramics, while others are specifically
Jamaican.
Boat··shaped vessels with pointed, curved "stems", DUERDEK,
Pl. 5, Fig. 4, KRIEGER III, Pl. 42: I, 2, are common to Tainan
ceramics 1 ) as well as Jamaica. But in Jamaica these commashaped
handles are never developed into loops, as in the Tainan
pottery. Boat-shaped vessels with "stems" finished into broad,
flat, trapezoidal handles, DrERDEN, Pl. 5, Figs. 2 and 5, are, as
stated before, also common to both kinds of ceramics. 2 ) Both
types must be of sub-Tainan origin, common to Jamaican pottery
as well as to that of the proper-Tainan.
Peculiar to the thick-walled Jamaican ware are the boatshaped
vessels with an inner rim, DUERDEN, Pl. 5, Fig. 3 and
Fl. 6, Fig. I, or with a narrow rim, curved over inwards at a
sharp angle, as in Pl. 5, Fig. I. This lastnamed vessel has horizontal
lugs, which also occnr in boat-shaped vessels of the Tainan
pottery.3) KRIEGER III, Pl. 4I: I, made of very thin-walled
yellow ware, withont inner rim, has three small horisontal lugs
on the side visible 011 the picture.
In Jamaica, the boat-shaped vessels have found an especial
use as receptacles for skull-burial in caves, as in DGERDEN, Pl 5,
Fig. 5, Cambridge Hill Cave, and Pl. 6, Fig. I.
DE Booy's dwelling-place finds from "Retreat" village site,
Parish of St. Ann, show us two deep boat-shaped dishes of darkred
ware in fragments.4) The narrow, angular inner rims are naturally
entirely foreign to that thin-walled, well-fired pottery.
DE Bocw, Pl. XXXII e has an oblique handle with ridges and
1) KRIEGER III, PI. T 7, 8, Andres, Santo Domingo Province; Dg BODY,
Arch. Virg-. lsi., Fig. 12, and HATT, Arch. Virgo lsi., Fig. 2, f, both from l\Iagens
Bay, St. Thomas.
2) Camp. especially KRIEGER III, PI. 44: I, lVIaisi, Cuba.
3) Compo FEWKE5 I, PI. LXXXIII, a, Santo Domingo, the lugs representing
noses or rather beaks of birds.
4) Certain Kitchen Middens in Jamaica, p. 432, PI. XXXII, a and b.

grooves. Although both these thin-wa11ed potsherds are blackened,
they can not at all represent cooking-pots. l )
DUF.RDEN also knows a large thin-walled vessel, "a nearly
complete portion of a circular basin", "diameter about 18 inches",
"thickness only a quarter of an inch", from a cave in Vere.2)
DUI~RDF.N sums it up briefly that oval vessels predominate in
Jamaica. They are, as mentioned, by no means uncommon in
Tainan ceramics, but are not preponderant to the same extent
as in Jamaica.
The fantastically moulded clay heads, found in Tainan ceramics,
are entirely lacking in Jamaica.. Instead, representations
of faces preponderate, as in archaic Ignerian ceramics. The better
developed Jamaican forms of face and head, moreover, show
a peculiar development within Island-Arawak ceramics.
The Jamaican faces are turned towards the interior of the
dish in the true archaic fashion. Sometimes they are not lugs,
but are found on the inside of the dish-wall. Seeing that the
Jamaican vessels are oval as a rule, these lugs and faces occur
at their pointed short sides. A common simplification is a face
consisting of only obliquely placed elongated eyes and a nose. 3 )
Eyes vyith a flat ring in low relief are founcl.4) These two forms
of eyes are also both frequently met with on the Greater Antilles,
while elongated eyes preponderate in archaic Ignerian ceramics,
and Erin Bay pottery has an abundance of different eye-forms.
An oval mouth in relief is found together with eye-rings made
in the same manner. 5) In this circumstance, the Jamaican and
Tainan ceramics correspond. Faces with feather-crowns are common.
6 ) DUERDEN, Fig . .LY: I, Cranbrook, is a parrot-head, turned
inwards on a presumably oval bowl. This moulded head turned
1) DE Boo',;, suggests the possibility that they were blackened at the very
firing.
") P. 3S: the old parish of Vere, included in the present parish of Manchester.
3) DF; Boov, PI. XXXIII, Fig. I a. c, d; LONGI,EY, p. 303, Fig. 1.
.1) DFERDEN, Fig. X: 2 and 4 from Cranbrook, Parish of St. Ann; DE Booy,
PI. XXXIII, Fig. I, g. Compo the stone idol, LONGLEY Fig. p. 300.
;') DCERDEN, Fig. X: 4, or a groove in a rectangle with rounded short-sides
as in the well executed face, DE Booy, Pl. XXX TIl, Fig. I, g.
") DT:ERDJ

inwards is decidedly different from other representations of
this bird in Ignerian ceramics on the southern I,esser Antilles,
Trinidad, British Guiana and the Lower Amazon. It is an independent
Jamaican product. A realistically moulded head with
large eye-holes, presumably of some rodent that is now extinct,
is also peculiar to J amai cal. )
It is of great interest that genuine pot-handles are found in
Jamaican ceramics.2)
Being genuinely archaic, Jamaican pottery is not only moulded
but also engraved.3) As a rule the parallel strokes are thinner
than is usually the case in Taillan ceramics. DE Booy affirms
that the indentation of the extremity of each line "does not occur
on any of the many hundreds of sherds collected by the author
in Jamaica. "4) In this respect the Jamaican pottery differs
from the 'l'ainan. Only thin straight lines, often at angles, or
lozenges are to be found 5), therefore not ellipses or circles as
in the Tainan or Trinidad ceramics. On the other hand, rows of
punctations or of short grooves appear sometimes on the edge of
a vessel, as in Santo Domingo or on the Caicos Islands. The extended,
compressed meandering ornamentation, that is so characteristic
of the Tainan ceramics, is not found in Jamaica.
Flattened bases occur also on Jamaican vessels. 6)
'I'he Jamaican burins have "slightly upturned edges".7) This
rim is higher than in the burens from Santo Domingo.
From the preceding it must appear, that Jamaica had its
few vessel-forms in common with 'I'ainan ceramics. lAter 'l'ainan
ceramics underwent great changes through the addition of many
new forms and developed in complications. \vhich, the more the
1) DUERDEN, PI. III, 9; DE Booy, PI. XXXIII, Fig, 3, LONGLEY, p, 303,
Hg, 3. DE Booy 3 c has front feet like a ronent's . According to FRANK CUK­
IHI.L, Jamaica in I928, there only remains onc rodent, Geocapromys brownei,
2) DUERDEN, PI. III, 5-.--8.
3) DL'F,RDP;X, 1'1. III: 1; DE Booy, PI. XXXIII, Fig. :2 b-d; I,ONGLEY, Fig.
p. 302.
4) DE Booy, p. 432.
5) LONGLEY, Pig. on p. 302.
6) DUERDE;:>1, p. 9, two fragmcnts from a shell-heap at Norbrook, Parish of
St. Andrew.
') DUERDEN, Ibid.; Dg Boov, 1'1. XXXII, c.

327
islands are investigated archaeologically, appear dissimilar in the
different parts of the region belonging to Tainan pottery. The
Jamaicans show capability of independent development in technique,
this being manifested in the fact that the Jamaican group
of 1arge, thin-walled yellow boat-shaped vessels is without counterpart
in Tainan ceramics. It is very likely only surpassed by
the thin-walled late-Ignerian pottery, which besides is often
painted.
The moulding does not predominate in Jamaica to such a
high degree as in Tainan ceramics. It has developed its own forms.
All the forms of engraved decoration in Jamaican ceramic
are common to the Tainan. But in the latter, many other additional
forms appear, although as a rule only on the finer vessels.
The common ware in Tainan ceramics have lines ending in punctations,
which latter are lacking in Jamaican ceramics.
But nevertheless we should not be led to believe from the
above presentation, that Jamaican pottery only represents a more
primitive predecessor of the Tainan. The development on J a­
maica has been endemic. The ceramics of Jamaica are therefore
unique, something that can not be described in words, but is seen
clearly at the first glance.
Tainan ceramics have been exposed to later influences that
never reached distant Jamaica. These influences came in from
the South over the Lesser Antilles, but must only have embraced
a few additional accessories, like pot-handles, even broad flat
ones, which also reached Jamaica.
Moreover it was not from the South alone that Tainan ceramics
received important influences. Peculiarities in vessel-forms
and decoration exist, which can not be established on the southern
I~esser Antilles and therefore can scarcely be derived from South
America. On the other hand, these characteristics occur in the
Southeastern States and especially in Florida.
Influences on Tainan
Ceramics from
Southeastern
States.
HOLMES has already stated in Caribbean Influence
-in SMtthern Art, Amer. Anthrop. Vol.
VII, No. I, Jan. I894, as did MASON also in a
letter to Duerden 1 ), that certain phenomena in
1) Aboy. Ind. Rem. in Jamaica, p. 39-40.

ceramics would indicate relations between the northern \Vest
Indies and the Southeastern States.
HARRINGTON has pointed out that "from the Gulf to Tennessee
and from the Atlantic to eastern Texas" is found "the
typical Tainan type of bowl - the cazuela (Fig. 44)". Moreover,
HARRING'rem is of the opinion that this culture-influence" passed
from the islands to the mainland and not vice versa".l) In many
cases the opposite must have been true.
'1'he Tainan elements that passed over into Florida, like
griddles, or also into Georgia, like the hammock, are coherent
with tropical conditions. They never advanced very far into the
interior or towards the north in the Southern States. On the
other side, I shall show in the following pages how certain
burial customs as well as fret-work in shell came from the
Southern States into the Tainan culture, but can not be shown
either southwards on the Antilles or on Jamaica.
In regard to ceramic influences, I am strongly disposed to
seek their origin on the North American side rather than on the
Tainan. Tainan ceramics have certain characteristics in common
with the Southern States, Florida in particular. This applies only
to the Tainan and not to other \Vest Indian ceramics.
The pottery of the Southeastern States is superior to the
Tainan in firing, forms and various kinds of decoration-methods.
Therefore, it seems most natural that the influence should have
passed over from Florida into the Antilles and not the reverse.
As previously stated, \VVMAN'S and Moorn:'s excavations show
that a culture with ceramics already very advanced, lies above a
poor one, primitive and without pottery, in the shell-heaps of
north-eastern Florida. That later, higher culture came in from
the \Vest. The quality of the ceramics in the Southern States
increases as you go west. Here we approach nearer to Mexico,
with whose higher ceramics many striking correspondences are
found in the lower and central regions of the Mississippi. Moreover,
a district with highly developed culture and also ceramics,
lies near Tampa Bay, and another in the lower Appalachicola
region. To judge from everything, the influence from the South-
') Op. cit., p. 421.

ern States entered in at a late period, when the Tainan culture
found itself in a state of rapid development. The possibility of
a Tainan influence having been experienced in Florida at the same
time is in certain regards not out of the question. The '1'ainos
had a highly developed anthromorphous zemiistic ornamentation,
which can have seemed very imposing to other tribes which had
not advanced so far in religious development as to have been
familiar with representations of figures and derivations of this art.
HOLMES' observations concern ornamentation exclusively.
His comparison of ornaments on duhos from Caicos Island with
those on a clay stamp (Fig. r) "found in a monnd in Franklin
County, Florida" proves itself to be very striking. In that case,
therefore, zemiistic Taiuan incised ornamentation must have influenced
stamped ornamentation in Florida.
l\IASON'S comments regarding common peculiarities in vesselforms.
He mentions "the angular margin", which was already
known to him from Puerto Rico and Florida, and "the sharp
hatching" to be seen in DUERDEN, Pl. V 5. 1)
It is not clear to me, what extension l\IASON gives to his designation
"angular margin" in so far it concerns of Puerto Rico.
From the older illustrations of Puerto Rican material which must
have been accessible to :\IASOK, no indication can be obtained.
Not one entire vessel is published in his monograph about the
Latimer Collection.
A narrow angular margin is often found on cazuelas in Florida
and southern Alabama. Usually it is vertical or inclines
slightly inwards; but occasionally it bends outward. At any rate
it never turns in at such a sharp angle as is found in the specimen
from Puerto Rico, discussed by MASON, "whose angular overarching,
in addition, can scarcely be regarded as a margin, but
rather constitutes the proper form of the vessel.
Now let us pass over to the characteristic 1Jessel-/orms,
which the Southeastern States have in common with 'tainan
ceramlC.
Caz'Uelas of the form that HARRINGTON cites from Cuba are
particularly common in Florida and southern Alabama. Types
') In addition, DUERDEN, PI. V, I and 3.

330
with first of all the wall, and then the nm bent inward at an
angle,!) as in Santo Domingo, occur more rarely.
Closed, large, comparatively low vessels are more common in
Florida and southern Alabama with curved over-arched top2)
than with angular over-arching.3) On the other hand, in Floridian
cazuelas angular over-arched rims are more general by far.
Taken in general, closed, over-arched vessels are characteristic of
Tainan ceramics, and especially for that region lying next to
}'lorida. They are with one exception lacking in Jamaican pottery.
In the Ignerian ceramics on the Virgin Islands is found a
tendency towards closed vessels over-arched at an angle,4) to say
nothing of angularly over-arched rims. These last occur also on
St. Kitts,5) although the outward-turned rim is more customary
there. On these islands, that characteristic follows the late­
Ignerian, thin-walled ceramics. The vessel fragment with spout
from Carriacou has a wall that bends inwards at an angle. 6 ) I
have already mentioned the spout of this potsherd. The spout
must represent a late form on Carriacou, and St. Kitts, and mnst
have come in by way of northern Venezuela (Hato Viejo), ultimately
from Central America and Mexico.
There is an angularly over-arched vessel in Erin Bay ceram-
1) jY[OORE, Cert. Aboy. Remains of the Alabama River, Fig. 40, Mound on Charlotte
Thompson Place, with cngrayed parallel lines and on the rim, decorations
also COlllmOn in Santo Domingo.
'l MOORE, Sand Mounds of Duval County, Florida, J ourn. Ac. )Jatur. Sciences,
Phila., Vol. 10, PI. LXXI; Certain A bar. Remains at the N. W. Florida Coast,
Pt. I, Ibid., Vol. II, Fig. II with engrayed paralJellines and two rows of punctations,
Fig. I2, with engraved parallel lines, both frolll mound near Maester
Creek; Fig. 34, mound at Walton's Camp, engraved me android decoration with
rounded short-sides; Fig. 70, mound near Point \Vashington; Ibid., Pt. II, Vol. 12,
Fig. 2I, larger mound near Burnt Mill Creek; Figs. 249, 252 and 255 (entirely
closed, opened only by breaking to pieces) Hall Monnd; Certain Abor. 1VIounds
Central Florida W. Coast, Fig. 83, mound near Pithloachaocotle Rh-er; The Northwestern
Florida Coast Revisited, Fig. 4, monnd near Spring Hill Landing.
3) MOORE, Cert. Abor. Ran. Alabama Rill., Ibid., Vol. II, Fig. 3I, cetemery,
Durand's Bend; N. W. Florida Coast, Pt. II, Ibid. Vol. 12, Fig. II5, mound near
Strong's crossing and Fig. 338, mound near Horseshoc Point,
4) HATT, Arch. Virgo Islands, Fig. 6k, Spratt Hall, St. Croix; Fig. 7 d, Coral
Bay, St. J oh11.
5) FEWKES II, P1. 85 D; BRANCH, Fig. 29.
~\ FS,VKES II, 1'1. 62 C.

33 1
ics, in Trinidad.!) A low, closed, flattened vessel with rounded
over-arching is found in the ceramics of St. Bernard.2) Probably
its presence on Trinidad has a late South American connection.
Another small relatively high vessel has its middle portion
over-arched at an angle. 3) Rounded over-arching of the wall,
occurs in the archaic ceramics of the shell mounds of British
Guiana,4) and on a canteen with one' handle the top being
conical.5) "Unfortunately as yet not one single complete vessel
from the older archaic Ignerian ceramics is known. The small
potsherds throw no light on the question if closed vessels had
once existed.
Closed vessels must be looked upon as very typical of Tainan
ceramic. The over-arched rim on the Tainan pottery is a characteristic
also met with in the younger Ignerian and the Jamaican
ceramics, but nowhere else than in Tainan ceramic closed bowls
are found. In· Tainan ceramics, especially when it concerns
rounded over-arching, these must have come into existence under
an influence from Florida that never reached Jamaica.
The occurence of 6- or 5-cornered platters in Florida and the
number 6 represented by lugs in the Tainan culture on St. Croix
and St. Thomas, I also look upon as dependent on a Floridian
influence, of which evidence of other kinds can be found there.
If we now turn to the engraved decoration, we find that the
extended, incised and as well compressed meandering ornamentation
with rounded corners, is common in the ceramics of the
Southern States, Alabama6) as well as Florida. 7) That kind of
meandering decoration only is found in Tainan ceramics in the
\Vest Indies.
I attach less importance to engraved parallel lines, rows of
punctations,8) and I should like to add moulded heads that turn
') FEWKES II, PI. 2 A.
2) DE Boov, Arch. Inv. in Trinidad, PI. VI. c.
a) Ibid., PI. VI b.
4) G. M., 31.24.73, Kamakusa, Mazaruni River.
5) ROTH, An Introductory Study of the Arts, etc., PL 33, a.
6) MOORE, Black Warrior River, Figs. 37, 39,157; Moundville Revisited, Fig. 47·
7) MOORE, N. W. Florida Coast, Pt. I, I~igs. I, 16, 21, 28, 34, 89, 107.
8) Ibid., Fig. 72.

332
towards the interior on the dish, as these characteristics are common
throughout archaic Indian ceramics in general.
In conclusion I will remark on two more especial analogies
between Tainan and Floridian ceramics.
The very over-arched vessel, KRIrtGER I, Pl. I9: 2, Santiago
Province, Santo Domingo, with only a slight opening, not only
has the pronounced over-arching 1n common with certain Floridian
vessels, but also has in addition an engraved circle around
the opening. Moreover, the form of the space within whose incised
lines a painted decoration occurs, I dont know from other Tainan
vessels. A previously mentioned Floridian dish has semi-circular
incised spaces, also, but without painting in the space. I )
HOLl\TES uses the term "symbolic decoration" for one vvith
repeated rhythmic figures occupying a band-like space around
the dish. 1'hese he considers different symbols for frogs. In
ordinary cases they are very unlike Tainan zemiistic figurerepresentations,
but in this particular one, such a series of figures
forming a band around a vessel,2) shows striking analogies to the
zemiistic figures as the Tainos represent them. In the curved
and coiled extremities of the big frog, the central figure, can be
seen a method of representation that can be traced in Tainan
engraved presentment and occurs properly in Guiana, where it is
found on tihki-clubs. It is found in no other part of South America,
and the Island-Arawaks must have taken this fashion of
representing extremities coiled, when they emigrated from the
mainland to the Antilles. Apart from this case from Florida, it
is foreign also to North America. The "baby's" figure at the left
has a counterpart in similar figures that occur in Puerto Rican
engravings on rocks,S) although the figure on the Floridian vessel
is more schematized than the pictographs of Puerto Rico. 1'0 the
right there is a lightning-flash. Lightning is also used in Puerto
Rican pictures in close connection with a zemi-figure.4) The two
') Ibid., Fig. 115.
2) A /Jor. Pot!. East U. S., PI. LXXXI d, together with MOORE, N. W. Florida
Coast, Pt. I, Vol. II, Fig. 26, mound at ,valton's Camp.
3) 1.'EWKES, I'rcl" Porto Rican Pictograj,hs, Amer. Anthrop., n. s., Vol. 5,
P1. XLVI, r6 and 18.
4) VE\VKES I, Pl. LXI a and d.

333
triangles over the Floridian frog-figure could possibly represent
clouds. The band-like space on the Floridian vessel perhaps represents
the frog that produced rain by magic. The zemis had that
function among the Tainos.
Influence from Tainan zemiistic figure-representation upon
"symbolic decoration" of Floridian ceramics, is the only case
of decoration I know where the origin lies on the Antillean
side. In the other cases where certain ceramic characteristics
are common to both Tainan and Floridian ceramics, I consider
that origin lies on the Floridian side. The only exception that
should be made is the occurrence of clay griddles in southern
Florida.
It is in the area of the proper Tainan ceramics that the
Floridian influence is perceptible. Because of our deficient
archaeological knowledge of Cuba and the Bahamas, it can not
yet be stated how directly this influence advanced to Santo
Domingo, where it was adopted.
Scarcely any direct ceramic influences from Mexico can be
found in the Tainan culture. But a previously named clay head,
HARRINGTON, fig. I9 b, from the Baracoa district with a snake
passing through the nose like in the Tlaloc divinities, seems to
me to have been produced in connection with Mexican influences.
Summary. Although many of the Lesser Antilles as well as
large districts of the Greater Antilles and the
largest part of the Bahamas are still unknown archaeologically,
the excavated material is nevertheless sufficient to establish the
general features of the course of development in the ceramics of
the Islands-Arawaks, even if we only know this in certain regions.
r. \\Then the Island-Arawaks took possession of the Antilles
successively, they brought with them an archaic pottery that
probably consisted only of open vessels. Moulding was not very
strongly developed, and generally inwards turned faces are found
on lugs inst~ad of heads. The engraved lines lack the punctations.
To these ceramics belong the archaic I gnerian and the Jamaican,
which later developed its own style, while it still preserved the
old characteristics. Successively, one after the other, peculiar
characteristics from South America made their way into the

334
southern Lesser Antilles, without the general character of the
archaic pottery suffering change. Just when real pot-handles
made their entry, remains uncertain. But when this practical
contrivance once came into the "Vest Indies, it was willinglyadopted
and advanced along the entire chain of islands to Jamaica.
2. On Trinidad, the Erin Bay potte

335
Probably Floridian influence has predominated in this connection.
HARRINGTON demonstrates how Tainan ceramics were introduced
into Cuba from Espanola at a late date and became dominant in
Oriente. HATT has shown that Tainan ceramics, through the
colonization by the Borinquenos, came to certain places on St.
Croix and SL Thomas. That happened at such a late period, that
the late-Ignerian hard-burnt ceramics painted before the firing
predominated there.
DE HOSTOS and I~OTHROP has sketched the course of development
of the ceramics in the Puerto Rican shell-heaps, in general
lines. \Vith few exceptions, we know the Tainan ceramics in
fully developed state on Santo Domingo, for the first time.
Through the finding of an old-fashioned horse-shoe, we learn that
the highly de\'eloped Tainan ceramics in eastern Santo Domingo
were contemporaneous with the arrival of the Spaniards.
vVe do not know the process of development through which
Jamaican ceramics were evolved into the unique ware that it
arrived at. Nor do vve know the pottery that the Tainos brought
with them, when they first set foot on Jamaican soil. The abovenamed
circumstances concerning 'l'ainan as well as Jamaican
ceramics, seem to me to indicate that the Tainan population on
the Greater Antilles increased rapidly in numbers and hand in
hand with the development of the culture. That is, I think, why
finding-places with proper Tainan or developed Jamaican ceramics
predominate so widely and "subtainan" are hardly to be found.
Both were developed for the first time after the immigration of the
Tainos to the Greater Antilles. We know very little about their
older ceramics, but they appear to have been mainly equivalent
to the archaic Ignerian. At the time directly after their immigration,
the Tainan popUlation on the Greater Antilles must have
been numerically small.
No pre-archaic ceramics can be exactly established on the
\Vest Indies. The vessels without decoration are merely cookingpots
or food-and drinking-bovvls, dishes and platters for daily nse.

CHAPTER V.
Towns and houses.
\Ve have already quoted the statements made by COLUMBUS
as to the size of the towns of the Lucayan Islands and in northeastern
Cuba. He estimated that a large town near Puerto de
Paz (Port de Paix) on the north coast of the Rep. Haiti, had
1000 houses and 3000 inhabitants.l ) If the number of houses is
correct, the population of the town must been placed at too moderate
a figure. It appears from the already mentioned account of LAS
CASAS about communities of Espanola with several ball-courts, that
the towns on this island attained a size that can only be explained
by the enormous wealth of good land suitable for the cultivation
of mandioca, in their vicinity.
In the same narration, LAS CASAS describes how the houses,
aside from the plaza in front of the cacique's house, were built
in an irregular manner and without streets. \Vhen COL1JMBUS lay
off Nuevitas on the coast of Cuba, he made the same observation
about the location of the houses in the large towns, which he saw
for the first time on this isla11lJ.2) On Espanola, LAS CASAS found a
definite plan of building only in Higuey. After felling the trees to
clear a place for the plaza, four "streets" were he\ved out 111 the
form of a cross. The reason for this particular arrangement was
that the rough ground in Higuey made communication and transportation
very difficult.:]) Consequently, these streets must be
considered to have been level.
However, not all of the towns were so large that they had real
plazas laid out.4) Those that COLUMBUS saw on the I,ucayan Is-
1) NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. 237.
2) Ibid., Vol. 8, p. 194.
3) See His/aria, Vol. 64, p. 86.
4) See 14AS CASAS, Apol. Rist., ed. Serrano y Sanz, p. 120 about differing size
of towns.

337
lands had only the character of villages. Indeed, it could happen
that a house lay isolated, as he was in a position to observe, for
instance at St. Nicolas, in Haiti.1)
I have already mentioned the lacustrine town, Carahate, on
the north coast of Cuba, as one of the towns of an uncommon kind. 2 )
\Ve know from the narration of LAS CASAS, that the houses of the
town stood on separate platforms and not merely on their own
piles; also that the houses were placed "sobre horcones en el agua" ,3)
that is, the horizontal beams of the platform rested on the usual
Indian forked piles.
COL1.i'1\iBUS visited another town of a very strange sort, during
his second voyage. It was situated on a bay of the west coast of
Puerto Rico that had an abundance of fish. "Salieron en tierra
algunos cristianos y fueron a tlllas casas por muy buen artificio
hechas todas, empero, de paja y madera, que tenian una plaza, con
un camino, desde ella hasta la mar, muy limpio y seguido, hecho
como una calle, y las paredes de canas cruzadas 6 tejidas, y por
10 alto tambien con sus verduras graciosas, como si fueran parras,
6 verjeles de naranjos 6 cidros, como los hay en Valencia 6 en Barcelona
y junto a la mar estaba un miradero alto, don de podian
caber diez 6 doce personas, de la misma manera bien labrado,
debia ser cas a de placer del senor de aquella isla, 6 de aquella parte
della. "4)
Therefore, a way bordered on both sides with hedges of interlacing
plants led from the plaza of this Puerto Rican town, the
residence of the cacique, down to the sea where there was a construction
which the Spanish took to be a watch-tower,5) DON
1) KAYARRETE, Vol. I, p. 234.
2) LAS CASAS, Historia, Vol. 65, p. 30 says that Carahate lay "en la ribera
de la mar del Korte", where it may not have been the only pile-village for Las
Casas, Ibin., says "pasados otros". In JOYCE, Centro Amer. and West Tnd. Arch.,
p. 221 and COSCULI.UET,A, citation from HARRINGTON, Cuba Before Columbus, p.
78, Carahate was situated in the region of Sagua la Grande.
3) Ibid.
4) LAS CAS.\S, Historia, Vol. 63, p. TO; DON FERNANDO, His/aria, Vol. I, p.
212, trying to correct his father's acconnt, makes it worse and confuses its mean·
ing. An English translation of D. Fernando's description is found in JOYCE,
Ibid., p. 22 I.
0) Ibid.

FERNANDO designates it a "tab1ado". In this case also, therefore,
probably the lookout was placed on a platform, supported by
piles, but in neither of the two texts do we learn anything of the
form of construction.
'Where the cacicazgo was strongly developed, as in Espanola,
the plaza was used for the representative communication between
the cacique and the people. \Ve will return later to the festivals,
dances and ball-games, which we have only touched upon lightly
in the preceding chapters. At the time of the mobilization in Higuey
against the Spaniards, the contingents from the surrounding towns
on the previously mentioned cross-roads leading to the plaza,
assembled in the centre of the town. l ) Beheccio presented
gladiatorial games between tvvo divisions of his archers "en 1a
plaza del pueblo" for the entertainment of D. Bartolome Colon
and his men.2)
\Ve have already stated that the great house of the cacique
was located in the plaza. There do not seem. to have been any
particular houses of assembly on Espanola, and it may well be
questioned if such meeting-places really existed on Cuba. It is
possible, that the immense house in Caonao (province of Camaguey)
in which the horrible massacre of Cubans took place,3) might have
been a meeting-house. As a general rule, the receptions for the
Spaniards took place in the great houses of the caciques. 4 )
The cacique with his wife and concubines lived in the spacious
cacique-residence.
Apart from the plaza and the house of their cacique,.the townspeople
dwelt in houses accommodating several families. It could
llappen that 10-15 111en ,vith tllcir wives and families lived nen
1) 14AS CASAS, Historia, Vol. 64, p. 86-87.
2) Ibid., Vol. 65, p. 139.
3) Ibid., Vol. 65, p. 23.
4) Ibid., Vol. 63, p. 139, Vol. 64, p. 51, Xarag·ua; SOLLACIO, Pavia I3 dicembre
1494 Raccolta di Doc. Parte Ill, Vol. II, p. 90, Guacanagaris town, in
which his house was the largest, see NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. 266, RACCor.TA, Ibid.,
p. 76 Cuba's souih coast. According to MARTYR, Mac Nutt's Trans., Vol. I, p.
120, the cacique's town in Xaragua had an especial building, used for feasts and
dancing. Nevertheless this must have belonged to the king's group of houses, and
not have been a meeting-place of all the men, with daily use.
5) SCII.LACIO, Ibid.

339
una casa de paja que terna comunmente treinta y cuarenta pies
de hueco, aunque redonda, y que no tiene retretes ni apartados."l)
In describing a town near Baracoa, COLUMBlJS says "aquellas casas
eran de manera que se acogen en ellas mucha gente en una sola,
y deben ser parientes de un solo." In the houses of this town, the
sailors also found skulls in baskets,2) which were covered with other
baskets, "y colgado de un posto de 1a casa." Later LAS CASAS
verified the statement of COLUMBlJS, about the houses for many
families. 3)
There are sufficient grounds for the belief that originally the
Tainos only had round houses. COLUMBUS and LAS CASAS, who learnt
to know them in their primitive condition, mention only round
houses. Cor,lJlVIBUS mentions no reetangu1ar house in his diary; on
the contrary he speaks of the bellform of the Tainan houses, or
that they were "hechas a 1a manera de al£aneques" .4) \Vhen on his
third voyage ha received information in Paria of "una casa grande,
hecha ados aguas", he adels "y no reelonda, como tienda de campo,
de 1a manera que son las de las is1as."5) This was the house of the
town-cacique, where the sailors were entertained during a festivity.S)
LAS CASAS mentions no four-cornered houses among the Tainos, not
even in his general n:~sume,7) and never does he say that the cacique's
house in particular ,vas quadrangular. On the other hanel,
he describes the cacique-house in Behecchio's residential town in
Xaragua as a large caney, but otherwise built like the Tainan
houses-. 8) By caney is to be understood only the round house.9)
1) I4AS CASAS. Apol. Hist., ed. Serrano y Sanz, p. 120.
2) NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. 223.
3) Histaria, Vol. 64, p. 474.
4) NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. 183-184 "y muy altas de buenas chimeneas,"
l,ucayans, p. 194, ,YUtvitas, p. 201-202, Bayamo, Cuba; Alfaneqne means a Moorish
army tent.
5) I,AS CAS,\S, His/oria, Vol. 63, p. 243.
6) Ibid., p. 243--244.
7) Apol. His!., ed. Serrano y Sanz, p. 120 and 113.
8) H istaria, Vol. 64, p. 51.
.) OVIEDO, Historia, Vol. T, p. r64 and 165. In a dOlCument of I50T, RAC­
COL'fA, Pt. III, Vol. I, p. 59, which treats of the second voyage of Columbus, it
is deiinitcly stated that Guacanagari's "casa" was "de circumfcrcncia 32 granpassi
et era tonda."

340
During his expedition into the interior, COLUMBUS found only
round houses in Cibao. 1)
OVIEDO is the only one who gives a detailed description of the
material and the construction of the Haitian house. Everything in
his account seems to indicate that the Haitians had not yet renounced
the building methods of their fore-fathers. Still it is striking
that the author introduces four-cornered houses also, as purely
Indian, they being "hechas (l dos aguas y luengas, como las de los
christian os " . \Vhen he saw the houses of the Haitian Indians, he
was reminded of the stravv-covered houses, that he had once seen in
I"landers. These rectangular Haitian houses were for "hombres
mas principales e caciques."2)
\Vhen Ovnmo made his observations about Espanola, there had
not been a great cacique there for a long time, in the sense of the
ancient times. The repartimientos were annulled and the few Indians
that survived, had been in part returned to new little towns,
to carryon agriculture for themselves. During the period of repartimientos,
the caciques and nobility had been rather like overseers
for their naborias, in their labours for the colonists. The
caciques had also entered into close relations ,'lith the Spaniards,
and their sons were frequently sent into the homes of the owners
of estates, in order to learn Spanish. There are many presnmptions
that the caciques and nitainos appropriated Spanish novelties,
and when it was possible turned them to good account for
themselves.
The Haitians found no especial difficulties in the transition
from polygonal houses to four-cornered ones, as regards the location
of the posts, the joining-together, and the covering. Instead
of placing the posts in a cornered circle, they are arranged in a
rectangle. In place of an upright stick of timber to support the
roof at the central point, this was sustained by a row of "horcones
que ad llamamos haytinales que llegan a la cumbrera e caballete
alto," that extended the whole length of the house.3) The insertion
of the walls between the posts remained the same. Instead
of the roof-beams being united as in the round house to the cen-
1) D. FERNANDO, up. cit., Vol. I, p. 225.
") Ibid., p. 164.
3) Ibid.

34I
tral post that supported the entire roof,1) they were now fastened
at an angle and opposite to each other to the ridge-piece,2) which
lay on forked posts.
'rhe transition from the polygonal to the rectangular house was
only revolutionary in appearance. In the lowlands of South America
also, where house-construction is similar to that of the Haitians
it can be observed that the Indians, as soon as they came into
superficial contact with the white race, changed from round to
rectangular house Thus the Passes build round houses in the
woods, but rectangular houses in the vicinity of the whites.3)
Although there is a great probability that the rectangular
Indian house with roof having a roof-beam first appeared in
Espanola due to Spanish influence, still we must not forget that this
form of house already in Indian times, must have had a tendency
to advance from western regions and probably also from more
southern ones nearer to the Amazon, to the northeastern part of
South America. To judge from the oldest accounts, the round
house was much more predominant there in primitive days than
in more recent times.
It is certain that there were rectangular houses among the
Island-Caribs in the seventeenth century.4) But it can not be
ascertained with the help of the oldest sources, if they had these
before they came into intimate contact with Europeans, through
their negroes. I doubt very much if MARTYR'S description of a house
on the occasion of the visit of COLUMBUS to Guadeloupe 5 ) during his
second voyage, does refer to Espanola rather than to Guadeloupe.
His information agrees essentially with OVIEDO'S description of the
Haitian caney, although MARTYR'S statement is not so complete as
that of OVIEDO. In his description, MARTYR says that the houses
had a circular form, that is to understand like that of the Haitian
1) Ibid., "en medio un poste etc."
2) "Caballete".
3) MAR'I'IuS, Zur Ethnogr. p. 510.
4) I.A BORDE, Op. cit., Fig. 7.
5) Mac Nutt's Trans!., Vol. I, P. 71. The introduction to MAR'I'YR'S description
betrays clearly that it was inserted it propos. Also, another passage, somewhat
later, in respect to religion, seems to me to indicate Espanola and. not Guadeloupe.
Opportune additions and interchanges by mistake, although not perceptible
in the current text, are not at all unusual in MAR'!'YR.

342
polygonal caneys. But the normal type of house among the Island-Caribs
was ovaP) This form can still be seen at the present
time on the interior savannas of Guiana. No doubt the presence
of a roof-beam of the oval manna of the Island-Caribs, instead
of the central post of the round Haitian caney, points to
influences from the rectangular house on a circular one that existed
earlier. So in this way the manna became a house "i dos aguas".
At the same time I wish to say that the oval house with roofbeam
preceded the rectangular and became the predominant
and normal form among the Island-Caribs.
It is very probable that in the mother-nation of the Island­
Caribs, the continental Calinas, the house underwent early changes
under European influence. Through the expedition of Ar,ONSo DE
HOJEDA, in I499, in which VESPUCCI also took part, we have received
the oldest description of the Calinas of the coast of Guiana,
as they were before they were exposed to European influence. It
is striking that this account only mentions immense tribal-houses,
that were bell-shaped and had accommodation for up to 600 persons2)
- that is, not oval like the manna of the Island-Caribs
in the seventeenth century. At the end of the sixteenth and
the beginning of the seventeenth centuries, English, French and
Dutch navigation was very active along this "Coste Sauvage",
while the Spanish were carrying on trade with the Arawaks a long
time before this. In I606, JOHN Wn,soN described the big tribalhouse
of the Arawak J aois on the coast of Guiana as "built after
the manner of our barnes in England," ISO paces long and some
20 paces broad.3) Probably rectangular houses are meant here,
and it is likely that they came into use through European influence.
The Guarauno-town discovered by HOJEDA and VESPUCCI had,
built on pilework, "20 casas mlly grandes de la hechllra de las
') BRETOX, Diet. Car.-Franc., p. 354-355 with a ridge-piece in roof, resting
on two posts, Ibid., p. go. This manna of the Island-Caribs did not have the
relatively high, compact walls of the Haitian house. Instead, the roof reached
almost to the floor, as in a malaca.
2) Even when it says that these houses were "de madera fortisima, aunque
cubiertas de hojas dc palmas", they could not have had the strong walls of the
Haitian caney, as these Indians changed residence every eight years.
3) PURCHAS, op. cit., p. 1263.

343
otras (that is, the houses of the Calina-town visited shortly before)
en forma de campana."l)
Along the Lower Orinoco also, the houses originally were only
round. The large Indian town, Artiacay, that may have been
situated at the commencement of the delta, consisted of "doscientos
buhio:; redondos y grandes"2) On the other hand, when Ordaz's
men, shortly after they had turned their boats at the place
where the rapids begin, came to a town with "cinco 6 seys
casas 6 buhios hechos :1 dos aguas 10 qual fue cosa nueva a los
christianos, porque todos los que avian visto hasta entonces eran
redondas,"3) they were astonished. This shows that the Indians
of the middle Orinoco had entire towns with rectangular houses,
before the Conquest. In another connection I have mentioned
the warlike tribe that occupied this town, and at the same
time pointed out that the tribe must have belonged to an immigrant-complex
that had reached the Orinoco from the Southwest,
and also that culturally it stood on a level with the Caverres and
Guipun:1vis, as well as the tribes northwest of the Amazon. Thus
we receive an indication that the rectangular, purely Indian house
had its origin near the southwestern course at the Orinoco.
The house "8, dos aguas" seems to have been a much more
isolated occurrence in Paria. The first monk-missionaries in
Chiribiche (or Guaripiche), a Carib settlement in Paria4), informed
MARTYR 0) that the posts were placed upright first of all "in the
shape of a tent" and that the roof is of straw. 6 ) Probably here we
have to do here with a house-construction resembling the polygonal
caney, which likewise resembles an alfaneque, or Moorish armytent.
Still we learn nothing in MARTYR about the walls. Probably
they were not of the same solidity as those of the Haitian caney.
It is certain that in Faria, as in Guiana, there were open honses
') 1,AS CASAS, Ibid., p. 402.
2) OvmDo, Histaria, Vol. II, p. 220.
3) Ibid.
') MARTYR, Mac Nutt's Trans., Vol. n, p. 367. These Caribs were Chirigotos,
in the mountains east of Maracapana. See OVIEDO Y BANOS, Vol. II, Doc.,
P. 225, "viYen en sierras 1a mayor parte dellas moutosas."
5) Ibid., p. 393.
6) Ibid., p. 387.

344
without walls, for the sailors of Columbus saw "una casa grande
descubierta"l) at "cabo de la Paria."
On Trinidad also, in purely Indian times there were very
large tribal houses, "de forma de campana donde cupieran y pudieran
V1Vlf cien personas". In a few days they set up the posts
"y varas y latas muy tejidas" and the straw-roof was then placed
over this construction. 2)
Only Ovnwo gives complete and exact information about the
form of the Haitian caney. The general Tainan name for houses
was "buhio" "(que quiere decir casa 6 moradap) pero propriamente
en la lengua de Hayti e1 bU}lio 6 casa se llama eracra".)4) OVIEDO'S
description of the Haitian caney follows: "Hillcaban muchos postes
ala redonda de buena madera y de la groseza (cada uno) conviniente,
y en circuyto a quatro 6 cinco passos e1 un poste del otro,
o en el espacio que querian que oviesse de poste a poste: e sabre
ellos, despues de hincados en tierra por encima, en 10 alto ponenles
sus soleras, e sobre aquellas ponen en torno la vara

345
madero can otro e para atar las canas assi mismo. El buhio 6 casa
de tal manera fecho llamase caney."l)
For the most part the posts were of such wood as did not rot
easily, as for example corbana and guayacan. 2 ) The construction
and the walls also must have been very resistant, for not even a
hurricane destroyed the befucos. 3 ) On the other hand the roof
rotted and had to be replaced each second or third year.4)
The middle post was rammed securely into the earth "quatro
6 cinco palmos hondo" and the radial ratters of the roof were
bound fast to its point.a)
OVIEDO does not speak of a floor in his description. In the
eighteenth century, a floor elevated on piles because of inundations
was generally used in Puerto Rico. S ) But if in the description
of Ovnmo that is so exact in other respects, there is no mention
of floor this is no reason for an other presumption than that in
his time, it had not yet become one of the elements of the
Haitian house. That the house was without a floor, can likewise
be deduced from the fact that the vertical "varas" of the walls
buried a piece in the ground. Moreover, that the floor consisted
of only well-leveled earth seems confirmed by the expression of
COLUMBUS, "las casas -- - -- de dentro muy barridas y limpias." 7)
Probably the Tainos could dispense with raised floors, as they
did not live in regions where there were annual inundations, and
understood how to select places for settlement with good drainage.
It was different with their Arawak kinsmen in the low creek coastland
of the Wina, in Guiana. l'here the yearly floods and the
danger of poisonous snakes. 8) - which danger did not exist in the
Greater Antilles and the I,ucayan Islands - were sufficient reasons
for elevating the floor of the house on piles.
If the Tai110s did not raise floors on their ca11eys, it is
1) Ibid., p. 163--16+ An English summary of this description of OnEDo is
found in FEWKES I, p. 43 and in JOYCE, Centr, Amer. And We"t Ind, Arch" p. 220.
2) Ibid, p, r65,
3) MARTYR, ;'vIae ~utt's Trans" Vol. II, p, 309.
4) OUEDO, Histaria, p, 105.
5) Ibid., p. 164.
6) SOTO:IIAYER (Author, D. INIGO AllEAD), Op. cit., p. 34-35.
7) ~A\,ARRJ;TE" Vol. r, p. 194, This observation was made at Nuevitas (Cuba,)
8) COlllp. VAX Cor,L., Op. cit., p, 477.

certain that it was not because they did not understand the art of
building platforms on pile-work.W e have also seen that the Tainos
knew the forked posts, so common among the higher tribes of the
South American lowlands, or "hay tin ales" , as they were called
by the oldest Spanish colonists. All the evidence now available
seems to indicate that the pile-building of the Tainos was developed
from South American resources. On the other hand, the beams
of the platforms in the pile-dwellings at Key Marco, Florida lay
on piles that were pointed above and below. Such pile-constructions
of the Key Dwellers CUSHING has named "peg-supported
platforms. "1)
Unfortunately in the accounts handed down from antiquity,
the Indian house in northeastern South America is not described
as exactly as OVIEDO did the Haitian one. We learn nothing definite
about the walls. But that the Indian houses in the northeast
part of South America had walls similar to those of the Haitian
houses described by OVIEDO, may be concluded from the fact that
such may be observed even to-day on the interior savannas of
British Guiana,2) to say nothing of other regions of the tropical
lowland as far as the upper Amazon. Guiana's inland plains have
preserved the old-Indian mode of house-construction to a greater
extent than the coast-lands, where dwell the True Arawaks, close
kinsmen to the Tainos. The cold night winds of Roraima are the
reason that the round houses with closely interwoven rod walls
and central post for the roof, are still to be found there to-day.3)
Probably this type of round houses is very similar to the Haitian
caney, only that the house in Roraima has in addition the walls
daubed with clay. \Ve must consider the Haitian house as a
savanna type. As a rule the Haitians also lived in an open country,
where fresh winds blew. The house without walls belongs to the
bush in Guiana.4) That the sailors of COLUMBUS saw in Paria "una
1) Expl. Of Anc. Key Dwellers Rem., p. 362.
2) FARABEE, The Centro Ar., p. 17. Gn,IJ, Vol. II, PI. III shows a kind of
diagonal straw weaving between simple, relatively wide-standing wall-stakes,
unknown in Espanola.
3) See IM THuRN, Am. The Ind. p. 203 and 207-zo8; also KOCH-GRUNBERG,
Vom Roroima zum Orinoco, Vol. I, Berl. 1916, PI. 50, Yekua1w & Fig. 86, Motoknrunxa.
4) 1M THURN, Ibid., p. 203.

347
casa dascubierta", something at that time very outstanding and
noteworthy, seems apparently dependent on the fact that a climate
with calms was enjoyed there, while the Indian settlements on
the Tainan islands were more exposed to the trade winds and
other winds.
The "postales que sirven de zaguan"l) named by OVIEDO in
his description of the rectangular Haitian house, as well as the
window seen in his illustration, must be attributed to Spanish
influence.
There were hammocks suspended between the posts in the
house. 2 ) The smaller household utensils hung down from the roof,
and presumably from the radial rofters also.3) In a large house
at Baracoa, COLUMBUS found "colgado al cielo della caracoles y
otras cosas."4) I

Many things indicate that the Arawak race propagated over
the tropical lowlands of South America a type of house that in
its elements and construction resembled the Tainan house. But
as the Indian house has been very little investigated up to the present
time, it would be too early to express an opinion on the subject.
The thing that is important above all others for our thesis,
is that the Tainan house was fully up to date with a higher development
in north eastern South America. With regard to the preceding
discussion, I must consider it very improbable that the
rectangular house reached the Tainos in Indian times.!)
Only OVIEDO'S illustration of a Haitian caney shows a door.
But he made his observations at a comparatively late period of
time, and his illustrations are inexact in many cases.2) Nothing in
the historical sources indicates that the Tainos had the custom of
daubing their walls with clay.
Still, it may be possible to obtain better information about
the form of the Tainan house through a study of the arrangement
of the posts found in the ground. ALDEN MASON found as many
as 99 posts near the plazas and on the elevated platform not very
far from Ut11ado. 3)
Aside from the pile-dwellings on the north coast of Cuba, the
laying of floors can not be established in the 'fainan houses. Floors
must be considered the last element in the development of the
house in the tropical lowlands of South America. A platform of
tree-trunks rested with its beams on forked piles. But the
pile-dwelling platform preceded the laying of floors as an integral
part of the house. From the preceding description we
see that the platform on forked piles was known to the Tainos.
Circumstances among the Tainos reveal in the best possible way
that this sort of platform was a discovery in and by itself, originally
without any connection with the house. As a general rule and in
proper usage, they served among the Tainos as places of storage
1) OVIEDO uses caney as the especial name for the round house, but there is
no particular Tainan name for the rectangular one.
2) This door had diagonal laths. An Indian door of the primitive type is
pictured by GUs'rAF nOI,INDER, Ijea India17ernas Kultur, Alingsas 1918, has
vertkal laths.
") Proc. of the Nine!. Int. Congr. of Americanists, held at 'Washington, p. 222.

349
for cassava. \Vhen there was an abundant cassava crop, LAS
CASAS says: "ponen las tortas en unos cadalechos de palos 0 canas
sobre un as horquetas, medio estado altas del suelo."l) l'hus it
vms very important for the conservation of the cassava to protect
it from the rain. LAS CASAS does not inform us if these platforms
were located in the interior of the houses, or were covered with
leaves, or had individual roofs for themselves. If the last was the
case, in this way a step was made towards the sheds that were used
in the drier portions of the South American lowlands for the conservation
of the maize. In this connection it may be interesting
to note that these sheds always stood on piles, even when the
houses, as among the Chanes, were placed directly on the ground. 2 )
1) Apol. Hist., Ed. Serrano y Sanz, p. 3I. Compo OVIEDO, Histaria, Vol. II,
p. 257. in regards to the barbacoas of the Curnanagatas.
2) Compo NORDENSKIOLD, Indianerleben, p. 174-175.

CHAPTER VI.
Agriculture; Culture-Plants.
The islands the Tainos lived on, were for the most part a
veritable Arawak paradise. The soil was suitable for yuca and
other plants that they cultivated. There was an abundance of
edible fish in the rivers and above all along the coast. Meat
played a less important role in the diet of the Arawak race. Big
game did not exist. On the savannas and in the woods were to
be found great quantities of small rodents of the Capromys species,
and also certain birds were easily captured by their very
primitive methods of hunting. But as also in the other Arawak
tribes, it was nevertheless the soil that provided the l'ainos with
cassava, their staple food together with certain other cultureplants
especially suitable to Indian requirements.
The most important of the plants that they cultivated, apart
from those that had supplied purely Indian needs, have continued
in existence, even if in the Antilles they are not a direct
inheritance from the Tainos.
Agriculture.
In regards to agricultural implements, the Tainos
had not emerged from that stage of Indian agriculture,
called by SAPPER, "Dibble-agriculture".!) In consideration of
the fact that the Tainos heaped up large round heaps of earth,
it would be easy to believe that they had received the hoe from
Florida, as that is the implement used for this work in North
America. 2 ) But indeed the only agricultural tools that the Tainos
') KARI, SAPPER, Der Feldbau der mittelamerikanischen Indianer, Globus, Vol.
XCVII. Braunschweig 1910, p. 9.
2) CLARK WISSI,ER, The American Indian, New York 1917, p. 25 & 27 mentions
it especially in the cultivation of maize, together with squashes and beans
are planted. CUSHING, Anc. Key Dwellers Rem., p. 368, found large sharpened
conch-shells with remains of handles, in the pile-dwellings of Key Marco. He

35 I
possessed were the eoa, the dibble with hard-burnt point,!) and of
course stone-axes for clearing of the soil. The Tainos were therefore
on a level with the agricultural tribes of the South American
lowlands, as regards implements. On the other hand, their method
of maize cultivation, points in many ways to Mayan influence.
But the principal culture-plant of the Tainos was not
maize but mandioea, which they brought with them from South
America.
As I am not a botanist and therefore can not distinguish
what belonged to the original Flora of the Antilles and what did
not, I can only express my opinion on historical reports as to
which culture-plants the Tainos brought with them from South
America, or found existing on the Antilles, or adapted to their
use from other regions after their immigration.
Great difficulties arise also in the identification of the plants,
and in the association of the different names with the Latin nomenclature.
In this task the fact that the Spaniards on Espanola
adopted the Tainan names at an early date and later used them
in their reports of South American discoveries, is of great assistance.
From this we can see how the otherwise distant Greater
Antilles had very much in common with the South American
tropical lowlands. It could indeed be the case, that some of these
culture-plants have found their way from the Antilles to South
America, but as a general rule we can seek their origin on the
South American side. In this connection, it must also be taken
into consideration how few of all these cultivated plants have
reached that part of northern Central America that had not been
invaded by tribes who immigrated from South America, whereas
almost all the cultivated plants of the tropical lowlands of South
regarded them as a sort of hoe, of the same class as in Le Moine from Indians
at the mouth of the St. Johns River. See DE BRY. Historiae Arnericae sive
Novi Orbis, Brevis Narratio Eorum quae in Florida Arnericae Galtis acciderunt.
Auctore Jacopo Le Moijne, Francoforti 1591, PI. XXI.
1) LAS CASAS in Apol. Hist. Ed. Serrano y Sanz, p. 31, in Historia, Vol. 64,
p. 72, Vol. 63, p. 174, "sus coas que son unos palos tostados que usan por azados"
in A. de I., Vol. VII, p. 57. FEWKES designates The Abor. of Porto Rico,
PI. XXXIX a, as an "ornamented planting dibble." If this interpretation -
is correct, it is indeed an exquisite piece of work. The common dibble of the
Tainos must have had neither crutch nor decoration.

352
America through the emigrated Arawaks had reached the West
India. The Tainos did not obtain their plants of South American
origin, by way of Central America or Yucatan.
The possibility exists that there was a wild species of cotton
on Espanola,!) but it is more likely that this was cultivated cotton
run wilcl.2)
The maize came originally from the great central plateau of
Mexico,3) and I will not discuss its later Indian expansion. The
interest for our theme lies in the fact that even if the Tainos
originally brought cotton and maize with them from South America,
the probability is that later they had received hard maize
from the Mayas.
III anioc, the great culture-plant, which above all others constituted
the national food of the 'l'ainos, they had exclusively in
common with the agricultural tribes of the tropical lowlands of
South America. The same was true in a high degree, even if not
exclusively, for the two culture plants of essentially less significance,
batatas and ajes.4) Not only manioc, but also ajes must
have been old Indian culture-plants, for both, even ajes,5) were
propagated by means of sets.
1) OVIEDO, Historia, Vol. I, p. 270.
2) There were of course Indians that planted cotton in Espanola. It was
different on the uninhabited Galapagos Islands. See SAFFORD, Distribution of
Agriculture, Proc. of the Nineteenth Int. Congr. of Americanists, 'Vash. 1917, p. 275.
3) See SP1NDEX, Anc. Civ. Of }llex. And Centro Am., p. 47.
4) I will not take the time to discuss here the great diffusion of the balata
in America. OVIDEO, Historia, VoL I, p. 273, mentions another species of alB,
small and bitter, from Castilla del Oro thus differing from the native Haitian
species. They, were introduced and seem to have get predominated in the islands.
This small aje-species can not be the same, introduced from Guinea, as
this was generally larger than the ajes of Espanola. See OVIEDO, Vol. I, p. 286.
5) OVIEDO, Ibid., KORDExsK10r,D, Deductions Suggested By The Geographical
Distribution Of Some Post-Columbian Words Used By The Indians Of S. America
Gothenburg, 1922, p. 65, cites NAVARRETE, p. 66, cites C-\BRAI,'S Expedition,
Brazilian Coasts, p. 68, SAI,INAS LOYOI,A, the woods east of Loxa, p. 60 cites
OR'fIGUERA" Amazonas, and p. 70 cites FEDERMANN, the interior of northwestern
Venezuela, in opposition to botanists and thus presents incontestable historical
proofs that the aje is an American and not an African Dioscorea species.
Ajes are also pre-Colombian in Central America. The great Mayan canoe that
COLU:\lIlc;S met near Guanaja on his last voyage carried for provisions maize, ajes
and batatas. See LAS CASAS Histaria, Vol. (,4, p. rog.

353
These three great food-plants in particular were cultivated
by the Tainos in montones,l) as well as batatas, which were also
raised in round earth heap in the Southern States. 2 )
Nowhere in the tropical lowlands of South America was cultivation
in earth-heaps so extensive as among the Tainos. Indeed,
the question may be asked whether this planting in montones
\vas an independent invention of the Tainos, or one acquired
through North American influence vvhich spread from the Antilles
to the nearer parts of South America.
The tropical rains in the rainy season penetrate to a considerable
depth, so that manioc can be grown on flat cleared
land. In the trade-wind areas the conditions are different. On
slopes facing the trade-wind there is no really dry season. Rains
fall irregularly and in showers and do not penetrate deep into
the soi1.3) This is the reason why montones are raised to grow
manioc.
The \Vest Indies are totally under the influence of the tradewind.
In the districts of South America from which the method
of growing manioc in montones is recorded, the climate is thoroughly
tropical.
The short rainy season in the region of the trade-wind is
important to the sowing as well as to the early growth of the plants.
This manner of growing manioc in mont ones makes the native
more or less independent of the seasons, and he can enjoy his
manioc and other vegetables all the year round.
Cnltivation in montones can be considered as an adaptation
of tropical Indian agriculture, with manioc for its base, in its
transition from wood-plantations to plantings on the savannas,
or at any rate in the lighter wooded lands. In the Arawak idiom,
conoko or kunucu means \Vood,4) which consequently must have been
the original signification of the Taino conuco, "cultivated field".
') I,AS CASAS, Aj)ol. Hist., nd. Serrano y Sanz, p. 28, OVIEDO, Histaria, Vol. I,
p. 269, 211aniiioca, p. 273, Aje,., and p. 274, Datatas, :vrAR'£VR, MacKutt's Trans.,
Vol. I, p. 343, }llandioca.
2) WISSI.ER, Op. cit., p. 27.
3) Compo K. SAPPER, Geographie der altindianischen Landwirtschaft, Pet. Mitt.
1934·
.) MARTH'S, Worterbuch Bras. Spr., p. 310 and 717.
23

354
In regards to the agricultural work of the Haitians, LAS
CASAS says: "Estos (that is, trabajos) eran hacer unos montones
para el pan que se come, y esto, es alzar de la tierra que cavan,
cuatro palmos en alto, y dace pies en cuadro, y destos hacer diez
y doce mill juntos que gigantos se molieran,"l) and in his narration
about the planting of sets for yuca he says: "Hacian los
indios unos montones de tierra, levantados una vara de media y
que tenian en contorno 9 a I2 pies, el uno apartado de el otro
dos a tres pies, todos por su orden rengleras de mill y dos mill y
diez mill de luengo, y otras tantas de anchura, segun la cantidad
que detenninaban poner; hechos los mont ones tomaban la plant a
- -- - y hacen pedazos dellas de a palmo a poco mas de palmo,
y hincan seis a ocho a nueve dellos las yemas hacia arriba, en la
corona de cada monton, por su orden apartados uno de otro, a
Ia manera de un alquerque con que entre nosotros se juega, con
tres 0 cuatro rengleras, segun el monton es dentro todo en Ia
tierra, salvo dos a tres dedos que dejan fuera; la cual postura en
tiempo que no llueve, sino que en polvo esta la tierra, debe ser.
Sobreviniendo despues las aguas, prenden aquellos pedazos que
de palmo fueron puestos, y de cada yema de las que quedaron
fuera de la tierra, se produce su ramilIa." The roots of the yuca
grow in size in proportion to the amount of foliage above ground.
"Cuando esta labranza es ya de cuatro a cinco meses, que hace
copa es tan hermosa de ver de lejos y de cerca, que ni nuestras
vinas por mayo ni otra alguna huerta ni labranza puede parecer
mas hermosa mayormente cuando la labranza es grande que tiene
veinte 0 treinta mill montones de luengo juntos y cinco a diez
mill ancho, -- - -". Such a field of montones is called a conuco. 2)
LAS CASAS mentions vast conucas of montanes on Espanola, as for
example in Vega ReaP) and east of the city of Santo Domingo,4)
as well as in Cuba. 5 )
1) Historia, Vol. 64, p. 72.
2) Apol- Hist., Ed. Serrano y Sanz, p. 28; Camp. OVIEDO, Vol. I, p. 269.
3) Hisioria, Vol. 63, p. 373 .
•) ibid., Vol. 63, p_ 348.
5) [hid., Vol. 65, p. 251. Alantones and their formation are described here as
follows: "cavan haciendo montones tres 0 cuatro pies en cuadra y de tres 0 cuatro
pies 0 palmos en alto, y esto no can azadas ni azadones que les daban, sino can
U110S paios como garrotes, tostados"; Comp_ p. 300.

355
This information given by LAS CASAS has reference to savannaregions
with deep fertile soil, as at Vega Real on Espanola and
the lowlands of central Cuba.I )
OVIEDO as well has made a study of this Indian method of
planting in montones, or mounds, as observed on Espanola. He
describes it as follows: "Para sembrar esta planta (that is, the
yuca) hacen un os montones de tierra redondos por orden e linos,
como en el reyno de Toledo ponen las vinas y en especial en Madrid,
que se ponen las

points in heaping up the montones, and not hoes, which they
never wished to use, when they were given to them. I )
Planting in montones does not appear to have been practiced
extensively in the tropical lowlands of South America, where
as a general rule the mandioca-fields of the Indians lay mostly
in the woods, while the savannas generally had consisted of poor
soil with a long and uninterrupted dry season. In the districts
of the northern part of South America where the natives were
accustomed to make montones, this method of growing manioc
and other roots seems to have been introduced from the West
Indies and the Caribs to have played an important part in its
introduction.
Cultivation in montones can be established among the Island
Caribs,2) who were related to the Island Arawaks through their
wives. Among the True Arawaks on the coastal plains of Guiana
manioc also was planted in montones. "Wenn man Cassabi
p£1anzt, so macht man dazu erst mit der Hacke kleine Haufen
der durch die Asche gediingten Erde."3) Moreover the method of
planting in mont ones had reached Santa Marta,4) although there
they only had yuca dulce. 5 ) It seems to me that montones at
Santa Marta can be explained by the theory, that the Caribs in
their migration from the East brought the custom with them
from over seas and introduced planting in montones into Carimaira,6)
the region along the lower Magdalena River, where they
settled. At the time of the expedition of ORDAZ, the Indians had
a great quantity of cassava covered with bihao leaves in the large
town of A ruacay on the southern side of the base of the delta of the
Orinoco, which was probably inhabited by several tribes or clans. 7)
') Histaria, Vol. 64, p. 72, Espanola, Vol. 65, p. 251, Cuba. Confirmation of
WISSLER'S theory, Op. cit., p. 25, that the Tainos used hoes I can not find in any
historical source, nor from any of finds made.
2) BRETON, Op. cit., p. 328.
3) QUAND'C, Nachr. v. Suriname, p. 175. Compo 1M THURN, Am. The Ind.,
p. 251 and VAN Cor,r,., Op. cit., p. 489.
4) GOMARA, Op. cit., p. 238.
5) NORDENSKIOLD, Ded. Sugg. By The Geagr. Distrib. etc., p. 66 cites ENCISO
out of JOAQUIN ACOSTA.
6) Compo MAR'CYR, MacNutt's Trans .. p. 342-343.
') OVIEDO, Histaria, Vol. II, p. 220-221.

357
But the Spaniards only were in a position to observe the
beautiful results of their culture, but not their methods of
cultivation. Planting in mOl1tones could never have extended
further up the Orinoco. In regards to the annual inundations of
the Orinoco and the existence of morichales along the southern
side, the inhabitants of that region depended on the produce of
the ita-palm, or moriche, for their wood.!) The Arawak Alaipures,
vvho lived in a wooded district, were the nearest tribe whose alimentation
was based on manioc, np the river. 'rhe dry, sterile,
great interior savanna of British Guiana is scarcely suitable for
cultivation. The fields of the Wapisianas and Atorais lie hidden
in the woods, far away from their towns on the savanna. 2 ) It is
nevertheless noteworthy that the Flapisianas were acquainted
with the cultivation of manioc in montones. "Hills are dug up
about three feet apart, several stems (of yuca) being inserted in'
a slanting position in the loose earths to the depth of a foot or
more."3) Possibly the Trapisianas learned this method of planting
through their relations with the True Arawaks along the coast.
It is likely that there was more than one reason why the Tainos
on their savannas, without mighty woods, but still with deep,
fertile soil, heaped up the earth iu hills for the cultivation of certain
culture plants. Three of these reasons are indicated in the
sources.
First of all, they 'wanted the soil to be 100sened4) up, if the mandioca
sets were planted before the beginning of the rainy season. 5 )
Secondly, it must have been that the root was protected
against the dry season by the capillary h1im·£dity in the mounds,
while the outer layer of soil became like a powder.6) Luckily some
tradev,inel rains fall e\'ell ill the drier months in the regions where
the 'l'ainos hael their great monton-plantations. The burning
sun and evaporation-cansing winds make Indian agriculture
') Loyt". The Orinoco in Old Indian Times, XXII Congr. Int. Americanisti,
held at Rome 19Z(l, Vol. II, 1928, p. 716 and 724.
2) FAR."'BEE, The Centro .4.1'. p. 3I.
3) lbl:d.. Uke the Tainas, the Wapisianas originally had only [l pointed
dibble.
4) ovumo, Histaria. Vol. T, p. 21)9; FARABRE, Ibid .
•) lAS CASAS, Historia. Vol. 64, p. 72; FARABEJ·;, Ibid.
") Camp. LAS CAS.iS, Vol. 64, p. 72.

impossible the greater part of the year on the interior savannas of
British Guiana.I) An perennial plant like the yuca would not
have survived on the open savanna, not even in montones.
A third reason is the composting with shoveled ashes, which
QUANDT mentions. 2 )
Ii'inally there are other grounds for the use of montones by
the Indians that must be taken into consideration. Through the
heaping-up of hills of loosened humus soil, the yuca roots could be
developed in these without running the risk of coming in contact
with another layer of soil with conditions unfavourable to growth.
If the humus was deep enough for the growth of the root, by the
construction of montones it was easier to attain a loose and clodfree
soil without a plow. Of still greater signification ,,,'as it, that
the root could be removed from the easily-broken-up hills with
less difficulty than from the ordinary soil.
Naturally in open land like Vega Real or Camaguey, portable
humus is much more accessible in large quantities than in a roza
in the tropical woods, around which the too exuberant vegetation
presents a great obstacle.
Manioc. Manioc was over-cultivated in Espanola, and as a
result seed was wanting.3) A strong specialization
of species was exhibited not only on the islands but also on
the continent. OVIEDO mentions six different kind on Espanola
alone, namely YPatex, Diaconam, Nubaga, Tubaga, Coro and Tabocan,4)
In not other respect, as in all the preparation of cassava, may
the culture of the Tainos in the developing stage have differed so
1) Compo FARABEJo:, Ibid.
2) QUANDT, Ibid.
3) BEXZON1, Halil. Soc., VoL 21, p. 85,
4) His/aria, Vol. I, p. 27I. MARTIUS, Zur Ethnogr., p. 488, summarizes the
different species in South America. ERNST has tried to deri\-e a large number of
culture-plants in Venezuela and the West Indies from Guarani. In the majority
of cases his linguistic attempt must be regarded as a failure for the reason that
the Guarani-Tupi conld not possibly have originated them. In his investigation
he has also adopted the Haitian names of OVIEDO. Sec ERNST, Etlmogr. 1'.iitteil,
aus Venezuela, Z. E., VoL XVIII, Verh. p. 517.

359
little from that usual among the lowland-tribes of northeastern
South America. In this they conform closely with the Island­
Caribs, with the coastland of Guianal ) and the interior savanna,2)
with the middle Orinoco3) and in a less degree with the Cayary­
Uaupes!4) A greater difference begins at the Yyapurd. 5 )
As soon as the yuca root6) was removed from the earth, it was
scraped with shells.7)
Afterwards it was rubbed on the grater, guariqueten, a board
provided with inserted stones usually as in northern South America.
8) According to LAS CASAS, the grater consisted not only of
such a wooden board but sometimes of "palos y canas puestos
por suelo de unas hojas 6 coberturas que tienen las palmas, que
son como unos cueros de venados. "9) It was not possible for
me to recognize exactly the method of affixing the stones from
this description from LAS CASAS. Perhaps they were driven in
and sat in rows between the sticks, which were fastened firmly
together. Yet a grater of this sort is quite unknown to me.
Nevertheless, one thing is certainly brought out, and that is that
LAS CASAS was not describing a grater made of wood hut out
of the leaf-sheath of a palm. The Guianan graters are made from
"the soft outer layers of the purple heart tree." But that
1) See, especially for the True A rawaks, QUANDT. Op. cit., p. r8(J--190, and
for the True Arawaks and True Caribs 1M THURN, Am. The Ind. p. 260-262.
2) FARABEE, The Centro Araw., p. 35-38.
3) GILlJ, Op. cit., Vol. I, p. 304--309. He knows the lvlaipures really as
planters of mandioca.
4) KOCH-GRUNBERG, Zwei J lihre, Vol. II, p. 204-209.
5) \VHIFFEN, The North-West A 111azones, London 1915, p. 98. The cassavagrater
set with small pebbles is found only northeast of the Yapura. The Witotas
press out the poisonous juice with a long, rectangular sicye-mat.
6) LAS CASAS, Apal. His!., Ed. Serrano y Sanz, p. 29. The Island-Caribs
generally llsed the Carib name kiere, see BRETO='!, op. cit., p. 328, 108, 230. But
yOGa is also found in compound words. See BRETON, Ibid., p. 62 and 39.
7) LAS CASAS, Ibid., p. 30. OYIEDO, His/aria, Vol. I, p. 270. The Island­
Caribs scraped the roots with a shell, boet/e. See BRE1'O;:';, Ibid., p. 82 and 19.
8) I,AS CASAS, Ibid., and "piedras asperas sobre cierto leche", OVIEDO, Vol. I
p. 270. The Island-Caribs' name for their cassava-grater cheuglicaba, "planches
garnies de petites pierres pointues, qui y sont enchassees" is perhaps related with
the Tainan word guariqueten. See BRETON, Ibid., p. 139.
9) LAS CASAS, Ibid.

there were also graters of wood among the Tainos can be concluded
from the ones that actually exist to-day on Puerto Rico,
in Santo Doming02) and among the halfbreed population at El
Caney, Oriente, Cuba.3) l\10reover, FEWKES knows of two old
graters from private collections in the Republic of Santo Domingo
and one from the Republic of Haiti, now in the National Museum.
One and all he describes as "flat or slightly curved boards,
sometimes having handles."4) Because FEWKES did not publish
illustrations of these graters, we do not know exactly how they
appeared. Through HARRINGTON for the first time a Cuban
grater became known, while we know the appearance of those in
Santo Domingo only from specimens in stone. As a general thing,
the Tainan grater was straight and did not present such refinement
in its manufacture as those in northern South America, whose
varying types must have been developed after the emigration
of the Island-Arawaks to the Antilles.
The grater, shown by HARRINGTON in Plate VI, "set with
bits of hard stone, from "a cave in the mountains of Baracoa,"5)
is very interesting. The board is made of guayacan and the small,
stones are without any cement placed only in transversal rmvs.
\Vith its rounded underside and especially because of the two protuberances
at the top, which are similar to the feet of a duho, it
does not give the impression of having been made with a modern
steel knife. Its owner, Colonel Rasco, does not hesitate to ascribe
it to Cuba's old Tainan culture.6)
To jndge from HARRINGTON'S illustration, the Cuban guariquiten
must be straight or at any rate only very slightly curved. It
has no great resemblance to Guianan, Venezuelan or Northwest
Brazilian graters. The work impresses one as cruder, and the type
more primitive than those of northeastern South America. This
is caused partly by the fact that similar material can not be found
1) BRE'!''!', op. cit., p. 30. The material itself was a declaration of the fact
that the Guianan graters were curved longitudinally.
2) Fl\WKES I, p. 194, and DE HoS'!'os, Amer. Anthrop., Vol. 21, p. 393, graters
from Puerto Rico with flint stones or fragments of teeth.
3) HARRINGTOX, Op. cit., Part. T, p. 9R.
4) FmVIU:S I, p. 194.
5) HARRINGTON, Ibid.
6) HARRINGTON, Ibid., quoting RASCO.

in Oriente as in the forests of Guiana. l'he graters used by the
tribes living on the coast of the Guianas are made from the soft
outer layer of the purple heart trunk and are slightly curved.
Because of the material the 1'ainos had to make their graters
straight and could not shape them so finely as in Guiana, and in
the Orinoco and Rio Negro regions. In the West Indies they lacked
the purple heart, of whose soft outer layer they made the
cassava-graters along the coast of Guiana. But apart from material
the 1'ainan grater represents a more primitive form that almost
in laty times passed out of existence in northeastern South
America. Moreover the Cuban grater dont have its pebbles cemented
as the modern ones from Guiana and Northwest Brazil.
The 1'ainan graters seems to me to correspond more to that
of the Island-Caribs,l) whose type still is I think found at the present
time among the Honduras-Caribs. A similar, flat type is
still met with on the savanna in the interior of the Guianas. ROTH
figures a specimen from the l'arumas (pI. 67 B). In Plate XIX I
picture two cassava-graters, which HARTMAN brought home to the
Riksmuseum, Stockholm. Notable analogues are found in the
Bonduras-Carib and 1'aruma graters not only in the straight form,
but also in the method of affixing the stones. They close side
by side only in straight rows, but not complicated with diagonal
rows as in Guiana and North,vest BraziP) Although in the fatherland
of the Island-Caribs in Guiana, there were different and
more perfected graters, yet the Arawak women held fast to their
old Ignerian cassava-grater; and thus it continued in existence
until the time when the Island-Caribs were deported from St.
Vincent to RUatan, and carried the type over to Honduras. Presumably
the Ignerian women made the grater3) and kept their old
type from St. Vincent.
") ROTl-I, An Introductory Study of the Arls etc., PI. 67 C, from ROCHEFOR'l',
only shows how the grater was held when used by the women. Breton, ouly
says of the clzeulicaba that they were "des plauches garnies de petites pierres
pointues, qui y sout enchassces," hut he does not tell in what form the pointed
pebbles were arranged.
2) ROTH, Ibid., Fig. 84; KOCH-GRt:XTIERG, Zwei ] iilzre etc., Vol. I, Fig. 36,
Rio Ayari.
3) Camp. KOCH-GRl';l\TIERG, Ibid., p. 78, that the women among the l

The Oriente grater, HARRINGTON, Pl. V I, like those of the
Island-Caribs and Honduras Caribs, is straight and resembles them
also in the insertion and placing of the stones; but, contrary
to the Honduras- and Taruma graters, it has two projections for
support against the woman's hips and also a somewhat elevated
frame.
Our knowledge of how the 'l'ainan grater appeared, is also
stated by the small stone graters, published by HATT and KRIEGER;
they were found in Santo Domingo. These graters approximate
the one from Oriente. They are also straight and the holes for
the stones show the same sort of arrangement as in the Oriente
specimen and the above-named Carib and Taruma graters. Like
the one from Oriente, the Santo Domingo cassava-graters have
two projections, which on these small utensils are placed so closely
together,l) that they could not have possibly served any practical
purpose, as was the case in the Oriente grater. The stone grater
from Cibao resembles the wooden Cuban more closely as to form,
in that it has straight sides, which nevertheless converge somewhat
towards the lower short-side, which alone is slightly rounded. The
Rio Yaqui graters have rounded sides that come together underneath
in a blunt point. The Cibao grater has a raised frame, somewhat
broader above. A raised ridge can be seen at the top of
two of the Yaqui-graters.
\Ve only know of stone graters as coming from Santo Domingo.
They are entirely lacking in South America. This must
stand in relation not only with the higher development with stonesculpture
among the Tainos in comparison with the Arawak tribes
of South America, but also with the fact that the Tainos came to
make metates and d~thos through influences from Yucatan-Central
America.
Curved graters seem to be an especial characteristic of the
Arawak tribes of northern South America. Along the middle
course of the Orinoco, the graters of the Guipunavis were rounded,
while those of the Saliz!as were made flat.2) The ones prepared
') HATT, Notes Arch. Sanio Dom., Fig. 10, and p. 6, site in the Cibao ::.vIts;
KRIEGER I, PI. 24: 1, village sites east of the Rio Yaque del Norte, in the Monte
Cristi province.
2) Gu,IJ, Vol. II, p. 304.

y the women of the I

did not trouble themselves about maranta, as they found better
material on the islands in palm-fiber. MARTIUS says, that the
stalk of the climbing reed-palm jassitara (Desmoncus) was preferred
in South America, "because of its toughness and durability."l
)
\Ve learn nothing from the sources about the form of the 71£biz2)
, through which the cassava was strained, except that it was
made out of "unas canitas de carrizo muy delicadas."3)
The large clay griddle, bttren, of the Tainos used for the baking
of cassava has already been described in the chapter on ceramics.
The main type was the same throughout the \Vest Indies,
along the coast of British Guiana and on Margarita. However the
burensfrom the Tainan culture on St. Thomas4) and in Santo Doming(5)
had a low rim, while those from Jamaica had rims that
were somewhat higher. 6) Rims on burens, therefore, appear to
characterize the entire Tainan region.
Already in the 17th century along the coast of Guiana the
great clay plates had been replaced by iron griddles bought from
Europeans.?) At the end of the 18th century these iron platters
for baking cassava were then already being called bttdalti,8) which
originally was the designation for the large clay griddles. In GIUJ'S
time they sti11 used the clay griddle, budare,9) along the middle
course of the Orinoco. \Ve can assume that these clay griddles
mainly resembled those of the Tainos, described by LAS CASAS and
countless fragments of\vhich have been found in the refuse-heaps.
\Ve must vvait for the publications of the excavations in Venezuela
for a better knowledge of the extension of such sherds. \Vhen ill
') Z1I1' Ethnogr., p. 490.
') Calinago, BRETOK, op. (it., hibichet, p. lIS-lI9 and p. 349 for straining
ouicou.
3) LAS CASAS, Ibid.
4) Ih; Booy. Arch. Virgo Islands, Fig. 20, J\iIagens Bay.
5) DE Booy, Santo Domingo Kitchen jliddens, Fig. 8; KRIEGER III, rl. 53
from burial cave near Constanza; Ibid., p. 53.
0) DE Booy, Certain Kitch. Middens at Jamaica, PI. XXXII, C.
7) Galibi, see BIET, Voyage de ]a F'rance Equinoxiale en l'Isle de Cayenne,
entrepris 1652, raris r664. p. 338.
8) QUANDT, Op. cit., p. I90.
9) Op. cit., Vol. II, p. 308.

use, the burens stood on three or four large stones. l ) The Tainos
did not, like the l

The appearance and preparation was described as follows by
I,AS CASAS: "cuassi como unas muy hermosas obleas cuando es
rallado en un os cueros de pescado como cazon, que los indios llamaban
libu

among the Indians, for these cakes were so hard, that they had to
be dipped into the soup to soften them.!)
LAS CASAS describes the pepper-pot of the Tainos as follows: "Las
cosas cocidas que comian eran siempre con muncha de la pimienta,
que llama ban axi, la nltima silaba luenga, y mas comun que otro
malljar era cocer muncha junta de la dicha pimienta can el sabor
del sal y del zumo de la yuca 6 raices de que hacian el pan cacabi
que dejimos arriba servir de vinagre."2) The Island-Carib designation
for pepper-pot ,'>'as tomali.3) The pepper-pot has its proper
region of expansion north of the Amazon in the tropical lowlands
of South America between the Arawak tribes or Arawak influenced
Carib tribes. The pepper-pot is too well-known in Guiana
for it to be necassary for me to discuss it here. It was known
along the middle course of the Orinoco,4) is used at Cayary-Uaupes
and Ir;ana. 5) The Achaguas understood how to cook vinegar out
of the poisonous juice of the yuca,6) for which reason they apparently
knew the pepper-pot. It is also well-known down into
the Yapura region. 7 ) Surely it must have extended over a much
larger territory in Brazil. 2YIAR'l'IGS gives us no exact information
on this point.8)
In the technique and preparation of manioc the T ainos represent
essentially an annex to eastern Venezuela and Guiana. The distictive
marks of this stage were contemporaneous: graters with stones,
matapi-squeezers, large, flat burens 0/ coarse clay, on which large,
hard, round cassava-cakes were baked, arId in addition knowledge
of cassareep and pepper-pot. On the other hand separate or fixed
clay-feet for the griddles, and also farina, were unknown to them.
") FARABEE. The Centro A r., p. 47. The Tainos also broke cassava cakes with
the hands and dipped it "en el ealdo de la alia." See LAS CASAS, Ibid .• p. 30.
2) Ibid .• p. 537. A name. yracas. that TIPPEXHAI:liR, Op. cit., cites for the
pepper-pot of the Haitian Indians, is not Tainan in my opinion. OYIEDO, Ibid.,
Vol. T, p. 279. speaks of an herb, yraca, that they ate boiled in Tierra Finne.
The name is Cue van .
a) See BRETOX, Gp. cit., p. 3IG, 329. 343, 467; DE LA BORDE, p. 17 .
. 1) GILIJ, Gp. cit., Vol. II, p. 307
5) KOCH-GRliXBERG, GP. cit., Vol. II, p. 209.
6) RJRERO, Op. cit., p. 109.
') ''lHIHE''. Op. cit., p. I29.
8) See Zur Ethnogr., p. 496, where the name is cited in lingua geml.

Only from Santo Domingo are known stone graters.
quite a Tainan sort of cassava-bread.
Xauxau is
Ages. Ages1) like manioc, were cUltivated in montones 2 )
and with sets.3)
NORDENSKIOLD has established the great pre-Columbian extension
of ages in the tropical lowlands of South America.4) In
pre-Columbian times they were also spread over tropical Central
America. With maize and batatas they also formed a part of the
provisions of the great Mayan canoe that COLUMBUS met near
Guanaja, during his last voyage. 5 ) I am inclined to seek for the
origin of ages among the Tainos in northeastern South America,
because OVIED06) describes the age-root from Castilla de Oro and
Tierra Firme as smaller and more bitter than the native Haitian
species.
Batatas. Batatas played a great role in the diet of the Tainos.
OVIEDO names many varieties in Espanola:
aniguamar, the best of all, atibiuneix, guaraca, guararaica, and
guananagax. 7) The best batatas grew in Xaragud. 8) Nothing for
certain can be said about the origin of the batata among the Tainos,
but apparently it was brought over from South America with them.
Already at the time of the Discovery, batatas were widely disseminated
throughout tropical America, South America, Central
America, Mexico 9) and even in the southern States because of the
ease with which they could be cultivated, and their rapid and
enormous increase.
1) Dioscorea species.
2) Ap. Hist., Ed. Serrano y Sanz, p. 28; Oviedo, Vol. I, p. 273.
3) OVIEDO, Ibid.
4) Ded. Sugg. etc., p. 68, cites SALINAS LOYOLA in regards to the woods
east of Loxa; p. 69 cites OR'l'IGUERA for Amazonas; p. 70 cites FEDERMANN
for Venezuela, and in addition on p. 73, cites VON D. S'I'EINEN for upper Xingu
region.
5) LAS CASAS, Vol. 64, p. IIo.
6) OVIEDO, Vol. I, p. 273.
7) Ibid., p. 274.
8) Ap. Hist., Ed. Serrano y Sanz, p. 274.
9) Mexican camotl.

Yahutia. Yahutia is a very peculiar edible root, which was
cultivated by the 1'ainos.1) Like manioc it was so
over-cultivated on Espanola, that it bore no seeds, and consequently
had to be propagated by means of sets.2) DE l{oSToS
assumes a very old development in America for this reason.
\Ve have grounds for the theory that it belongs to the numerous
culture-plants that came to Antilles from South America, where
it appears not only on the coastland of Guiana3) but also in Pen£.4)
Ovumo says: "Vahutia, por otros l1amado diahutia es una planta
de las mas ordenarias que los indios cultivan con mucha diligencia
e especial cuydado."5) Probably the cultivation of yahutia as wel1 as
of i1'1'en increased, after the complicated manioc-culture had greatly
declined. Yahutia belonged to the edible roots whose properties
could not be placed on the same level with afes and batatas. 6)
Arrow-root. It is the finn opinion of \VrssLER that arrow-root,
114 aranta arundinacea, was indigenous in tropical
America. 7) It does not seem to have ever played any role in
South America. In our days it constitutes the greater part of
the food of the negroes, especially on St. Vincent, from which
island it is even exported.
Arrow-root is evidently a native plant cultivated on the Tainan
islands. OVIEDO mentions it under the name of liren, which
word he designates as Tainan.8) OVIEDO was acquainted with this
") Xanthosoma species.
2) DE HOSTOS, in A mer. Anthrop., n. s., Vol. 25, No. I, p. 62, cites the botanist
Barret.
3) J'vIAR'l'IUS, Zur Ethnogr., p. 737.
4) SAFFORD, in Proc. ot the Nineteenth Int. Congr. ot Amer., p. 24.
5) Historia, Vol. I, p. 274.
6) I,AS C\SAS, Apol. His!., ed. Serrano y Sanz, p. 29.
') op. rit., p. 20.
8) His/aria, Vol. I, p. 279. Compo TIPPE~IIA1:ER, Die Insel Haiti, p. 282.
lvlaranta allou)!a, sp., I,eren. Arrow-root must not be confused with another lv/aranta
that is called calla brava or lata in Venezuela; see CODAZZI, ap. cit., p. I04
This is used by the Guianan Indians for basket-weaving. See IM THlJRN, Am.
The Ind., p. 93. OVIF,DO mentions no such use for liren, but to the contrary says
that the Indians cultivated and cooked "est os lirenes", meaning by this the
roots. TIPPENHACER, Iilid., p. 224, mentions another arrow-root, maranta indica,
brought from the East Indies to Jamaica in I750'

370
plant from Tierra Firma, by which appellation he generally means
Veragua and Darien, which he himself had previously visited, as
well as from the Greater Antilles. But in Indian times liren
seems to have held a subordinate place in the alimentation of
the Tainos, probably because at that time mandioca and ages
could be produced in sufficiently large quantities to exclude the
use of the inferior arrow-root. That COLUMBUS did not notice hren
in the \Vest Indies, is easily to be understood ,vhen we recall that
he was only in a position to obtain knmvledge of the cultureplants
that were met with most frequently, and also the most
savoury ones. I~AS CASAS, who had the opportunity of making
a more thorough investigation and a more careful study of tIlt'
Tainan culture-plants, knew leren as the name of a genuine Indian
edible root. "Habia en esta Isla y ponian los vecinos naturales
della otras rakes tan gruesas y redondas como unas chicas pelotas,
que Hamaban lerenes; las hojas dellas eran como de coles, los que
Haman yantas, pero mas hermosas y mas llamas y anchas y las
ram as 6 masteles que tiene la hoja son mas tiestas y levantadas. "1)
The roots themselves were eaten either boiled or baked, but they
were not so appetizing as either ages or batatas.
In the Spanish epoch, the cultivation of liren increased in
importance. It was necessary to find for the negro slaves an
edible plant, cheap and at the same time acceptable to them,
whose cultivation and preparation would not encroach in too
great a measure on the labour for their masters.2) Already in
OVIEDO'S time, the Spaniards on Espanola had also begun to raise
liren in their own fields. 3)
lUaize. Although maize was to the Tainos a culture-plant
of far less value than manioc, nevertheless it had
attained among them a more important position than it had held
with their kinsmen in Guiana and in tropical Brazil. The Taillos
') Apol. Hist., Ed. Serrano y Sanz, p. 29.
2) According to the account of L,\S CASAS the enormous number of deaths
amongst the Tainos in Espanola, as well as in Cuba, were mostly due to stan'ation,
because the greedy masters would not allow them time enough to devote to
their Indian agriculture, whose technique and care, moreover, the Spaniards had
not understood from the beginning.
3) OnEDQ, Ibid.

37 I
had real maizales and carried on a more regular cultivation of maize,
than was practised in the tropical lowlands of South America.
This came to pass under influences from Yucatan.1)
The Tainan word mahiz indicates in and for itself, that the
Tainos had the original knowledge of the cultivation of maize in
common with their kinsmen of South America, particularly with
those who lived further to the North and of course the coastal
Arawak tribes, True Arawaks, as well as the Ignerian relatives on
the Lesser Antilles, who once formed the connecting link with
South America.2)
In the nearer parts of South America, as for instance among
the Arawaks in Paria, maize played a more important role thatl
formerly among the Arawaks in tropical South America, or even
that which was usual among the Tainos. When COLUMBUS visited
Paria on his third voyage, the Indians there had many species
of maize of different colours, from which the Parians brewed beer,
when the kernels were ripe. "Lo mas 6 to do (that is, vino) hacen
de maiz, sino que el mais, es blanco y morado y colorado, de
aqui viene ser el vino de diversas colores; el verde no se de que
se haga."3) It is not probable that these Indians of Paria had
maize as their staple food. The tropical climate of the Paria
coast with its wealth of parasites, could not have been suitable
for the conservation of maize. Probably the Indians were occupied
in consuming the harvest in the form of beer, at the time
of COLUMBUS' visit. Maize-bread is not mentioned.4) On the
other hand, the fact that the Indians let the kernels ripen and
then brewed beer from them, shows a certain progress in their
development.
In Paria, we approach a zone of transition leading to the
maize region in northwestern South America. PEDRO DE AYALA
I) For the accent, see LAS CASAS, Apol. Hist., Ed. Serrano y Sanz, p. 31.
2) Calinago, f, (BRETON p. 355) marichi; Arawak (MARTIUS, Worterb. Bras.
Spr. p. 3Il) marisi,' Goajiro (RAFAEL CELEDON, Gramatica Catecismo i Vocabulario
de la lengua Goajira, Paris 1878, p. 143) marike; Wapisiana (FARABEE) marik;
11,fapidi (FARABEE) mariki; Guato (MARTIUS Ibid., p. 210 cites CASTELNAU) majri,
majci (Ibid., 427); Canixana, mazy (Ibid.)
3) LAS CASAS, Historia, Vol. 63, p. 240.
4) LAS CASAS, Ibid., speaks only of "su pan y maiz."

37 2
found "buena tierra, muy cultivada de grandes labrallzas de maiz,
yuca, batatas, agyamas,"l) in the interior of Cumana, on his expedition
ill 1569. P. Rurz BLANCO mentions 6 or 7 different
kinds of maize, among them anapo which ripens in 40 2 ) days.
Even in Cumana the climate was not favourable enough for the
conservation of maize. During the rainy season a scarcity of maize
predominated "en la costa de Piritu."3) The maize from which
the Cumanagotos made their bread, \vas "tierno" and easily
ground.4) But it could only be saved from disintagration by a
pO'werful smoking. The fact that the Cumanagotos made maize
breatl indicates that we are approaching the maize region of the
\Vest, where maize really forms the staple food.
~evertheless there is nothing that indicates that the Cumallagotos
had a maize culture of the same agricultural manner of
working, as on Espanola. RUIZ BLANCO says expressly that the
work of the men was to prepare the soil and "y ayudar a coger
el fruto", while the women attended to the sowing of crops, among
which maize is mentioned first of all. 5)
At the base of the Orinoco delta maize played a still more
insignificant role than in Paria. In Aruacay there were immense
quantities of beer in enormous vessels, but it was brewed from
cassava, and was only mixed with ground maize in order to make
it stronger. 6) Scarcely any maize at all was cultivated by the
True Arawaks in the \\'ina country, in Guiana.
Not very far from the Point de Mole St. Nicholas, COLUMBUS
disco\'ered "por una abertura de una sierra" "un valle grandisimo
y vido que estaba todo sembrado como de cebadas, y pareciole
que debia de haber por el grandes poblaciones, y a las espaldas
") O\TRDO Y BANOS, Vol. n, Doc. p. jo6. Compo OnEDo Y VALDEZ, Historia,
Vol. II, p. 257.
2) Conversion En Pirilu De Indios Cumanagotos y Palenques, Madrid 1892
(1690) p. 24·
3) Ibid., p. 25.
4) Ibid., p. 24. 'l'his must be considcred in conncction with the fact that
the lowland tribes of South Ameriea used wooden mortars, and not m.etates. For
the extension of the wooden mortar see KORDENSKI()LD, Eine geagr. und ethnogr.
A nalyze, etc., Map 10.
S) Rurz BLANCO, Ibid.
6) OVIEDO, Histaria, Vol., II, p. 22I.

373
del habia grandes montanas y muy altas. "1) Apparently maize
grew in this valley between the mountain slopes. On Espanola
maize was above all a plant suitable to the slopes at the hills, and
had nothing to do with the monton-planting of the level savannas.
OVIEDO says: "talan e1 monte 0 canaveral (porque 1a tierra donde
nasce hierva no es avida por fertiI en estas partes, como la de
los canaverales y arboledas.) "2)
As a general rule, after clearing up the land the ashes are
left as compost in the soil.
'I'he sowing always took place at the new moon, for they had
the idea that the maize grew with the moon.3)
The resemblance to Central America cultivation appeared
particularly in the organization and technique at the SOlving.
They began to plant the seed after it commenced to rain, so
that the soil would not be too dry for the making of small holes
in which they placed the kernels "tres 0 quatro dedos debaxo de
tierra",4) and also sufficiently soft to tread down the earth over
them. After the field is prepared for the crop, "ponense cinco 0
seys indios (e mas e menos, segund la probilidad del labrados)
uno desviado del otro un passo en ala puestos, y con sendos palos
o macanas en las manos, y dan un golpe en tierra, con aquel palo
del punta, e meneanle, porque abra algo mas 1a tierra y sacanle
luego, y en aquel agugero que hizo, echan con la otra mano siniestra
quatro e cinco granos de mahiz que saca de una taleguilla
que lleva cenida 6 colgada a1 cuello de traves, como taheli e con
el pie cierra luego el hoyo con los granos, porque los papagayos
y otras aves 110 los cornen: e luego dan otro passo adelante, e
hacen 10 mismo. "5) Then they go up and clown the field many
times, until it is entirely planted and do not forget to tread down
the earth firmly over each hole, so that the birds are unable to
get at the grains of maize.
The method is the same as that which is used to-day by
the Indians, when they sow maize on the mountain slopes in Ceu-
") I,AS C,\S.\8, Historia, Vol. ()2, p. 365.
2) IIISTORIA, Vol. T, p. 264.
3) Ibid., p. 265.
4) Ibid.
') Ibid.

374
tral America.!) The l'ainos carried their seed in a pouch worn
over the shoulder, just as they did in that country. But there
was this difference: while among the Tainos the same man that
made the hole with the dibble, carried the pouch and planted
the seed, in Central America one man went straight ahead in an
upright position and made the holes with his tall planting-stick
and was followed by a companion who planted the seed from his
pouch and tramped down the soil. On the other hand, there
were no marked similarities between the Tainan and Floridian
methods of sowing maize. At the mouth of the St. John's River
in Florida, they carried the seed in a bowl-shaped basket. 2 ) Moreover,
it was the women that did the planting here, and not the
men as in Espanola and Central America. In addition here they
had a kind of hoe, not entirely of wood like the Mexican uictli,
but with a blade of conch-shell, which CUSHING discovered through
comparisons with the finds from the pile-constructions on Key
Marco.3)
Protection against parasites of the animal-world on the maizefields
of Espanola was entrusted to the boys. On this island there
were only the parrots and other birds to be reckoned with. From
so-called "barbacoas", encima de los arboles y de andamios, que
1es hacen de madera e canas e cubiertas, como ramados por el sol
e e1 agua, these boys frightened the parrots and other birds from
the maize-fields by their cries.4) Stronger measures were necessary
along the Orinoco. Here sling-shots were used to drive off
the monkeys. 5)
In respect to different-coloured species of maize, the Tainos
were perhaps not inferior to the Indians of Paria. 6 ) Still, they did
not have any kind of seed that ripened in 40 days, which species
OVIEDO only knew from Nicaragu,a. 7) Landa described the Mayan
planting as follows: "las aguas comien

375
setiembre, y que en este tiempo siembran todas sus cosas y viene
a maduracion aunque siemple llueva, y que siembran cierto genero
de maiz por Sant Francisco, que se coge brevemente."l) Therefore
the Mayas only had species of maize, suitable for the rainy
season. As ,vas customary in the lowlands of South America, the
Tail10s harvested their maize green and unmatured, and used it
above all things for a soup, the Haitian ector. 2)
OVIEDO knew maize-beer only from the Cuevas,3) and not from
the Indian Espanola. Indeed, there the ripe maize was only
consumed "en grauo tostado. "4) But during BENZONI'S visit at
least, the Indians of the interior of Espanola brewed chicha from
maize.
Ovnmo knew of other methods of using maize from Tierra
Firme alone. Only from there did he know boiled maize-cakes·5)
and different kinds of bread. 6 ) Maize-meal was used in
') op. cit., p. 6. St. Francisco's day is October 4.
2) Ibid., p. 266. Camp. LAS CASAS, Apol. His!., ed. Serrano y Sanz, p. 31,
32. I have already stated that such a maize-soup was offered to COl,UMBUS on
the north coast of Haiti. Ector must be the same as Guajiro utor, "mazamorra"
(RAFAEl, CELEDO:\[, Op. cit., p. 143). In very ancient times the Gnajiros were very
dependent on "mazamorras" for their nonrishment. See SalON, Seg. Not. I, p. 166,
3) His/oria, Vol. 1, p. 267.
4) Ibid., p. 266.
5) Histoyia. Vol. I, p. 267. GUMIl,l,A, Op. cit., Vol. II, p. 279, mentions
boiled maize-cakes, cayzu, and also that the old cakes were broken np and
made into chicha. I can not think otherwise than that this statement was made
especially about the region near the river-bend at Cabritu, where as we ascend
the Orinoco we find maize for the first time as a staple food among the Otomacos,
that is, unless the annual inundations failed to materialize. Compo Ibid., p. 268,
and OVIEDO y BAS;OS, Vol. II, Doc., p. 3I3, who says in addition that a drink,
called pichipuro, was also made from maize at Cabritu. Camp. further, the expedition
of Herrera, Snwx, Op. cit., Terc. Not., p. 225. Yet the Tamanacos also
had their own name for "pan eli granturco", namely camaitcd. Moreover maize
was also consumed along the Orinoco, while the grains were still green. Further
up the southern tributary of the Orinoco, where the inundations are not so bad,
at the end of the 18th century the negroes belonging to the Spanish had large
!lraizefields. But this really happened first after the congregated Indians for the
most part had died off because of a small-pox-epidemic. This negro-colonization
I know of for the first time from HUMBOLDT's account.
GJ A statement from MAR1'YR, Mac Kutt's Trans., Vol. II, p. 52, that in Espanola
the bread of the caciques was made of cassava, while that of the people
was of maize, must be rejected as conflicting with authentic information. As

making bread. BBNZONI'S description, cited below, does not leave
us in doubt however, that the Haitians had boiled maize-cakes not
only of maize-pulp but of maize-meal.' But he visited Espanola
at a late date (1541), when for many years the island had been in
communication with Mexico through the Spaniards. This fact
should be taken into consideration especially when it is the question
of tortillas of maize-meal. Moreover, only from Tierra Firme
did OVIEDO know concave metates with stone rollers, on which the
meal was ground. 1 )
J.\'Ietates. }Ietates, or grinders of stone, were necessary
above all in those regions where they had the hard
yellow maize, as in Yucatan. In the tropical lowlands of South
America, as for example Venezuela, the Indians cultivated softer
kinds, "Erepa", white, red, yellow, "por ser muy tierno y facil de
moIer; y tambien 10 (that is, maize) conservan con humo hasta un
will be shown later, BENZO.'\I made a statement that is directly Opposc(l, but
which refers. however, to post-Columbian conditions.
Maize bread is predominant and representative for the drier regions in the
western part of northern South America, where maize and not yuca is the bread
material. We have seen above, that the Cnmanagotos had maize bread. Moreover,
they already had large maize-fields on the llanos plateau, at the time that
the Spaniards im'adcd their land. See OVIEDO, Historia, Vol. II, p. 257. The
conditions of the Indian alimentation in the \Vestern Carib Cordillera are unknown.
Still along the coast we can aSSllme that the great region with maize and
maize bread begins at the Cora coast, where indeed NINO and GuERRA obtained
abundant quantities of maize bread. See LAS CASAS, Histaria, Vol. 63, p. 438.
Nevertheless, I am of the opinion that if manioc plantations are to be found
further to the \Vcst along the northern coast of South America, the sets were
brought there by the Guajiros when they immigrated there, or even by Carib
tribes of a latcr immigration wave, as up the lower Magdalena. Sec MARTIN
FERNANDEZ DE EXCISO, Descripci6n De Las fndias occidentale". Seguida De la
Suma De geografia "- ---"-, De J. T. MEDINA, Santiago De Chile, 1897, p.
XXIII found that maize bread began 011 the coast near Cartagena and extended
further towards the 'Vest. "En est a tierra e de aquii hada al poniente comen
los indios pan de grano de maiz molido, e hacen dello buen pan qne es de mucho
mantinimiento." They also brewed there "en calderas y tinajas grandes" a maize
beer of great strength and good taste. Vet as far eastward along the coast as
in Curiana (Coro) the Indians ate root-bread as well as maize-bread. Compo
MAR1'YR-MacNutt, p. 153.
1) Histaria, Vol. I, p. 266.

377
ano y mas tiempo, encerrado en sus trojes que llaman Barbacoas."
The hard species and the soft white ones are harvested after five
months, the soft Indian species in Venezuela in three and a half
months. 1 ) OVIEDO says that in Espanola they harvested one kind
of maize four months after sowing, another after three months,
and a third kind after two months.2) MARTYR says that three maize
harvests were held each year on Jamaica. 3) Judging from the
length of time it took the maize to mature, it is very evident that
for the most part, the Tainos had the soft species.
In connection with this it must be understood that the Tainos,
like the lowland tribes in tropical South America, crushed
the soft maize in wooden mortars and that they did also ground
hard maize with grinders on stone slabs or stone rollers on
metates.
The historical sources give us no indication of how the Tainos
formerly prepared their harvested maize. Nevertheless, at the
present time wooden mortars occur among their half-breed descendants
on the Greater Antilles. FEWKES I, Fig. 42, shows such
a mortar of wood. He regards this specimen as "closely resembling
those of the ancients. "4) But the pictured mortar is a beakerlike
type, which is entirely foreign to the Indians of the tropical
lowlands of South America, but on the other hand is general among
the African negroes. That the Tainos originally had a simpl~
truncus-mortar is indicated by the finding of "an outer portion
of the trunk of an arbor vitae, probably serving ot one time as a
mortar" ,5) in an undisturbed burial cave on the Halberstadt Estate,
St. Andre"v, Jamaica.
If the metates found on the Greater Antilles are precolumbian,
then the hypothesis is also well-founded that the Tainos had
hard maize. Furthermore, as in this case the curved metates must
have come from Yucatan and Central America, then the hard va-
') AN1'ONIO CAULIN, Historia Corogl'aphica Satuval y Evangelica De La
Nueva Andalusia, Provincias De Cumana Guayana Y Vertientes del Rio Orinoco,
1779, p. 18.
2) Page 265.
") op. cit., J'iIac::\'utt's Trans., Vol. II, p. 347.
4) FEwKI!S T, p. 210.
") Nature, June 20, 1895. Compo DUERDEN, Abo)'. Ind. Rem. In Jamaica,
p. 26.

ieties of maize must also have come over from those countries1) to
the Greater Antilles.
Metates are still used at the present time on Jamaica. 2) At
an early date the Spaniards introduced the round hand-mills with
double rotation into Puerto Rico. FEWKES states that metates
were used only "in prehistoric times. "3) Therefore, they are no
longer used on that island.
On the other hand JOYCE thinks it doubtful that metates belonged
to the older endemic Indian culture, and is rather of the
opinion, that they were brought over from Central America in a
later period of time.4) Indeed, in r688, at the time of the visit of
Sir Hans Sloane to Jamaica and long after the extermination of
the Tainos, the Mosquito and Floridian Indians that the Spaniards
had then imported as slaves, were the only Indians on the
island. 5)
The connection with Central America, whether it be pre- or
postcolumbian, is brought to light at the first sight of the respective
metates that have come from the Greater Antilles. But as
exact information as to the places of origin of the metates that are
known up to date from these islands is lacking, this problem can
not be solved by reference to T ainan finds in situ.
Nevertheless, new finds make it certain that the Tainos adopted
the grinding-method with a grinder that is used on an underlay
of stone, which moreover was employed by the cUlture-peoples
of the Cordilleras, from Pueblos down in Ecuador. HATT found
"grinding stones" together with "stone slabs" on "Indian sites
in the Cibao Mts." These grinders reveal their purpose by their
"worn under-surface." "They are provided with two parallel
grooves, evidently finger rests for the thumbs." Between them
is often found a sculptured face, which HATT interprets as "a zemi
to help the woman in her tedious labour when she is grinding
1) Metates are still used at the present time in Central America for grinding
maize and cacao. In respect to the West Indies, cacao need not be taken into
consideration, as it certainly mnst be post-Columbian there.
2) DUERDEN, ap. cit., p. 37.
3) FEwKES I, p. 106-107.
4) Centro Amer. And. West Ind. Arch., p. 24I.
0) HANS Sr,OANE, A Voyage To The Islands Madera, Barbados, Nieves St.
Christophers And Jamaica, Vol. I, London 1707, Intr. XXVI.

379
corn."!) Other grinders in Socia's collection" from village sites
east of the Rio Yaqui del Norte in Monte Cristi province." are
of another type, oval with smooth rounded upper side without
grooves.2) They resemble the common type of grinders in Central
America. There are "portions of flattened smooth stones" much
resembling the upper part of mealing stones"3) in a kitchen midden
at Weireka, east of Kingston, Jamaica. Probably the Indians
of Jamaica, like the negroes in later days, used stones in their
natural shapes for grinders.4)
Within the proper Tainan culture skill in handling stone
sculpturally was so great that they made duhos of stone, using
their wooden ones as models, there is nothing against the hypothesis
that the Tainos on Puerto Rico and Espanola also could make
metates. As HATT'S finds at Cibao indicate, as a general rule they
were obliged to content themselves with naturally flat stones to
grind upon. Only in exceptional cases can metates for grinding
have been produced.
On Jamaica, on the other hand, stone-sculpture was not
nearly so highly developed. The three metates that I know, of
from there must all have been made in Central America. No one
knows of any found in situ. Possibly they were imported into
Jamaica only after they began to cultivate cacao there. M etates
are necessary for the grinding of this prodUct. At any rate, the
above-named find of grinding stones from the midden at Weireka
indicates that the Jamaicans had hard maize, which they
ground in the same manner as in Central America. Three metates
are published from Jamaica: DUERDEN, PI. 4, Fig. 5; DUERDEN,
PI. 4, Fig. 6; CUNDALL, Jamaica in I928, figure on p. 78. All have
three feet. The two last-named belong to the same type and have
very high feet (see HARTMAN'S principal type II). CUNDALL'S example
is really different from that of DUERDEN in that it has a
sculptured head in front, which the latter lacks. The meandering
ornamentation on DUERDEN, Fig. 6 is decidedly Central American
1) Notes Arch. S. Domingo, p. 6-7 and Fig. 14.
2) KRIEGER I, Pl. 24: 1.
3) DUERDEN, p. 7.
4) Ibid., PI. 4, Fig. 5. On the other hand, a roller is found in I,ONGLEY, ap.
cit., figure on p. 295, top plate, in the middle of row furthest to left.

and of the same kind as that on a stone table fonnd on the Mosqnito
CoasU) Probably both of these metates originated in the
highland behind that coast. 1\1[ etates with three high legs, of
which the odd leg as well as the pair of legs diverge from each
other, are prevalent especially in northern Central America. 2)
DUERDEN, Fig. 5, has a saddle-formed grinding-surface and
flat legs, divergent as in the two previous specimens, but not so
high as these other legs, and thus of another type. DljERDEN is
therefore inclined to attribute this metate to northern Central America.
Contrary to Fig. C, it is an unpretentious piece of work with
its indistinct, indeterminable animal head, but still it could not
have been imitated on Jamaica, but must have been imported
from northern Central America.
None of the three Jamaican metates, particularly the two
first-named, can be attributed to Yucatan. They indicate, on the
other hand, direct communication with Central America, either
pre- or post-Columbian. Indeed, Honduras is situated nearer to
Jamaica than Yucatan.
\Vithin the region of the proper Tainan culture, circumstances
in regard to "stone-chairs" are different from those 011 J a­
maica. A portion of them are duhos in stone, in imitation of those
made of wood. It cannot be doubted that the following mentioned
are duhos with round, stumpy legs and support for the back:
IJuerto Rico: FEWKES I, Pl. XCII b-b', Latimer Coll .. , 3 legs.
FEWKES II, Pl. II3 B-B', Cuesde Coli., Berlin,
4 legs, the front ones bent to form knees and provided with
feet.
Cuba: HARRINGTON, Fig. 22, from Loma de Cuzco,
Pinar del Rio, the circumstances of finding
unknown, 4 legs.
1) JOYCF;, Centro Am. and West Indian Arch., Pl. VI: 1.
') The high-legged one cited by D-cERDEN from BANCROl"'I', Vol. 4, p. 6r, ::\icaragua,
with two heads is considerably different from his Fig. 6 and of the same
Central American type as JOYCE, Ibid., Pl. III: 3, P. 'V. SCH~II])'I' places together
DeERIlEN Fig. 6 and SAvII,r,E Indian Notes, Vol. II, PI. I: 3, Costa
Rica.

Without Infor- FEWKES II, Fig. 55, Heye Museum, 4 legs, used
mation as to in more recent times for grinding cacao, but FEW­
Origin: KES interprets it as a duho, although the support
for the back: is short, being an animal's head which
he considers a turtle's head.
SAVILLE and MAC CURDY would seek connection in the development
between metates with legs and chairs. FEWKES and HAR­
RINGTON suggest the same idea in Tainan stone stools.
As regards Tainan stone-sculpture, the problem appears more
simple so far as concerns indubitable duho-types in wood that are
also reproduced in stone. Thus FEWKES I, Pl. XCII b-b', in
stone, Puerto Rico, corresponds to duhos in wood, IBID., Pl. XCIII
d, Puerto Rico, b, Santo Domingo and c, Turk's Island, all with
a human head in front, while FEWKES II, Pl. II3 B-B' (MASON,
Guesde Coll., Fig. 200) in stone with a head at the top of the back,
corresponds to FEWKES I, Pl. XCIII, a in wood, from Santo Domingo.1)
HARRINGTON, Fig. 22, in stone, Pinar del Rio, is not
sculptured, but the swinging curve of the support for the back,
broken, however at the end, is comparatively more shallow than
those in the former duho-type.
HARRINGTON, Fig. 36, "cave near Jauco", Oriente, shows
indeed that on Cuba they had wooden duhos, entirely without
sculpture and with long, slightly curved support for the back.
With its long back support, this duho approaches to the first
type.
Two Tainan duhos with four round legs lack supports for the
back. As a special type I would like to call attention to only one
of them, HARRINGTON, Pl. V "from cave at Mesa del Sordo, Jauco,
near Cape Maisi." It has a hollowed-out seat and the projecting
short sides are finely sculptured with anthromorphous or theromorphous
ornamentations.
Fundamentally near the first duho-type stands JOYCE, Man.
Vol. XIX, No. I, Pl. A, "found in a cave on the Island Eleuthera,
1) The resemblance goes so far that both have human feet and male
genital parts. Compo further FEWKES I, Pl. XCI a-a (MASON, Guesde ColI. Fig.
205, now in Mus. f. V6Ikerk., Berlin), without information as to origin, but undoubtedly
Tainan, two idols sitting on a wooden dnho with an high support at
the back.

Bahamas," with its human head (Camp. Fig. p. r) in front, its
curved seat, which continues upward behind but not far enough
to form a support for the back.
Very likely FEWKES II, Fig. 55, "Porto Rico area", ,vith four
round legs, turtle-head and two flippers (webbed feet) in front,
and groove-shaped seat that finishes abruptly without any backsupport,
reverts to some duho-type without a back and which
does not altogether correspond with either of the two just named.
'i'he clay figure, FEWKES I, Pl. LXXXII, a, Santo Domingo,
is seated upon a simple type of low stool, entirely unlike the lengthy
Tainan duhos that have been presented. It consists only of a
little round seat with three round legs. No similar specimen,
either in wood or stone, has been found up to the present time
on the Tainan islands.
Now I will turn to the metates in stone, that lack prototypes
of duhos in wood. They differ greatly among themselves. Still,
I am inclined to consider them all genuine metates. They are
impracticable as chairs.
Rep. of Haiti: FEWKES II, Pl. II3 C~C', M. f. V., Berlin, "found
at Cap Haitien," is a roughly shaped animal-form
with head, tail, and feet together with a grinding surface on the
back.
Santo Domingo Tr. I9594, Call. Pinart, grinding surface without
or Puerto Rico: feet.
l'uerto Rico: FEWKES I, Pl. XCII a--a', Lat. Call., four feet.
FEWKES II, Pl. I13 A, four feet, "found near a
town situated on the interior road from San Juan to Ponce."
Tr. I9594, Call. Pinart, is only a curved metate without
feet. This simple JJ1etate-type occurs on the mainland fr011l
Pueblos in the north, and is also found as far south as Manabi, on
the coast of Ecuador. The others of these stone specimens are
more unique.
"When these metates are flat, it is probable that the grinding
was done by means of rollers. Such is the case with Tr. I9594,
a large, flat grinding surface with appertenant roller. This last

circumstance leads one to suspect that it belonged to a later
period, all the more as no information as to its origin is given.
Therefore, we do not know but that this metate was imported in
post-Tainan times.
Besides other smaller metates with hollowed surfaces are not
suitable for rollers, and on them the grinding must have been
done with grinders. To this class belongs FEWKES I, Pl. XCII
a-a' (7 3/8 by l/Z in.) which represents a certain Puerto Rican
type, of which he knows in addition two examples (FEWKES I, p.
z05). No dimensions are given for FEWKES II, Pl. II3 A. This
also, because of its elliptical, bowl-shaped cavity, is not adapted
for grinding by a ro11er, so a grinder must have been used. It has the
head and tail of a mammal. The sculpture on these Puerto Rican
metates indicates that they are of native manufacture. If we
turn to Yucatan, we find that the metates at Chichen Itza are
thick-,valled basins without legs. I ) One group of small metates
from there has three legs and a flat surface.2) On the other hand,
a metate from Mound No. 6 at Santa Rita, British Honduras,
with three legs, elliptical bowl and animal-head in front resembles
more the four-legged FEWKES II, Pl. II3 A.3) I am not acquainted
with in Yucatan and Central America, where the basins are
generally rounded, any met ate of a type corresponding to FF;WKES
I, Pl. XCII a-a', in which the shallow basin has an entirely
flat bottom, and whose curved sides are sculptured possibly with
a highly conventionalized animal, lying on its back.
'fhe Haitian example FEWKF;S II, Pl. II3 C, which is simply
an animal-form, possibly a India, ,vith a hollowed grinding-surface
above, continues to remain an unique native composition.
It is likely that the Tainos on Santo Domingo and Puerto
Rico learned to make metates of stone from contact with Yucatan,
which lies adjacent to Cuba, although only FEWKES II, Pl. II3 A,
posseses a lVlayan counterpart at Santa Rita, Brit. Honduras.
BF;Nzmn's illustration of grinding on a metate has nothing
1) Compo GUSTAV S'I'ROMSVlK: X otes on the metales of Chichen Itza, Yucatan,
Contrib. Amer. Arch., Vol. I. Carnegie Institution, Washington, 1931, heaq ..-
grooved type, p. I46·-·I48.
2) Ibid., p. I5I.
3) GANN, Op. cit., PI. I2.

to do with the Haitians, but is from Nicaragua, where he also
spent some time. In his narration about Espanola, he only knows
one method of grinding there, namely that of mealing maize between
two stones. BENZONI came to Espanola in 1541, that is, at
a time when the original state of affairs no longer existed, but
when on the other hand the repartimientos had been annulled and
the Haitians left in freedom to govern themselves and direct
their own economics. During his journeying in the interior of
the land, when he was living among them, he observed that women
softened the maize in cold water and then ground it between two
stones. At that time the Haitians showed that they could also
bake two different kinds of maize bread. In making the first
kind, the maize was only crushed to a pulp which, was then cooked
in leaves or tubes. This was the "common people's bread". In
the preparation of the "chief's bread, the husks were first removed,
and then the maize was completely ground into meal. The dough
was formed into small round cakes which were cooked in clay pots,
by "applying fire under them by degrees."l)
In BENZONI'S time maize predominated over yuca among the
Tainos of Espanola, in contradition to the state of affairs existing
in more ancient times. It seems to me, that this condition can be
explained by internal reasons, and need not be attributed to a
post-Spanish influence from Mexico. Indeed, starvation was
prevalent at an early date among the Haitians, for the reason
that the Spaniards, by putting them to work gold-washing, claimed
their time which vms necessary for the cultivation of yuca
and preparation of cassava, of which the caciques bread was made
(comp. with the previously mentioned xauxau). They refused
at first to sow maize in place of yuca.2) And no wonder. From
the montones the Haitan women were able to have a daily supply
of yuca. But little by little they must have been forced to change
over to maize with a long maturing period of time. The preparation
of the finer cassava bread required more care and skill which
latter can have been lost in later times.
For climatic reasons even in Indian times maize must have
predominated over cassava in Espanola. KRIEGER calls attention
1) BENZONI, HakL Soc. Vol. 21, p. 83--84.
2) :;YIARTYR-MacN'utt, Vol. II, p. 52.

to the fact that only mealing stones and 011 the other hand no
burens were found in the dwelling sites "in Marien west of the
Vaque River". where a dry climate prevails. 1 )
Peanuts. It was on the Antilles that the Spaniards learned
to know Arach£s hypogaea for the first time. They
propagated as an international Indian word the 'l'ainan designation
of mani to the Indian languages in Peru.2) Its pre-Columbian
diffusion in America may be difficult to establish, seeing that it is
one of those plants which already at a very ancient date and with
great rapidity, spread itself over immense regions in the 'rropics.
For this reason it is very interesting that NORDBNSKIOLD establishes
from historical sources the territories in which this plant was indeed
pre-columbian, namely Parana (ScruIIDBL), Amazonia (CARBAJAL
and OR'l'IGUERA). the woods east ot Loxa (SALINAS 1,OYOLA), and
Chachapoyas (PALOMINO) ,3) Peanuts have been found frequently in
the graves at Ancon.4) On Espanola they ate them with cassava.5)
Beans. There is no doubt but that beans were one of the
Tainan culture-plants at the time of the Discovery.6)
The different designations of COLUMBUS probably denote
several species or varieties of Phaseolus. In regards to their
appearance, we really only possess information as to their colour.
COLUMBUS says: "Vido frisoles que sono como atramuces del
Andalucia, puesto que S011 prietos 6 leonados, y aun alguno morados
"7) I am not in a position to conclude from this colour description
what species beans belong to, beyond classifying them of
South, Central or North American origin. Possibly "morados"
represent our common brown beans (Phaseolus 7)ulgaris) , which
have been found in so many graves stretching from North America
") KRIEGER III, p. 3il.
') See SAFFORD, in Proc. of the Nineteenth Int. Congr. of Amer., \\lash. 1915.
3) NORDENSKliiLD, Ded. Sugg. etc., p. 67-69.
4) SAFFORD, Ibid., p. 16.
5) LAS CASAS, Apol. Hist., Ed. Serrano y Sanz, p. 29.
0) See XORDENSK1iiLD, Ibid., p. 64-65 cites Navarrete; OVIEDO, Histol'ia,
Va!. I p. 285.
') LAS CASAS, His/aria, VoL 62, p. 323-324, "atramuz" means horse-beans.

southwards Peru and Argentina. 1 ) The old literature does not
supply us with a Tainan word for beans, so that even linguistic
comparisons are precluded. DRl':rON says in regard to the beans
of the Island-Caribs: "manconh - - - i1 y en a des blancs,
des noirs, des rouges, et de pois de sept ans, ceux-cy font de potage
rougeatre, tirant sur Ie noir. "2)
Tobacco. The Greater Antilles seem to have taken a relatively
central position in America in the cultivation,
production and use of tobacco.
I have already quoted a legend of Ro'rH'S, by vvhich it seems
to follow that at one time the TVarraus received tobacco from the
Antilles. It is therefore very apparent that the Antilles were one
of the regions from which tobacco advanced into northeastern
South America. But for that reason, it can scarcely have been
the only original source of the plant. Donbtless tobacco had also
made its way thither from the West, so that at the time of the
Conquest, the Indians in the eastern South America had not progressed
very far in the use of this plant.
NORDENSKI()LD has shown that any other use of tobacco
excepting for religious purposes must have been exceedingly
insignificant in the tropical lowlands of South America before they
came under European inf1uence. 3 ) Its use there seems to have
been reserved to the piayes, \,-ith whose occult arts the Europeans
first became acquainted by closer contact. It is very significant,
that in the beginning, moreover, religious tobacco-smoking along
the north coast of South America could only be observed among
the Caquetios4) on the Coro coast. Their priests, boratios, smoked
tobacco in their lonely medicine huts with the intention to be
inspired by it and able to deliver the oracular answer expected
1) SAFFORD, Ibid., p. J(>,
2) op. cit .. p. 352. Another species was p. 358, lIlibipi, "pais Anglois, poi:;
ronge etc." As I am not a botanist, I am not able to decide if we are also as
a matter of fact, dealing here with an American bean. In the I7th centnry,
maize ,,,as called "Turkish wheate". OllY "french beans" originates from America,
and werc introduced into France during r,onis XIV.
") Deduct. 5ugg. etc., p. 73--74'
4) o ';n,;Do , Histaria, Vol. II, p. 2(j8.

y the natives. For the same purpose the 'rainos at their caaba
meetings would snuff tobacco.
Among the Tainos, tobacco was used not only as snuff, but
also for smoking. In the first case, the connection with South
America only is clear, while in the latter connection with Central
America, and furthermore with North America, is debatable.
SAFPORD1) in the most decided manner has presented a new
theory, that the Tainos did not use tobacco-snuff but piptadeniasnui/.
Still he places it beyond doubt, that tobacco was known
to the Tainos, but is of the opinion that it was only used for
smoking.
The sources of information to which SAPFORD refers, to corroborate
his assertion that the Tainos used piptadenia-snuff and not
tobacco, does not by any means prm'e that their snuff-po\vder
was made of the former plant.
SAFFORD places the name of the Haitian snuff-powder, cahaba,
together with niapa, yupa, curupa, cumba, which are the different
names for piptadenia-sl1uff among the Arawak tribes in the upper
Orinoco and Rio Negro regions. Y apa, the designation constantly
used for this snuff-powder by Ribero, is an Achagl1an
name.
I think it very likely that these names for Parica snuff-powder
along the upper Orinoco and Rio :Negro, are from the same root
as the Haitian cahaba. But the concrete meaning of words related
as to root, changes as well in Indian languages as in others. In
this case the circumstance is 110 more remarkable, than that our
"snus" (snuff) can mean se\'eral kinds of powdered snuff. For
reasons that I \vill cite later, I am of the considered opinion that
the Haitian word cahaba designates a tobacco-snuff. \Vhether the
Calillago word chaccoz/ba is derived from the same root as the
Haitian cahaba, I leave undecided, as "chaccollba" means to
chew in Calinago, while tobacco bears the Arawak name iOlllz'.2)
") Identity of Cahaba, tlte narcotic snuff of a!lcien/Haiti, Jonm. of the \Vash.
Acad. of Sciences, Vo.l (,. .\' arcotic Plants and 51; lIZulants of the ancient A merieans,
Allu. Rep. of thc Board of Rcgents, Smiths. Inst., 191(), \\'ash. 1917. Proc,
of the Xinctecllth Int. Congr. of Amcric., held at \\'ash .. p. 27.
2) See RRE'rOX, Op. ,il., p. 117. Char:couiJa, iouTi. Comp. p. ,lO() . ./ouli.

That is, the Island-Caribs used their tobacco-powder only for
chewing.
Furthermore, SAFFORD refers to the fact that Piptadenia Peregrina
grows wild in the Orinoco and Amazon regions, and is also
cultivated; in addition it belongs to the Flora of Espanola, Puerto
Rico, and some of the other Antilles. I ) I do not know whether
Piptadenia belonged to the precolumbian Flora of the Antilles.
But it is certain that no plant of this sort, whose seed was used
for the preparation of snuff-povvder, has been described in the
literature of the Conquista.
The domain of the piptadenia snuff extends in a tongue
towards the north along the Rio Negro and the Orinoco. It was
generally diffused over the western llanos in the I7th century,
when the missionaries arrived.2) On the other hand, if we go
down the Orinoco we find a snuff made from tobacco. In a
general way it can be said that the region of piptadenia extends
down the Orinoco as far as the bend at Cabritu.3) Yet it is extraordinary
that it also made its way to Trinidad, with its widely
ramified marine connections in this case by means of the Orinoco,
which mainly flows tranquilly as far as from the rapids. But on
Trinidad they also had tobacco- as well as yopa-powder.4)
Probably tobacco-snuff was the most ancient indigenous snuffpowder
used on that island. Very likely similar conditions
prevailed among the Otomacos.
Even if the Tainos did not use piptadenia-powder, still it is
worthy of note that as a general thing they used snuff only in
order to enter into relations with the spirit-vyor1d. It is decidedly
still more interesting in connection \~'ith the Orinoco, that they had
1) S.WFORD, Ibid., p. 396.
2) See RIIll{RO, op. cit., p. 55, Tuncvos; 104, 110, 158, 328; Achaguas; 148
Goagibos, Chiricoas,' '210 Salivas.
3) GILl], op. cit, Va!. I, p. 202. In Yo!. 11. p. 103 he says that even the
Otomacos and especially their piajcs, used snuff made from tobacco to get into
connection with the spirit-\vorlll and to prophesy. Rut the Otomacos belong to
the tribes that Gilij didllot know personally. Gl':vm,LA, op. cit., p. 204 says particularly
of the Otomacos that .l'opa was their snuff, and his description indicates
piptadcnia powder. Also MAR'l'IUS. 7ul' Ethnogr., p. 63!, mentions that the Otomacos
ha(l niopa powder.
4) CASTELLAXOS, citation ill Chapter 1.

forked snuff-tubes on Espanola. Still these do not reveal piptadenia,
but they appear in the tropical lowlands of South America
to stand in a certain relation to the domain of piptadenia snuff.
:\" evertheless, the Arawak tribes along the PuntS used tobaccosnuff
together with a forked snufl-tube.I) In the same way, the
forked snuff-tubes have passed beyond the piptadenia-snuff
region along the Orinoco. GlLI{S real sojourn and sphere of action
was among the Tamanacos and Al aipures. He knows only tobaccosnull,
which ,vas inhaled through "certe tanagliette de stinchi
d'ucelli. "2) The material of bird-bones was therefore the same
here as further up the Orinoco, and in the Amazon country.
The forked snuff-tube, and in co11junct£on with it the use of
snuff lor the purpose of seeing '.'isioJls, is a culture-element that
advanced f1'0111 South Anleric(l by the Orinoco route to ESj!(l1toZa.
This occurred probably by way of Trinidad, where the taking of
snuff for spiritualistic purposes was common. The transmission
to the Greater Antilles must have taken place in Ignerian times.
As a matter of fact, the Island-Caribs did not take their tobacco
as snuff, but chewed it,;)) with the exception of their boyi who
smoked cigars in order to summon their spirit with the agreeeable
smell of the tobacco. They dried the tobacco leaves with fire,
softened the mass with sea-water, and added to it white ashes.
'fhey took some of it and packed it in a quid betvwen the lip and
the gum. The chewing-tobacco that ,vas to be kept, was dried and
softened ,,,ith sea-vyater. The mass was then kneaded into rolls,
just like our chewing-tobacco. These rolls were used as money
011 the Carib islands.4) The Island-Caribs used both the Aravvak
word jouli and the Igncriall chaccOl/ba for tobacco. 5 ) 'l'he 'l'ainos
had the word c(leba, ·which their kinsmen on the mainland did not
') See JOSEPH BEAI,E STEERE, "'arrativc of a visit to Indian tribes of the Ri­
Der, Brazil. Rep. of the r. S. ),Jat. ::\lu8. for 1'10[, \\'ash. 1903, p. 37I··~372.
2) Vol. I, p. 202.
3) The chewing tobacco of the Tslan

390
use. As already stated the calinago word chaccouba really does
not mean tobacco, but to chew, and the same word was also used
when the women che'wed cassava to cause fermentation in the
preparation of OUiCOl£ (BRETON p. rr6). The connection between
the Tainan caoba and the calinago chacc01J.ba seems to me to be as
follows. The Tainan forefathers, like the Island-Caribs, originally
had only chewed tobacco. But later and in the Ignerian time, the
Tainos adopted the snuff-taking and snuff-tubes. They preserved
\vithout interruption their old word for tobacco, caoba, long after
the chewing of tobacco had disappeared among them. The Island-Caribs
had emigrated from the coast of Guiana, where the
taking of snuff with forked tubes can not be proven, and where
the piayes prepared themselves with tobacco-juice to enter into
relations with the spirit-world. The taking of snuff through the
forked reed, has nothing to do with the original kinship between
the Tainos and the True Arawaks of the coast of Guiana, who
were never acquainted with these progressive methods of using
snuff.
SAFFORD is of the opinion, that we can conclude from the physiological
effects, that the Haitian snuff can not have been made
from tobacco, but must have been piptadeniaJ) I am not in a
position to discuss this qnestion from a purely physiological point
of view. I will only cite here imformation from historical sources
as to the effects, purposes and uses of the two snuff-powders.
Vopa-powder was certainly 1Iot always taken for the purpose
of going into a trance. Ribero states, that the Goagibos and Chiricoas
always took yopa-powder in snail-shells with them on their
wanderings, and spokes of it as "el unico matalotaje."2) The
intoxicating effects of yopa can differ according to the various
predispositions of character. For instance, the barbarous Otumacos
became raging from "yupa", while on more pacific tribes it
had no such effect.3) The Armvak A chaguas liked to use it, in order
1) GUl\IILLA, op. cit .. p. 204.
') "Vare. Plants etc., p. 393 and 39(L
") Op. cit., p. qS. Here the suspicion comes to me that it might hayE' been
coca-powder, which is so com1llon in the Cayar·i-U aupis territoty, where the 1nc1ia'lS
pnc'serve it in snail-shells aud absorb it through forked reeds in the nose.
Piptadenia powder is mort· strongly narcotic than coca-powder. See KOCH-GRi'N­
HIeRG, Zwei Jahre, Vol. 1, p. 323-324 and Vol. II, p. Zil,)---2,)O.

39 1
to avert revenge or ill-will,1) I need not enter into details as to
the use of yopa for visionary purposes. RIBERO has observed it in
the different tribes of the J1l estern LZanas. 2 )
It may be the narcotic effects of tobacco-snuff sound strange
to us. But the Indian snuff was prepared from \Vest Indian
unfermen ted tobacco and was much stronger than ours made of
European leaf; moreover, the mixture with salt-water and lime
must have increased the narcotic effects. The Island-Caribs
became pale and intoxicated from a solitary quid of this chewingtobacco.3)
The narcotic effects of the snuff \vere stronger among
the Haitians than on us, because they drew in the powder deeply
through both nostrils, by means of a forked reed" con el huelgo
hacia dentro."4) The intoxication reveals itself by senseless talking5)
and they saw the huts turned upside down, and the men
with their feet in the air.6) In a greater narcosis, they finally fell
unconscious on the ground and sank into a profound sleep. 7) It
seems that they had visions while the intoxication was still active. 8)
Such powerful effects from snuffing tobacco may seem peculiar to
us, but we must remember the superstitious disposition of the
Indians, and that they believed unconditionally in what they
thought they had seen; furthermore, that their psychical force of
resistance had been decreased by a particular fast in anticipation
of the visions that the cahaba would cause.9) \Ve must weigh
1) RIBERO, op. cit., p. 3z6.
2) Ibid., p. 55, Tunebos. P. I04 & 116, Achaguas. P. II6, Giraras and 2IO,
Salivas.
3) BRETON, Op. cit., p. II7.
4) 1,.\s CASAS, Apol. Hist., Ed. Serrano y Sanz, P. 445. According to GILIJ,
Op. cit., Y01. I, p. 202. along the Orinoco they also inhaled tobacco-snuff through
the nostrils. It must have been the same in the use of piptadenia-snuff up the
Orinoco, as may be concluded from the appearance of the apparatus. See Handb.
Brit. j\!Ius. Fig. 259. 2 Guahibos. On the Rio Tiquie there is another method, in
which one reed is placed in the nostril, the other in the month "and by a short
breath communicates the fine powder to the innermost mncous membranes of
the nose." KocH-GRl"::-mERG, Zwei Jahre, Vol. I, p. 324 and Fig. 203.
5) 1,.\5 CASAS. Ibid., I'AXE. Chapter XV, the piayes.
6) PAXE, Chapter XIX.
') Ovn{Do. Vol. I, p. I31.
8) I,AS CASAS, Ibid.
9) Camp. CAS CASAS, Ibid., p. 246-247.

392
exactly the possibility that tobacco-snuff might produce such
strong and peculiar narcotic effects, before we take refuge in the
hypothesis that piptadenia was used. For the sources point
decidedly to the former, and not to the latter. LAS CASAS says:
"'fenian hechos ciertos polvos de ciertas yerbas y bien molidas, de
color de canela 0 de alhena molida; en fin eran de color leonada."l)
OVIEDO says that the snuff ~was made from an herb. "Esta hierva
tenianlos indios por cosa muy presciada, y la criaban en sus huertas
y labranzas."2) It was, therefore, a cultivated plant, that ,vhen
we11-dried and ground produced a brown snuff-po,yder ,yhich probably
became somewhat lighter in colour through blending with salt
and lime. A11 this points to tobacco-snuff. The piptadenia powder
was made from the seeds, not from the leaves; it was a mirnosacee,
that is a shrub and not a plant. It is not brown but gray.3)
Moreover, the Haitians differ somewhat from the tribes of
the Orinoco and the Rio Negro in the matter of snuff utensils.
\Vhen the snuff was to be taken, it lay in "nn plato redondo, no
llano, sino un poco algo combado 6 hondo, hecho de madera; thall
hermoso, liso y lindo, que 110 fuera muy mas hermoso de oro 0 de
plata; era cuasi negro y 1ucio como de azabeche."4) If inspiration
was sought from a particular zemi (of '.'vood) it could happen
that on top of its head, the idol had a round surface5) on ,vhich
lay the snuff which was to be inhaled.6) Idols with the remains
of such snuff-discs are FEWKES I, Fig. 30, Santo Domingo, Pl. ex
c--c', "found in a cave in Loma Sucia, near Y sahella", Santo
Domingo, Pl. eXI b--b', "Caicos or Turks Island", or with snufftable
surface sitting up on a handle, over the idol as in JOYCE,
[ourn. Anthrop. It/st. Vol. 37, Pl. LXIX, 1-2, Jamaica,7) also
FEWKES I, Pl. XCI a-a', Guesde Colt.S)
Along the middle courses of the Orinoco also they inhaled
") Apol. Hist~, Ed. Serrano y Sa1170, p. 445.
2) Ovn;DO, Histm'ia, Vol. I, p. I31.
3) See KOCH-GRUNBERG, Zwei Jahre, p. 323.
4) LAS CASAS. Ibid., p~ 245 .
.I) In the literat111'e, in English, this is called "canopy".
") COLGMBL:S, Bourne's Trans., p. 312, or D. FERNAXDO, Hist. Del. Atm., Vol.
I, p. 277.
') Santo Domingo, see Chapt~ XII, letter from SCHO~!BOFRGK.
8) Probably not from Guadeloupe, but from Puerto Rico or Espanola.

393
the snuff through the nostrils from "un piattino di legno" .1) I
know of no wooden platters for this purpose from the Western Llanos.
There they must have taken snuff from the flat hand, if not directly
from the snail-shell, just as on the Rio Tiquie. 2 )
The Tainos differ from the ,vhole of South America in that
their forked snuff-tubes were not made from bones, and certainly
not from those of birds, as in the Orinoco and Cayary-U aupes
regions. Suitable bones for tubes were not accessible on Espanola;
other material had to be sought there.
OVIBDO says in one place: "Los caciques e hombres principales
tenian Ull0S palillos huecos del tamano de un xeme 6 mcnos de la
groseza del dedo menor de la mano, y est os caliutos tenian dos
caliones respondientes a nno como aqui esta pintado (Linn. la,
Fig. 7 a) e todo en una pieza."3) And in another place: "Los
indios que no alcan

394
se abria por dos canutos huecos, de la manera que abrimos los dos
dedos delmedio, sacado e1 pulgur, cuundo extendemos la mano."l)
Since Ovnmo mentions that the apparatus for taking snuff, used
by the caciques, and probably the same as the ones described
above by LAS CASAS, consisted of "palillos huecos" in one piece,
we can assume that it was made from a forked branch. The snuffapparatus
of the common people must have been formed by pieces
of reed, joined together. How the Haitians succeeded in hollowing
out the forked branchES is not explained in the sources. Undoubtedly
it was a very difficult piece of work, as only the caciques
could call such a snuff-apparatus their own.
The Haitians carried their tobacco-snuff in calabashes over
the shoulder.2) It was kept in round calabashes or conch-shells
with the orifice closed, on C ayary-U aupes. 3) 'rhe Goagibos and
Chiricoas had their yopa-powder in rather large snail-shells.4)
The first effect of the cahoba, a strong sneeze,5) is in harmony
with the theory that it was tobacco-snuff. This sneezing the
Haitians considered a magic purgative for the nose,6) exactly as
the stomach was rapidly and effectively cleansed of all wickeq
spirits by an emetic,7) or a little stick thrust down the throat. 8)
·Cahoba was indispensable not only for the magic purification,
but also to put the user in a state of trance for the revelations or
communications of the zemis. 9)
The tobacco-smoking of the piayes served an entirely different
religious purpose. In Guiana these men smoked it in order
to attract the spirits to them.lO)
The pia yes of the Island-Caribs drew their spirits to them
1) Apol. Hist., Ibid., p. 445.
2) PANE, Chapter XI.
3) KOCH-GRi.'NBERG, Zwei Jahre, VoL I, P. 323 ---324'
4) RIBERO, Op. cit., p. 148.
5) PANE, Ibid.
") Camp. PANE, Ibid., and Chap. XV.
i) PANE, Chap. XVI.
') C'\.NlZARES' description in ~IARTYR, MacNutt's Trans., VoL II, p. 310,
(~()MARA, Historia de las Indias Antw. 1554, "para mostrar el Idola, que no los
quedaba cosa mala en el estomago."
!)) See the ADMIRAL, in D. FERXANDO, Op. cit., VoL I, p. 277; PANE, Chap.
XIX; I~As CASAS, Ibid.
10) ROTH, Old Ti11'/e Ind., p. 10.

395
in the following manner; they called them with a song and smoked
tobacco, whose aroma ,vas very pleasing to them.!) Among the
Tainos the behiques had lost much of their authoritative position
and leadership in the conjuring of spirits because of the development
of the aristocracy, and also because the zemis had taken
over a good part of their magic. Only in GOMARA2) is there an
intimation that the aroma of tobacco was pleasing to the zemis,
according to the comprehension of the Haitians. In other respects,
the religious use of the cigar on Espanola by the behiques seems
to have been only the same as in the tropical lowlands of South
America, namely the blowing of tobacco-smoke on the affected
parts of the sick. 3)
Like the Island-Caribs,4) the Haitians hung the tobacco leaves
ncar the hearth fire to dry.5) Among the Arawak tribes in Guiana
the leaves were suspended up under the roof of the hut to dry
slOlv1y.6) The tobacco leaves were dried directly over the fire, on
the bottom of a clay dish among the kindred tribes who lived on
the Rio Purus. 7 )
In the early period of Spanish colonization, the Tainos were
in accord with Guiana and upon the whole with the tropical lowland
races of South America, in that the wrappers for their cigars
were formed from leaves of trees.B) LAS CASAS says: "hacian de
unas hojas de arbol secas U11 rollete como se hace un mosquete de
pape1, y metian dentro una poca de aquella yerba y encendian e1
mosquete por una parte, y por la otra sorbian 0 atraian el humo
hacia dentro en el pecho 10 cnal Ies causaba nn adormicimiento ell
las carnes y en todo el cuerpo, de man era que ni sentian hambre
1) ROCHEFORT. op. cit., p. 473; BRETON, GP. cit., p. 217.
') Hist. gen., Paris, 1587, p. 37.
') BENZO:-!I. op. cit., p. 81; PAXE, Chap. XVI, D. FERXANDO, GP. cit., p. 299
"C01lJO

ni cansancio, y estas mosquetes llamaban tabacos, la media silaba
luenga."l) In BENZONI'S time, the Indians of Espanola used a
wrapper of maize2.) The use of maize-leaves for cigar-wrappers
characterizes preferably Mexico, but not northeastern South
America. Indeed, passing westward along the north coast, the
Caquetios appear to have been the first tribe that used maizeleaves
to wrap their cigars, in ancient times. 2 )
Nevertheless, we must not draw too important conclusions
from the fact that the 'l'ainos and the peoples of the tropica110vylands
of South America used leaves of trees instead of maizeleaves
for cigar-wrappers, especially as among them maize is very
tender and plays a more subordinate role than in Mexico and on
the Coro coast. The '1'ainos might have received the custom of
smoking cigars from northeastern South America, but they could
just as well have learnt it from the Mayas and transmitted their
knowledge of this method of using tobacco to South America. I
am referring to the previously cited \Varrau legend. lTlldoubtedly
cigar-smoking among the Tai110s reached to an extent differing
considerably from that of the tribes of the Atlantic Coast of tropical
South America.
Indeed, smoking completely lost its occult religious character
among the Tainos and became very popular. The men that
COLUlVIBL:S sent into the interior of the country, in the region of
Nuevitas, in eastern Cuba, observed that the Indians generally
smoked cigars when marching.3) On the other hand, the sources
give no information as to whether cigars had the character of a
guest-gift among the Tainos, as along the coast of Vera Cru2:. 4)
As Central America, Yucatan and 'Mexico --- with the exception
of the Tarascos -- are in accord5) with the tropical lowlands
and north coast of South America, in that their tobacco-smoking
took the form of cigars, so it can not be decided if cigar-smoking
belonged to those cultural possession that the '1'ai11os brought
with them from South America, or if they learnt to smoke cigars
1) Apol. Hisi., Ed. Serrano y Sanz, p. IS!.
2) NORDEXSKI()I.D, Ded. Sugg. etc., p. 72 cites OVIEDO.
") T,AS CASAS, Hist01'ia, VoL 62, p. 332.
') See Ibid., VoL 65, p. 434, 435, and 436.
") Pipes are to be regarded as post-columbian, along the coast of Guiana.

397
on the Antilles through influence from Yucatan. On the other
hand, it is certain that the smoking of cigars did not come to the
\\~est Indies from North America, where they smoked pipes instead.
It is an assured fact that cigars were smoked by the Tainos as
a general thing. It is the only form of tobacco-smoking that
information points to.
So long as proper information is lacking as to the origin of
pipes of which it is asserted that they were found on the '1'ainan
islands, it is a useless undertaking to dIscuss in detail, whether
the tobacco-pipe came to these islands from North America.
DE HOSTOS says two pipes were found on Puerto Rico. 1 ) A
stone pipe in the Copenhagen :Vluseum is marked "found in Puerto
Rico" .2) Nevertheless it is made of a kind of porphyritic stone
that I do not as yet know from \Vest Indian artefacts; moreover,
it shows a distinct standard type of the Bird Pipes3) with a duck
on the pipe-head, which type has been dug up in the region of
the southern Alleghanies, in Kentucky and in Tennessee. 4) But
the report as to to the locality of its origin is probably erroneous,
and the pipe could not have been found in Puerto Rico. The
peculiar thing about it is that CRONAU reproduces a pipe from
Turk's Island just like it, which according to his opinion is made
of clay, but which must be stone. 5 ) A fragment of a clay pipe
bowl, also found at Turk's Island,6) with its characteristic face is
undoubtedly Tainan. But since it is only cited as a fragment,
one suspects that it is really only one of the usual clay faces on
the narrow end of an elliptical dish, and not the fragment of a
pipe. In the vicinity of L. Tacarigua, however, there have been
found earthenware pipes with bowls modelled in the shape of a
head or a face similar to those met with on vessels (REQUENA, op.
1) Amer Anthrop., Va!. XXI, p. 393.
2) R\H:\"SC)N'S Catalogue A merika, the Antilles, PI. III, 4, 10.
3) For the nalllE' see .Me Gc;rRE, ap. cit., p. 438.
4) See :'vl0(lH.mmAD, Op. cit., Vol. II, Fig. 47(j B; Me GrIRE, Op. cit., Fig. 67,
"Stone \Voocl Duck Pipe, Cumberland Co., Tennessee" is also vcry like it, but
shows another kind of duck.
;'1 Amerika. I,eipzig, 1892, p. 227·
") CRO:\";U'. ibid., These two pipes from Turk's Island are to be founel in the
library at C\'assau, New Providence Island. See FEWKES T, p. 64.

cit., fig. p. 5). This kind of ceramics, especially the earthemvare
heads, approximates to that of the archaic-Ignerian era. It is not
unlikely that the earthenware pipes have found their way from
South America over the range of the Antilles to Puerto Rico and
Turk's Island.
Coca.
liAS CASAS states that the Tainos, and particularly
their behiques, in order to maintain their religious
fasts, drank "cierto zumo de yerba 0 yerbas".l) He was of the
opinion that by this coca was mean"c, a plant of which he had
heard from Peruvian countries. 2 ) In Cuba especially, he had
observed that they drank "cierto zumo de yerbas" during the
long period of religious fasting, that preceded the solemn
caoba-intoxication necessary to have visions from the spiritworld.3)
I,AS CASAS never visited Peru himself, and at the first glance
it appears very extraordinary that the Tainos used coca in the
form of a liquid, while as a general thing in South America it was
used to chew, or as snuff. But through an exceedingly interesting
passage in PANE the likelihood gains ill strength, that coca was
known on Espanola, and the juice evidently extracted.4) The conception
seems to have existed among the Tainos, that coca-juice
had a magic resuscitating and inspiring effect, not only on those
debilitated by hunger, but also on the dead. When the Haitians
wished to know if the patient had died through the fault of the
behique, or because he had not kept the prescribed diet, they
took an herb named "gueio" "vvhich has leaves like basil, thick
and broad (and it is also called by another name zachon). 'fhey
take the juice of the leaf and cut the nails of the dead man and
cut off the hair of his forehead, and they make powder of them
between two stones, which they mix \vith the juice of the aforesaid
herb, and they pour it in to the dead man's mouth or his
nose, and so doing they ask the dead man if the physician ,\-as
p. 23').
1) Apo/. Hist., E,l. Serrano y Sanz, p. 446 - 447-
') Ibid.
:1) Hlstoria, VoL 64, p. 475.
') Chapt. XVIL Scot' D. FERXAN"DO, op. cit., p. 300-
30I or Bon~:-m's '1'1'(1110.

399
the cause of his death, and if he had followed the regimen (or
diet). And they ask him that several times nnti1 he speaks as
plainly as if he were alive."l)
If \ve compare this herb described by PAKE with coca, three
noteworthy resemblances present themselves.
First of all coca-leaves resemble those of the Mediterranean
basil very much, as to form.
Secondly, coca under the name of ha:i) is found in the excellent
description of Cumanil by GOMARA, based on the information
received from THOMAS ORTIZ and other Franciscans.3) Bo­
LINDER shovvs that the h in hay or hayo is pronounced,4) which
makes the similarity to the Haitian gueio still more obvious. Bo­
UKDER points out also, from the reports written in different epochs
of time, that the designation lzayo of hay was widely diffused
particnlar1y among the Chibcha races in the mountainous regions
and along the northern coast of South America. 5 ) Still the
Spaniards found the ,yord hay for coca in Cumana in the earliest
times. Thus it cannot be an "international Indian word" newly
known in Cumana given to a previously known plant, and borrowed
from the Spaniards wich from a very early date did
introduce Haitian names. Many such names were found later
in other parts of America. Gueio is undoubtedly precolumbian
on Espanola and the same is true for hay in CumaniL I am inclined
to the opinion that the word and the plant are the same,
and that coca came to the Antilles from the important coca centre
in the Cumana country, where it was cultivated in the heat of
quiet valleys of the Eastern Carib Cordillera. No other plant was
protected so carefully as hay in the Cumana region. 6) It was
exported to great distances and exchanged for gold, slaves and
other wares. 7) In the direction towards the \Vest Indies, coca-
p. [ 15·
') J50t'RNE. Ibid.
2) GOMARA, Histcwia. p. 25

40 0
chewing was very general along the coast from Cumana to Paria,
in Indian times. 1)
III the third place, it can also be found in South America,
that coca was consumed in the form of a liquid. GmvIARA says,
that in Cumana the Indians had blackened teeth caused "du sue,
ou de la poudre des feuilles d'un arbre, qu'ils appellent IIay".2)
Here it is nevertheless doubtful if the black colour was not due
to the chewing alone. On the other hand, BOI,INDER has observed
that the Ijcas, 'when sick, use a decoction of coca-leaves to induce
perspiration.3)
I am disposed to conclude, that coca and its cultivation came
to the Tainos from Cumana, but that the influence from that
region did not extend so far that the Tainos learned the complicated
method of chewing, but stopped at its consumption in the
liquid form.
Cotton. Extremely little information is to be had about
the Tainan cultivation of cotton, particularly as
its culture diminished with the extinction of the 'l'ainos.4) At the
time of OVIEDO the cultivation of cotton was of no importance on
Espanola, owing to the fact that the Indians had decreased very
much and the European settlers did not go in for cotton growing.
But undoubtedly the production of this plant on the Tainan
islands was more extensive than in the tropicallovYlands of South
America. The need of cotton among the Tainos was greater than
in the South American lowlands. They required it not alone for
their hammocks, but also for cloth for naguas, as well as for
their cotton zemis and the canvas for the bead girdles. It
can not be exactly established that the cotton-fields really were
irrigated. But the parallelism between cotton fields and irrigation
1) I

40I
is singular. I have previously mentioned Xaragua as the province
of EsparlOla, wich excelled all the others in the cultivation
of cotton, the cotton industry and also irrigation by conducting
the rivenvater into canals.]) On the north coast of South America
we find irrigation at Chiribiche2) and Santa Al arta3) the lastnamed
of which was renowned for its cotton-fields and COtt011-
clothing.4) The Tainos grew a species") of highly cultivated cotton.
OVIEDO observed that the cotton of Tierra Finne °was 110t so high
as that of Espanola, and in the latter island the cotton grown
in the" heredamientos" not so high and white than that in the
"campos." The plants of the tall-growing kind were supported
by sticks. 5) There was a considerable amount of cotton growing
wild on Espanola, but I am unable to ascertain whether it had
become so or was naturally so.
Other Plants
for Spinning
and Twisting.
It is a peculiar coincidence that the same kind
of soil, is best suited to the cultivation of cotton
and also the agave. Thus cotton as well as sisalhemp
grow exceedingly well in the "Black Loam"
The "hemp" that grows so abundantly
of the Bahama Islands.6)
near the cotton in Xaragua can have been nothing more than
henequen. 7 ) Ovnmo gives information about the Indian treatment
of the henequen-fibre on Espanola. First the Indians put the
leaves in a rapid stream for several clays to soften them. 1'hen
they are taken out and placed "a enxugar 6 secar al sol. Des-
') LI="G ROTH, The A /Jorigines of Hispaniola, J oum. of the Royal. Anthrop.
Jnst. Vol. XVI, p. 271, and FEWKES J, p. 50, cite from MORAl,ES' report to MARTYR,
rainless regions in the lee of the trade wind on Espanola which were irrigated. To
these belong Xaragua, as well as the district of Azua, in the northeastern part
of the depression. According to 2iIARTYR, MacXutt's Trans. Vol. I, p. 120, the
cotton of Xaraguii was produced along the riyer-banks.
2) ::vrARTYR, 1Iac:\l1tt's Trans., Vol. II, p. 368, according to reports of ORTIZ
and other Franciscans.
3) :CNCIS(), Op. cit., p. XXIIII. The watering here was done by hand.
4) Ibid., p. XXIII.
5) OVIEDO, t. I, p. 370.
oJ c-J. MoOxEY. in Burbank, The Bahama Islands, p. 159.
'J MARTYR, ::VlacXutt's Trans" Vol. II, p. II9. The irrigation done l)y di­
,oerting rhoer-water into canals, nevertheless, must haye been intended for the
,otton only and not for the xerophil agave.

402
pues que estan enxutados, quiebranles, e con un palo a manera
de espadar el canamo, hacen saltar las corte

One fruit which seems to have been very popular with the
Tainos as ,veIl as with their kinsmen, the True Arau'aks, was the
hobo. 1 ) It is very significant that in the Haitian myths jobos
were the first fruit-trees that were obtained through metamorphosis.
2 )
The guayaba or guayab0 3 ) also had an extensive Indian diffusion
in tropical South America.4) Vke nearly all of the cultivated
Haitian fruit-trees, the guayaba must have been brought over
from there. It appears to have degenerated on Espanola, for
LAS CASAS says that the fruits 011 this island were smaller and not
so good as 011 the continent.5)
The anona, this name also is Tainan,6) cannot be classified
as to species. But guanabana,7) is anona ttturicata, which ,vas
wide-spread in the Amazon regions at the time of the Discovery,8)
while this variety as well as others, among them the chirimoya,
were found in graves along the coast of Peru.9)
1) Spondias, en LAS C.\SAS, Apol. Hist., p. 32; OVIEDO, Historia, Vol. T, p.
293-294. Ql:ANDT op. cit:, Ar. hubu,' BRETOX, Op. cit., p. 257 Calinago, oubou.
In South America this is a typical tropical lowland culture-plant and in Indian
times it was also widely diffused in the Amazon regions. See ~ORDENSKI()LD,
Ded. Sugg. eic., p. 6

'l'here were also hicacos1) in Aruacay. 2)
The guayabara,3) whose berry-like fruits4) \vere used in later
European times on the Antilles to sweeten rum, was found in Indian
South America as far distant as inter-Andean Ecuador. 5)
The cai1ndo tree occurred in pre-Columbian times in the
valleys of Peru's eastern cordillera, in inter-Andean Ecuador and
in the Amazon regions.")
Themamey7) is pre-Columbian 110t only on Espanola, 8) but
on the Amazon as well. 9)
The popo (in the Taino language papaya, Carica papaya)
was mentioned by Ovumo II, p. 323) 011 the islands as well as
in Tierra Firme and Nicaragua. NORDENSKIOLD has no record of
its being known to the inhabitants of the South American lowlands
before the Spanish era. In all probibility the popo was
transplanted into the Tainan Islands from Central America.
Summary of
Fruit Trees.
The close connection between the Antilles and the
great tropical lowland of South America is brought
into relief by the preceding study of Indian fruittrees.
Only the gt£ayaba must have originated in the hot valleys
of the northern Andes and arrived at the 'Vest Indies along the
north coast of South America and papaya is ought, to have
reached the I,slands accross the sea from Central America. In
most cases we find the cited fruits widespread over Tierra Finne,
according to OvmDo. 10 ) LAS CASAS mentions some fruits without
') LAS CASAS, Ibid., p. 33; On1';DO, Vol. 1, p. 29').
2) Ibid., Vol. II, p. 22[. See CODAZZI, Op. cit., for use of fruit in modern
Venezuela.
3) Inga Feuilleri.
4) Ibid., Vol. I, p. 30I.
') NORDBNSKIOI,D, Ibid., p. 69, dtes Salinas Le'.\'a/a.
6) Lacuma caimito, XORDE~SKlijl,J), Ibid., p. (lS, Palomino, p. 69 cites
S. LC)vOLA and ORTIGUERA.
') 11;Iammea americana.
8) ENCISO, Op. cit., p. LXI; OVIEDO, Vol. 1, p. 30().
') NORDENSKIOI,D, Op. cit., p. ('9, cites ORTIGrER.\.
10) Histaria, Vol. I, p. 24S, an ana (gua1'al'o) , p. 293 hobo, p. 295 caymito, p. 2()')
guama, p. 305 guayabo. p. 306 JI/.ameyis same as r;apotc in Xicaragua, where Oviedo
was in 152

gIVing their Tainen names,1) and for that reason they are difficult
to identify.
OVII.;DO discovered later that a small fruit, s\yeet and good, the
managua grew wild on Espanola. 2 ) I have not been able to find it
again South America under that name. 'l'herefore it can possibly
1Jelollg to the original Flora of the Antilles.
The Tainan fruit-tree yaruma,3) (the fruit tastes like decayed
figs) I am unable to identify.
The above-mentioned fruit-trees belong to the more humid
provinces. The tzma ,4) (alligator pear) a cactus of the drier regions
of Espanola and particularly of the seacoast, bears an edible fruit.
It is widely diffused in South America, where its fruit was eaten by
the Indians ill ancient times. G) The Haitians also ate the fruit of
another cactus, the pdaliaya .6)
Pineapple. COI,FMBGS never saw pineapples on the Tainan
islands. It vms only on his second voyage that
the Spaniards saw them for the first time in America on Guadeloupe.
Yet the Taillos also had this fruit, to judge from MAR­
'fYl{'S account it was first brought to them at a late date and
through the intervention of the Island-Caribs. 7 ) There are also
other indications that the Taillos obtained ananas from South
America, by way of the Lesser Antilles.
Yet the cultivation of this fruit has extended still another
arm northward, along the Atlantic coast of Central America.
COLFl\IBUS came upon ~lllanas once more, and that during the last
voyage along the coast of Veragua, ,,,,here they prepared a kind
tribes from South America, especially Chibchan. hm'e immigrated in large nulUbers.
,Yhen Xicaragua is 111eal1t. OYlliDO is accllstomed to name it especially.
This is only true of lllamey or zapote among fruits. The first word is Taiuan, the
other X al1Uan. The :>Ic-xican zapote is still another species, mamm(;a .'ujwia.
1) .,Ipo/. lIf.,I, E,j Serrano y Sanz, p. 32---33,
") His/oria, \'01. r. p. 311.
") On1mO, \'01. I, p. 300.
') Opu/ltia ililla, "prickly pears". LAS C.\S.\8. Apol. Hist., p. 33.
") Also in ,lI'U{{C{{l'. see OnEDo, Hist()yia, Vol. II. p. 22 I.
") L\s c.\S,\S, nid, p. 32; Oviedo. fiJid .. Vol. T, p. 31I, Il111St. 1'1. 3 a. Fig.
y a. 1\ot to Leo cOllil1sed with the brome/ia or pitll-hemp. which the Island-Carih,
used for cords 'Illel cordage, See BRE'I'

of wine from this fruitJ) :Further north along the coast,
GRIJALVA found pinas in Tabasco.2)
At the time of the Discovery, the South American locality
nearest to the \Vest Indies, where I know that pinas existed, is
Aruacay.3) I have just mentioned the occurrence of ananas on
the Antilles at Guadeloupe, at the same date. Although COLUl\IBUS
did not observe at any time an an as among the 'l'ainos, there is
reason enough for the assumption that they had this fruit in precolumbian
times. ENCISO, who visited Espanola ill 1508, described
the pinas from there in detail. 4) OVIEDO mentions three different
kinds of ~manas on Espanola and uses their Tainan names yayama,
boniama and yayagua. He distinguishes them from the ananas of
Tierra :Firme, which are better and larger.") Now as OVIEDO means
Central America vvhen he says Tierra Firme, the unequal quality of
the fruit is a certain indication that the Tainos did not get their
ananas from there. That the fruit eame from South America hy
way of the Lesser Antilles, seems to be proved by the experiences
of LAS CASAS. He never saw any ananas growing on Espanola,
but knew only Puerto Rico as an island that produced and exported
this fruit.6)
Spices. Since the Tainos belong to the races that had the
pepper-pot, aji vvere much used by them. I
will not speak here of the excessive cultivation of aji among
the agricultural races of South America and Mexico. Capsicum,
nevertheless, varied greatly. The Tainos cultivated tvvo species,7)
both probably of Capsicum bacatum,8) and in addition they also
used the wild pimiento,9) which in Indian times must have been
1) DON FERNANDO, Histaria, Vol. II, p. 192; LAS CASAS, His/aria, Vol. 04, p.
136. Among the True Arawaks ananas, nanne, were (QCANDT, Op. cit .. p. 179)
used exclucively for drinks. See V AN COLL, Op. cit., p. 495.
2) LAS CASAS, Histm'ia, Vol. 05, p. 442.
3) OVIEDO, Histaria, Vol. II, p. 221.
4) Op. cit .. p. XIX.
5) Histaria, Vol. I, p. 280 and 285.
6) Apal. Hist., Ed Serrano y Sanz, p. 32.
7) LAS CASAS. Ibid., p. 27. OVIEDO, Vol. I, p. 275.
8) Compo TIPPENHAUER, Die Insel Haiti, p. 248.
,.) Capsicum annUU11l. See further LAS CASAS, ibid. and OVIEDO. ibid.

native to more islands than Jamaica, and of which COLUMBUS
heard at the time of his first voyage, as growing in southeastern
CUba. I )
On the same occasion he discovered that cinnamon (here cana
fistula)2) grew in that locality, as well. Still, I have never found
anywhere in historical literature, that this indigenous West Indian
spice was used by the Indians, nor has its Tainan name come down
to us. It appears that it did not find savour with the Indians.
vVhen COLUMBUS casually presented samples of "pimiento"3) and
cinnamon to the Indians of the north coast of Cuba, in order to
discover their origin, they knew first well, but not the second.4)
Plants :Furnish- In Chapter I, I have discussed the painting of the
ing Colours for body -- red with bifa and black with fagua (Ge­
Body-painting. nipa) - and its connection with South America.
] agua remains a fast dye simply by using its juice.
The Tainos made a solution of bifa and "ciertas gomas."S) We
do not know what these viscous gums were. The Tainos appear
to have known some plants with resinous sap, but their islands
might originally have lacked oil-giving plants. Accordingly they
did not nse carapa-oil to smear thpmselves wiht bifa, as did
their kinsmen, the True Arawa1

their hands into an unguent with which they smeared the face and
breast, making them white. Next they "ponen otras unciones e

The milk-like juice of the fruit of the first-named, has purgative
properties. Among the cultivated medicinal plants must also have
been the emetic that the Tainos beat to pieces by the fire, rolled in
the ashes, and put into the mouth regularly after their frugal supper
to cause vomiting.1)
Calabashes. This is not the place to investigate if the lagil1ar£a
was precolumbian Indian in America, and if so,
its probable geographical extension. I will only state as regards
the Tainos, that there is no proof in the older historical sources
that they had the laginar£a, but only the hibuero or cufete. \Ye
will not consider the first voyage of COLUMBUS, as he only mentions
calabashes in a general 'vay. Later on he noticed that the Indians
of Los J ardines de 1a Reina had calabash-trees. The pulp of the
fruit of this tree was as bitter as gall and could not be eaten, but
its shell was used as a drinking-vessel,2) LAS CASAS knew ouly the
h£buero, which bears round calabashes, "aunque algunos las echan
un poco luengas." The longer calabashes, therefore, vvere from the
crescentia and not the laginaria. Moreover, OVIEDO'S affirmation
that the Haitian calabashes could not be eaten, and ,vere only used
for carrying water on journeys, indicates preferably only the crescentia.
OVIIIDO also informs us that the Haitians obtained "calabazas
redondos e algunos prolongadas" from the calabash-tree
called higuera.4) There were many different varieties of the crescentia
in Indian Central and South America. But the Tainos on Espanola
knew but one of them")
Wild Plants
Used by the
Tainos.
While almost vvithout exception the 'l'ainos had
most of their fruits in common with Sonth America,
a very important indigenous \Vest Indian
fruit is scarcely to be found in the older literature,
in place of these they had learned from their necessities to use
some of the comestible roots native to Espanola. The most
') IIiid .. p. 537.
') ::'vLmTYR, MacNutt's Trans,
3) OnIwo, Vol. I, p, 27()
') Ibid., p. 295.
'J [bid., p. 29('·

4IO
noteworthy of all these was the guayaga, which is peculiar to
Higuey.1) The nutritive value of this root consisted not alone
in its very substance, but when it was crushed with sharp stones
and the resultant mass placed in the sun, it soon became filled
with larvae, which the Higiieyans considered edible. For want
of other food, it could happen that the Haitians on their
wanderings would content themselves with canallos, roots similar to
arrow-root. 2 ) These grew wild in sterile soiP) They also ate
the sour fruit of the mangrove when they had no other food. 4)
Although the use of cotton was more developed among the
1'ainos than in the Arawak tribes of the tropical lowlands of South
America, still they used bark-fibres. Occasionally hammocks
were made of cords prepared from dagenta bast, and these were
stronger than those made of agavefibres. 5 ) Bast-fibres that were
also twisted into cords and ropes, were from damahagua,6) xaguey
or gaguey. 7)
The Haitians made their impermeable portable baskets, or
havas,S) from the leaf-sheaths of bihaos,9) "de las corte

4II
which made it possible for the Tainos to build canoes of a very
large size. They had heavy dark wood for idols, duhos, wooden
bowls, etc. Of the woods that could be used profitably, I will only
mention guayacan, caoba,l) ceiba, maria,2) and cigua. 3) The trunks
of the carbana could be used most advantageously for house-posts
and pile-dwellings. These did not rot below the surface of the
ground. 4 )
The dark wood "como de tejo", which was used for bows, was
obtained from the caymito 5 ) on Espanola.
The separate dart points were made by the Tainos of cupey.6)
The Haitians obtained their implements for making fire, both
sticks, from the very dry little tree, called guacima. 7)
'fhe cane that the Tainos used for their house-walls has
already been mentioned. This cane grew on the fertile soil, where
the Tainos likewise had their crops.8) I have also previously
touched upon gynaen:um, as the material used for the shafts of
arrows. 9)
The use of befucos for the walls of houses, as well as for securing
objects to the cross-beams of houses, has been mentioned in
the preceding chapter.
The Tainan names of many other plants continue to live still
in the parts of the islands where Spanish is spoken. Many of them
may have served Indian purposes, but we learn nothing about them
in the historical sources. In Santo Domingo there is a variety of
Amyris Silvatica, from wich the Island-Caribs obtained their "gomme
d'eIE~mie" for lighting the fire under the cooking-pot, for an unguent
to be used by the youths and maidens on feast-days,I°) for making
the canoesll) \vater-tight, and for many other purposes.
') Swietenia mahogany.
2) Sacred, used especially for canoes.
:1) A Lauracee with comparatively light wood.
4) Ibid., p. 34R.
5) Chrysophyllum caimito L. Apol. Hist., Ed., SERRAXO v SANZ, p. 35.
") Ibid., p. 37.
') [bid., p. 35.
8) OVIEDO, Vol. I, p. 370.
S) See further, [bid., p. 371.
10) BRETON, op. cit., p. I74.
") Ibid., p. 185.

4I2
\Vhether an Indian varnish was extracted from the Haitian
"almacigo"l) is also unknown to me.
Rubber. It is evident from the descriptions that the Haitians
used rubber balls for their batey games. OBER
states that native rubber is found in the mountain-forests of Santo
Domingo and the trees give from 2-5 pounds of gutta percha per
annum. 2) But he does not say what species of rubber plant it is.
H this native rubber existed and had not run \vild, then it was not
necessary for the Haitians to import the raw material. In the
period before the Discovery, importation from South America
was made impossible because of the hostile Islands-Caribs, who
never had any ball-game similar to batey, nor any rubber balls.
The amount of rubber required by the 'l'ainos must have been
very considerable and needed an unbroken supply of raw material,
because batey was practiced very generally. The possibility exists
that the rubber could have been procured from Yucatan. Mayan
traders from Yucatan brought to the country of the Toltec-Aztec
ready-made rubber balls. 3)
The Olmeca towns paid to the hill people of :\lexico a heavy
tribute in ready-made rubber balls. Later on we shall see that the
Haitians made their own balls themselves from pulp of their own
manufacture, in all probability from native rubber.
Raw rubber could also have been easily exported from Espariola
to Puerto Rico, the Lucayan Islands and Cuba, because a
lively trade was carried on between these islands.
Yuca dulce. Of all the culture-plants that had a very general
Indian extension even in the tropical lowlands,
but which can not be shown to have been knO\vn to the Taillos in
Indian times, I will here name only the most important one,
namely Y~tca dulce. Only OVIEDO -- a comparatively late source --­
says that a root, the imocona, which he also knows from other parts
1) BuYsera gurJ1n1ijera.
2) A Guide to the TVes! Indies, etc., p. 217.
") FRANS BLOM, The Jv[aya Ball-Gcmw Polda-Pok, Middle Amer. Ser.. Pub!.
110. of. Tulane 1'lliv. of r~otlisialla. New Orleans I932.

of America, is very much like yuca dulce in taste.!) nut he takes
it for granted that yuca dulce, called boniata in Tierra Firme,2) was
brought from the mainland to Espanola in the Spanish period.3)
1Fe must assume from this that the propagation of yuca dulce in
tropical northeastern South A 7I1erica happened at a time when the
fore-fathers of the Tainos had already emigrated from there. But
notwithstanding that, a plant so easy to transfer must have
reached the Tainos, who were so strongly interested in the
cultivation of edible roots, during the time that communication
vvith the Sonth American mainland by way of the entire chain of
Lesser Antilles still remained intact. Therefore, I incline to the
opinion that yuca dulce first became known in northeastern South
America at a later period of time, and that the hostile Island-Caribs
on the Lesser Antilles formed a barrier against its advance to the
Greater Antilles.
luata."
') Historia. Vol. 1. p. 284.
') Ibid., "la yuca de la Tierra Finne, a la que aca llaman bOlliata qne no
a) OnEDO. Ibid .. p. 26

CHAPTER VII.
Navigation, boats, oars, fishing, hunting, and weapons.
In Chapter I, I have already spoken of the inclination of the
Tainos for maritime enterprises, and their overseas connections.
For a race that, as a matter of fact, had no sails, the length of their
voyages is indeed astounding. Not only do ~ails save manual
labour at the oars, but they also have an evolutional effect in
that the crew could be diminished on long voyages, with the result
that there was more room in the boat for comfort, provisions
and cargo. In addition, an opportunity for relieving the sailors
is given and a part of the crew can rest while the others work, a
matter of greatest importance on extended voyages, whose duration
becomes ultimately a question of provisions.
The easiest voyages of the Tainos were those made in
canoes along the coast from place to place. This coast navigation
was very necessary in Espanola, where the Indian settled
countries were as a rule orographic separated.
There was also constant communication between islands"
even when the distance was by no means insignificant. On his
first voyage, COI,UlV1J3US made the discovery that the Indians
rowed in their great canoes "y traen sus mercaderias" betvveen all
the islands that he had learned to know. I ) \Ve must bear in mind
that in carrying on such communication even such long voyages
had taken place as between the most southern of the Bahama
Islands and Cuba (from Great Inagua to Baracoa some IIO km.)
and between Cuba and Haiti (75 km.). Between Espanola and
Puerto Rico, to which island the Higueyans, as I have already
said, went daily in their canoes, lies the island of :Mona some 90
km. from Espanola and about 70 km. from Puerto Rico. In the
') RWARRETE, Vol. T, p. 317---318.

"tierra colorada" of Mona, the Tainos had good fields,l) watered
by jagueyes, precisely the same as in Riguey. Touching the
amount of time necessary to make the crossing, COLUMBUS received
the following interesting information from his pilot that he had
with him from Guanahani: "Dijeron los indios que llevaba que
habia dell as a Cuba andadura de dia y medio con sus almadias,
que son navetas de un madero adonde non llevan vela."2) It must
be taken into consideration that here it is the question of voyages
in small Lucayan boats and not in large, well-manned canoes that
moved with much greater velocity. The crossing in boats that
COI,UlVlBUS used to see, was the constant, not to say daily communication
between the islands.
Now we come to the consideration of voyages that must have
been veritable enterprises. 3) By these, I mean journeys over great
distances without stops, for instance between Jamaica and Cuba
(Montego to Cabo de Cruz some 180 km.), Jamaica by way of Navassa,
an unpopulated island, but provided with water by jagiiyes
(some 175 km. distant from Port Antonio 011 Jarnaica) to
Haiti (50 km. further), or across the Florida Strait from Cuba to
Cayo Largo (220 km., mostly against a strong westerly current), or
from Cuba to Yucatan (about 230 km. from C. San Antonio to
Cape Catoche).
It was because of the great velocity with which they propelled
the big canoes, that the Tainos were able to overcome such long
distances as had to be dealt with in the last cases. For precisely
because of the great rapidity, they could make the journey in such
a short period of time that they could get along without proper
rest and sleep.
A mariner so experienced and efficient as COI,UlVlBUS was
1) LAS CASAS, His/aria, Vol. 63. p. ('f).
2) NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. 1f)I.
3) Compare with this that the longer trailing-yoyages of certain important
commercial Arawak tribes of the continent did not have the character of private
undertakings, 1mt were rather enterprises organizeil by the community. These
commercial voyages were made in large and wcll-manneil canoes, which sometimes
journeyed in fleets. Camp. ,vith the already cited voyages of the Arawaks
from Guiana to Trinidad or Margarita, or also of the i1lanaos on the Amazon and
the Rio Negro. The large canoes, moreover. were the property of the tribe and
not of private persons. See \VHII'FEN, Op. cit., p. TOO.

astounded at the rapid navigation of the Tainan canoes, which
was much greater than could be attained with fustas,1) the racer
row-boats of that time on the Mediterranean. OVIEDO emphasizes
the fact that a canoe, even with a less number of oarsmen, is
impelled over the water faster than a Spanish rowboat.2)
Of course, a proportionately large number of rowers furnished
the motive power during the swift voyage of the Tainan canoe. It
is to be presumed also, that the Tainos had a relief crew on board.
At Baracoa COLUMBUS saw a canoe made from the trunk of a cedar;
it was 95 palmos long and could carry up to 150 persons.3)
Still it is not probable that by this 150 oarsmen were meant, and
that they sat on 75 thwarts. What the Admiral saw here
must have been a genuine canoe constructed for long voyages,
with room reserved not only for weapons, provisions4) and commercial
wares, but also for the relief crew, who probably squatted
on the floor of the boat, in Tainan fashion. The largest canoe
that COLUMBUS himself saw at sea, had from 70-80 oarsmen,
with presumably at most only from 35 to 40 thwarts for their
use. 5) The numer of thwarts was relatively small, as the Spaniards
had the opportunity to count in the canoes that were
drawn up in boat-sheds "de madera" covered with palm-Ieaves.6)
It is therefore probable that some of the oarsmen squatted on the
floor.
The great velocity of the Tainan canoe can not be attributed
to a capable development of the canoe-type itself. OVIEDO describes
the type as follows: "una barca cuasi de talla de artesa 0 dornajo,
pero honda 0 1uenga y estrecha, tan grande y gruesa como 10
1) NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. 335 & 175.
2) Vol. I, p. 171.
3) NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. 224; LAS CASAS, Vol. 62, p. 354.
4) In addition to cassava, also maize (probably to make ector) and fresh water
in calabashes. See LAS CASAS, Vol. 64, p. 226.
5) NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. 335.
6) One with 12 thwarts at Nuevitas, NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. 222, another
with 17 thwarts on the Rio Barna in Cuba, Ibid., p. 225. The largest, which
Columbus saw at San Nicolas, Haiti, had 15 thwarts, Ibid., p. 233. He saw
besides canoes, in the larger of which he counted from 8-10 thwarts, Ibid.,
p. 335. According to BERNALDEz: Historia de los Reyes Catolicos, Sevilla, 1870,
t. II, p. 49, on his second voyage COLUMBUS saw the canoe of a Jamaican cazique;
this was 96 feet long and 8 feet broad.

sufre la longitud y latitud de el arbol, de que la hacen; y por debaxo
es llana y no dexan quilla."l)
It can be seen from this description of OVIEDO, that the Tainan
canoe remained in the same primitive stage of development as
those of South America. Many distinct types of the dugout canoe
had been developed in North America. The Florida Key Dwellers
had canoes like skiffs or a Norwegian "pram" with well-developed
bow and stern.2) Moreover, the South American development of
the canoe into the piragua had not reached the Tainos, while the
Island-Caribs as far north as Santa Cruz and Vieques had piraguas
in the period of the Conquest. Because of the lack of
a higher stem, the Tainan canoe could only have been seaworthy
in a very limited sense. They took in water easily and had to be
bailed out with calabashes. Because they had such flat bottoms,
they turned over easily. But the crew very quick of hand, reversed
the boat and bailed the water out with their calabashes, while
swimming along outside.a)
The reason for the rapid navigation of the lengthy, narrow
canoes of the Tainos aside from the motive power of first rank
furnished by an abundant crew, lay in the perfection of their
oarsmanship and the highly-perfected type of paddle used by this
race for their voyages on the open sea.
We can study well this type of paddle in two examples recently
found in caves, one from l1,1ore's Island 4 ) and the other from lvlonte
Cristo 5) on the mountainous southern coast of Cuba.
If we consider first the type of the blade of the paddle, we find
that it is of an extended lancet-shape, ending in a point. This
peculiarity is also made prominent by LAS CASAS. 6) When the
sea is in motion, an oarblade of this sort is well-suited to make
') Vol. :r, p. 171. His illustration PI. 2 a, F'ig. I represents an Indian that is
rowing yery simply in a kneading-trogh. This must not be considered as model
of the Tainan canoe-type.
2) Sec CI-SHI~G, Expl. of Anc. Key Dwellel's Rem., PI. XXXII 6 and 7.
3) An ohsen-atiol1 of the Admiral, already made at Guanahani. NAVARRETE,
VoL T, p. 17S: 1,A5 CASAS, VoL 64., p. 155.
4) DE Booy. Amer. Antlwop .• n. s., Vol. 15, p. 2, Fig. I.
S) HARRIXGl'ON, Op. cit., Vol. I, Fig. 50.
6) Apol. Hid., Ed. Serrano y Sanz, p. 537.

the paddle enter the water and come out again quickly, so that
the waves are given the least possible opportunity to strike
back or in any other manner cause confusion in the rhythmic
rowing.
Then the transverse rounded bar at the end of the paddle,l)
in reality a piece of branch forming a cross-piece, in union
with the comparatively long handle, makes each stroke as long
as possible.
For the reasons cited, the paddle of the nahe-type 2 ) are particularly
suited for the open sea. The type is also peculiar to the
Island-Caribs, who were great seafarers.3)
There must-have been oars of the nahe-type at one time along
the coast of Guiana; at any rate while long maritime journeys
were being undertaken and communication with the Antilles still
maintained. But later on the Guianan paddle was everywhere combined
more or less and in many variations with a paddle-type having
a claw-shaped handle and a broad rounded blade, which in its
purest form is peculiar to the Wap£shianas, who immigrated
up the Rio Branco. Of the older paddles of the" coste sauvage",
I only know the specimens shown in MOCQUET, where Caripours
are seen rowing a boat.4) The handle, which is curved slightly
downwards, resembles in its way the transverse T-shaped handle
on the nahes considerably. The half-submerged blades presEnt the
form of a long rhomboid.
The paddle excavated from Key Marco by CUSHING5) resembles
the nahe much in the length of the shaft and the pointed, elongated
lancet-shaped blade. Unfortunately the top of it is broken off so
that we do not know whether it had a transverse bar on it. A
Floridian paddle from the mouth of the St. I07ms R£ver, reproduced
1) The handle is correctly presented in Oviedo's original illustration, but
inaccurately in the edition of AMADOR DE I~os RIOS.
2) The word is Haitian. See OVII(DO, Vol. I, p. 171.
") See DE I~A BORDE, Fig. 26, f. and LABAT, Gp. cit., Vol. I, Part II, p II-··
13. The handle of the oar takes up from 2/3"-3/4 of its entire length. The Is·
land·Caribs did not always have the transverse T-shapecl tops to their oars. The
blades were sUJJ1llerged deep in the water and the rowing was done noiselessly.
The Calinago name for oar was nenenc. See BRETON. Gp. cit .. p. 37 and 366.
4) GP. cit, p. IS'), Fig. K
5) Expl. of Anc. Key Dwellers Rem., PI. XXXII 8, and text p. 36J, 366 and 423.

from Laudoniere's Expedition 1Il 1594,1) has nevertheless a
transverse top like a nahe.
It can not be decided whether or not the Tainos had the nahe
type of paddle with them at the time of their maritime emigration
from South America, or if this type was developed on the Antilles
and later influenced the development of paddle-types in South
America by way of the coast of Guiana.
At any rate, nowhere has the nahe-type reached such a complete
development as in the West Indies. At least the perfection of the type
must have progressed by itself after the emigration and was impelled
tmR.!ards the formation of a type of paddle suited for ttse on the sea
by increasing demands.
The nahe-type of the \Vest Indies seems to have influenced
the development of the type of paddle used by the Indians along
the coast of Florida.
For the filing-out of their nahes, the Tai110s must have had
an excellent material in the rough skin of the man-eating shark,
especially in the formation of the long, round shaft and the round
cross-bar which forms the handle. This filing-material naturally
was lacking among the inland races of South America. At any rate,
it is known that the Island-Caribs, at least, filed their oars with
shark-skin.2)
The Tainan canoe, made from a single tree-trunk, was successively
burnt out and the carbonized part removed every little
while with stone axesY) On the other hand, in the ancient literature
nothing is said about the Tainos stretching the great canoes
with sticks of timber during the process of making, a custom that
was certainly practiced by the Island-Caribs.4) To judge from
the comparison of OVIEDO moreover,5) these large cauoes of the
Tainos must have been narrower than the great piraguas of the:
Island-Caribs. The big canoes of Cuba and Espanola, above all those
1) DE BIn'. His/OJ'ia Americae, Francoforti 1634, Gallorum in Flol'idam Altera
iVavigatio, Piate XXII. Only the paddle in the hand of the last oarsman has a crosspiece
handle; those used by the two other men lrnyc none.
2) BRETOX, op. ci/ .. p. 396.
") OVIEDO. Vol. T, p. 171. The stone-axes therefore not only stand in close
H'lation to the agriculture of the Tainos, but also to their navigation.
'I) DE IA BCJRDIi, op. cit .. p. 26.
') OnEDo, ibid.

420
in Cuba, were for the most part made of cedar.1) Nlari-a was also
used in many cases. 2) LAS CASAS states that in Espanola and Cuba
they had large canoes made of ceyba, that held as many as 80 persons
and behind were as broad as a "pip a" (wine).3) Now as the
ceiba trunk is by no means tall and straight, but rather relatively
short, thick and gnarled and its branches begin to spread out at a
comparatively short height from the ground only a part of a
trunk of this tree can be used in the making. The wood of the
ceiba is indeed easily worked. The thickness of the trunk explains
suHiciently the considerable breadth of the ceiba-canoe. But
here also we need not suppose a secondary widening. 'When it
is recalled that the Tainan canoe is likened to a bake-trough, it
is not very probable that the canoes made of these two trees could
have been curved by means of heat and that in this wayan elevation
of the stem could have originated.4) The Tainos had only
canoes of different sizes and on the other hand no bark-boats, so
that there could have been no suggestion of making a high stem
in their canoes from anything of that sort. Only in particular and
exceptional cases were the Tainan canoes painted. In Xaragua
only the great royal canoes were "muy pintadas."5)
The I"ucayan Indians demonstrated that in case of necessity
they could make rafts out of the hollow yauruma stakes, which
they bound together with bejucos. 6 ) But on that occasion the
Spaniards had deprived them of their canoes. Such simple rafts
were not in general use. The \Vest Indies can not be counted a
region where rafts are used.
Fishing. It was precisely 111 fishing that the little canoes
were used principally. Fish were the most important
animal food of the Tainos. Their islands were surrounded
by waters extraordinarily rich in fish, and on :Espanola, at least,
there was a large supply of edible fish in the rivers also.
p. 11\z.
1) I,AS CASAS, Vol. 64, p. 468; Vol. 62, p. 354; Apol. Hisi., Ed. Serrano y Sanz,
2) OVIEDO, Vol. T, p. 349.
3) Apol. Hist., p. 11\z.
4) Camp. \VHIF'FE~, Gp. cit., p. 100.
5) Compo 1,AS CASAS, Vol. 63, p. 149.
6) 1,AS CASAS, Vol. 64, p. z26.

421
Nevertheless, fishing was made difficult in many places by
the heavy sea, caused by the trade-wind. For this reason it
vvas generally carried on along the lee side of the islands. DE
HOSTOS states this circumstance in regard to Puerto Rico.
COI,UMBUS found inhabitants on islets near the southern coast of
Cuba exclusively engag~d in fishing. 'there is a large number
of shell-hea ps in Jamaica along the south coast, as well as on
the north shore. Still it should be stated that no heaps exist either
on the east side or along the long northeastern coast, where a
heavy sea is caused by the trade-wind, Investigation of the
distribution of shellheaps on the various coasts of Espanola has
not yet been made. MAR'l'YR pictures the fi::hing on the north side
of the peninsula of Guacaiarima as very productive. 1 )
There were many species of edible fish which were the object
of the Tainos' fishing, I~AS CASAS 2 ) and OVIED( 3 ) give a list of these.
They can be partly identified, but it is not possible to call others
by their Tainan names. The most important species sought in all
Tain an fishing a ppea rs to have been lizas, 111[ ycteroperca, whose
bones predominate in the shellheaps. LAS CASAS states that on Espanola,
the lizas even s\vam up the Rio Hayna and were fished there,4)
The Tainos were accustomed,- to place in corrales their
catch of different animals, and to take them from there as
they needed them. \Ve see from this fact how far the Tainos
had arrived in the stabilization of food. This was very
much to their interest, particularly when it was the question of
their fish-supply, which was one of their most important daily
needs. 5) Favourable conditions of coast, suited to the location of
enclosures for lizas occurred only exceptionally, A litoral that was
really appropriate seems to ha've only existed towards the west on
Cuba's long, shallow southern coast. DE CAMPO was the first who
observed such corrales near Jagua: "de canas juntas unas con
otras, hincadas en el deno que tiene la man,G) As they needed
') ::YIAC NL'l'T'S Trans" Vol. II, p. 303,
') Apol. Hist., p. 2C>--27.
3) His/aria, Vol. I, p. 424.
4) Apol. His/., p. 2J.
:') Compo O\'IEDO, Ibid.
") LAS CASAS, Vol. 64, p. 21 I,

..J-22
them, the Tainos withdrew the lizas from these corrales by means
of nets. I ) Sea-turtles, sometimes as many as 500-I.OOO of them,
were also kept in such corrales along the southern coast of Cuba.2)
When the Orinoco began to sink, the upper parts of the creeks
were closed with "estacas bien elevadas y juntas" for the sake of
the multitude of turtles.3) On the land also, in South America,
there were enclosures for the preservation of turtles. BARRERE
mentions such receptacles on the savanna in Cayenne, where were
kept the large savolUy turtles which the Indians there traded from
others coming from the Amazonia, where these turtles were found. 4)
\Ve will speak of the '1'ainan land-corrales in connection with hunting.
The manner in which the Island-Caribs conserved the results
of their fishing is not made clear by BRETON'S description. 5 )
In an account of the fishing methods of the Tainos, we must
take into consideration the fact that they were engaged particularly
in with seaf£shing. For this reason analogies vvith the races
in northeastern South America, who stand approximately on the
same level as regards culture, frequently fall, because these are
occupied for the most part in river-fishing often under such conditions
that the use of nets and hook could not be completely developed
because of the piranhas. The Indian fishing-methods
along the north coast of South America are much too little described
in historical sources, so that material for a comparison with
the Tainos is lacking. For this purpose we have in the first place
to cite the Island-Caribs, who still in the 17th century did not reveal
the effect of European influence to any extent in their fishing.
The fishing-methods of the Tainos have been described at
such an early period, that they must surely have been the original
Indian ones. Nevertheless in a comparison between the methods
of the Tainos and the Caribs, I will direct the attention to
three distinct points:
') Ibid., p. 470. These dosed Cubau corrales for the pre~eryation of fish must
not be confused with those mentioned hy ()Yn;Do, Vol. I, p. 424, which were
stationary fish-traps used for the purpose of catching.
') LAS CASAS, Vol. 64, p. 473,
3) GUMILLA, Gp. cit., p. 3[9.
4) Gp. cit., p. 156.
") GP. C1:t" p. 437; "cache de poisson, un reservoir",

I) That among the Island-Caribs the crab-diet preponderated
over the fish foods.
2) That fishing was a manly occupation, and for that
reason the Island-Caribs must have adopted very little from
the Igneris.
3) That in the oldest literature, nothing about the Island-Caribs,
not even in the 17th century, indicates that they fished with
nets of any sort whatever.
The Tainan fishing-methods as they are presented in the historical
sources were:
r) Direct Catch. They fished directly for mollusks with the
hands, even when they were so deep in the water that the fishers
had to dive for them. 1 ) Along the south coast of Cuba, a kind of
basket with sinkers inside was nevertheless used for fishing pearlbearing
mussels. 2 ) Even crustaceans must have often been caught
by hand. Yet how it was done, we do not learn from the sources.
The Island-Caribs dove from the boats with a stone as a sinker, in
order to catch lobsters.3)
The sea-turtles were turned over on the shore with a stick.4)
They also gathered the eggs, as soon as the female had laid them in
the sand.5)
2) Fish-Poisoning. This sort of fishing, which naturally was
a specific river-fishery, was only a combination including the
first-cited method in as far as the stupefied fish are taken directly
with the hands. OVIEDO mentions as poison baygtia, a liana,6)
thus a wild plant of the woods, with which the Tainos must have
experimented for the first time after they immigrated to Espanola.
It is known that they used different varieties of liana in several
parts of South America. This indicates that they sought readily
the poison in the lianas. The Island-Caribs were not on the same
had Lucayan pilots who clove for "caracoles rnuy grancles" near
') COI,c:~!Bt~S
C. :Maisi. Probably they were strombus gigas. the meat of which the l'ainos nsed
for food and the shells as celts. as has been proved.
2) Haccolta. Vol. Ill. p. 76: "hanno certe ceste Ie quale Ie calano cum peso
dentro."
"J BRETON, Op. cit., p. 395·
4) OVIEDO. Vol. I. p. 432.
') I,AS CASAS, Vol. 64, p. 473.
6) Vol. 1. p. 424.

424
level with the Tainos in respect to fish-poison. They obtained their
poison from conami,l) an herb that they themselves cultivated.
Probably it is identical with the conamy among the Galibis 2 ) with
kunan among the TVapishianas 3 ) The poison cuna of the western
llanos is a root.4) The Island-Caribs brought conami over from
the mainland. In a general way we can assume that in the matter
of fish-poisoning, the Antilles were only a cultural offshoot of
South America.")
3) Shooting Fish with Arrows. This method was used especially
with large fish. 6) Since precisely the Lucayans practiced
fish-shooting more than the Tainos,7) we must suppose that it was
employed also with sea-fish, as rivers are scarcely found on the Bahama
Islands. The fish-arrows or fish-spears had many prongs, to
judge from I./AS CASAS: "son como dardos con unos gavilanes de
espinas 0 huesos."8) The Island-Caribs had three-pronged arrows
for shooting fish or crustaceans. 9) On Trinidad also, they had
three-pronged arrows with points of fish-bone. 10) N ORDENSKIOLD has
shown the extension of arrows with many prongs in South America.Il)
These are found especially in Guiana and along the tributaries
of the Amazon, and in the Purus- and Madeira regions in
particular. As regards fish-shooting with many-pronged arrows,
the West Indies were a cultural off-shoot of northeastern South
America.
4) Harpoons. In their original condition, the Tainos used
harpoons. COI,U::.\IBUS saw "fisgas de hueso" also among other implements
of fishery in a hut near the B. de Nipe, Cuba. Probably
') BRETON, op. cit., p. 177.
2) BARRERE, op. cit., p. 158.
3) FARABEE, The Centro /h., p. 63, Details about preparation of poison from
klman.
4) RmERo, Op. cit., p. 8, The word cuna is Aehagnan. nid .. p. 147.
5) For its 'widely ramified extension in South America see NORDESSKIC)LD,
The Changes in the Nlat. Cult. etc., Map. 6.
6) lAS CASAS, Apol. Hist., p. 537.
7) LAS CASAS, Vol. 64, p. 229; A pol. Hist .. , p. 170.
8) Apol. Hist., Ibid.
9) BRETOX, p. 168; also p. 6r.
10) UNCISO, Op. cit., p. XVII.
11) See NORDENSKIO],D, Ibid., p. 38-40 and Map. 5.

4r J
the Tainos used their harpoons against the manatees. The Island-Caribs
used harpoons with separate points in hunting the 1amantin
and sea-turtles. 1 ) just as their kinsmen the Galibis also did
and in killing the same creatures.2) On the Orinoco, moreover,
they speared manatees ,vith harpoons having loose points.3) On
the other hand, evidently "barbed harpoons" were not found in
the pile-dwellings on Key Marco. From this CUSHING draws the
conclusion that the Key Dwellers "depended chiefly upon the
pounds and water-courts. "4) The use of harpoons by the Tainos
must be considered in an unbroken connection with northeast
South America.
5) With Remora and Line. COLUMBUS had the opportunity of
observing this curious fish off the south coast of Cuba at the islands
in El Jardin de la Reina:') By means of this little suckingfish,
the Cubans could draw up turtles weighing 4-5 arrobas,
,vhile with several remoras that fastened themselves to its belly,
they could even pull up a man-eating shark.6) Afterwards the Cubans
often kept such turtles, brought up with remoras, in corrales.
7) The use of remoras for catching fish must be an independent
Cuban trait. At the present time remora-fishing is still practiced
in the Indian Ocean on the coast of India and East Africa; but
naturally this has nothing to do with its occurrence on the south
coast of Cuba. On the coast of Cape York Peninsula, Queensland,
Australia, the natives use the remora on a line to catch turtles.
Its adaptation to the purpose for which it is used here has an interesting
origin. Often the remoras are found adhering to the
rocks at the mouths of rivers. Yes, they even suck themselves fast
to the canoes occasionally. The natives remove them and keep
them several days in a bark vessel, before they take them along
') }lI

when they go fishing.l) Similar circumstances must have caused
the Cubans in the same way to make use of the remora for fishing.
Through observation of nature this employment has been developed
spontaneously and independently on widely separated tropical
coasts where the remora is found. FRIEDERICI has compared
this Cuban fishing with that of the Chinese with cormorants. 2 )
5) With Hook and Line. It is entirely uncontestable that the
Tainos already had fish-hooks in the period before the Discovery,
since COLUMBUS and his sailors had the opportunity of seeing Indian
fish-hooks on the north-coast of Cuba, during his first
voyage. 3 )
KRIEGER found two shell fish-hooks in Monte Cristi Province
(KRIEGER I, PI. 7), Santo Domingo. This is the first time that
fish-hooks are archaeologically known from Tainan territory. One
of them has a head at the top to hold the line in place, while the
other has only an enlargment for the same purpose. Unfortunately
the two points are broken off, so we do not know whether or
not they had barbs.4) The sources give us no information as to
the form of the Tainan hook, only about the material. Nothing
is said in them about shell hooks, which first became known
through KRIEGER'S find. As just stated, only the material, and not
the form is given. When COLUMBUS first came to the islands, the
Tainos showed themselves very eager to barter with the Spaniards
for European fish-hooks, which indicates that these were far better
and the Tainan hooks difficult to produce. When he says that
the Cuban hooks were made of horn, the Admiral must have mis-
1) ERIC MJOBERG, Bland stendldersmiinniskor i Queenslands vildmarker, Stockholm,
1918, p. 483-484.
2) Die Schiff der Ind. p. 89. The remora is used in the Indian Ocean on the
African as well as Asiatic side for catching turtles. See Encyc. Larousse, art.
Echin£!ide.
3) NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. 192 and 194.
4) These Haitian shell fish-hooks are of our usual type, except that they
have a head for the line instead of an eye. They are not like the round closed
shell fish-hooks from the California coast, that ar~ produced from a half-fabrication
in the form of a disc, in which a hole is made. See HOLMES, Art. in Shell,
etc., p. 209 and PI. XXVIII, 1-6. Also bone fishhooks from Ohio, similar to
ours in type, and to the shell Haitian hooks made by the elimination method,
e Californian ones. Compo MOOREHEAD, Op. cit., Figs. 546-548.

taken the materiaP) Indeed, LAS CASAS says that the Tainan hooks
were made from fish bones 2 ) It is shown by KRIEGER'S finds and
also by DON FERNANDO'S description (Historia, Vol. II, p. I90) that
the Tainan hooks were made in one piece. On his last voyage Co­
Lt!MBt!S had a chance to observe that on the coast of Veragua they
fished with "anzuelos de hueso, que los hacen de las conchas de las
tortugas, cortandolas a filo y 10 mismo hacen en las otras islas. "3)
1'he inference is very plain. In Veragua as well as on the Tainan
islands, therefore, they had hooks of tortoise4) shell that were cut out
directly with a knife-like utensil, without a transition stage of halffabrication.
5) In primitive times the Island-Caribs also made fishhooks
of tortoise she11 6 ). \Ve have no reason to suppose otherwise
than that these were made in one piece) like the Tainan hooks. I
have considered this matter thoughtfully, seing that near the West
Indies on the west coast of Florida there was a region they had
compound hooks.
The five fish-hooks that CUSHING found among the Pile Dwellers
remains at Key Marco were made "from the conveniently
curved main branches of the forked twigs of some tough springy
kind of wood." The points, which were tied firmly into the grooves,
were "the sharp, barbed points of deer bone, which were about
half as long as the shanks and leaned in toward the stem.". The
shanks were about three inches long, diminishing in size toward
the top and they ended in "slight knobs" below which the line was
fastened. The hookpoints inclined towards the shank. 8)
1) NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. I92.
2) Apol. His!., Ed. Serrano y Sanz, p. 537.
3) DON l'ERKANDO, Ibid., T. II, p. I90.
4) In Veragua also, as among the Tainos, they used bone fish-hooks. See
LAS CASAS, Vol. 64, p. 135.
5) It is difficult to say what kind they had among the Tainos; possibly with
a bone point, as simple flint knives are doubtful and in fact had no general
diffusion on the islands.
6) DE I,A BORDE, p. 26.
7) Compare EDVc\RD KRAUSE, Vorgeschichtliche Fischgerate und neuere Vergleichst0cke,
Zeitschrift f. Fischerei, Berlin, 1904, Fig. 313 and p. 2I4, Finschhafell,
New Guinea, and Fig. 335; also p. 218, Yap.
8) CUSHING, Ibid., p. 367. Thus these Floridian hooks belonged to a type that
resembled those of northwestern America. vVest Florida also shows remarkable anaogies
with this section of America in wood carving and house-building with wood.

I;'urther west on the Gulf Coast one-piece hooks are found. But
these, one from t}}e lower Apalachicola River,l) and two from the
lower Alabama River 2 ) are more or less rectangular in form and
the point goes straight upviard. Both of the last-named give the
impression of having been made by breaking out from the material,
like the previously named hooks from Ohio. KRIEGJ

fact that the noose with which the Cuban boys caught parrots was
attached to the end of a stick. This method of catching parrots,
certainly used since ancient times, was observed by I,AS CASAS in
Cuba, shortly after the ConquesU)
7) With Stationary Fish-Weir. Such had a great diffusion in
both South and North America. They were widely spread in the
Amazon and Orinoco regions with their very variable water-level,
and they are also very frequent in the rivers of Guiana. If they
were not found among the Island-Caribs, the reason for this may
be that among them, fishing in the sea predominated. On the
other hand, the Tainos understood how to adopt this sort of
fishing to the change of the tides, along the coasts of the Greater
Antilles where there were better possibilities of success in the
shallow fishing grounds on the lee side. OVIEDO states, for example,
that the Tainos fished "con corrales e atajos hechos a mano de
astacados en los arracifes donde 1a mar en las costas cresce". 2)
However we learn nothing of the manner in which the Tainos
removed the fish from the fence-like weir. Did they kill them
with bow and arrows on these occasions? The Galibis took the
fish, which in this case must have been large, from the fish-weir
by shooting them with arrows. 3) Along the Amazon they caught
them in handnets or with fish-spears. 4) The Cubans withdrew
the liz as they kept in their enclosures, by means of nets. 5)
8) With Baskets. OVIEDO mentions a kind of "garlitos" with
which the Haitians fished in the rivers.6) Although the Galibis
had a kind of conical basket for fishing7), they are not mentioned
in connection with the Island-Caribs. The special domain of the
fishing-basket in northeast South America is in places where there
are s\viftly-flowing rivers. Many different types of baskets are
') See Hi.,tOJ'ia, Vol. 64, p. 471.
2) Vol. T, p. 424. l~ar1ier he compares these Tainan fish-weirs of poles bound
together, with those common in Spain.
3) BERNAt:, Rc\'. J. H. l11issional'Y Labours in British Guiana, London r847,
Fig. p. 39.
4) MARTICS, ZUI' Etfmor:r., p. 612. The different methods probably depend
on the yarying size of the fish.
') LAS CASc\S, Vol. ('4, p. 470.
G) Vol. I, p. 424.
7) ll.\RRERE, Op. cit., p. rb3.

430
frequently found in Guiana, especially in the western part which
is influenced by Brazilian culture. I ) They occur in many varieties
at the rapids i:.1 the Orinoco, particularly among the Atures or
A doles, who were great fishers. 2)
9) With Nets. The Tainos fished in the rivers and the sea
with "redes muy bien hechas" .3) Unfortunately we learn nothing
of the construction of these nets, only the material. This could
be threads of palm-fiber 4 ) or of cotton. 5 ) Only from Cuneo (I495)
I have been able to find some details about them. He states that
the nets were made of threads of tree-fiber and that among them
there were also large nets, at the same time fine and strong, which
had stone sinlters and floats of light 'lVood. 6) Probably we have
here a sort of seine.
On the coast of Veragua, COLUMBUS only had the opportunity
of seeing "unas esterillas 6 muy menudas redes" with which the
Indians caught the sardines driven in towards the shore by larger
fishes. 7) On the North American side, CUSHING unearthed remains
of various kinds of nets at Key Marco. The Key Dwellers' nets
\vere made of "tough fiber both coarse and fine". CUSHING found
remnants of fine-meshed "square dip-nets" and coarse-meshed
comparatively "large and long gill-nets". The latter had sinkers
consisting of "thick roughly perforated umboidal bivalves, tied
together in bunches", and floats "made from gourds". The nets
described by Cuneo were nevertheless of a size, that made it
scarcely possible for them to correspond to the pouch-shaped
nets of the Key Dwellers, but rather to a third kind of nets, whose
remains CUSHI~G found. These were of "coarser cordage" with
"unusually large-sized or else heavily bunched sinkers of shell"
and they had "long delicately tapered gumbo-limbo float-pegs".1)
') Compo FARABl!;E. The Centro Ar., p. 55 -56.
2) GrMII,LA, Op. cit., Vol. I, p. 330.
3) LAS CASAS, Apol. His!., p. 537.
4) NA YARRETE, Vol. I, p. !C)2, Cuba, near B. de Kipe. Moreover nets are
also mentioned from the eastern part of the north coast of Cuba. Ibid., p. [G3
and 210.
5) OVIEDO, Vol. I, P 424-
") Raccolta, Pt. lIT, Vol. III, p. 100.
7) LAS CASAS, Vol. 64, p. 135.
8) Expl. of A nco Key Dwellers Remains, p. 366.

43 1
CUSHING is of the opmlOn that these nets were drawn vertically
across a lagoon canal when the tide was ebbing. 1) That is, they
were a sort of sein~. Returning to the Tainos, the expression
of COLUMBUS "redes de hilo de palma y cordeles" could very well
signify a seine with drag-ropes. The nets described by Cuneo
were of fine threads; but they would have to be made of very
fine thread in order to be easily handled in the waves and currents,
if they were seines intended to be drawn after canoes in the
sea, similar to those pictured by BENZONI from the Peruvian coast.
On the other hand, stationary nets are not established as existing
in purely Indian times either in South America,. from the coasts
of the Caribbean Sea, or along the Gulf of Mexico. They were
first introduced in the Amazon regions by Europeans.2)
Along the coast of Guiana, the Indians have only dip-nets
for fishing. 3 ) Therefore in regard to the occurence of the sweep-net
among the Tainos, we can not seek its origin in South America
in the southeastern part. NorwEl'

432
which did not even exist among the Tainos. But how did they
hunt birds? The Tainos had large numbers of living parrots.
Were these birds caught with snares alone? General descriptions
of Tainan arrows are often found, but nowhere are arrows with
thickened head mentioned.
It is a very interesting fact that the bow and arrow
had no significance among the Tainos as hunting weapons. It
can be cited that the Great Antilles entirely lacked large
game, but that could not have been the essential cause. In
South America bows were used along with arrows that had
thickened head generally in bird-hunting, the thickened heads
preventing the feathers from becoming bloodstained. The
Greater Antilles did not have access to anywhere near so
many birds with gaily-coloured feathers as were found in
South American forests, and speaking in a general way, feather
ornaments were not very usual among the Tainos. Parrots were
found, but were captured by another method. In the hunting
methods cited below, in no case were bows and arrows used, not
only in shooting birds but also rodents.
It is very important that we learn. to know the animals that
constituted food for the Tainos and the methods used to procure
them. These animals all had the peculiarity that the Tainos
could easily obtain them in their primitive ways.
The reason that small game was so easy to catch must have
been that there were no ferocious beasts of any kind on the Greater
Antilles. The inability of certain animals to escape from human
beings was very astonishing, particularly on Cuba. These same
animals became extinct soon after the Conquest, or continue to
live in uninhabited regions.
The most important hunting of the Tainos took place on the
open savanna, as all of the edible animals lived there. The practice
of beating up the game was general; the Indians either ran alone
or were helped by their little dumb dogs, that did not bark. I )
1) The Tainan name is aon. See LAS CASAS, Vol. 63, p. 165. These mute
dogs were widely diffused, not only in northern South America, but also in Central
America, Yucatan and Mexico. Linguistic grounds nevertheless connect the
Tainos with South America in this matter. Compo preferably with Calinago,
BRETON, ap. cit., p. 41 anli, probably the old Ignerian word for dog. According

433
The biayas, a species of Cuban bird which could only raise
itself in flight from the ground with great difficulty, were tired
out by the Indians, who either followed them running, or chased
them with the help of dogs.!) The Cubans made a saffron-yellow
soup of these birds.
Guamiquinajes 2) were very abundant in Cuba at the time of
the Conquest. "Matabanse par pies y can garrote y mucho mas
to RIBERO, the Achaguas had the same word. According to MARTlUS, Sprachenh.
the Cauixanas had the word oey for dog. Both are Arawak tribes. Among the
True Arawaks, even before vocabulary records, the native word was replaced by
"peru" (:VIARl'n:s, Jbid., p. 311) from the Spanish "perro". It is likely that
the name disappeared at an early date along with the native Indian dog, which
was replaced by the Spanish dogs. Compo 1M Tm;RN, Am the Ind., p. 232.
In western Guiana, however, the Indian dog still exists to-day. The Tarumas
there breed dogs, which thcy train for hunting and sell to other tribes. See 1M
THrRN, Ibid ... and FARABEE, The Centro .Ar. p. 54.
1) According to ARMAS, La Zoologia de Colon, Habana 1888, p. 121--122, a
Penelope sp.
2) LAS CASAS, Vol. 64, p. 472, describes the guamiquinaje as the same size
as a little dog, (perilla de halda) and with savory flesh. ,Vhen European dogs
were imported they made an end to them all, just as the hutias, that were
once found on Cuba, were exterminated. Guarniqu1:najes have therefore long since
died out and it is very difficult to establish the identity of this animal, which
presumably was a rodent. ARMAS would indentify it as the klyopotamos scoipu,
called coipu or nutria in South America, and in Venezuela Perilla de agua. The
latter identification I consider extremely doubtful. On the Antilles the guamiquinaie
is found only on Cuba, an island lying very remote from South America.
It is not stated auywhere that the guamiquinaje had its haunts in rivers; it
was rather a sanmna animal.
OVIEDO, Vol. I, p. 389, pictures the quemi, an animal on Espanola, as "de
quatro pies e tal1 grande como un podenco - - --; y es de c.olor pardo c.omo
la hutia.'· This rather large animal may haye been the Haitian Solenodon paradoxus.
OnRl)o met Spanianls on Espanola who had eaten the flesh of this
animal and found it very good eating.
A distinctioll must be made between the guamiquinaje of lAS CASAS and
COl, DIBl.:S , and the guabiquinax of OYIEDO, Vol. I, p. 419, which lives in entirely
different surroundings in Cuba. They were found there "en los manglares
quedan, uascidos en agua en la costa de la mar, e aUi duermen en 10 alto."
This must be the same little animal that the Cubans caught in their boats, simply
by shaking them down out of the mangroves. OVIEDO himself never visited
Cuba and for this reason can not have heard its name from the mouth of a
nativc 011 the very spot. The animal which he describes must be a capromys.
AR~lAS identifies OVIEDO'S and GO~IARA'S guamiquinax with pacd, that is with the
28

434
con perros."!) This kind of hunt must have occured when the
guamiquinajes lived on the savanna.
During the dry season, the beating-up of hutias2) on the
Haitian savanna was combined with the burning-over of the fields. 3)
The dogs were used especially in hunting the colonies and
troopS4) of hutias that lived on the savanna.") Night was the
time when they were really in movement. So they were hunted
in the night-time by the light of the COC~tyos the Indians carried
with them.6)
Probably the hutias were killed in the same simple and expeditious
way as were the guamiquinajes on the savanna. The
information would have been handed down to us, if the Tainos
had killed them with bow and arrow. These weapons were scarcely
dasyproctid which the Truc Arawaks call labba. This identification does not
correspond to the little animal that lived in the mangrove vegetation on Cuba's
southern coast.
The Literature know of guamiquinajes only iu Cuba. J,AS CASAS mentions them
ou Cuba alone. It was only on Cuba that COLu~1BLIS had a chance to eat guamiquinaies
on his first voyage. See LAS CASAS, Vol. 62, p. 333 and Vol. 63,
p. 5I. VELASQLIEZ and his men were also given guamiquinajes to eat in Camagriey.
See LAS CASAS, Vol. 65, p. 20.
1) LAS CASAS, Vol. 64, p. 472. Like the hutias, they were soon extennlna
teu in the greater part of Cuba by the Spanish dogs.
2) Capl'omys brachyul'us.
3) LAS C.\SAS, Vol. 62, p. 384. Apol. Hist., p. 26 and 537. There were liulias,
and these were also hunted on Cub!L Ibid., Vol. 64, p. 472, Capromys
Faurnieri, and on Jamaica, Ibid., Vol. 64, p. 157, C. brachyurus. According to
OVIEDO, Vol. I, p. 389 there were hutias "en esta isla Espanola e en las otms",
but they had become scarce in his time, because Spanish dogs had eaten them.
There aTe still hutias in Cuba; see JOHXS'l'ON, Geogr. Journ. Vol. XXXIII. p. 636.
Capromys I ngrahami was also found in existence on 11,1 ariguana by the American
zoologist, ALI,EK, in 1891. See GERRI'l' S. MILLER, J:R., Mammals, in Shattuck,
The Bahama Islands, p, 373, Probably hutia is the same ,yord as the Arawak
agouti Dasyprocta aguli. These occur in the Antilles only in the southern most
islands, Grenada, St. Vincent and St. Lucia. See SmYERS, S1~d- und "'v1ittelam.erika,
p. 457,
4) Compo Mn,LER, in The Baham.a Islands, p. 374.
5) ::VL~R'l'YR, :VJac.:'IJutt's Trans., Vol. I, p, 147 and 362. 1,.\S CASAS, Vol. 63
p. 430; Oviedo, Vol. I, p. 389,
6) Pyrophore noctiluca, Linn. MAR'l'YR, Ibid., Vol. II, p. 313. Cocuyos were
also use by the Haitans for lighting their huts, See further, ZAYAS, n)id., p.
152 cites GO:\!ARA,

435
suited to kill small hutias that were' running away in bands. Along
the lower Orinoco they burnt off the savanna, but here it was
observed that they used bow and arrows against the deer; on the
other hand "conejos" are among the animals they caught with
"la

,vere also used along the Amazon by the boys for catching birds.!)
On the other hand, the whipper-sling used so generally on the
::louth American savannas, is not mentioned among the Tainos.
The effect of that kind of free sling on a stick also was in fact
much greater, as in this way one parrot after the other could
be dispatched in quick succession.
Like many other kinds of meat, geese must have been in the
first rank of the foods reserved for the caciques. COLUMBUS received
three very fat geese from Guacanagar£.2)
\Ve learn at least much about geese; namely that the Haitians
used the curious method goose-fishing with calabashes to
procure them. In the lakes of Espanola that have subterranean
outlets, there is a quantity of frogs, worms and insects that serve
as food for water-fowl. The Indians threw a lot of calabashes
in such a lake, after they had removed the seeds and stopped up
the holes in them. The geese became accustomed to seeing the
calabashes on the ,'vater. Then an Indian puts on a calabash,
in which eye-holes have been cut, as a mask, and wades out into
the lake until the water reaches his chin. He imitates the driftingaround
of the calabashes and while doing so, gets close to the
geese. He seizes one by the feet and draws it under the water.
The other geese believe that their companion has dived merely
for food; they come nearer the Indian and are caught in the same
manner.3) Geese were also caught in this way in Jamaica (OVIEDO,
Vol. I, p. 500).
Probably the Tainos were acquainted with this original
method of catching geese before their migration from South
America. CODAZZI mentions that the lacustrine Guajiros living
at the entrance of Lake illaracaibo, caught geese in the same way.
As on }:spai'iola, the goose-fisher \vore a calabash with holes for
the eyes for a mask. He further adds that the Guajiros wore
a cord around the body, and the geese, are fastened to this one
by one, as they are caught.4) NORDENSKI(iLD speaks of this kind of
') ::'vIARTlUS, XUI' }o;tlmogr., p. ()(lC)--67

437
goose-catching in lVIojoSl) The Chinese must have invented this
method of catching ducks on the lowlands of the Yangtse, entirely
independent of South America. LAS CASAS knows a species,
"grullas",2) but only from Cuba and not on any of the other
island: it was also found in Mexico. They occurred in large flocks
on the marshes along the coast of Cuba. The Cubans caught
them, took them into their houses and fed them from a watervessel
containing cassava and a pinch of salt. 3) 1)ossibly they
exported their feathers to l\Iexico, receiving in exchange wax,
which they must have obtained from Yucatan. The fact that
these birds appeared in great flocks and that they lived on vegetables,
makes it altogether possible that they might have been
flamingos.
No proof is found in the Literature that the Ta1nos used to
shoot iguana with bow and arrow, the same as in northeastern South
America.4) Instead of this they used a primitive method of catching,which
is still extant in the woods of Guiana. 5) The '1'ainos
irritated and tormented theZ:guana until it opened its mouth and
showed its teeth. They then stuffed something into its mouth,
tied it and took it from the tree.6) The cacique's hunters tied
the iguanas they caught thus to trees7) , until they returned to the
town with their catch.
I have already spoken of the great corrales, enclosures made
of poles standing close together, bound with intertwining creepers,
used for "perdices". SEBASTIAN" DT~ CAMPO was the first to notice
these at Jagua, on the south coast of Cuba. H ) On the other hand,
1) NORDENSKliir,D, Sydamerikas Tndianer, p. 5()-'-57 cites F;DER, 2'v[ ajas.
2) Vol. 64. p. 470--- 47T:"nnas aves de la misllla forma y grandor de gru1-
las las cuales al principo SOil blancas como una paloma bien blanca, a poco se
nlll coloradas, y a1 cabo ninguna p1uma ticnCll que sea muy colora(1a, COSH hermosa
de Yer.·' These feathers were llsed jor feather-work ill Nlleva Espana,
and "tuvieron1as por cosa Illlly preciada." ARwBS, JiJid., p. 219 also states that
Crus N!exZcana is only found 011 the Antilles in Cuba.
3) LAS CAS.'S. Thiel.. p. 47I.
") QU,\~DT, Op. cil., p. 224---225, coastland of Surinam; FARABEE. The Centro
Jh .. p. 53: RlI3ERO, Gp. cit., p. 327, Airico.
') hI TIl1-R~. Am. The indo
") LAS c.\S,\S, Apol. Hi,,!., Ed. Serrano}, Sanzo p. 20.
') :Y1ARTYR, :\Iac ?\lltt'S Trans. p. 'i5.
") L.\S CASAS. Vol. 04, p. 210.

the Tainos had corrales for hutias on Vega Real, Santo Domingo,
in order to equalize the consumption of meat.I)
Preparation of Furthermore, the pepper-pot placed the Tainos in
Fish and Meat. a condition to save a supply of meat for some time
after the hunt. It is worthy of note that the
Tainos stood no higher than tribes of a lower culture-level in South
America in their manner of eviscerating game. 'With hutias and
other small animals that they ate, only the skin was removed;
the entrails with the excrement were retained.2) Then they were
placed in the pepper-pot, which was also fully developed among
the Tainos, as has been previously mentioned.
The iguana, which was exclusively a dish served only to the
feasts of the caciques was eviscerated very carefully.3) As a
distinction from other game, they removed the entrails from
iguanas.4) They then rolled the iguana into a sufficiently large
pot, filled it with water, added afi, covered the pot and cooked
the animal with aromatic vvood. From the interior of the iguana
exuded a savoury juice.5)
Both fish and meat were roasted. When D. BARTOLOME and
his men had a meal with King Behechio of Xaragua, the hutias as
well as the fish were all roasted.
As yet I have found in the Literature no real description of
barbacoa, which word is Tainan; from the time of the Discovery,
1) LAS CASAS, Vol. ()3, p. 73.
2) I~AS CASAS, Apol. Rist., p. 536. Comp. NORDENSKIOLD, lndianerleben,
p. 58, Ashluslay and Choroti. 111 return, the Chanes and Chiriguanos, who culturally
were much closer to the Tainos, cleaned the animal before putting it
in the cooking-dish. See Ibid., p. 189.
B) A pol. Hist., p. 537 dted in Chapt. VI. compo p. 356, "sin lavarlas (that
is, hutias), donde las cocian con sn pim.iento y otras hierbas y cosillas qne alli
mezclaban."
4) Characteristically. the Cubans at the 13. de Santiago became not alarmed
as they saw that the Spaniards were lem'ing alone their iguanas. They had been
sent out by their cacique to procure iguanas for a guest-feast he was to give
to another cacique. Compo MARTYR, MacKntt's Trans., p. 95. Also in northern
Sonth America, iguanas were a special dish for the chiefs. See RIBERO,
Op. cit., p. 355, Betoyes-Lolocas. Among the Ashluslays and Chorotis, thc entrails
of the iguanas were retained. See NORDEN5KI'iLD. Ibid.
') MAR1'YR, :VIacNutt'~ Trans., Vol. I, p. 123.

439
however, it can not be shown with the significance of "roastingframe".
CU~EO (I495) asserts that the Tainos ate snakes, which
they cooked "in medio de due legni a rosto".1) When the ship of
COLU;.\IBUS lay in the Santiago Bay, the Cubans sent out by the
cacique roasted great fish on spits.2) Spits do not necessarily
exclude the barbacoa or boucan, which was used extensively in
South Arnerica, in Brazil, in Guiana, in eastern Peru and in northeastern
Bolivia3) and precisely among more civilized tribes. 'fhe
aribel of the Island-Caribs stands on four forked sticks. 4 ) Naturally
a discussion of the Tainan barbacoa could not be profitable, as
its existence can only be assumed.
Aparatus for
Striking Fire.
The apparatus used by the Tainos for striking
fire is partly described by l,AS CASAS, and partly
by OVIEDO. According to LAS CASAS, a small stick
hollows a cavity in a piece of soft, dry guacima wood. Tinder is
superfluous because of the powder of the guacima wood which
during the process of making the cavity is rubbed off and finally
catches fire. 5) \Ve have here the same apparatus that is so wellknown
from the lowlands of South America and is especially
characteristic of the territory north of the Amazon. The Island­
Caribs also had the same apparatus for making fire. 6)
OVIEDO describes"!) another apparatus for striking fire, which
the Tainos improvised when they were in the woods and fields.
They carried with them a little stick about as large as an arrow
and "de una buen a madera fuerte". \Vhen they wished to make
a fire, they bound two dry sticks tightly together. In the customary
Indian fashion, rapidly and steadfastly they turned the hard
stick between the two others until they obtained fire. Oviedo was
acquainted with exactly the same kind of apparatus for starting
1) Racfoita, Pt. III, Vol. II p. 101.
2) ::VIARTYR, MacNutt's Trans" p. 94.
") NORDEx5Kliir,l), Ibid" p. 77.
4) BRETON, Op. cit., p. 52 and 289.
') Apol Hist., p. 35.

440
a fire in southern Central America (La Tierra Firme) and Nicaragua,
although in the latter land, all three sticks were of the same wood.
In Castillo de Oro, which bordered on Panama and belonged as
well to that region, they had the kind of fire-making apparatus
described by OVIEDO.I) On the other hand I do not know
it from the tropical lowland of South America. It can not
be decided whether the Tainos obtained this last-named apparatus
directly from Central America, or if it reached the
Greater Antilles in Ignerian times by way of the Lesser Antilles;
in this case it would have come along the north coast of South
America from the "Vest.
Meals. As they had been able to stabilize well their alimentation
through the measures and discoveries
that have just been described, the Tainos had regular meals every
day. There were four of these, breakfast, dinner, supper and
night-meal.2) Between supper and the night-meal, they took an
emetic, went to the river to vomit, and then returned to devote
the rest of the night that remained to the night-meal and "colacion":!),
under which designation dancing with refreshments,
intoxication by chich a and tobacco are to be understood.
Although the Tainos took care to have a good and well-proportioned
supply of food for the daily necessities, still they did
not have a surplus for unexpected guests. \Vhile in Catnagiiey,
1,1\.S CASAS made the observation that the Cubans had food enough
on hand for from 5--8 days only.4)
Weapons. \Veapolls were exceedingly undeveloped among
among the 'fainos. Indeed, a superficial comparison
with the Island-Caribs, Trinidad, Venezuela and Guiana shows
at once how far behind the development in South America the
Tainos had remained as regards their, weapons.
1) OVIEDO, vol. I, lam. 2 a, fig. 2 a.
2) Sec LAS CASAS, Apol. His!., p. 537.
") Jbid .. "a la noche cenaban a la postre la 511S0(licha. colacion."
4) Vol. ()S. p. 17.

Spear­
Throwers.
441
To a considerable degree the Tainos show the
peculiarity of continuing to use the spear-thrower
and javelins as weapons of war, thereby differing from
the tribes in the northeastern tropical lowlands of South America
who were their cultural equals, and also the Island-Caribs. In fact,
I have already stated that in the great allied Indian army on Trinidad,
certain contingents used spear-throwers, while others had bows.
So we must turn westward in South America as far as Andean
Colombia to find spear-throwers again]) I do not take the
eastern route into consideration, as the Tainan spear-thrower
does not possess any striking analogy in that direction.
The reasons why a race like the Tainos continued to use the
spear-thrmiyer could be discussed from many points of view, all
the more because they knew the bow. It seems to me, in the present
case the deciding argument is that the really strong bow of
dark wood was only known in some parts of the 'l'ainan islands,
and the weak bow could by no means be considered equivalent to
the Tainan spear-thrower as a weapon of vyar.2)
I~'rom the description of LAS CASAS it is easy to get an idea
of the appearance of the Tainan spear-thrower, garrucha,3) usually
designated as a "tiradera" by the Spaniards.4) "Unas varas como
dardos, las cuales tiraban con gran industria y sotileza, y era desta
manera: que tenian una tiradera de palo bien hecho y sotil, de
cuatro palmos; y al cabo della tenia un pececito con su muesca
donde asentaba la vara, como dardo, y en la empunadura tenia
de algod6n muy bien hecha una como asa, donde metian la muneca
del brazo como Eador, no se las cayese; ponian la vara en la
muesca 0 pie de la tiradera, y par la empunadura cogian con los
dedos el dardo, y con mucha maquera arrojaban el dardo mejor
1) In the ,Yestern Carib :\lountains also. the Indians fought only with bows
and arrows. See OnEDo v BANOS, Op. cit .. Vol. II, p. 39. 32 and 92; the Indians
at Cura

442
que si la aventara una grande ballesta, 10 cual para entre gente
desnuda, y aun para vestida y no bien armada, era peligrosa
arma."l)
From the description of LAS CASAS, let us now picture the
appearance of the Haitian garrucha. The expression vara, como
dardo characterizes the whole simply as a straight staff. Certainly
this excludes the possibility that it could have had a grooved form,
like the Mexican atlatl, or the spear-thrower of the Tapuyas. Nor
is there any indication that the front part could have been flat,
which is the common shape in widely separated regions of America,
and a very necessary one if a finger-hold is to be obtained.
Staff-shaped spear-throwers with rear-hook have been found
among the culture-races in Andean Colombia, as well as on the
coast of Peru. In the Haitian spear-thrower the back of the dart
lay in the curvature of the crooked rear-hook that is curved forwards,
just as among the Chibchas 2 ) and on the Peruvian coast.
The expression "pececito con su muesca donde asentaba la
vara como dardo", I take to mean that a fish-Qone was inserted
in back and that the spear was held in the curvature which the
fish-bone formed with the staff itself. That curvature LAS CASAS
designates as a "muesca."
His expression "en la empuiiadura tenia de algodon muy
bien hecha una como asa" indicates that further to the front on
the side of the garrucha was attached a hard braided cotton-loop,
through which the fingers were inserted.
Attached loops of cotton characterize spear-throwers among
the culture-peoples in the mountain regions of the West, from
the Aztecs in the north to inter-Andean Ecuador in the south.
But in such cases customarily there are two loops. Still the spearthrower
of Cueva, like the Haitian, had only one loop.3)
Conformity to Colombia has been greatly strengthened
through the finding by HATT in Cibao Mts., Santo Domingo, of
1) Apol. Hist., p. 171.
2) VICENTE RESTREPO, Los Chibchas, Bogota, 1895, p. 145, cites CASTELLANOS
that the Chibchas pressed the backside of the spear hard in against "el indice
corvado," that is against the crooked hook. Compo Atlas, PI. XV, 38.
3) OVIEDO, Vol. III, p. 127 and PI. I, Figs. 2 and 3. In these illustrations
we must disregard the fact that the rear-hook is not shown.

443
an indubitable appurtenance of a spear-thrower, of polished stone
in the form of a bird-head with long protuberances in front and
back.l) HAT1' is of the opinion that the small bird figure of stone
"reminds very much of throwing-board hooks from Colombia"
(Ibid. p. 7,). Stone figures of bird-heads with the two projections
and flat underside do occur on the Colombian estolicas.2)
Nevertheless these bird-images could not have been
the rear-hook that supported the spear in back. The narrow
groove in a spear-thrower from the tract of lVIanizales3) is not
suited for a location of the stone bird-head images with projections
and flat underside, found in the same district. Instead,
this must represent the support for the imposed spear further
in front on the spear-thrower, such as is well-known both in Colombia
and on the Peruvian coast. At lVIanizales the rear-hook
must have been forked, the horizontal branch being fixed in the
narrow groove, while the other that supported the spear stood
up erect.
The description of CAS'l'ELLANOS reveals that the Chibcha
spear-thrower besides the indispensable rear-hook, also had the
anterior support for the spear:
"-- - tiene dos ganchos afijados,
Distantes cada cual en un extremo
Del amiente que digo; can el uno
Ocupan el pie raso del dardillo,4)
Y el otro, con el {ndice corvado,5)
Aprietan con la flecha juntamente
Hasta que el jaculo se desembraza,
Segun la fuerza del quo 10 despide."
It is also of great importance that CASTELLANOS says that the
dart was smooth (raso). The stone figure's bird head was also
1) Notes, Arch. Santo Domingo, Ilig. 13.
2) RESTREPO, Ibid., PI. XXXIX, Figs. II3--II3; specimens from graves at
lVlanizales in the ).;at. ;vIus., Copenhagen, together with spear-throwers that have
lost their hooks.
") KRISTIAN BAHNSON, Ueber siidamerihanische WurthOlzer im Kopenhagener
}l,luseunl, 1. A. E., Vol. II, PI. XIII, 2 a.
4) The front support.
5) The rear-hook.

444
polished. Moreover both the Chibchan and Haitian heads are so
flattened on the crown, that the spear could easily have rested
on them. On the other hand, as now both spear and support were
smooth, the intention must have been to do away with friction
as much as possible, so that the spear could go further. Presumably
they chose a bird-figure with predilection and for reasons
connected with magic, because birds have the ability to take their
flight far away through the air.
The Tainan propulsor can scarcely have had a North American
origin; it is just as little likely as that the spear-thrower of
the Key Dwellers on the west coast of Florida is Tainan. The
two different types that CUSHING!) unearthed are decidedly unlike
the Tainan garrucha. They are in part shaped like a board, while
the garrucha is like a staff, as were also the Chibchan spear-throwers.
2) While the garrucha, similar to the spear-throwers in Colombia
and on the Peruvian coast has an inserted rear-hook, the
propulsors of the Key Dwellers had as rear-support, a hook sculptured
in the very wood in the form of the tail of a dasyproctid.
These spear-throwers of the Key Dwellers have holes for the fingers;
CUSHING 3, a single large one, while CUSHING 4, has two smaller
ones. CUSHING 3 has one peculiarity. At the extremity it has a
large snail shell, whose top is on a level with the spear-thrower's
straight, flat, broad posterior part, and with which the dart is held
in place by the fingers through the hole, while the anterior narrow
part of the staff is bent downward so that the dart does
not touch it, but is only supported in front on the shell. We see
here how the same idea passes through the coast of Peru, Colombia
and in Santo Domingo,to be realized through a stone figure in
front on the otherwise entirely straight spear-thrower, namely to
do away with friction in the greatest possible degree, so that the
dart when hurled as lightly as possible slips from the spearthrower
and even from the very beginping is not hindered by the
unnecessary draw-back of friction. It is possible that the Key
Dwellers adopted this clever idea from the Tainos and worked it
1) Exploration orthe Ancient Key Dwellers Remains, etc., Proe. Am. Philos
Soc. Vol. XXXV, Phila. 18g8, PI. XXXII, 3 and 4.
2) Compo BAHNSON, Ibid., p. 4; RESTREPO, Atlas, PI. XIV:34, and
XV:38.

445
out in their own fashion. But their types of propulsor are of
another origin than the garntcha.
Affinity with the Key Dwellers spear-throwers must be sought
on the North American continent. CusHum 4 is of a type similar to
that which is still used at the present time by the Tarascans in
their duck-hunting on the rushy shores of Lake Pazcuaro.I) Taken
in general, the principal type with the finger-hole in the flat part
of the spear-thrower must be of very old origin in America and
date from a period before the Indians' migration from North America
over Central America, into South America. But this is not the
place to enter into this matter. In North America, the Cliff Dwellers
had a spear-thrower with finger-loops at the sides. 2) There is
a connection between their region and Mexico, although certainly
not with the Aztecs. The origin of the Haitian garrucha reverts to
the proximity of Colombia, and the same type is found on the
coast of Peru.3) At the time before the Discovery, the spearthrower
was not found in Venezuela or in Guiana, and naturally
not in the Lesser Antilles that were conquered by the Caribs. But
of course it could have been replaced by the strong bow in these
regions. Perhaps future archaeological finds will be able to clear
up the matter. \Ve do not know if the spear-thrower belonged
to the original cultural possessions of the Tainos before they originated
from South America, or if it is a later element among them
originating in Colombia. Only this can I conclude: that the
'l'ainan garrucha is of Colombian origin and that once upon a
time 1t made its way eastward in northern South America. The
staff-form type with rear-hook and often with a support for the
spear in the form of a stone figure, we can call the estolica-type.
Some board-like variants also occur in Colombia. The pure staf£shaped
throwingstick predominates completely on the Peruvian
coast. At the present time, the type is also called estolica there.4)
\Ve have already indicated that spear-thrower had been
retained to a very important degree as a battle-weapon by the
''I ~pecilllens in the Riksllluseulll. Stockholm.
") Cl;SIIIXG. The /hyow, A. A., Vol. VIII. 189.0, p. 340. For sketch, see
KRICKEBERG in l!uschan, I II. T' ullwrk., Vol. I, PI. II :20.
:l) l\L\x UHU:, Peruvian Throwing-Stick, A. A., N. S. Vol. I I PI. XXXVIII.
') PHLE, Ibid., p. 627.

Tainos. The art of making strong bows of dark wood had made
its way forward in a considerable measure at the period of the
Discovery, through influence from the southeast. This can be
seen from the geographical diffusion of such bows on the Tainan
islands.
Bow.
OVIlWO is the only one of the old Spanish writers
who knows Puerto Rico somewhat in detail, and
who pictures the conquest of the island. I ) He calls the Borinquenos
in general "flecheros," although they lacked poison for
their arrows;2) this in opposition to the Island-Caribs, who had
a "hierba muy mala" that was infallibly mortal,3). The possibility
that it might have already made its way into Puerto
Rico in the Ignerian period, is worthy of consideration. To
support this hypothesis, I will mention the fact that in LABAT'S
time many human bones intermingled with remains of bows
were found on the floor of a very deep cave on Desirade.4) Secondary
burial of a number of individuals in caves is an Island­
Arawak and not an Island-Carib characteristic. The bow would
scarcely have been presented to the dead as a mortuary gift, if
it had not represented an effective weapon against the dangers
that threatened the deceased in the other world. 5)
OVIEDO, who as a matter of fact was unacquainted with the
Espanola of the period of conquest from his own experience, believed
that on this island only the Ciguayans possessed bows and
arrows.6 )
The Higueyans, which stood in active communication ,vith
Puerto Rico, used only the bow. In the mobilization against
') Vol. I, Book XVI.
2) Vol. I, p. 488. Camp. p. 473, where it is stated that the Borinquefios
cut down the Spaniards with"macanas e fleehandoles".
3) Ibid. Compo also p. 476.
4) FEWKES, Rei. at Aboy. Cult. and Environ/n. in the Lesser Ant., Bull of
the Amer. Geog. Soc., Vol. XLVI, p. 669.
") The \Varraus are buried with bow and arrows for use in warding off the
bad sprits of the other world. See BRETT, Op. cit., p. 357. The True Arawaks
also buried the men with their bows and arrows, See Q1:AXDT, Op. cit., p. 256.
6) Vol. I, p. 67.

447
the Spaniards the Higueyan warriors met them "aparejados can
sus archos y flechas".r) LAS CASAS states in regard to their king,
Cotubanami or Cotobano, that "su area y flechas era de doblado
gordor que los de los otros hombres."2) This author, who was
present himself during this war for the conquest of Higuey, said
of the struggle, "tiran infinitas flechas, desde lejos como suelen,
par miedo de las espadas, como juego de ninos, y asi hicieron
en los espanoles ningun dana" .3) He does not mention spearthrowers.
COLUMBUS did not observe any bows on Vega Real and in
Marien on his first voyage. According to CHANCA, who had become
acquainted with just these regions of Espanola, the Indians
there had spear-throwers and darts.4) In fact, in these parts of
the island the bow had been introduced as· a weapon for the nobility,
at least. A band of roo warriors appeared at the court
of Guacanagari, a11 armed with bows; they were also all "Tainos
zoe nobili" :")
In the southwestern part of Espanola as well, the qualified
warriors had adopted the bow. In Xa1'agui there was contingents
of archers. 'When DON BARTOLOME COLON was on the way to the
chief province of Xaragua, at Neiba he unexpectedly came upon
a large number of Indians at their manoeuvers with bow and arrows.
6 ) Two contingents of archers showed themselves so expert
with bows at the gladiatorial games in the residential town of
the cacique of Xaragu;l, that four men were killed and several
wounded. \\Then DON BARTOLOME saw this, he entreated them to
end the contest. 7)
The adoption of the strong bow must have been encouraged
') LAS CASAS, Vol. 64, p. 87 und 98.
2) Vol. 64, p. 89.
3) Vol. 64, p. 90. J3ecuuse of this, we must not believe that their bows
were weak. Ciguayans also shot from too great a distance for fear of being
cut in two by the Spanish swords, und from fear of the horses. LAS CASAS,
vol. 63, p. I67·
4) NAVARRETE, VoL I, p. 367 .
. i) ANGEI,O TRAVESAN, HaccoZta, Pt. III, Vol. I, p. 59. Camp. 1L"RTvR.
]'vIae Null's Trans., p. 59.
6) I,AS CASAS, Vol. 63, p. I38.
') Ibid., p. J 39.

on Espanola by the existence there of caymito, the dark wood of
which the bows were made. i )
We only know of the bow on Cuba with certainty in the
eastern part, which was under Haitian influence. Circumstances
on this island are complicated by the fact that the Guanahatabeyes
(according to a tradition among the Spanish colonists in Pinar
del Rio already cited from HARRINGTON) had good bows, for
which reason the Cuban Tainos from the time of their first immigration
could follow the example of the older inhabitants.
With respect to Maisi, a province which at the time of the
Discovery was inhabited by Haitian Tainos who had only recently
immigrated there, for that very reason they c'ould muster together
a large army armed with bows and arrows.2) Nevertheless, when
tested in battle, the Cuban bow proved to be strikingly weak.
LAS CASAS compares with the bows of children those with wich
the Cubans were shooting when Velasquez landed. The arrows
flew no further than 50-60 steps and besides, the Cubans, like
the Tainos in general, shot from too great a distance to do any
damage.3) It is possible that the Tainos in Oriente did not have
suitable wood for bows.
Further west in Cuba, the existence of the bow is probably
only because COLUMBUS mentions as weapons in l,os J ardines de
la Reina "lanzas y flecha", and clubs of the macana type.4)
Among the Lucayans the bow and arrows were used in reality
for the shooting of fish. 5)
The only Tainan island where the bow seems to have been
entirely lacking is Jamaica. Neither at the time of the Discovery
nor in the course of COLUMBUS' sojourn on Jamaica, caused by
shipwreck, were bows mentioned. In this period of time, the
Jamaicans only ha~ "varas" for weapons to be use from a distance,
when they went into battle in large numbers. When Co­
LUMBUS drew near to Jamaica for the first time, a league out at
sea he was met by "bien de setenta canoas todas cargadas de
1) A pol. Hist., p. 35.
2) LAS CASAS, Vol. 65, p. 7.
3) Ibid., p. 2.
4) LAS CASAS. Vol. 63, p. 57.
5) LAS CASAS, Vol. 64, p. 129: Apol. Hist., p. 170.

449
gente y varas por armas" .1) Later when he wanted to go ashore
in a harbour, the warriors, painted mostly black and with "plumajes"
on their heads, set up "la mayor grita del mundo y tirando
varas, aunque no alcanzaban. "2) As a matter of fact, a Spaniard
was killed in the town Mayama, where at a later date Sevilla
was founded, not by the arrow from a bow, but through the
deadly projectile from a spear-thrower.3)
Arrows. We have already mentioned the three pronged
fish arrows. All other arrows or darts that are
mentioned besides in the sources, must be regarde as weapons of
war. There is no historical proof that the arrows or darts of the
Tainos were used for hunting.
The Tainan darts or arrows consisted essentially of two parts,
r) The shaft made of Gynaerium reed.4)
2) The inserted wooden point.5)
Occasionally they contented themselves with only burning the
point of wood at the end or with sharpening it in some other
way;6) sometimes a fish-bone was inserted there for a point.7)
Since the garrucha was a weapon of warfare, the arrows used
with it on Espanola were genuine battle-arrows. Usually the shaft
1) BERNALDEZ, Op. cit., Vol. II, p. 49.
2) Ibid, Vol. II, p. 50.
3) HERRERA, Dec. I, p. 205.
4) See previous mention.
S) NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. 286, th.e arrow of the Ciguayans, also similar to
the Tainan "axagayas", which Columbus had seen earlier. P. 331, COLUMBUS
about Espanola in general.
6) NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. 226, through burning, northeast corner of Cuba,
where all carried small darts in bundles (manojos); LAS CASAS, Ap. Rist., p.
520, by burning; NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. 331, by sharpening.
') NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. 286 also 174, of fish-teeth, Guanahani. The use
of fishbones as arrow-points was very general among the tribes of higher culture
along the Caribbean Sea and in near vicinity of them. As among the Island-Caribs
for instance, see BRETON, op. cit., p. 90, out of the spine of the
ray; the Carib arrows that had been shot, NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. 243; Trinidad,
see ENCISO, already cited, or COLUMBUS in LAS CASAS, Vol. 63, p. 235,
"al cabo dell as un hueso agudo con espina, como un anzuelo"; that is, bones
with barbed hooks.; HOJEDA and VESPUCCI in LAS CASAS, Vol. 63, p. 399, probably
in a Carib town on the coast of Guiana. Many later sources of information
could be cited.
29

450
was of strong cane. But some of these arrows must have had
several points of fish-bone inserted in an angle, for when they
were driven into the flesh they could not be removed "sin desgarrar
della buena parte." Sometimes they had a point of stone
insteacP)
As I have already stated about such in the workshop from
the Stone Age in the vicinity of Old Harbour, Jamaica, nearly
all of these points were too large to be arrow-points, and are therefore
presumably for projectile darts or spears to be thrown by
hand. As among the True Arawaks, arrows for bows could, like
the battle-arrows, have several points, when the bow replaced
the garrucha as weapon of warfare. The long, strong bow must
have spread to Higuey through active intercourse with Puerto
Rico. King Cotubanama of Higuey used a large three-pointed
battle-arrow with points of fish-bone. 2) The large Trinidad arrow
with three ray-spines for points, already cited from ENCISO, I look
upon as a battle-arrow and not one for fishing.
British Guianan Arawaks say that they invented the many
pronged arrow when struggling against the Caribs with their poisoned
arrows. This was to discourage the Caribs from attacking,
since the three-pointed war-arrow could only be taken from wounds
with great pain and laceration of flesh. 3) From this it seems indeed
that the three-pointed arrow appeared and was used as a
contra-arm by the Ara,vak tribes of northeastern South America
in their struggle with Caribs using poisoned arrows. These were
also used by the Arawak Caripous.4)
The three-pointed war-spear must be an element that came
to Espanola from Guiana and Trinidad in the Ignerian period.
It could not have been introduced by the Island-Caribs, as they
had poisoned battle-arrows instead.
As the Tainan darts or arrows were described so often in the
sources, it is odd that steering-feathers are never mentioned.
') Apol. His! .. p. 520.
') r..'l.S CASAS. Vol. 64, p.

45 I
Perhaps the first observers did not think to mention them, if
there were such. But evidently such is not the case, as such
feathers were mentioned among the Island-Caribsl ) and from
Trinidad at a very early date. 2 ) Since Tainan arrows were
exactly described even in the oldest accounts, evidently they
had no feathers to steer them.
Arrow-feathers are a distinguishing mark of the eastern
lowlands of South America, and of the regions south of the Amazon
far more than those to the north of the river. Certainly all
the kinds of arrows along the coast of Guiana are not characterized
by these.3) For example, the fish-arrows were without
feathers. Although ther were battle-arrows among the Guafiros,
they were not feathered.4) Now as the Tainos originally had as
weapons of war spear-throwers and darts without feathers and the
arrows are described as similar in form to the darts, it is highly
probable that they simply employed the earlier darts as arrows for
their bows, but possibly in longer examples, for the bows were unusually
long. 5 )
Clubs. The weapon for close combat on the Greater Antilles
was the club, in the Tainan speech macana.6 ) I have already
cited from LAS CASAS that the macana was made of the wood
of a palm. COLL y TOSTE is of the opinion that this material
was the outer,wood of the jlagua palm.7) In regard to the palm-
1) CUNEO in Raccolta, Pt. III, Vol. II, 'p. 102, feathers from parrot-wings3
2) LAS CASAS, Vol. 63, p. 235.
") See the Guiana Collection in the Copenhagen Museum; 1M THURN, Am;
the Ind., p. 239-241; QUANDT, Op. cit., p. 227-228.
4) There are many in the BOLINDER ColI., Gothenburg Museum.
5) See previous citation from LAS CASAS in regard to King Cotubanama of
Higuey.
6) Partly the same syllables as in the designation used by the True A rawaks,
sapacana, see BRETT, Op. tic., p. 97. Brett des(,Jibes them as made according
to the same chief type which LAS CASAS, according to COLUMBUS, describes
first for the Ciguayans and secondly along the south coast of Cuba.
7) Op. cit., p. 143. It is to be noted that Oreodoxa occurs in only two varieties,
O. regia, a native of Cuba and O. oleracea, endemic to Espanola. CO!,I, Y
TOSTE pictures the Borinquenos also, as likewise having macanas. See OVIEDO,
Vol. I, p. 473. Still OVIEDO mentions also other material besides the wood of
palms in a later citation.

45 2
,vood material for the macanas on Cuba LAS CASAS says; "las palmas
no tienen las pencas como las de ad., sino lisas 0 rasas, y
son tan duras y pesadas, que de hueso y cuasi de acero, no pueden
ser mas; llamanlos macanas."l)
LAS CASAS described the types of macanas from the Pu,erto
de las Flechas 2 ) in the northwestern part of Santo Domingo, to
Los ] ardines de la Reina3) off the south coast of Cuba as being
similar. But in the description of the macanas of the Ciguayans,
he mentions an uniform thickness of "dos dedos", which is no
insignificant dimension for a palm-wood club. Thus from LAS
CASAS' account of the macana on the south coast of Cuba, it appears
that the type "vas identically the same for the Tainos and
the Ciguayans; "de forma de una paleta hasta el cabo, y del sabo
hasta la empunadura se viene ensangando no aguda de los cabos
sino chata; -- - - llamanlas macanas." That is, they were
clubs diverging upwards and flat above. \Ve have already stated
that this macana type on the Greater Antilles was the same as
the clubs used by the Islands-Can'bs4 ) , and on the coast of Guiana
as well as among the True Arawaks and also the True Caribs. 5 )
According to OVIEDO, the macanas of the Tainos were very
large, so that they were swung with both hands, which moreover
was the case with the long and very heavy boutous of the Island-
I) Vol. 63, p. 57.
2) Vol. 62, p. 435.
3) Vol. 63, p. 57.
") Large fine examples of these in the Copenhagen Nluseum and illustration
1)1' TERTRE, Op. cit .. Vol. II, p. 356, l)aris r668. According to his description
on page 402, it is flat and only one inch thick. See also the discription. BRE­
TON, uouttou, Op. cit .. p. 94--95; ROCHEFORT p. 507. In the excellent description
of I,AK\T, Op. cit., Vol. I, Pt. II, p. 7, the thickness is given as "deux pouces,
excepte a la poignee ou son epaisseur est un peu 1110indre." Through this peculiarity
of irregular thickness, Labat's club resembles a little the Guianan type.
Still this lack of proportion is so slight that this club must be considered of
the same type as a lnacana.
5) The Guianan clubs in the museums as a rule have no dependable information
as to place of origion, so that the tribe is not learned. This is true
especially for the older clubs. The True Arawaks of the coastland still kept
the clubs, which they possessed in BRRTT'S time, only as a heritage from
their ancestors. For the type of club among the True Arawaks, I refer to BRETT.
A club coming from the Cltlibis, in the 1VJus. du Troc. is of uniform thickness
as the 'Vest Indian clubs.

453
Caribs (BRETON, p. 94-95) belonging also to the macana type.
OVIlWO says, "Pelean con macanas los indios de esta isla (that is,
Espanola) que son palos tan anchos como tres dedos 0 algo menos,
e tan luengos como la estadura de un hombre can dos filos
alga agudos; y en el extrema de la macana tiene una manija, e
usaban dell as como hacha de armas ados manos; son de manera
de palma muy recia y de otros arboles."!)
Indubitably OVIEDO means the same type of club as LAS CA­
SAS. For he states the thickness of the club as three inches or
something less. The essential difference consits in that the narrow
sides were made as edges, entirely different from those that
I know in the clubs of the J slands-Caribs. Nevertheless these can
be found in the blade of certain clubs from Guiana. Sometimes
a handle occurs in the Island-Carib club, at others it is missing,2)
while in those from Guiana it is very frequent. Taken as a whole.
we get a more exact picture of the clubs from the desciptrion of
LAS CASAS than from that of OVIEDO.
It would appear as if the macana of Espanola and Cuba was
not adorned with the incised ornamentation, which among the
Caribs was incrnsted with lime. In fact CUNl';o observed the
anthropomorphic and theromorphic descoration on the clubs of the
I sland-Caribs.~) The conventionalized scrolls owing the origin
from rolled in human extremities, indicates that their clubs, had
the same kind of conventionalized anthropomorphic ornamentation
found in Guiana, and in that country above all occuring on clubs.
The Tainos had no arms for protection. Shields did not belong
to the elements that penetrated to them from South America.
Since their Arawak kinsmen on Trinidad and on the coast
of Guiana had shields, it appears as if they had obtained these
after the migration of the Tainos to the Antilles.
Tactics of war. The old authors do not tell us an only Tainan
war episode of Indians fighting against Indians.
The war tactics of the Tainos against the Spaniards were above
all defensive in character and they attacked unexpectedly from
') Vol. T, p. 68.
2) Examples in the Copenhagen lvIuseu11l also with handle.
3) Raccolta, Pt. III, Vol. II, p. J02.

454
an ambuscade.!) They had no war music, which was current in
the Andrean regions oj Colombia. War music with "caja de guerra"
was found as far east as among the Betovyes. 2) The Tainos opened
battle only with a battle-cry.3) They never gave signals with
a shell-trumpet as the Island-Caribs or on Trinidad.
From the preceding paragraph, it can be seen how far behind
the neighbouring parts oj South America, the Island-Caribs, who
emigrated from there, and also Trinidad, the Tainos had remained
in respect to military culture.
1) The True Arawaks were masters in laying an ambuscade. From their
own traditions about their struggle in the Pomeroon against the Caribs, it is
s

CHAPTER VIII.
Household Furniture.
The house-furnishings of the Tainos as we know them can
be divided into three categories:
r) Such things as have the character of furniture.
2) Articles used in the preparation and consumption of food.
3) Receptacles for purposes of conservation.
The Duho. To begin with the first category, the wooden chair,
called duho, intended for the caciques and distinguished
and honoured guests!) had reached a perfection among the
Tainos, that scarcely is equalled in any place in South America.
It is also certain that the anthropomorphic, zemiistically
sculptured dulio had a religious significance to the Tainos. They
sat on such a dullO when they took cahaba for the purpose of entering
into communication with the spirit-world. 2 )
In an investigation of the Tainan duho-type, it does not seem
necessary to me to take up the general diffusion of the types in
South America, but rather take into consideration the lowlands
north of the Amazon in this connection.
What must be noted first all hereby, is that the duho of the
Tainos in its principal type is not the same as in northeastern South
America, and there especially in Guiana, including in this statement
the one found among the True Arawaks, the near kinsmen
of the Tainos.3) This main type has a relatively short seat, is
1) Camp. )JA\'ARRETE, Vol. 1, p. 202, Bayamo, Cuba; LAS CASAS, Val. 62, p.
409--410, the reception of COL1;~1BuS by Guacanagari; Vol. 63, p. 148, Anacaona's
storehouse; Raccolta. Pt. III, Vol. I, p. 163, chairs for the distinguished spectators
of the ball-game. From Allacaolla's store-house DON BARTOLoMF; was given chairs
of dark wood as a gift.
2) .1pol. Hist., p. 446.
3) A representati\'e example from the Arawaks on the lvloruca River is found
in ROTH, Op. cit., PI. 5.

comparatively flat and the legs joined by means of runners. Often
it has in front or at both sides the head of an animal. This
is not the place to speak of the relation to the lowlands south of
the Amazon. Probably the Island-Caribs brought this type with
them to the V:sser Antilles. I )
No Ignerian seat has been published up to the present time,
so that we lack the connecting link between the Tainan duho and
South America.
The fundamental type of the Tainan duho itself with relatively
long seat, the back part swung strongly upwards and four
free-standing legs, is on the other hand to be sought in the western
part of the lowlands in the northern part of South America. RIBERO
mentions "sillas de respaldo"2) among the Achaguas. This chairtype
found among the Achaguas has a Colombian-Andean connection.
A sma1l model of a chair in gold is found in the old country
Chibcha, which corresponds to the Tainan duho-type with almost
level seat and with curving, elongated, backward bending support for
the back.3) In Andean Colombia it could also happen that the backs
of seats were exactly4) like that in a duho-type of the Tainos. 5 )
A highly remarkable find was made by a guacho at Anti{)­
quia in 1853. In a mortuary chamber sat the corpse of a man
on a chair with a hollow concave seat and quite an up-standing
back. The bent legs were drawn up onto the chair like those of
the idol in I"EWKES I, PI. XCI. In front of him was a carafe and
another dried body in a crouching position. So well was all preserved
that in the corner was also found the man's how and long
arrows with quiver for the arrows. 6) So we have here before us
') Compo DE 1,,1. BORDE, Fig. 6. This chair is not really like a Tainan duizo,
but rather a chair from Guiana or the upper Xingll. Still it gives an European
impression, has higher legs in back thau in front. These are not joined by means
of runners. According to BRETON, GP. cit., p. 155, these chairs were for the oldest
and the most distinguished.
2) Gp. cit., p. 418: »que las fabric an muy curiosas y las aforran de pielas de
leoncs, tigres 0 de lobos de agua ').
3) See REsTREro, Atlas Arq., Fig. XVII, 47.
4) See SAVl1,1,E, Gp. cit., Vol. II.
5) FEWKES I, PI. XCI, a-a'.
6) Compo I,IBORIO ZERDA, EI Dorado, Bogota 1883, p. 17-18, and Fig. 5 a.
The chair is also mentioned in connection with \Vest Indian duhas in DE HOSTOS,

457
not only a chair of the Tainan duho-type, but also the burial
custom where the cacique sits on a chair in a mortuary chamber,
which the Tainos could only have made by using an arch of
branches. Then, the second dried body is a proof of the practice
of sutteeism, which on Espanola was used precisely with the
aristocratic chair-burial just mentioned.
Therefore the Tainan types of duho, the one with rounding,
flat seat and curved, elongated, backward-bending back, and the
other with concave seat and straight, vertical back evidently have
their real origin in Andean Colombia.
Yet these chairs from northwestern South America do not
have a head on the front side like those of the Tainos, nor are
they carved. The different wooden duho-types which are duplicated
in stone I have already edited under the heading metates.
Joyce, Journ. of the Royal Anthrop. Inst. 1907 PI. LII 3, Santo
Domingo,!) is in a class by itself. Indeed this is only a saddlelike
seat on the back of a male idol which lies on his belly. On
that chair a person must have sat in a very confined position.
It is elongated like the chairs of Type I, on which also one could
have rested only in an uncomfortable position. The different
types of chairs undoubtedly were motivated by the various manners
of sitting. For example, on chairs of Type II with high backs,
they must have sat with up-drawn knees.2) They probably sat
as we do on the very small, flat chairs that can not be said to be
duhos. 3 )
Hammocks. The Tainan hammock is excellently described
by LAS CASAS,4) Another description is found in
OVIEDO. 5) It had a length of from 10-12 palmos,6) that is from
6-8 feet or 2-2-4 meters. The fine threads running lengthwise
Notes on West Indian Hydrography in its Relation to Prehistoric Migrations, XX
Congr. Americanistes, Rio de Janeiro 1924, p. 239 cited from ZERDA.
1) See description, p. 404; is the same as Centro Amer. And West Ind. Arch.
PI. XXI.
2) Compo FEWKES I, PI. XCI a-a'.
3) Compo the clay figure FEWKES I, PI. CXXXII.
4) LAS CASAS, Apol. Hist., p. 516-517; also Historia, Vol. 62, p. 310.
5) Vol. I, p. 131-132 "Una Manta ... "
6) Ibid., p. 131.

were of cotton.I) At distances of about I palma (200 mm.) there
were thick cross-threads about 2 inches broad2) "ciertas tejeduras
de otros hilos como randas."3) \Vhere the meshes of the long
threads ran together, fine cords of cabuya or s£saZ hemp, a good
fathom4) long, were drawn through 5 ) for suspending the mat.
COLUMBUS, CHANe".. and Don BARTOLO:VIE COLON only observed
in a general way that the hammocks were of cotton. 6 ) In connection
with the high development of cotton-raising and the abundant
supply of agave, the Tainos had gotten away from the ancient
A rawak hammocks oj j£ber. Still, that such existed in regions
where the cultivation of cotton did not flourish, seems pro­
.bable for the reason that the ] ibaros in the interior sections of
mountainous Puerto Rico, especially in the Yunque massive are
even at the present time making hanging-mats of palm-fiber. 7)
It appears that hammocks oj cotton must have first been
introduced into the Lesser Antilles by the Caribs. 8) Nevertheless
their wives made their own hanging mats of fibers. 9)
Looms.
\Ve learn nothing about the Tainan 100m from the
sources. But apparently the Tainan women did
their weaving on the "Arawak Loom"IO) and particularly the wifes
of the Island-Caribs used it. DE LA BORDE describes the weaving
of the hanging-mats as follows: "elles travaillent leur lits
sur une maniere de chassis appuye contre les fourches de 1a case
de haut en bas: la chaisne aboutit a un rouleau qui fait la
bas du chassis et qu'elles tournent a mesure que 1a trame
s'ourdit."ll)
') Apol. Hist., p. SIC).
2) 1,A5 CASAS, Apol. Hist., p. 517; Vol. 62, p. 310.
") Apol. Hist., Ibid.
4) OVIEDO, Vol. I, p. 132.
') Apol. Hist., p. 517.
6) NAVARRETE t. 1, p. 183, the Lucayans; p. 365, Guacanagari's hammock;
I,A5 CASAS, Vol. 63, p. 139, Xaragud.
') FgWKES I, p. 213.
8) For their manufacture, see BRETO~, op. cit., 192-193.
9) BRE'rON, op. cit., p. 247--'248, Bai-bai, 1- ouelim.
10) ;\ORDEXSKI0I,D, The Changes in the i1fat. Cult. p. 176---177 anclMap 15.
]1) op. cit., p. 23. Camp. BRETON, op. cit., p. 192.

459
rtensils. The household utensils for the preparation of the
food of the 1'ainos and its consumption consisted
first of all of clay-vessels, for which I refer to Chapter IV. In
addition to these, I have mentioned the calabashes that were used
as drinking-vessels and for bailing-scopes for boats.
It is singular that the production of wooden bowls among
the Tainos stood on a high leveL \Ve have already spoken of
those in Anacaona's store-house, which were made on Gonaves
by burning out the dark wood. The discoverers also found
wooden bowls on the south coast of Cuba. I )
In the preceding chapters, I have given an account of the
existence of wooden bowls in Xaragua and Cuba, according to
the ancient literature. Up to the present time, however, they
are only known archaeologically from Cuba. HARRINGTON,
Pl. C, "found in muck of Lake Malpoton, near Remates, Pinar del
Rio," is a simple wooden trough, which perhaps can be considered
to be Siboneyan, but the fine carved specimen Ibid., Vol. I, Frontispiece,"
from cave near L·a Patana, Maisi" HARRINGTON attributes
to the Tainos, and the carving is indubitably Tainan. 2 )
The occurrence of wooden bowls among the Tainos has
no connection with South America. There they characterize
the Andean western part and from there have made their way
above all ill a southeastern direction into the 10wlands.3) Wood­
~arving was richly developed among the Key Dwellers on Key
Marco, and they also had several different kinds of wooden dishes,
"cups, bowls, trays and mortars of wood." In addition they
had trays "with handles, the upper faces of which were usually
decorated with neatly cut-in, disc-like or semilunar figures or
depressions. "4) The occurrence of wooden dishes among the Tainos
must therefore be placed in connection with influences from
') Raccolta, Pt. III, Vol. I, p. 76.
2) Compo Ibid., Fig. 59, illustration of a handle with head that has shallow
eye-holes with a flat bottom for the inlaying with shell, like certain zemi-images
of wood.
a) See KORDENSKIOLD, .Eine Geogr. und Ethnogr. Anal., ;Vlap 13. Wooden
bowls do not belong to those elements that disappeared through European influence.
If they had existed at any time in the northeastern part of South America,
thcn they would also have been seen there at a later period.
') LAS CASAS, Vol. 64, P. 35.

southwestern Florida. Possibly the Siboneyes on Cuba had simpler
ones, although as yet no wooden dishes have been found that
can be attributed to them with certainty. If such is the case it
is then possible that the Siboneyes facilitated the use of wooden
dishes to the Cuban Tainos. But the finely sculptured wooden
bowls of heavy dark wood are in any case decidedly Tainan. As
is established by literature and archaeology, wooden dishes existed
among the Tainos on Cuba and in Xaragua to which latter
place, however, they were imported from Gonaves. But as far
as l

As fas as we know with certainty, the Siboneys had only
shell-vessels.
Baskets. Basket-work does not seem to have been so well
developed among the Tainos as among the Island­
Caribs, or in Guiana. The fact that they used maranta-fibers
also does not mean anything in this connection on account of
which their basket-work must have been entirely different from
that on the Lesser Antilles or in Guiana at the time of the Discovery.
The only basket that is described is their impermeable receptacle
made of bihao-leaves. "De las corte

they did not know the art of perforating them.1) This pearlfishing,
as well as the method used in fishing, must have been an
isolated occurrence on Cuba.
The Lucayans also had a kind of mussel-pearls, and they
could also perforate them and place them on strings. The Indians
on Cubagua dived after pearl-bearing mussels.2) They carried
on trade from Cubagua and Margarita also with pearls; they
also knew the art of boring holes in pearls on those islands. The
Indians on the opposite coast wore pearl necklets. Another center
of the pearl trade was Curiana (Cora). They went weshvard
from there trading, to a land called Cauchieta at a distance of
six days' journey, where the Indians wore pearls for necklets.
Pearl-bearing mussels were fished at Curiana, and were besides an
important food element.3)
lUats. Contrary to Central America and Santa Marta,
the northeastern part of South America distinguishes
itself in the fabrication and use of mats. I do not know
of any exact report of the Tainos having mats. OVIEDO'S account
of mats in the field used as sleeping-mats (Vol. I, p. 132) concerns
Central America. But the Tainos used no matting even for
wrapping. When M aiobanex, the Ciguayans' king fled from the
Spaniards, his sons bore his clubs wrapped only in yagua-leaf
(Oreodoxa).4) Gold-leaf was wrapped in a leaf or cotton-rags.5)
1) CUl'iF:O in Rarcolta, Pt. lIT, Vol. I, p. 76. Account originate(l from Columbus'
vi~it, June, 1494-
2) OnEDO, Vol. I, p. 607-608.
3) Compo MARTYR, l11acNult's Trans., p. 151---154.
4) LAS CASAS, Vol. 63, p. I73.
5) I,AS C\SAS, Vol. 62, p. 40 l.

CHAPTER IX.
Gold. Ornaments. Dress. Treatment of the body. Musical
instruments.
The gold found among the Tainos was in reality of two different
kinds in regards to consistency and method of treatment:
r) Caona, native gold, unalloyed, and only hammered.
2) G~tanin, gold from Colombia, alloyed, smelted.
The native gold, especially in a quantitative sense, played a
far greater role among the Tainos than the South American. It
was unnecessary for the Tainos to seek gold over the sea. They
themselves washed it out of the rivers of Espanola and in a lesser
degree of those of Puerto Rico and of Cuba, although in such
small quantities on the latter island that the Cubans also had to
import it from Espanola. 1 ) On the other hand, gold was not indigenous
to J amaica. 2 ) Only in one region of Espanola, the Siena
de Cibao, did gold exist in any quantity. The name of its ruler
Caonab6, has the signification "home of gold". \Vhen COLUMBUS
on his first voyage was seeking gold everywhere, at last of necessity
he was lead to Espanola.
On Espanola, gold was washed in the rivers of the Sierra de
Cibao, and especially in Rio Cutuy. But they also took gold
from the dry riverbeds of the savanna, when the rivers had dried
up after the rains. 3 ) In places where the sediment was especially
rich in grains of gold, the Haitians dug holes and caves; through
these they foIlmved the course of the sediment, rich in gold.4)
The Haitians never took gold directly out of the mountains. The
') ;yIARTVR, Macl\utt's Trans., p. 238.
2) Col. de Ultramar, NO.1, p. 25.
3) Compo OnImo, Vol. I, p. 183.
4\ Ibid., p. J86.

pilot from Guanahani told COLl:MBUS
the island, "a donde cavan el oro. "1)
been made through gold-washing. 2 )
that there were places on
In Cibao also, holes had
In the considering the methods of the Indian gold-washing,
no attention must be given to OVIEDO'S illustration,3) which is
from a period when the Indians had received digging-hoes and
possibly also wooden-troughs from the Spaniards.4) For in Indian
times the gold on Espanola was collected and washed with the
hands, "echando agua can las manos juntas y abiertas - y esto
(that is, the gold) era muy po quito como l1nas hojitas 0 granitos
menudos. "") The so-called gold sand was not considered of much
value by the Taillos, since the grains of gold were too small to be
used either as ornaments or for inlaying. \Vhere gold was scarce,
as among the Lucayans whose island produced none, many small
pieces must serve together to adorn a small portion of the body.6)
The Tainos were dependent on the size of the piece of gold
for the corresponding size of the ornament. 'l'hey could only
hammer together gold while cold into small plates. LAS CASAS
expresses himself as follows about the simple gold-technique of
the Haitians: "Estas plastas de oro no eran fundidas ni hechas
de muchos granos, porque los indios desta isla no tenian industria
de fundir, sino, los granos de oro que hallaban majabanlos entre
dos piedras y asi los ensanchaban, por manera que siendo grandes
las plastas, eran extendidas y ensanchadas de grandes granos 0
piezas que en los rios hallaban."7) CHANCA says in regard to the
treatment of gold on Espanola: "Este oro facian en fojas muy
delgadas, porque 10 quieren para facer caratulas e para poderse
1) NAYARRE'I'E, Vol. I, p. 200.
2) :i\1ARTYR, ;),Iuc:::\utt's Trans., p. 82 and 114. OYIEDO'S aCColmt, Vol. I,
p. 185, that the smaller rivers were turned out of their courses, in order to wash
the gold out of the sandy beds, must only mean in times after the Haitians had
receiyed digging-tools from the Spaniards.
3) Vol. I, PI. 2. Fig. 4.
4) As a matter of fact, on Cuba the Spanish authorities furnished the goldwashing
Indians not only with hoes, bnt also bateas (the word is properly Tainan).
See Col. de 11ltrumar, t. I, p. 309.
5) LAS CASAS, Vol. 63, p. 103. Compo M.\RTYR, ;),IacXutt's Trans., p. 82.
6) As in the nose. See XAVARRE'I'E, Vol. I, p. 189.
') Vol. 62, p. 4II-4I2.

asentar en betum que elIas facen, si asi no fuese no se asentaria.
Otro facen para traer en la cabeza e para colgar en las orejas e
narices, ansi qne todavia es menester que sea delgado, pues que
elIas nada desto hacen par riqueza salvo par buen parecer. "1)
The native gold was used:
I) in small nuggets suitable only for small ornamental pieces.
2) hammered out into small plates that were used
a) for the cutting-ant of ornamental objects.
b) for the manufacture of gold-masks, possibly by
being pressed against a face of harder material, or
punched.
3) in pieces, that were formed by hammering and inlaid by
means of resin (betun) in another material, usually wood.
KRIEGER mentions the finding of three gold objects "of hammered
thin gold plate" from a midden near Monte Cristi, "this
being the first Tainan gold-find that has been made up to the
present time, so far as I know. "Each of the three objects is of
the thickness of paper and showed under the glass numerous marks
of hammering and bits of gold leaf compressed into the lateralsurfaces
or folded bach at the edges and smoothed by hammering."
Only one of these is decorated, partly by etching, partly "through
bilateral impressions with a blunt knife on the obverse and reverse
surfaces." The figures KRIEGER finds similar to those on
the engraved pottery "from northern Santo Domingo." They
consist of "straight line etchings, punctations, concentric circles
and dots." :\loreover, the concentric circles were made by the
later bilateral punching method.2) Evidently identical with this
object is the one figured by KRIEGER in Smithsonian Explorations,
1929, p. r65, fig. I48 a, a fragment; the left side of a plate. The
figures seen on it are of primitive execution, similar to those
fonnd on Tainan ceramics. The object is a fragment, of a
decorated, square, thin gold plate. Possibly the top ornament
is the ,vide frog mouth of the Tainan ceramics. In
fig. [48 b another of the golden objects from the tracts of
NIonte Cristi is illustrated. It is rectangular with rounded
30
1) ::\AVARRETE, Vol. T, p. 364.
') KrUEGER I, p. 501-502.

corners and perforation for suspension. No doubt it is a pIece
of jewellery.
On his first voyage, COLUMBUS often noticed the small goldornaments
in the ears and noses of the Tainos.l) In other cases
gold nuggets occurred in their armlets, necklets and anklets,
and perhaps was suspended on the breast. 2 )
In regards to the gold in the nose and ears, it was not placed
directly in the septum of the nose or the lobe of the ear, but
hung from a band.3) Still occasionally it might also have
been affixed to these without the band.4) It is worthy note that
the wearing of gold in the underlip is nmvhere mentioned. No
tembeta of any kind can be shown among the Tainos. 5)
The really large pieces of gold, ,-,vhich were generally hammered
out, do not appear to have been exported from Espanola for
pieces of any size are only mentioned from this islancl.6)
Even on Espanola they had larger plates, punched in to goldmasks.
7)
The gold inlaid with rasin can have been used on faces for
chairs, idols and other wood-carvings. From the sources we learn
only that gold was used to represent certain parts of the face on
masks. \Ve must assume that these masks were made of wood
with ears, tongue and nose of gold. 8)
1) NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. I79, Guanahani, 184, I89, Lucayans, I97, Cuba in
the vicinity of Baracoa, 24I, Haiti at Port de Paix. Chanca saw gold in the ears
at ,'lontR Cristi on Espafiola, see Ibid., p. 459.
2) NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. I79 and 359.
3) NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. I89. Camp. p. 197.
4) Ibid., p. 241.
5) From NORDEl'.'SKIOLD, The Changes in the Mat. Cult., Chapt. XII, it appears
that "tembeta» even in the comprehensive sense in which he uses this expression,
,vas entirely lacking in the lowlands north of the Amazon.
6) Camp. NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. 253 and 267. LAS CASAS, Vol. 62, p. 424;
compo the reports of the Cubans about the abundance of gold in the islands further
east. NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. 205.
') Camp. Chanca in KAVARRETE, Vol. T, p. 361, two go1cl-masks which Guacanagari
gave to COI,'CMB1!S.
8) NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p, 263, and mask attachen to a ginlle, Ibid., p. 254;
camp. LAS CASAS, Vol. 62, p. 389. The mask, that Guacanagari sent the Admiral
when his fleet, drew near Marien at the time of the first voyage, "tenia grandes
pedazos de oro cn las orejas y en los ojos y en otras partes"'. The mask itself
was probably of wood.

The Maya masks which the Discoverers received, were of
wood which had been plated,l) but not really inlaid with gold
like those of the Haitians. But in addition, GRIJALVA and his
people had the opportunity of observing in Tabasco ,vooden masks
treated in different ways, "parte dellas cubiertas de piedras turquesas
--, pucstas a manera de obra mosaica -, y parte cubiertas
de hoja de oro y otras del todo cubiertas de oro."2)
I am inclined to place the inlaying of masks with gold on
the island of Espanola, to Mayan influence. The objection can
be offered that the inlaying of wood with gold has its prototype
in the inlaying with mother of pearl, which seems to have been
very general among the Tainos. Yet it seems to me suggesting
that in questioning a possible Maya-Mexican influence, three
things are worth consideration:
r) Inlaying with mother of pearl vvas used3) for eyes, but
was not suitable to ears.
z) The Haitian mask just mentioned, is placed in front in
the middle of an artistically fabricated girdle. Girdles with a
mask in the center are frequent in the carved representations of
.;\:Iayan religious ceremonies. 4 )
3) One of the masks presented to GRIJALVA in Cozumel, was
sent to him as "en senal de paz."5) I can not free myself from
the impression that the masks which Guacanagad sent to COLlTl\1-
BLS, expressed the same intention.
The masks "muy bien echas y COll algun oro" which the
Haitian chief sent to COLUMBUS were called guaY9tls by the
Tainos.6)
I am also of the opinion that these same girdles, Guacanagad's
gift to the Admiral, which according to I,AS CASAS' description
consisted of parts made of different materials, artistically
joined together, reveal Mayan influence.
') LAS C\SAS, Vol. 65, p. 247, Champaton, and -Bo, Tabasco.
2) I,AS C\SAS, Vol. 65, p. 431
3) See HARRI~Gl'O~, Op. cit., Vol. I, PI. VIIT, idol found in a cave not far
from C. :'Ilaisi.
4) See for example, SPI~Dlm, Anc. Civ. at l\lIexico and Crntr. Am., PI. XVI,
Fig. '3 Piedras Kegras.
') I,AS CASAS, Vol. 65, p. 427.
6) LAS CASAS, Vol. 63, p. 1 r.

LAS CASAS, who personally had seen such a Haitian girdle,
says "este ciuto era de pedreria muy me nuda como alj6far, hecha
de Imesos de pescado, blanca y entrepuestas algunas eoloradas it
manera de labores tan cosidas en hilo de algodol1, y por tan linda
artificio, que, por la parte del hilo y reves del cinto parecian muy
lindos labores, aunque todas blancas, que era plaeer verlas, como
si hobiera tejido en un bastidor, y por el modo que labran las
cellefas de las easullas en Castilla los brosladores, y era tan duro
y tan fuerte, que sin dudo creo, que no Ie pudiera pasar 0 eon
dificultad, un areabuz: tenia cuatro dedos en aneho, en la manera
que solian usar en Castilla, por los Reyes y grandes senores, los
cintos labrados en bastidor, 0 tejidos de oro, e yo alcance aver
alguno dellos."l)
It appears also from SCII4LACro'S description, that the pearls
on the girdle were sewed on a cotton fabric. 2 )
From Espanola we learn to know belts only as gifts presented
to the Spanish chiefs by caciques. But on Jamaica a cacique is
described as being arrayed in a belt of stone-beads. The occasion
refers to the cacique ,,,ho ,vent out at Old Harbour Bay to the
Admiral's ship, with the intention of returning to Spain with
him.3)
The embroidery of material or embroidery on cloth was a
decidedly Maya-Mexican art. The mode of making girdles in
layers of different materials was also Mayall.4)
Guanin. RIVET, in his article L'Orjevrerie Precolombienne
des Anf11les, des Guyanes et du Venizuela, J ourn.
de la Soc. des Americanistes de Paris, Yol. XY, p. 1R3--213, takes
into consideration guanin, in regard to the \Vest Indies. He also
cites the analysis ,yhich was made in Spain of a Haitian obj
ect of gold. 5)
I can not agree with RIVET'S theory that guanin or caricoli
I) Vo1. hz, p. 38

was alloyed by Carib tribes in the Venezuelan highlands south
of the Orinoco and had spread from there to Espanola.1)
These regions have never been an Indian gold centre.
Guanin was a variable alloy of gold with copper containing
silver from Andean Colombia. 2 )
Archaeologically considered, guanin or caricoli in Colombia
has its proper centre in the Cauca Valley. On the other hand,
pure gold predominates among the Chibchas, although caricoliobjects
are certainly not rare within their former domain.3),
such as crescent-shaped nose-adornments or ornaments for the
breast, made of thin plate. The origin of the guanin in the West
Indies also, I will seek for in the Cauca Valley. From there it
passed in trade by way of northern Venezuela eastward and
found its way to the Antilles over Paria. Gold went out from
the Chibchas into the interior of Venezuela, and it was worked
there in certain gold-centers. But so far as I can find out, it
was only pure gold that was melted and worked in these places.
Such a" community was Cabritu, at the bend of the Orinoco.4)
The islands in Lake Tacarigua were another centre of gold trade
although it is not expressly said that gold was melted there. 5)
However it seems to have been the case, because they melted
gold not so far from there in a place on the Indian trail along
the south side of the Serrania del Interior.6)
From what the cacique Topiawari, probably a True Arawak,
living on the coast south of the Orinoco delta, told RALEIGH it
appears that most of the gold that the Indians here had in the
form of "plates and images" was not gold mined in the monn-
') camp. L'Ortevrerie des Antilles de Guyanes et du Venezuela, J. Soc. Americauistes
de Paris, n. s., t. XV the map. p. 192 and p. 193--194.
2) Camp. H. ARSANDA'C'X and P. RIYET, L'Orjevrerie du Chiriqui et de Colombie,
p. 177, analysis from "da province d'Antioquia", and p. 178, "d'origine Chibcha".
3) RESTREPO TIRADO, Atlas, PI. IX, Fig. 20, two semilunar nose-ornaments,
"gilded".
4) SD-rON, .Yol. 3, p. 222. "Crisoles", casting-moulds. Nothing is said about
alloying.
5) OYIEDO Y BANOS, Vol. II, Doc. p. 226: "algunas islas, las cuales estan pob­
Jarlas, estos indios tratan oro, es gente pacifica."
ill See OVIEDO, Vol. II, p. 247.

470
tains, but came from "the lake of Manoa" and was collected "in
grains of perfect gold" in rivers; also that afterwards it was united
with copper. l ) I am of the opinion that by Manoa is meant the
real "El Dorado" lake, Guatavita, and not the so-called "Lago de
Parima" on the interior savanna of Guiana. Possibly RALEIGH
can have got the idea that this lake was located in the interior
of Guiana from the fact that the rivers southwest of the Sierra
of Imataca are gold-bearing. At the present time gold is washed
there.
Topiawari's statement also indicates the Colombian origin
of guanin, the copper-alloyed gold. Indeed, possibly a quantity
of the same reached the True Arawaks from the Cauca Valley,
over the land of the Chibchas and along the Orinoco. The Indian
wealth of gold along the lower Orinoco was also considerable. A
French privateer ,vas offered there a large number of "aguilas y
caracories de oro fino y oro bajo. "2)
But even greater was the abundance of gold in the long valley
of the Carib highland east of Cumana, as is shown by the expedition
of Francisco de Alava.3) Hay, coca, which \vas highly
valued by the Indians, was produced in this valley; and its value
was enhanced by the fact that this was the only region in northeastern
South America where it was cultivated.4) In Cumana
gold was acquired in exchange for salt and female slaves5), who
were presumable captured from the Arawak tribes, for of course
the Cumanagotos were Caribs. Indeed it was often the case that
the Indians richest in gold \yere not those who produced it themselves,
but for the most part were those who possessed some other
product, usually salt, in exchange for which they received gold.
There are several reasons for concluding that the guanin on
the Greater Antilles came by way of the I(esser Antilles from the
South American mainland coming from there presumably by way
of Paria and Cumaml. I have already cited from PA~E, that the
') The Discovery etc., performed in the year 1595, Hakl. Soc., Vol. III, London
1848, p. 90.
') OVIlWO, Vol. 11, p. 308.
3) Ibid., p. 307.
4) Compo Apol. His!., p. lSI.
5) OVIEDO, Vol. II, p. 307; the Indians took salt from the salt-beds of Araya
in the dry season. Compo lVIAR'l'YR-lIac Xntt, p. 156.

471
Haitians called the South American continent Guanin, on account
of guanin coming from there. During his first voyage along the
north coast of Espanola, COLUMBUS came in contact with "un
oro bajo" in large quantity for the first time far to the East among
the Ciguayans. They informed him that they obtained it from
"J\Iatinin6", that is, by way of the Lesser Antilles. That alloyed
gold the J\Ia

472
per-ores that the Indians smelted out, were very rich in si1ver. 1)
In Colombia they knew how to smelt out the copper from the ore,
but not the silver. The latter art had not reached here either
from Mexico or Peru, or else in Colombia silver-ore suitable for Indian
smelting was not known. As a matter of fact, silver objects
are found ill Ecuador, but not in Colombia.
A caricouli of "copper alloy" was found by KRIEGER in "a
midden at Anadel near Saman{t". "It is 4 inches in length and
tapers from a flattened basal section to a sharp pOillt."2) He also
speaks of it as "spatula-shaped". This description seems to refer
to the object illustrated by KRIEGER in Smithsonian Explorations,
I92 9, Fg. I48 c.
As I have previously stated, the guanin among the Tainos "vas
of Colombian origin and reached them by ,yay of the Lesser Antilles.
However we must not overlook the fact, that "tumbaga" also
existed along the Atlantic coast of Central America. This alloy
is not unusual in Chiriqui, although a large silver-percentage is
rare. 3) Nevertheless undoubtedly the Chiriqui-culture, and included
therein the by no means insignificant knovdedge of the
goldsmith's art, stands close to that in the Cauca Valley. But
further north in the Mayan regions tumbaga was used in trading.
CORDOVA found that the Mayas in Cozumel called pure gold taquin,
but alloyed gold ma2ca. 4 ) GRIJALVA found also in Cozumel a mask,
that had ear-rings made of a less pure gold &). At the mouth
of the rl'abasco (Rio de Grijalva) he 'was offered "ciertas hachue
las de oro ba j 0" . As an indication of a remote connection ul ti mately
with the Colombian valleys is evident from the fact that here
lived the legend of El Dorado in the form of "un senor --- todo el
cuerpo de oro6)". Of course El Dorado is Bacatd when, all powdered
with gold, he descends into the Guatavita Lake at the great
') For proportion of silYer in tumbaga objects from the proyincc Antioquia
see H. ARSAXDAUX and r. Rlnn, L'OrjevYerie du Chiriqui et de Colombie, p. 177,
analyses of tumbaga objects from Anti0'luia and from the Chibcha country, p.
'78.
') KRIEGER I, p. 501.
:l) C011lpare ARSANDATJX et RIVET, lhid., p. 171. Fig. II.
4) Lc\S C.\SAS, Vol. 65, p. 358.
5) Ihid., p. 4 2 3.
fi) ibid, p. HI.

473
annual festival. No finds of tumbaga occur in the Valley of
Mexico. Tumbaga-finds in Mexico occur in the more western parts
of Oaxaca and Tepic. They show a high percentage of silver.!)
Moreover, there is nothing that indicates that the Tainos might
have received their Colombian guanin by way of Yucatan. The
amount of this alloyed gold required by them must have been considerable,
as it was not only the important members of the race,
that wore guanin ornaments.
Silver and Only in isolated cases did COLUMBUS come upon
copper. silver among the Tainos. Near Nipe Bay, Cuba,
an Indian wore "un pedazo de plata labrado colgado
a la nadz"2). Thereafter nothing more is said in the literature
about the Tainos having silver ornaments. It is very certain
that the one in question was imported. Many elaborated silver ornaments
are found in Floridian graves. On the other hand, COR­
DOVA found "joyas de oro y plata" at Catoche, the Mayan locality
that lies nearest Cuba. So long as we have no silver-finds on Cuba
to use for a comparison, it must remain entirely uncertain whether
silver ornaments came there from Florida or Yucatan. They could
not have come from northeastern South America, because at the
time of the Discovery there was no silver there, and at times pure
silver was lacking in Colombia.
'When during his first voyage COLUMBUS found himself near the
present Cape Haitien, he summed up the metals that the Tainos
possessed as being only gold and copper, and adds that he had
seen only a little of the latter.3) Therefore in any case the Tainos
had some copper. In the Museum fur Volkerkunde, Berlin, there
is a copper bit, IV. c. b. 1677, Jamaica, found by BASTIAN'S expedition
in 1904. The finding-place and attendant circumstances are
not given and no analysis has been made. \Ve do not know whence
the Tainos obtained copper. Native copper is found at Cobre in
Oriente, Cuba. Through an analysis made by A. R. Ledoux,
:MOORE found that its consistency coincides nearly with an Indian
") ARsAxDAcx and RIVE'!', Nouvelle note sur la Metallurgie l\IIexicaine, Anthropologie,
Vol. 33, I923, analysis p. 80.
2) NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. I97.
3) NAVARRETE, Vol. r, p. 203.

474
copper disk from Tick Island, and therefore he asks the question
if the copper for this Floridian disk can not have been
imported from Cuba. This copper is very pure and it contains
some silver, which is also the case with North American native
copper. l )
In LANDA'S time the Mayas in Yucatan had axes "de cierto
meta1"2) wherewith must be meant copper3) or bronze. But copper
,vas scarce among the Mayas4) and besides V\'aS an import-article
with them. Moreover certain commercial wares in the large
Mayan canoe that COLUMBL"S met at Guanassa, show that the
::\Iayas were actually engaged in an importing trade in copper
southward along the Atlantic coast. Among the wares were found
not only "hachue1as de cobre para cortar lena" but also "crisoles
para fundir el cobre."5)
The Tainos conld not have obtained any copper from the
South American continent. The races there in the northeastern
part had none at all. So great was the want thereof felt further
westward on the coast, that CIEZA DE LEON was offered gold for a
corresponding weight of copper.6) Even in Colombia, objects of
pure copper are very rare. 7 ) On the other hand, copper is used
above all for mise en couZeur. It appears as if that metal was not
used in Colombia for tools or weapons.
Stone Beads. Side by side with gold and guanin the Tainos
valued highly a certain kind of stone bead. Distinguished
suitors sent thin plates of guanin and strings of stone
beads as well, to the father-in-law when the bride was bought. 8)
1,AS CASAS describes the appearance of these beads, as follows:
"piedras ensartadas como cuelltas cuasi de 1a hechura de dado
') Certain Sand Mounds on St. John's River, Florida, p. 234-235. Compare
analyses made by A. R. I,edoux in MaORI(, Sheet-Copper from the lv[ounds, A. A
N. S. 5, p. 31.
2) Relaci6n de Casas de Yucatan, lid. Brasseur de Bourbourg, p. 170.
3) Compare lovcn, 1\1exican Arch., p. 292.
4) Ibid., p. 304.
5) HnRRRIU, Vol. I, p. r 31 .
6) URI,AND KORDENSKliiu), lectures at the Uniyersity of Gothenburg, 1930.
7) VIcgNTI( RES'l'lUlPO, Los Chibchas, Atlas, fjgs. 15, 24 and 4I.
8) A pol. His!., p. 52 I.

475
aunque no esquinadas, sino redondas por la longura dellas, que
mas parecian muelas pedriadas que otra cos a de valor''.!) From
the description it appears that the beads had the shape of short,
broad cylinders, whose form indeed could be likened to that of
a millstone. This corresponds excellently with the bead-finds
made within the Tainan culture. PANE describes stone-beads,
colecibi, as "stones like marble, and they wear them tied on the
arms and on the neck. "2)
The Arawak tribes of the mainland as a general rule value
green beads in particular very highly. They count there to be a
property having the same value as ready money, and this must
also have been the case among the Tainos. In the ancient times,
the True Arawaks valued more highly than gold "unas piedras
que llaman ellos abas que son a manera de jaspes labradas, y de
que hacen sartales y estiman mucho."3) MAX SCHMIDT calls attention
to the high sentimental value of jadeite beads and their importance
as a standard of value among the continental Arawak
tribes.4)
The archaeological finds support the statement of LAS CASAS
that the 'l'ainan stone beads had what he calls the shape of millstones,
or in any case are short broad cylinders. This is true both
in the finds from Puerto Ric05) and Santo Domingo,6) also from
Cuba7) and Jamaica.S) Long cylindrical beads are also found on
Puerto Rico, some of which besides having a hole for suspension
are provided as well with notches and are engraved with a human
') Ibid .. p. 171.
2) Chapter VI.
3) RODRIGO DE NAVARRETE in OVIEDO. Vol. II. p. 276.
4) :\1. SCIIl\IlDT. Die Aruaken.
') FmYKES I. Pl. XXXVII. a nccklet with pendant. found in a bowl in
grave near plaza at Utuado.
6) KRIHG};R I. PI. TO. :VIonte Cristi Province and Haitian Yillagc sites. Peninsula
of Samana.
') HARRING'l'OX. p. :J06. Fig. 89, Laguna 13mones site near :\laisi. Fig. 84,
El Lindero, is certainly a somewhat elongated cylindrical form. but it has central
notches and also a hole bored through for suspension. He mentions stone beads
from other sites in Oriente, without giving their shape. He considers stone beads,
especially the cylindrical. a decidedly Tainan element on Cuba; the Siboncyes
made their beads of flat shell-discs. Compo Graph. Tab. Pl. CVIlI.
') lleERDEx, PI. 6, Fig. 2. of chalcedony, district of Vere.

figurel ) of such appearance, that they must be native Tainan
work. We have no ground either for supposing that the smooth
cylindrical beads are other than indigenous work and material.
Where information about material is given, the Tainan stone
beads in Santo Domingo are of jadeite, calcite and marble,2)
while on Jamaica they are of chalcedony.3) But the majority of
the beads, if information as to their material is not given, must
have been made of the common nephrite or jadeite. Cylindrical
beads usually flat and broad, predominate altogether. I do not
know any barrel-shaped or globular beads from the Tainan islands.
The beads found on Montserrat reveal an entirely different
abundance of materials and forms. These stone beads and pendants,
collected by Mrs. S. \V. Howes who is herself a resident of
the island, are of "carneol, amethyst, chalcedon, rock crystal,
turquois, lapis lazuli, and jade".4) These semi-precious stones are
according to Mrs. Howes not native to the island of Montserrat.
With the exception of chalcedony, which is found in the abovementioned
bead necklet from Jamaica, I know of none of these
stones from the Tainan islands. Genuine jade from the West
Indies is unknown to me, but on the other hand celts and many
other objects of jadeite or nephrite are general. In Indian America
jade is really found in Mexico and northeastern Brazil. The
other quasi-precious stones such as lapis lazuli 5 ) and turquois
must have reached Montserrat from very distant regions on the
continent. Turquois has played a very great role among the
Indians, especially among the Pueblos and in Mexico and Yucatan,
to which latter regions it was presumably imported from the
Pueblo-district; for it is not found in the rocks of Mexico and only
in insignificant quantities in Bolivia, whence the Chiriguanos in
1) FEWKES II, Fig. 60. He says (p. 23I) that these beads should be "gilded".
If this is right, then they had gold-plated stone beads on Puerto Rico, just as in
Mexico.
2) KRIEGER I, PI. ID.
3) DUERDEN, PI. 6, Fig. 2.
4) HARRINGTON, A West Indian Gem Center, Indian Notes, Heye Found.,
Oct. I924, p. I84.
5) Probably of Andean origin. See C. F. KeNz, Precious Stones used by the
Prehistoric Residents o.f the American Continent, Proc. 23 rd Int. Congr. Americanists,
held at New York I928, p. 66.

477
the western Chaco must have obtained it. Carnelian beads are
found on other islands of the Lesser Antilles besides Montserrat.
The Magdalena region must be the place where they originated
and from there they made their way to the north coastl) of Colombia,
whence they eventually must have reached the Antilles.
No wares go so far as semi-precious stones and the shells of
molluscs in the way of trade with tribes living in remote regions,
who are without intimate cultural relations with the land of
their origin.
Cylindrical beads are most common on Montserrat.2) But
barrelshaped and lenticular forms are also found, which I do not
know from the Tainan islands.
Moreover the Indians on Montserrat themselves made beads
of hard material, because specimens, especially of carnelian, have
been found in different stages of manufacture. 3) In the stone
beads from Montserrat it can also be observed that the perforation
is made from both sides.
HARRINGTON does not know any "oval pendants of quartz
crystal" one side of which being flat, the other convex "from the
West Indies".4) Nor do I know them from the Tainos. On the
other hand, the Island-Carib women wore "les gros grains de
cristal"5) in addition to green stone beads and caricolis. We
have no reason for believing that these crystals had been cut.
Probably the Island-Caribs had imported them from Guiana.
During his visit there in I9I3, my friend OTTO THULIN found large
rock crystals on the savanna at Roraima.
The Island-Caribs made their beads themselves, as well as
acquiring in trade green stone beads from the mainland "vers
la riviere des Amazones". 6) There is no indication found in the
ancient literature that the Island-Caribs were more skilled in
stone-work than the other tribes on the coast of Guiana. There-
1) Compare K1:NZ, Ibid., p. 65-66.
2) HARRINGTON, Ibid., p. 186.
3) Ibid., p. 185.
4) Ibid., p. 186.
5) BRETON, Ibid., p. 209, and DE LA BORDE, p. 3I-
6) DE LA BORDE, Ibid. According to Du TERTRE, Vol. II, p. 77 they lacked
utensils suitable for handling that hard kind of rock.

fore I can not second HARRINGTON'S idea of attributing to the Caribs1)
the beads found on Montserrat, but am of the opinion that
they are Ignerian and that the Igneris had acquired the art of
cutting and perforating stone beads through their relations westwards
along the north coast of South America. Since indigenous
stone beads, and in this case not especially elegant ones, are found
so far away as Jamaica, the question can be debated if the Island-Caribs
did not already know the art of making simple millstone-shaped
stone beads of not too hard material at the time
of their immigration to the Antilles.
Among the Tainos stone beads represented a qualified and
valuable possession and they were owned above all by the caciquefamilies.
Because of their rarity, they did not exactly have the
character of accredited or ready money among the Tainos. Likewise,
among the Arawak tribes from the mainland such as the
Parresls in Matto Grosso, it was the privilege of the upper class
to own necklaces and strings of beads. But here they were more
in the character of a sort of currency2) and were taken off the
bearer, when they were to be used to pay for a purchase. Just as
among the Tainos, they were considered a part of the family
property. For the most part stone beads were only gifts of honour
among the caciques on the Tainan islands. The Spanish leaders
were regarded as caciques. 'When COLUMBUS met Guacanagari
again on his second voyage, the latter gave him between 5oo~600
stone beads "de divers as colores" and a string of beads with an
ornament of gold in the center.3) NARVAEZ and I,AS CASAS received
stone beads as presents from the Cubans at Camaguey.4) Naturally
the caciques also expected suitable gifts in return and
COLUMBUS was accustomed to fulfill this obligation in a princely
manner. Not alone thin guanin-plates, but also strings of stone
beads were sent by caciques to others of their class, when they
courted their daughters.5) In this case the reciprocal offering of
the prospective father-in-law became obligatory, because on
') A vVest Tndian Gem Center, p. 184.
2) },IAX SCHMIDT, Die Al'uaken, p. 54.
3) Chanca in NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. 365.
4) I,AS CASAS, Vol. 65, p. 17.
5) lAS CASAS, Vol. 66, p. 495--496.

479
Espanola it was considered sufficient cause for war, if he despised
the valuable gifts of guanin and strings of stone beads. I )
In a tumulus close by a plaza at Utuado on Puerto Rico,
FEWKES found in a clay bowl2) the previously named necklace of
stone beads pendant,3) which the deceased must have needed in
the other world. No support for this opinion is found in the
old literature about the Tainos. But LANDA says in reference to
the Mayas: "Muertos los amortajavan hinchandoles la boca del
maiz molido que es su comida y bevida que llaman koyem, y con
ello algunas piedras de las que tienen moneda, para que en la
otra no les faltasse de comer. "4) Since among the Tainos stone
beads were properly owned only by caciques and were given as
gifts of honor by caciques, it is possible that beads in a bowl
were given as a mortuary gift to the dead in order that he might
present a distinguished appearance in the other world and perhaps
buy himself a wife.
The Lucayans did not have suitable material for beads on
their limestone islands. In place of these, they removed transparent
yellow pearls from a kind of red mussel and used them for
necklaces. 5 )
Shell fret-work Nowhere in America have the Indians advanced
and engraving. so far in the art of carving, engraving and above
all cutting through shell to form gorgets, as in the
southeastern States. In comparison with these the Mayan ornaments
are inartistic. On the other hand, shell-work stands strikingly
high among the Tainos on the islands lying nearest to
Florida.
On Cuba, shell was worked up into figurines,6) similar to the
customary ones of stone intended for suspension from necklets.
An especial shell-figurine-type found both in Santo Domingo and
on Cuba is a head with large eye-sockets and grinning row
1) Apol. Hist., Ed. Serrano y Sanz, p. 170----171.
2) FEWKES I, p. 183, and PI. XXVII, a-a'.
3) Ibid., p. IOg.
4) LANDA, Ed. Brasseur de Bourbourg, p. Ig6.
oj MARTYR, MacNutt's Trans., Dec. VII, p. 252.
6) HARRINGTON, Figs. 87 and 88, Laguna Limones site, Maisi.

of teeth projecting from a haft, probably intended for insertion.
Two holes for a cord are found in the specimens from Santo Domingo,
while these are entirely lacking in the Cuban one. 1) They
could scarcely have been pendent ornaments as they appear
instead to be intended for suspension from above. Possibly they
might have been put in the centre of a frontlet. 'l'he mask,
FmvKEs I, Pl. LXXXV II, e, has an eyelet in the rim. FEWKES
is of the opinion that possibly it might have been bound to the
forehead. Unfortunately I do not know if it has a concave back,
vvhich, if this were the case, would support I

side of which the space was divided into five parts, each of which
contained the figure of a frog.I) The resemblance to this region
becomes still more striking if there is a figure carved out inside
the hole, as is the case with KRIEGER I, Pl. I6 a, l\i[onte Cristi
Province, which has a frog carving within the hole. Perhaps this
is also a Floridian characteristic, if there is a bird-head turned
downwards, with a long beak2) as 011 a swallowing-stick of
shell, HATT, Virgin Islands, Hg. 9 a, l\i[agens Bay, St. Thomas.
On the other hand, Fig. 9 i, from the same place with its two
bird-heads that were probably inspired by the axes with birdheads,
is decidedly Antillean in its composition.
The scanty shell-work material from islands possessing Tainan
culture is however sufficient to reveal Floridian influence,
especially in the gorgets. Shell-work has never been found on
Jamaica; I will not talk of shell celts here. In that case as in
certain others, Floridian influence never reached that island.
The art of shell carving is met with southward as far as to St.
Kitts-Nevis and St. Vincent, but I have no record of real fret
work from these islands.S)
Up to this point I have been discussing the constantly worn
ornaments of the Tainos. vVe learn something about the extraordinary
attire and decorations worn at festivals and receptions
of the caciques through CANIZARES in regard to Espafiola,4) and
in a limited measure from D. BARTOLOME'S visit in Xaragua, or
through a reception on the south coast of Cuba. 5) Both sexes
wore bandages around their arms as well as snail shells that tinkled
against each other instead of bells, at the reception of the Haitian
cacique.6) They had garlands of flowers and grass on their heads.
The girls wore strings of shining diversely-coloured 'wooden beads
around the arms and neck, in the dance at the Cuban cacique's
reception for the Spaniards near the present Trinidad.7)
1) HARR1XG'I'ON, Fig. 86.
2) Compare HOLMES, Art in Shell etc., 2nd Ann. Rept. Bur. Amer. Ethnol.
Pl. XX: 2, gold ornament, Florida. Vol. II, p, 316--318.
3) FEWKES II, pl. 86 and 69.
') MAR'I'YR, 2'.Iac::-.rntt's Trans" p, 352, See GOllIARA, Op. cit., p. 51.
5) Raccolia, Pt, III, Vol. I, p, 76,
3 1
6) l\IAR'I'\'R, IiJid, p, 31(),
7) Haccolta, Pt, III, Vol. J, p, 76,

It is strange that a feather headdress was not worn at such
harvest festivals on Espanola. It can be determined if such were
worn at other ceremonies, as the historical literature gives no
information on this subject. I have already treated the limited
material obtained from this source regarding headdresses of feathers
among the 'fainos. I am inclined to the opinion that in this
case, as was actually the case among the Arawak tribes on Trinidad,
the wearing of this kind of headdress was the privilege of
chiefs alone and was not so democratically extended as among
the Ciguayans and Caribs.
Feather-mantles also were worn at festivals among the Lucayans.
1 )
It could not have been that all the Tainos wore feathers in
battle. The Cubans armed with darts, that COLUMBUS met near
Baracoa, were painted red, but only a few of them had "penachos
en la cabeza y otras plumas" .2) Probably these last were their
chiefs. The standard-bearer in the prow of the Jamaican canoe
that came out to visit COLU~VIBUS' ship at Old Harbour, wore "un
sayo de plumas coloradas de he chura de cota de arm as y en la
cabeza traia un gran plumaje que parecia muy bien." Two or
three other Indians of the suite wore "en la cabeza un gran plumaje
de la hechura de zelada", by which must be understood
that that kind of feather headdress was like a cap in form. Two
Indians that carried "trompetas de palo" in their hands, each
wore "un muy lindo sombrero de plumas". "Otros seis traian
sombreros de plumas blancas." BERNALDEZ emphasizes the fact
that the facial painting of all these Indians was alike, but their
feather ornaments different.3) In any case we can conclude from
this that on Jamaica certain pertinent feather ornaments were
worn on the occasion of the cacique's visit to a distinguished man.
On the other hand, the Jamaican cacique himself wore no feathered
adornment, but only the insignia of a cacique, the same as on
1) GOMARA, op. cit., p. 50. ,\Ve know nothing of their appearance, wherefore
any deductions as to their close analogies, which at any rate must be South American,
are impossible.
2) N,\.YARRETE, p. 226.
3) ap. cit, p. 74.

Espanola. From the description of BERNALDEZ it also appears
that both headdresses of feathers and different kinds of feathered
cloaks and caps existed 011 Jamaica.
These feather ornaments must proceed from the 1'ainos'
South American origin. For in northeastern South America,
also, both capsl) ano. cloaks 2 ) of feathers are found. The Jamaicans
with their abundant development of feathered ornaments
seem to have preserved old South American traditions, which,
speaking in a general way, seem to have been discontinued by the
Tainos on the other Greater Antilles. Already before the Discovery,
an evolution had taken place in the extreme northeastern
part of South America, due to the influence of the CUlture-peoples
in Andean Colombia. vVhen they danced, the Parians were not
only arrayed with their ear-ornaments and plates of gold on the
breast, but also had "coronas" of gold on the head.3)
At the reception-festival in Xaragu;l, Haiti, the female dancers
had branches in their hands.4) On the south coast of Cuba
they carried palmbranches. 5 )
It is very strange fact that the 1'ainos belonged to those
races that had a genuine attire for their women. Really it
was nothing but a piece of uncoloured cotton cloth.6) Particularly
among the unmarried women, this consisted only of a
short apron that hung down from a hipband made of fibre. 7)
Occasionally instead of cotton cloth they contented themselves
with a skirt of foliage or wgetation.8)
') ROTH, An Introductorv Study, 1'1. 138, B, Cayenne, after BARRERE.
2) A fine old example from the interior of Guiana, in National Museum, Copenhagen.
3) Apol. Hist., p. 640.
") LAS CASAS, Vol. 63, p. 13

The naguas of the married women had the character of "faldillas"
and extended "desde la cinta hasta media pierna".1)
OVIEDO says that "las cacicas e mujeres principales" wore llaguas
that left the feet free and naguas that reached only to the knees,
when they played balP)
\Ve must suppose that the development of women's attire
into naguas followed, after the Tainos took possession of the Greater
Antilles. In the old literature, only in one solitary case do we
find anything like a kwei02£ mentioned, in reference to the Tainos.
In the large Jamaican cacique-canoe that came out to COI;UMBUS'
ship at Old Harbour Bay was the beatiful older daughter of the
cacique, who wore a "cefiido del cual colgaba una cosa de hechura
de hoja de yedra de piedras verdes y coloradas pegadas sobre
algodon tejido". 3) Moreover beads were laid onto closely woven
cloth. This was in conformity with the Tainan cacique-belts and
the Mexican method of attaching feathers to cloth, and not as in
the kweious of Guiana where beads were threaded upon cords
which sometimes could form a wide-meshed net.4) In the former
case they ''V'ere placed only on one side, in the latter they were
visible on both sides. The apron of the Jamaican cacique'S daughter
was very small and of another form than that of the large
trapezoidal kweious. It belonged to her gala attire, and was no
everyday affair, like the kweio21. The Tainan nagltaS have no
precise connection with the kweiou of Guiana and of the Island­
Carib women. 5) It has likewise nothing to do with the belt for
') LAS CASAS, Vol. 63, p. 148, Apol. Hist., p. 516.
2) Vol. I, p. 167.
3) BERNALDBZ, op. cit., p. 75.
4) Compare RO'I'H, Arts and Crafts, etc., Fig. 231.
5) I consider thc hweiou as a late appearance in northeastern South America.
QrAND'I', Op. cit" p. 244 indeed mentions that the Arawak women wore in the
dance "von Korallen btUlt durcharbeitete Schlirzen", which were held in place
by a body-cord "dth coral beads. Still RODRIGO DE :NAYARRE'I'E, who lived a
long while among the Arawaks, in his time could only inform us that the men
had clothing to a certain degree, siuce they bound up thc ,.irile member and wore
as coyering a "canutillo de hojas de palma." Sec OVIEDO, Vol. II, p. 266. llesides,
he speaks of the Ara waks in general as naked.
Nor do we learn to know the kweiou from the reports about the Island ·Caribs
from the period of the Discovery. vVhen the seamen of Columbus at that
time searched the huts on Guadeloupe, they found "llluchas mantas de algo-

women, which is drawn through between the legs from front to
back, and was the sort of female clothing used among the Cumanagotos
and in Chiribiche.1) Like so many other culture-elements
that reached Cumana, it also had a western extension along the
northern coast.
The nagua, made of cotton cloth moreover, has no connection
with North America. On the contrary I am of the opinion
that the Tainan l1agua developed under influence from Yucatan,
where the clothing of the women was only wound around
the body, contrary to the sewed shirts worn by the mell.2)
don." See Chanca in l\AVARR8TI

LAS CASAS shows also that the female clothing in Veragtta and on
Espanola are identicaP)
It looks as if naguas of cotton made their way southward from
the Great Antilles. During the second voyage of COI.UMRGS, at
the time of his visit to Guadeloupe not only a large quantity of
spun cotton thread, but also "muchas mantas del mismo a1god6n"2)
were found in a house in a large Carib town. But at the same
time nothing is said about the captured Island-Arawak women
really being clad in these "mantas". \Vhen the French historical
sources were written behveen I600-I700, the ,vomen on the
Carib islands no longer wove cotton cloth, but went about clad
in the hwei01t, as was the Guianan custom. In Paria, naguas
must have been meant by the report of LAS CASAS "Las mujerescubiertas
con las medias faldillas de algod6n de que ya tractamos
arriba. "3)
The Spaniards have represented the Tainan men as entirely
naked. Covering of the virile member among the Tainos is never
mentioned and for the first time at Paria.4 ) \Ve can certainly
conclude that the calabash or gold cover that came to Cumana
and Paria from the west, never reached the Tainos and likewise
did not exist among the Island-Caribs nor in Guiana.
Knee-bandages can be observed on male idols. 5) The Island
Carib men also wore garters 6 ) as well as arm-bands. Armlets, or
grooves for the placing of such, are also found on idols. 7 ).
Thick armlets and knee-bands of cotton, probably such were
very closely p1aited, are only named once in the Literature, and
in that place as worn by a married woman, the wife of a Jamaican
cacique who with his family and his suite came out to the ships
of COI.UMBT;S at Old Harbour Bay. »Traia en los brazos debajo
del sobaco un bulto de algodon hecha como los brahones de los
1) Ibid., p. 634.
2) BERNALDEZ, op. cit., Vol. II, p. TO.
3) Apol. Hist .. p. 638.
4) 1.A5 CASAS, Vol. (;3, p. 239.
5) Compo FEWKES T, PI. XCI, a-··-a· and JOYCE, J. R.· A. 1. PI. XLVlII­
XLIX, Fig. 3, J amail'a.
") BRETON, Op. c;i., p. 20

jubones antiguos de los franceses, traia otros dos como aguellos
grandes en cada pierna e1 suyo como ahorcas tam bien de a1godon
abajo de las rodillas. »1)
A wristlet of a peculiar type, put together with plates and so
wide that it extends a good way beyond the wrist, can be observed
on the clay figure FEWKES I, Pl. LXXXII, a, Santo Domingo.
I do not kno,v of any other wristlet of the same type from any
part of America. 2 )
'When ,ve turn to the consideration of head-coverings, we find
that the caciques both on Espanola3) and on J amaica4) possessed
such, of stone beads vvith a gold ornament in front. Other kinds
of ceremonial head-coverings can be seen in FEWKES I, Pl. LXXXI
a, Santo Domingo, and Pl. XCI a-a'.
COLUMBUS saw only small gold ornaments in the ears or pendants
consisting of a small gold plate hanging on a cord. Real
ear-discs in the lobe of the ear are not named in the Literature.
Kevertheless sculpture and clay heads reveal that the Tainos had
ear-discs with concave exterior, such as are worn in the Mexican
area, and there, especially in Oaxaca. They also occur within
the :l\Iayan district. Such ear-discs have been found on the
Greater Antilles not alone within the proper Tainan culture, such
as 011 Puerto Rico;5), Caicos Island6) Santo Doming07) and in
Oriente, Cuba,8) but also on J amaica. 9 ) Moreover, articles of
1) BERNALDEZ, ap. cit., p. 75.
2) A wristlet on a kneeling relief figure from ::'vlenche in J OVCE, M ay'a and
1Vlexican Art, I,ondon 1927, p. 63, wears a wristlet, threefold and put together
with plates (possibly of stone). Three of them project beyond the exterior of
the otherwisc tightfitting wristlet. On the contrary the one on the Haitian clay
figure projects throughout its entire width. 'rhus no genetic connection with the
cited wristlet from the Old Empire :\fayas can be concluded with reason.
3) Chanca in NA\'ARRETE, VoL I, p. 365.
4) JOYCE, Centro ArneI'. West Ind. Arch., p. 232 cites BERXAI,DEZ.
5) F'EWKES IT, PL 95. face on a stone ring.
G) FEWKES I. PI. XCI, bob', idol of wood.
') I'EwKEs II, PI.

attire of Mexican origin are found within the proper Tainan
culture. At the Tainan site of La Patana, Oriente Cuba,
HARRINGTON found ear-plugs with a central perforation for the
insertion of a peg, of the same shape as those belonging to the
more advanced cultures in Mexico (HARRINGTON, fig. 69). Possibly
circular objects of stone found on Guadeloupe, which have grooves
around them and are perforated, could be interpreted as earplugs;
as for example MASON, Guesde Call. Fig. I8S. 1 ) Thus these
plates are annular, a form that is not all strange among the Tainos.
Compare the effigy bowl, Pl. XVI, and the vvooden idol,
FEWKES I, Pl. XC, c-c', Santo Domingo.
I do not know of ear-plugs from northeastern South
America.
Ear-pendants with ornaments on a long string are worn in
Guiana, and such with small plates of European silver also occur.
Possibly in ancient times the Indians had such pendants with
plates of gold, like those the Tainos had at the time of the
Discovery.
Deformation
of head.
\Ve can accept as established, that deformation
of the forehead was general alliong the Tainos. This
can be proved by sufficient skull-material not only
for Jamaica2) but also for Cuba.3) Where sufficiently large fragments
of skull still remained in the graves that DE Booy
excavated on the Cristobal Colon estate, Higuamo River, Santo
Domingo, these were observed to be deformed.4) The frontal
bones of the skull that FEWKES excavated from tumuli at the
plaza near Utuado on Puerto Rico were "abnormally flattened,
as in those from the caves in the northern part of Santo
Domingo, described by Dr. Llenas".5) The skeleton that BRANCH
dug up on the \Vest }'arm estate, St. Kitts, also had a deformed
forehead. S ) All attendant circumstances indicate that this grave
1) Diameter 1,8 inches.
2) DC:ERDEN, ap. cit.; see HADDON'S treatment of the skull material.
3) HARRINGTON, ap. cit.
4) Santo Domingo Kitchen l'.Jiddens and Burial 111ound, p. 114.
5) FEWKES, Preh. Porto Rican Pictogr., A. A., N. S. Vol. 5, p. 457.
") BRANCH, p. 333.

was Ignerian. At the time of the Conquest, the Spaniards also
took note of this deformation.I )
MONTANE is of the opinion that the deformation of the Tainos
was of the same sort as in Palenque 2 ) and among the Caribs.
Among the Island-Caribs the women deformed the heads of their
children.3) This appears to have been an Island-Arazelak female
trait on the Lesser Antilles. Deformation of the cranium was
not very common in Guiana, yet it occurs further westward in
South America. The Island-Carib mother pressed the forehead of
her sleeping child against a cushioll.4)
Another sort of deformation of the skull was practiced in
Cumana. They pressed the head of the child between two
cushions" doucement pen a peu et longuement pour lui eslarger
Ie visage, estimans entre une de leur beautez avoir visage large
et estendue. "5)
'l'he deformation of the Island-Arawaks ,vas only of the forehead.
Therefore it is entirely different from the "antero-posterior
flattening as by compression from boards" which occurs among
the Chocktaws and can also be shown in Florida.6)
The universal extension of forehead-deformation among the
Island-Arawaks, and also on Jamaica where later influences can
scarcely be traced, indicates that it must have been an old custom
that they brought with them to whatever islands they settled on.
It is probable that they brought it with them even from northeastern
South America, where they must have obtained it at an
early date, through influences coming from the west.
In r819 at Olivenza, SPIX had the opportunity of studying a
complicated apparatus for the deformation of head. 7) The kind
of deformation described by D'AcUGNA at the beginning of the
1) SCII.LACIO in Raccolta, Pt. III, Vol. II, p. 93, referring to Guacanagari's
wives, "presso capite, fronte lata"; Apol. Hist., Ed. Serrano y Sanz, p. 89,
about the 1,ucayans.
2) L'Hon1me de Sancti Spiritus; Lan d a, ap. cit., p. II4, describes also
how the Mayan mothers pressed together the forehead of the child.
") BRE'rOX, ap. cit., p. 145---146.
4) BRE'rOX, p, 146 .
5) GOMARA, ap, cit" p. 252.
6) MOORE, Cut, Ahor, Rem. N. W, Florida Coast, p, r68, and Fig, 67,
') Sec MAR'rIUS, Zur Ethnogr" p, 439,

490
I7th century from Anaguas on the upper Amazon,l) was produced
by means of boards and is two-sided like that among the Choctaws.
Probably such more complicated methods of deformation made
its appearance in the tropical lowlands of South America after
the emigration of the Island-Arawaks to the \Vest Indies.
ltlodes of hairdressing.
According to Ovnwo's illustration, the Haitians
wore the hair fastened at the neck vvith a band.2)
At a still more distant period when the Tainos
11ad more time to devote to their hair, they dressed it in many
tufts, between which the head was shaved. Thus CHANCA says
of the Haitians: "las cabezas rapadas en logares e en logares con
vedijas". The fr011tlocks were cut in a fringe near the eye-brows.
COLUMBUS speaks as follows about the Indians on Guanahani:
"los cabellos gruesos como sedes de cola de caballos e cortos:
los cabellos traen por encima de las cejas."3)
The Spaniards were always amazed over the fact that the
Ciguayans, the Island-Caribs, and the Indians along the Gulf of
Pari a had long hair that fell down freely from the head. "La
diferencia destos (that is, the Haitians) a los ostros indios en el
habito es que los de caribe tienen el cabello muy largo los otros son
tresquilados. "4)
The mode of dressing the hair in tufts seems to have been a
national Tainan custom without any overseas connection whatever,
in any direction.
Body painting. In Chapter VI, I have already talked of plants
that furnish colours and especially of the two
most important and most utilized, namely bixa and jagua; but
nothing was said about the occasions when the Tainos used to
paint the body. \Var was such an occasion. 5) Body-painting by
1) ROTH, Old Time Indians, p. 5.
2) Vol. T, 1'1. 2, Fig. 4.
") -"'A\'ARRE1'E, Vol. T, p. 369.
4) Chanca in NAVARRI

491
the men predominated more among the Ciguayans than the Tainos.
They were painted with fagua and bixa from the face to the
knees in battle.I ) On festal occasions both men and women were
painted "unos de negro otros de blanco y colorado. "2) Particularly
the women were painted vyith bixa at arm·tos. 3 ) On the other
hand, the men but not the women were painted at the harvestfestivals
of the Haitian caciques.4) If we could get to know the
circumstances governing the painting at the different kinds of
areitos, it would be of the greatest interest; but the information
in the Literature is altogether insufficient. In addition, during
his first voyage COLt7MBUS often noticed how isolated Indians
often went painted without there being any especial circumstances
to warrant it. 5 ) HARRINGTON asserts that on Cuba bixa was the
red colour of the Tainos, but hematite that of the Siboneyes, wl1ich
in this respect, as well as in many others corresponded to
North America. Moreover I will not omit to mention that COLUM­
BUS, when sailing between Caicos and Little Inagua, met a solitary
Indian from Guanahani in a small canoe, and among other articles
of trade in this boat he had "un pedazo de tierra benneja en polvo
1) MARTYR, :VlacNutt's Trans., Vol. 8, p. 143.
2) CHAXCA in NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. 369.
3) GmrARA, Chapter 28.
4) MARTYR, lVIacNutt's Trans., Vol. 2, p. 316.
') NAVARRETE. Vol. I, p. 173---174, Guanahani .. "dellos se pint an de prieto,
y ellos son de la color de los canarios ni negros ni blancos (it must refer to the
natural Indian body-color here, which Columbus considers nearest like that of the
Guanchcs), y dellos se pintan de blanco, y dellos de colorado." Therefore even on
Guanahani, COI,u~mes met the three principal colours with which the Tainos
painted thcmselves namely red-brown with bixa, black with jagua anel white with
!-[uao. Like\yise when he came to Saometo (Gr. Inagua) he found body-painting
of the same three colours. Ibid., p. 189. The armed Cuban warriors near Baracoa
were painted rer'l-brown, that is with bixa, Ibid., p. 226. But here the above-named

49 2
y despues amasada" .1) It is possible that the Lucayans obtained
hematite in trade from near-by Florida, and then it made its way
further to the south as a commercial ware. I do not know of any
mention in the Literatnre of the Tainos having hematite as a
colonring substance, nor of the bones of the Tainan dead being
painted red with hematite. HARRINGTON'S archaeological investigations
on Cuba make it clear that there was no particular demand
for hematite among the Tainos of that island, which demand
could have been supplied by the Siboneys.
Tattooing. CHANCA goes on to say2) that the Haitians were
tattooed on the head with crosses and other fignres
by means of a sharp reed. In regards to tattoing, the 'l'ainos
were the equals of races of like cultnre in the northeastern part of
Soztih America and the Amazon regions. 3)
l\Iusical instru- The only real music of the Tainos was the singing
ments. at their areitos.
The drum that the cacique beat served partly to
mark time for the dance of the people as they entered his hut4)
and as well to keep time for both the singing and dancing dnring
the areitos. 5) The dance was also accompanied by the noise from
the snail-shells on the strings that the dancers vvore around "arms,
hips, calves, and heels", and which jingling was caused by the
movement of the dancers.6) On Cuba, HARRINGTON in the Tainan
sites found "jinglers of shell" (p. 252 and fig. 68). On St. Kitts
or Nevis a similar object has been found (FEWKES II, p., 86 C).
FE\VKES does not hesitate to call it "a tinkler". In all probibility
it was used when the natives danced.
The dance of the Parians shows striking resemblances to that
of the Haitian, in that the truncus drum is beaten and they danced
accompanied by the rattle of bones as well as of snail and mussel
1) KAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. 180.
2) Ibid., p. 356.
3) Camp. NORDENSKli.iLD, Fine Geogr. und Ethnogr. Anal., p. 128 and Map. 19.
4) Camp. Canizares in MARTYR, MacNutt's Trans., Vol. II, p. 316.
5) OVIEDO, Vol. 8, p. 127--I28; MARTYR, Ibid.
6) Canizares, Ibid.

493
shells "que suenan como cascabe1es, puestas sobre las pantorillas
y a los pescuezos".l) Probably the Pari an drum was an scoredrum,
such as is generally used in South America,2) and not a
tongue-drum, which the Tainos had for the first time after their
immigration to the Greater Antilles and through Mexican influences.
Both Tainos and Parians had rattles of snail or mussel
shells on the body, and not of fruits, because they lived near
the sea.
Genuine castanets were used in a dance by girls, which
Guacanagari arranged, when he received COLUMBUS. The girls
held them between the fingers. 3) Doctor K. G. IZIKOWITZ, who
has compiled a fundamental treatise on musical instruments in
South America, has informed me that no real castanets are
found there, but among the primitive Chaco-tribes sometimes
bunches of deer-hoofs are shaken against each other in the
hands.4)
Maraca. During his first voyage along the north coast of
Espanola, COLUMBUS observed that during their
dances which were accompanied by songs, the Indians "tenian
unos cascabeles muy sotiles hechos de madera, muy artificiosamente,
con unas pedrecitas dentro, los cuales sonaban, pero poco
y roncamente". It is very likely that it is the maraca that COLUM­
BUS described in this fashion. 5 ) Probably he made the same
mistake as PANE, since he believed that it was made of wood, and
not of the Crescentia calabash, as in the tropical lowlands of
South America.
When the Haitians had the opportunity of hearing the Spanish
"cascabeles tan grandes y relucientes, y tan bien sonantes,
mas que a otra cosa se aficionaban," they came out to the ship,
1) Apol. Hist., p. 640.
2) For the expansion of this drum in South America, see NORDENSKIOI,D
1st die sogenannte Schlitztrommel in der Neuen sowohl wie in der Allen Welt selbstandig
ertunden worden? Ethnologische Studien, I929, Map, p. 27.
3) SCII,I,ACIO, ap. cit., p. 90.
4) Compare NORDENSKIOI,D, Eine Geogr. und Ethnogr. Analyse etc., p. I83
and fig. 49.
5) Compare Dicc. R. Ac. Esp.: Cascabel, Bola hueca de metal etc.

494
held up lumps of gold and cried, "Chuque, chuque, cascabeles, take
this and give us cascabeles!"l)
In the above description we are not informed ,vhether these
maracas had any handles. But it treats preferably of the maraca's
use in the dance accompanied by song on Espanola.
Presumably it is also a maraca that the Haitian piaie used
before he began to treat his patient. But that maraca was of
different appearance from the smaller ones that were used in the
dance just mentioned. It was large and had an exceedingly loud
sound, that could be heard at a distance. The handle was not
a single stick, but broadened out into two parts which PANE compares
to scissors. "When the Haitian piaie is singing his magic
song for the healing of his patient, he nses an instrument which
according to PAN}O~ is of the following nature: "Baiohabao el cual
es de palo, y c6ncavo fuerte, e muy sutil, de media brazo de
largo y otro medio de ancho, y la parte donde se toca esta en
forma de tenazas de herrador, y la otra parte es como una porra,
de manera que parece una calabaza de cuello largo". Vie may
conclude from this description therefore, that the Haitian piaie
like his colleague in the tropical lowlands of South America, used
a maraca when healing the sick. There was however this difference
between them. 'fhe Haitian maraca was large and had a
handle that separated into two divisions like open scissors, so
that it could be held in hyo hands when sounded. By reason
of the large cavity for resonance, and probably also because larger
pebbles were used, it must have given forth a greater sound
than the common South American maraca, which moreover is of
calabash and not of wood. Of course it is possible that PAKE
made an error, and that the Haitian maraca also was a large cufete-calabash
with a wooden handle. Because 01 the loud noise
made by the instrument, I rather imagine that in the continuation
he confused it with the truncus-drum that the cacique beat
for the dance.2) This cylindrical drum of wood is, as a matter
of fact, entirely different in form fr0111 the instrument described
above by PANE. The maraca as known, is largely diffused troughout
northeastern South. America and the Amazon regwns.
') I.AS CASAS, Vol. 62, p. 400- -401.
') See PANE, Chapter XIV.

495
Drums. JOYCE (1916)1) and VON LUSCHAN (1918)2) have
established from OVIEDO that the Tainan drum
was no "Schlitztrommel", but a tongue-drum identical to the
Mexican "teponatzli". Nevertheless they were beaten with one
stick3) as is customary with the South American score-drum.
MARTYR hands down to us the Tainan name of the drum, which
is maguay.4) The question can be asked if the Tainos knew the
tntncus-drum and under Mexican influence changed over from
the score-drum to the tongue-drum. 5)
The truncus-drum occurred at Cumana,6) in South America,
and I have already mentioned the signal-drum on Trinidad. But
among the Island-Caribs and in Guiana, at least in the 17th
century, the drum was known only in the form of the European
skin-drum.
Wind The Tainan "musical instruments" were mainly
instruments. only those intended to be beaten, such as the
cacique's "Zungentrommel" and the maraca of the
people or of the piaies. The question could almost he asked
if the Tainos emigrated from northeastern South America before
wind-instruments reached there. Exceptionally we can establish
this kind of instrument as occurring sporadically among the
Tainos, but really only archaeologically. In the already-mentioned
canoe at Old Harbour Bay, two Jamaicans of the cacique's suite
carried "trompetas de palo muy labradas de pajaros y otras su-
. tilezas; el leno de que era muy negro, fino."7) But they did not
blow them, while two or three other Indians "traian en la mano
un juguete (literally, plaything, here possibly maraca) con que
tanian." It is therefore possible that they were not trumpets at
all, but a sort of insignia of honor resembling a trumpet-shaped,.
1) Centr. Amer. And West Ind. Arch., p. 204.
2) Zusammenhange und Konvergenz, Mitt. der Anthrop. Ces. in Vienna, VoL
47, p. 88 cites OVIEDO reported by SELER.
3) Camp. OVIEDO, Vol. I, p. 130. Canizares in MARTYR, MacNutt's Trans.~
Vol. II, p. 316.
4) Ibid., p. 361.
5) GP. cit., p. 214 and 216.
") COMARA, Gp. cit., p. 256.
') BERNALDEZ, Gp. cit., p. 74.

carved wooden object which HARRINGTON found in his excavations
at Malpoton1) in l)inar del Rio.
Trumpets of conch-shell vvere much used among the Island­
Caribs as signal-instruments. \'{hen a canoe approached the place
where it was to lay to, after nightfall, one of its crew gave a
signal with a shell-trumpet for the people on land to bnild a fire,
which wonld serve as a light and keep the boat from running
aground.2) Moreover the Island-Caribs also nsed these trumpets
in great common enterprises, not only in "var but in fishing and
hunting as well. On the other hand, nothing is said in the historical
Literature about the use of shell trumpets among the
Tainos. Certain finds indicate that they however knew about
them. In the "Cueva del Indio" in Oriente, on Cuba, which must
have been Tainan to judge from the fact that it contained flattened
skulls, DE LA TORRE found "a very old gamtt, or trumpet,
made of a species of Cassia shell, rare in Cuba. "3) At Coral Bay
on St. John, HATT found a shell-trumpet. 4 ) Th finding-place is
moreover Ignerian. Another shell-trumpet, from the Bahamas,
is cited by SACHS,5) but without information as to locality so that
we do not know exactly if the I

497
he has moreover found in America, only in California, in Chaco,
at Tiahuanaco, and on the Peruvian coast. On the other hand,
notches predominate in the bone-flutes of Guiana. Therefore the
Arawaks must have emigrated from northeastern South America
at a time when this invention, which in a great measure facilitates
the blowing of the instrument, had not yet reached there.
The silence of the Literature seems to indicate that blow-instruments
played no great role among the Tainos, and that their
emigration took place at a time when such, had no general extension
in northeastern South America. The fact that the Haitians
used speaking-tubes with their zemi-orac1es indicates that
they had access to plants suitable for the making of such tubes.
But nothing is said about cane-flutes, so common among the True
A rawaks, the kinsmen of the Tainos.
Not least of all by musical instruments, and especially by
blow-instruments, it can be proved how the Tainos departed from
the later development in northeastern South America.

CHAPTER X.
Social Conditions.
Classes of The information from the historical sources about
society and social conditions among the Tainos is limited and
rank.
very fragmentary. Their veritable social structure
remained concealed from the Spaniards. It
is constantly characterized as aristocratic and the Literature
points in that direction. The Spaniards judged it too much after
Spanish conditions of that period. In Spaiu the nobility descended
deeply into society through the numerous hidalgos, to which class
the commanders of the conquerors and also their lieutenants belonged
as a rule. "Vhen the Spaniards on the Antilles came into
contact superficial with the Indians in the matter of treaty negotiations
and many other things, they saw a nobleman in every Indian
who commanded or superintended any communal function, even
those of small importance. Besides, there is good reason for the
hypothesis that the so-called "tainos" were a lower aristocratic
hereditary class that served the caciques intimately and stood over
the people in common, who had only to obey, even if in their own
economic interest.
Nowhere in the Literature do we find allY trace of totemic
organization among the Tainos, such as existed among the True
Arawaks.
Since the conquerors came into contact above all with the
caciques, it is principally only about the position of this class that
the Literature informs us. Unfortunately after the conquest, the
Tainos became rapidly exstinct. 'l'he later Spanish organization
was attached in some measure to the old Indian structure. But
the Spanish masters did not look after the interests of the people,
as their old caciques had done. So severe and exacting was the
Spanish rule, that everywhere the Tai110s name decimated rapidly.

499
LAS CASAS has discussed the reasons for the wholesale extinction of
this race, and found the principal reason to be that the Indians did
not have sufficient time to attend to their agriculture, because of
the burdensome gold-washing for the Spaniards, and therefore
simply starved to death in large numbers. In connection vvith
this, we must take into consideration that the Tainan agriculture
required incessant attention. I have already mentioned the inflnence
of cultivation in earth-heaps on the stabilization of the national
alimentation. Sufficient yuca could be be taken up for the
daily need. In exceptional cases the 'l'ainos could have at their
disposal at the most only provisions for a week. 'When now
through the forcible encroachment, free circulation was made impossible,
the entire existence of the Tainos was imperilled. Then
too, a great small-pox epidemic on Espanola hastened the extinction
of the Indians to fast degree. But even on the other islands
where we do not hear of contemporaneous epidemics of small-pox
the Indians died out rapidly, and here we must attribute it to starvation
with still greater reason than on Espanola. To-day there
are no pure 'l'ainos. Mestizos are found in the rural towns of the
Oriente plateau in Cuba, also in the woods of the EI Yunque massif
on Puerto Rico.
Commencing with the lowest, we can count four different
classes of society among the former Tainos. They were as follows:
I) Naborias, 2) The cormnon people, 3) Tainos, 4) Caciques and
their kindred.
Nahorias. There were no genuine slaves among the Tainos.
Therefore the fathers were constrained to bring
up their sons to work. 1) As a criterion that the naborias were
not slaves, I~AS CASAS states that on Cuoa, where the former inhabitants
were subservient to the Haitians that lately immigrated
there, no difference was made behveen the sons of the invaders and
those they had conquered. 2 ) It is certain that the Spaniards
called their Tainan repartimientos, naborias. But the word did not
have the same meaning for the Tainos. "Comumnente llamaban
") Apol. His!., p. II{.
2) Ibid., p. I1j.

~oo
)
los indios los criados y sirvientes ordinarios de casa - - naborias".l)
Still it is difficult to understand why they needed any great
number of servants within the houses or at any rate remaining
for work in the tOWllS, while the rest of the people were occupied
in the fields. I can not explain naborias in any other fashion
than that they were assigned work within the limits of the
towns, and that they did not own COl1tlCOS but received maintenance
from their lords in return for this work.
It is only in reference to Cuba that we learn how the naborias
originated. Concerning this, I refer to the statements of LAS
CASAS in my first chapter about the Haitian invaders keeping
the older population as their servants. But on the other hand,
there were naborias on Espanola, and as a matter of fact there
had been no Arawak immigration-wave there, in later times as
on Cuba shortly before its conquest. I leave out of consideration
the Ciguayans, who lived their own life by themselves in the
northeastern corner of the island. i'yTaboria was a concept that
was very real to the Haitians, which can be concluded from the
fact that when some of the Christianized Indians among them
were being killed by their compatriots, they cried out, "Dios
Aboria dacha"2) translated into "yo soy siervo de Dios." In Spanish
statistic reports about the encomiel1das on Espanola and sti11
more in reference to those on Cuba, it was stated officially that
for each one there were so and so many tainos and so and so
many naborias. But this terminology is Spanish and refers only
to indeterminate numbers of ,;vorkers employed in agriculture or
for gold-washing, as \vell as those engaged in household service.
The so-called "tainos", even in Spanish times were under the
direct control of their own cacique!)) and ,vorked for the Spaniards
under his leadership. According to MAX SCHMIDT4) a dominating
class together with a class of workers is typical for the Ara,vak
') I,AS CASAS, Vol. 05, p. 45; possibly uo, abbrn'iation for bahia, honse, is
all element of this ,vord.
2) PANE, Archiyos del Folklore Cubano, Vol. r, No.2, Habana 1924, p. I41.
L,\$ CASAS, A pol. His!., TId. Serrano y Sanzo p. 447 has Dios nahoria daca and
"sirvicnte y criado," according to what he calls the lengua universal, or that of
Xaragu{l.
3) Compare A. de T, vol. VII, p. 5~\.
4) Die Aruaken. p. 53-54.

501
tribes of the mainland. The working class build houses for their
masters, but the houses belong to the latter, these seem to have
been rich people, especially among the Paressis and the Kabishis,
having made their fortune as merchants, and not a nobility by
lineage or by prowess in war which commanded the respect due
to such.
The Commo- The Ijterature dos not give us any name for the
ners. common people. Really all that we learn from
them is the status of this class in reference to
the caciques. In regard to Cuba, I{AS CASAS says that "sus senores
y Reyes pacificos y ordenados" rnled manu regia.!) 'When he
had learnt to know the I{ucayans, western Cnba and northwestern
Espanola, COl,UMBUS found that there was a cacique in every
town "como juez 0 senor dellos y todos los Ie obedecen que es
mara villa". This cacique decided all judicial controversies and
his jUdgement was absolute.2) These rulers did not really talk
to the people, but made known his orders with a sign of the hand,
"y luego es entendido que es maravilla".3) On the Lucayan Islands,
which are small and only had small towns, the caciques
and people were more closely united and the organization was
less rigid and more intimately patriarchal. It was the .duty of
the chief "tener cuidado de cada uno de los subditos, como si
fueran todos hij os de un padre". It was also his task to instruct
them how to sow, hunt and fish, "y el repartia a cada casa 10
que habia menester para sustelltarse" .4) The king's decision was
the highest law on all the Tainan islands. 5 ) Nothing is said in
the Literature about popular assemblies, where the opinions of
the people were expressed. They seem to have had no say in
the government, which on the other hand mnst have been the
case in a certain measure among the tainos. Concerning the proportion
existing between tainos and the common people, a report
is to be found in J{AS CASAS in one case. He says that the Cuban
1) VoL 64, p. 478.
2) Apol. Hist., Ed. Serrano y Sanz, p. 539.
") NAVARRFTE, p. 258.
") Apol. Hist., p. 539.
') Ibid.,

502
cacique Guaybona had "sabre 30 y 40000 personas en su senoria
par subditos y 500 Nitaynos (Nitaynos eran y se llamaban los
principales como Centuriones y Decuriones 0 jurados, que tenian
debajo de su gobernacion y regimente otros muchos)".l) As is
usual in LAS CASAS, the number of inhabitants is exaggerated.
Above all it is interesting to note how insignificant is the number
of tainos in comparison to that of the common people. Nor must
we take this case as applicable generally, because eastern Cuba
had been conquered by Haitian Tainos who held the former inhabitants
under subjection, not so very long before this.
The Tainos. The Spaniards regarded the tainos as a kind of lower
nobility that stood between the caciques and the
people. The first time that the 'word makes its appearance in
literature is at the time of COLUMBUS' first visit to Guadeloupe.
'l'he captive Borinquenan women among the Island-Caribs called
out to the Spaniards from the shore, "Tayno tayno que quiere dedr
bueno."2) It would appear that the 'fainos were a class of freemen,
that had the right to vote in the community and took part in the
town-council, while the common people had only to obey. At any
rate only the tainos together with the cacique had access to the
caoba-meetings, which dealt with matters of general importance,
such as war or peace. Furthermore, it was the duty of the tainos
to fill certain directive functions in the community under the guidance
of the cacique. They directed the work in the fields, and
it was also their task to determine the boundaries of these, as
well as to mark out the limits of the area of the village communities;
the duty of the people was only to sow, harvest and fish. 3)
\Vhen the community was only a small tmvn, the cacique himself
discharged these various duties. The tainos were also warriors,
as were all the people as a matter of fact, and they seem to have
made up the body-guard of the great caciques. The tainos alone
came into close contact with the cacique. The one at Gros lVIorne
was carried on the shoulders of "dos hombres honrados. "4) 'When
1) Vol. 65, p. 59.
2) NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. 352.
3) MARTvR-MacKutt, p. 3 62 .
4) NAVARRETE, p. 247.

Cor;CMBUS advanced to Guacanagari's town in Marien, at the time
of his second voyage, he was met by a troop of roo men, armed
with spears and bows who called out that they were not cannibals
but taynos; "zoe nobili" .1) LAS CASAS says that the Admiral then
came to the conclusion that cacique meant king and nitaino "caballero
y senor principal". 2) He speaks of King Guacanagari and
also "sus caziques y principales 6 nitaynos, y otros senores inferiores".
LAS CASAS says in regard to the meaning of the word
nitaino, "En la lengua comun desta desta Isla (Espanola) se Hamaban
nitaynos, nobles y principales."3) It is indubitable that
the tainos were a special class.
\Ve do not learn directly from the sources whether the rank
was hereditary or if the tainos were merely confidential men, in
this case chosen by the cacique, as no indication of a national
assembly is found. But seeing that they only married within
their own class4), it must have been hereditary as well.
The Caziques. On the other hand the sources characterize decidedly
the office of cacique as hereditary. This must
have been the case particularly with the over-caciques or kings
on Espanola and Puerto Rico. According to BENZONI and LAS
CASAS the cacicazgo was inherited by the sister's son, if the ruler
had no children of his own. 5) According to OVIEDO the cacique
was succeeded by his eldest son by whichever wife it might be;
if he had no sons, his sister's son followed him6). This was in
harmony with the usual law of succession on Espanola. 7) When
the over-cacique of Puerto Rico, Agueybana I, died the cacicazgo
was inherited by his sister's son, Agueybana II. In one case
an example is found of a king being succeeded by his sister,
namely when Beheccio was followed by Anacaona in Xaragua.
') TRAVESAN, 1501, in Raccolta, Vol. I, p. 59. MARTYR-MacNutt, p. 81 also
translated this word here with "good".
2) Vol. 63, p. 393-394.
3) Apol. Hist., ed. Serrano y Sanz, p. 516.
4) Compare OVIEDO, Vol. I, p. 299.
') A/Jol. Hist., p. 521. Both cite as reason for this that it was not possible
to know with certainty, if the cacique's son was really his.
6) OVIEDO, Vol. I, p. 136.
') GOMARA, op. cit., Paris 1587, p. 39.

When Cayacoa, the cacique of Higuey, died, he was succeeded
by his own wifeJ) There is also found an example of a foreigner
being chosen for cacique, as when the Lucayan, Caonab6,
was called to be cacique of Maguana, "por ser varon en las guerras,
y en la paz senalado."2) In Maisi the exiled cacique,
Hatuey from Guahaba in Haiti, became commander-in-chief in
the war against the invading Spaniards3), yet probably, not over
a previously existent cacique realm, but over a confederation of
tovvns. It is very likely that he was the only war-chief in Cuba.
The first time that the word cacique is knovyn is when Co­
LUMBUS during his first voyage arrived at the tract of Gros Morne
and received the cacique of that region on his flagship.4) BRINTON
derived the word cacique from the Arawak kassiquan (from ussequa,
house) "to have or own a house or houses."") In this case
the word must have had the original meaning of town-chief. The
majority of the caciques among the 'l'ainos could have been no
more than the rulers of tov'Vns. They directed the work in the
fields, personally, also the fishing and hunting,6) while greater
caciques relegated such duties to the tainos. The cacique of Saona,
himself, commanded his people with a baton in his hand when
he was obliged to furnish provisions for the Spaniards. 7) The
cacique could also send out people to catch iguanas. S ) He could
probably also command them to go out in boats and catch fish.
In Los J ardines de la Reina, where the thinness of the layer of
soil precluded agriculture, the inhabitants were exclusively fishers.
They 'vvere obliged to provide fish for their cacique. So
little was the difference in rank between the lesser caciques and
their people, that I,AS CASAS has often seen them eating from the
same dish as their subjects. 9)
') OVIEDO, Vol. I, p. 65.
2) Apol. Hist., p. 515.
!l) J,AS CASAS, Vol. 64, p. 464--466 and Vol. 65, p. 3.
4) Compare NAVARRE'rE" p. 247.
5) The Arow. lang. etc .. Trans. of the Am. PhUos. Soc., ::-J. S., Vol. 14, Phila.
Iil71; GOEJI', Araw. Lang, p. 40, isikva, house.
G) GmlARA, p. 39. Hspafiola.
') LAS CASAS, Vol. 64, p. 41.
8) MAR'l'YR-JlilacXutt, p. 94---95, Bahia de Santiago .
• ) Apol. Hist., p. 517.

It was the duty of the cacique to represent his people in
relations with the outer world, which is shown in the meetings
\vith the Spanish chiefs. At snch times he is their spokesman,
and he also addresses the people at the great gatherings before a
feast. A cacique "6 senor viejo que parecia ser senor" made an
address to COL'GMBUS and his people, during his second voyage,
on the south coast of Cuba, to the east of the Isla de Pinos or
Evangelista.1) Hatuey made an address at the festival in Maisi
and pictured to the Cubans the Spanish danger, and how the
Spaniards would come for the Indians' gold, because gold was
their god; while doing this he holds a 'va aden bo\,d filled with
gold in his hand. After that the dancing was continued and
lasted the whole night until all were exhausted. 2 )
Then the cacique talked at a solemn cahoba, where only the
principal men were present, such as preceded a decision to make
war, when they wanted to know whether they should be victorious.
At such a time he sat on a duho with hands on the knees,
and the head turned towards heaven.3) \Vhen he made known
his vision, the others answered in a chorus and in a high voice.4)
It was at such a cahoba that the cacique Cacibu made known to
them, that the zemi Yocahaguama, the same as Yocagua, who
dwelt in heaven, had told him that his successor should only rule
over them for a short while, until there should come a people who
wore clothiug, who would rule over them, kill them, and that
they would die of hunger.5) At first the Indians believed that this
meant the Caribs, but then they reflected that that people came
only for the purpose of plundering. Later, \vhen COLUMBUS and
his people came, they changed to the belief that the prophecy
referred to the Spaniards. G ) It was the two sons of Cacibu, Guarayonel
(= Gnarionex) and Gamanacoel, who related this episode
to PAKE.
The cacique occupied a central religious position in the com-
I) LAS CASAS. Vol. 63, p. 61 -62.
') 1,.-\5 CASAS, Vol. ()4, p. 4('5'-466.
") FIlWKES II, PI. 120 Santo Domingo; FEWKES I, PI. 82, Puerto Rico.
4) PA:"fE, Habana, 1924, P. 137.
5) PA:"fIl, Chapter XXV; Apol. Hist., p. 445.
6) BOURXIl,PANE, p. 334. Apol. His!. p. 447.

506
munity and stood in more intimate relations with the zemis than
did the people. 'l'he caciques mvned zemi-idols and kept them
in their huts.l ) Each cacique was ambitious to have in his possession
more powerful idols than the others. Occasionally caciques
stole idols from each other. 2) The cacique's right of possession
of these was a matter of fact for the concave idols of wood, \vhich
contained the bones of a forefather cacique and bore his name.3)
From the hut of the cacique issued also the oracles of the idols,
usually by a man who stood behind an idol, or by some one
hidden by branches in the corner of the hut. I have already
mentioned the account of COT,UMBUS, telling how frightened the
Haitian cacique was, when the Spaniards discovered the deception,
and how he begged them not to tell the people as it could
injure the authority of the cacique. Nevertheless that practice
was known by the people. It was old men that gave the oracle's
answer, whether there would be rain and suitable weather for the
year's crops, and these were held in great reverence by the people.4)
The last believed that the cacique was the only one that
could talk with the zemis. 5) They reverenced him not alone because
he owned the idols, but also magic stones6) of the same
three kinds that the behiques possessed.
The caciques knew better than the others the myths and the
religious traditions, and taught them to their sons. PANE'S narrative
originated from Guarionex, whom he instructed for two
years in the doctrines of the church and finally converted. It is
striking how much there is in it, that refers to what Guarionex
learned from his father. It is to be noted that above all PANE'S
narrative, as a matter of fact, treats in an essential degree of
caciques, not only those that are cited as having lived on Bspanola,
but also others that appear in the myths.
'rhe cacique held the feasts, that centred at his hut and had
religious import. Based on the report of Canizares, is the descrip-
1) Apol. Hist., p. 444.
2) The narratiYe of COLu:vmFS, BOFRNE, p. 312. Apol. Hist., p. 323.
3) Apol. His!., p. 32I.
4) Apot. Hist., Ibid.; OVIEDO, Vol. I, p. I39.
5) Apol. His!., Ibid.
6) Cor,FMBUS' accollnt, BOURNE, p. 313.

507
tion given by MARTVR of what took place on Espanola at the large
annual harvest festival. The cacique awaited the people in his
hut, sitting "\vith his drum, which he beat. The people greeted
him reverentially. First came a dance with accompaniment of
song by the women, dedicated to the idols of the zemis that were
set up before them, and then one by the men in which the deeds
of the cacique's ancestors were celebrated. l ) The functions of
the cacique were brought to a close when the people departed after
making an offering of the first fruits, and the zemis had given an
oracle answer to each and all. Then the people amused themselves
in the open air while they sang.2)
I have already related that the plazas in front of the huts of
the caciques had a religious use. Furthermore, that it appears
from HATT'S find at Magens Bay, St. Croix, that the cacique and
his confidential men knew the secret of the hole in the stone, out
of which the water trickled. The ceremonies in the cave temples
must have been conducted by the caciques. Not only idols, but
duhos also, are found in the caves. It is probable that the cacique
was seated on a duho during religious ceremonies held in caves,
possibly caoba. Duhos used to be carved zemiistically. That the
sculptured figure which is so common on duhos really was a zemi,
OVIEDO makes very clear: "que no esta solo el que sienta sino el e
su adversario".3)
The cacique also directed the festivals of reception. \Vhen
Beheccio received the Adelantado D. BARTOLOME at his town 5
leagues from the sea and near the present Port-au-Prince, he gave
the sign for the opening of the festival; in his hut with the opening
of the hand, thereupon all rejoiced. During this same festival,
when the governor desired the gladiatorial contest to be stopped,
again it was Beheccio who gave the order.4)
Cultural influences from Mexico and Central America are
not really general in the Tainan culture. They appear much more
in highly qualified objects. The higher the degree of Tainan
culture, the more marked are the Mexican influences. In the
1) ;,lARTYR-MacNutt, p. 317.
2) ihid., p. 3I8.
3) VoL T, p. US.
4) LAS CASAS, Vo1. 64, p. 140.

508
majority of cases, they seem only to have been turned to account
by the caciques. In no group do they appear so abundant as in
the insignia of the caciques. BERNALDEZ has given us an excellent
description of a Jamaican cacique's family and his suite in their
ceremonial attire. A canoe came out to COLUlHBlJS' ship in Old
Harbour Bay. In the prow stood a standard-bearer clothed in a
feather-mantle and with a tuft of bright colour on his head. In
his hand he carried a standard with fluttering 'white pennant. In
this connection one begins to think involuntarily of the Mexican
standards with paper pennants. BERNALDEZ dces not mention the
material of the pennant; probably it \vas outspread, uncolowred
cotton cloth, of which the Jamaicans produced such quantities,
they paid their taxes to the Spaniards with this. The standardbearer
was followed by two drnmmers (it is likely that the drum
was of the Mexican teponatzli-type). They wore capuches of
feathers, and like the standardbearer, had the face painted. '1\'\70
other Indians carried »trnmpets» made of black wood and carved;
these men wore crowns of green feathers. In addition there was
a body-guard of six men with white feather-crowns. The cacique,
himself, wore no feathers. Around his head he wore a band of
stone beads, mostly green but interfoliated at symmetrical distances
by white ones, while in the center was placed a large jewel of
gold. He wore earrings of green stone, in each of which hung a
large piece of gold, a necklet of white beads, which were valued
exceedingly highly by them and from \vhich was suspended a
large plate of guanin. He wore around his body a girdle of the
same kind of stones as those of his fillet. His wife had similar
adornments and also wore a small cotton apron, as well as armand
leg-bandages of cotton. Both daughters were without ornaments.
The elder one wore only a girdle of small stone beads,
from which was suspended a little tablet of beads embroidered on
a net-work of cotton thread.1) Embroidery on cloth is a Mexican
art, which was also known on Espanola.
Then if we go over to Espanola, we find there in part the
same insignia for caciques as on Jamaica. But only in one case do
we find a description of a cacique-visit with insignia, namely
when Guacanagari and five of his subordinate caciques "todos
') CUNDALL. Historic Jamaica. p. I29'-~I30 cites BJo;RNALDEZ.

509
con sus coronas" visited COUTMB1:S on his ship, December 30,
I492, west of Cape Haitien. 1 ) Later, when COLUMBUS went ashore,
Guacanagari placed his crown on the great navigator's head and
received from him in return appropriate presents from COI,UMBUS'
own equipment. I{AS CASAS says that the crowns must have been
of gold. 2) But it must not be understood that the entire crown
was of gold. Only BERNALDEZ has given us a description of caciquecrowns.
"When the Admiral after his second voyage and the son
of Caonaboa visited BERNAI~DEZ at his rectory in Palacios, the Indians
brought with them several cacique crowns, some of which
he bought. "Trujo unas coronas con unas alas y en elIas unos
ojos a los lados de oro, y en especial traia una corona que decian
que era del Cacique Caonaboa, que era muy grande yalta, y tenia

510
media mitra que se ponia desde la frente, y detras del cocodrillo
se ataba con una subtil trenza que iba rematada en delgado como
el corte de un escarpin de lienzo. "1)
It would not be difficult to conclude from the description
of BERNALDEZ that there exists a close resemblance between the
crowns of the Haitian and Mexican kings. The Mexican crowns
consist of a frontal part that rises into a point, and two side pieces
that are joined on the neck. The Haitian crown consists also of
a central portion and two side-pieces "alas como adarga", wings
as a shield, which description indicates that they stood directly
out and possibly were of wood, since each of them was inlaid
with a piece of gold, representing an eye. The cro\vn, said to
have belonged to Caonaboa, can have had in addition the more
central parts of a face, such as nose and mouth, carved out on the
middle part of it, since "el diablo figurado en aquella corona" is
spoken of here. Possibly later finds of modelled pottery, heads
or carvings will elucidate how a Haitian king's crown really appeared.
Possibly the top part of the earthenware heads with
eyes, as seen in KRIEGER II, pl. IX, I and pl. I9, jig. 3, both of
which originate from the vicinity of Saman{t, is meant to represent
a much simplified casique crown, which the casique is placing
on his head using both hands.
Therefore, in a comparison with :Mexico, we can say no more
than that the kings both there and on Espanola had crowns with
a central part and side pieces, however unlike they ,vere otherwise.
The figure of a zemi on the front of Caonaboa's royal crown
is the analogue to the divinity-mask in Mexico. 2 )
During COLUMBUS' second voyage, when he again met Guacanagari,
the latter wore as a crown, a head-bandage of cotton
with a gold button in the middle, which he took off and gave to
the AdmiraP) Here again we find the same kind of caciqueinsignia
that was ,vorn by the Jamaican cacique. Probably it
was the same sort of cacique-bandage with gold-jewel in the center,
that we often find reproduced on the stone heads from Puerto Rico ..
') Ibid .. cites TF,zozoiMoc. Chapt. 82.
2) SELER, Ges. AM., Vol. I, p. 201, Fig. 82, glyph of Motecllzoma and the
fire-god's mask.
3) SCIU,ACIO, Raccolta III, p. go.

5II
The cacique-insignia of Espanola also appeared in the gifts
that COLUMBLiS received from Guacanagari. \Vhen the former
returned to that island on his second voyage, the latter sent him
by a messenger a girdle, of which LAS CASAS gives the following
description: "este cinto era de pedreria muy menuda, como
a1jofar, hecha de hues os de pescado, blanca y entrepuestas a1gunas
co10radas, a manera de labores, tan cosidas en hilo de algodon, y
por tan 1indo artificio, que, por 1a parte del hi10 y reves del cinto,
parecian muy lind as 1abores, aunque todas b1ancas, que era placer
vedas, como si se hobiera tejido en un bastidor, y por e1 modo que
lab ran las cenefas de las casullas en Castilla los bros1adores, y era
tan duro y tan fuerte, que sin dudo creo, que no Ie pudiera pasar,
6 con dificu1tad, un arcabuz; tenia cuatro dedos en ancho, en 1a
manera que se soli an usar en Castilla, por los Reyes y grandes
senores, los cintos 1abrados en bastidor, 6 tejidos de oro, e yo a1-
cance aver dellos."l) So LAS CASAS can give this excellent description,
because he himself had seen such a Haitian girdle. COLUMBUS
had already received such a one at the time that a young cacique
visited him on his ship, at Cape Nico1as. 2) \Ve see how the Mexican
embroidery on canvas returns again. Bead-work in many
rows with beads of different sorts and colours firmly combined,
is also typically Mexican, especially for large collars, neck-bands
and other things worn by the nobility at religious festivals. It is
of greatest interest that on the girdle that Guacanagari presented
to COLUMBUS "una caratula, que tenia dos orejas gralldes de oro
de martillo, y la 1engua y la nariz" was fastened in the middle and
at the front, on the place where there was usually placed a jewel
of gold. That custom of placing a face-mask on the front of belts is
Mayan, and appears already in the First Empire.3) This location of
masks does not occur in the Mexican manuscripts, but on the other
hand in that which comes from the Zapotec and J\Iixtec areas.4)
Guacanagari had sent COI,UMBUS such caratu1as of vvood
with ears, nose and tongue of hammered gold 5 ) already at the
1) Vol. 62, p. 389-390.
2) NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. 246.
:l) SPIND~;N, op. cit., PI. XVIII, Piedras Negras.
4) SEu,R, op. cit., Vol. III, p. 03y-630.
0) NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. 254, p. 203.

51 2
time of his first voyage along the north coast of niarien, when the
cacique was informed of his arrival. l'hese masks inlaid with
gold also reveal a manifest Mexican influence. GRIJALVA'S envoy
received at the time of his sailing along the coast of Champoton
"una mascara 6 car:'ttula de palo, cubierta de hoja de oro delgada,
que en senal de paz enviaba al Capitan el Cacique".!) On the
coast of Tabasco GRIJALVA received" una mascara de palo grande
dorada muy hermosa".2) l,ater when he advanced to Mexico, on
the coast of Vera Cruz, near Isla de los Sacrificios he receives
"dos mascaras de obra mosaica, de piedras turquesas".3) Very
well known are also the three masks inlaid with turquoises and
belonging to Quetzalcouatl, Tezcatlipoca and Tlaloc, which were
sent by Motecozoma to Cortez and two of his subordinate officers
after the landing at Vera Cruz, thinking that these were three
gods. The Mayan masks were plated with gold; the Mexican
were of mosaic work like the Haitian, the fonner with turquoise
while in the latter gold was used.
The question can be asked why the Spanish chiefs were given
masks as presents on the coast of Yucatan and Maxico and also
on the north coast of Espanola? A religious reason is apparent in
the gifts Motecozoma presented to Cortez. The Aztecs believed
that Quetzalcoatl should return over the eastern sea and hold
sway over them again, and they identified Cortez with him. It is
indeed possible that the gifts of masks on the part of the Haitians
also had a religious substructure, for the Tainos believed in the
beginning, as a matter of fact, that the Spaniards came from
heaven, where moreover the zemis had their domicile. But it
was rather an expression of aristocratic social equality between
caciques, and COLUMBUS was regarded as the head cacique of
the Spaniards. As stated previously, GRIJAI,vA'S messenger
was given a gold-plated mask at Champoton as a sign of
peace. A similar purpose must also have been one of the reasons
that the Haitian caciques gave COLUMBUS masks inlaid with
gold. Guacanagari sent him a belt even before meeting him;
and on this was a mask with ears, tongue and nose of inlaid
") I,AS CASAS, Vol. 65, p. 427.
2) Ibid .. p. 430.
3) Ibid., p. 435.

513
hammered gold. 1 ) In like manner a king in Tabasco sent GRIJALVA
a large gold-plated wooden mask with the information that he
would visit the Christians the next day.2) Thus Espanola and
the Mayas are also in accord in that emblematic gifts are sent
ahead before the meeting takes place. Such a gift must be
looked upon as a sign that Guacanagari would receive COLUMBUS
peaceably, and as homage to his distinguished rank.
Any report that the Tainan kings wore feather-crowns in war
is lacking in the historical sources. But from previously cited
places in these, it appears that it was really the under-caciques
that wore feather headdresses, while a cacique-king wore other
still higher emblems and particularly a fillet consisting of rows
of beads with a gold jewel in the middle. In battle against the
Spaniards a Borinquenan cacique wore a guanin ornament on his
breast and much gold in an arm-band,3) but nothing is said about
a crown of feathers. In one case we learn that the over-cacique
had especial arms. Thus in his last battle, the cacique of Higuey
carried a particularly large bow and long three-pointed battlearrows.4)
Arming with clubs seems to have been far more frequent
among the Mazoriges than among the Haitian 'fainos. But
their chiefs in particular were apt to have a collection of precious
macanas, of which they were very careful. When Maiobanex was
beaten by the Spaniards, on the retreat his sons bore his clubs
wrapped in the leaves of the yagua-palm. 5 )
Banners must also be considered as cacique-emblems, when
they are found among the cacique's following, as on the occasion
of the visit of the Jamaican cacique to the ship of COLUMBUS at
Old Harbour Bay. In front in the cacique's own canoe, there
stood a standard-bearer clothed in a red feather cloak and with
a feather-ornament on his head "y traia en la mano una bandera
blanca sin senal alguna. "6)
Ensigns are not found in northeastern South America. On
33
1) NAVARRETE, Vol. I, p. 254.
2) 14AS CASAS, Vol. 65, p. 429-430.
3) OVIEDO, Vol. I, p. 480.
4) LAS CASAS, Vol. 64, p. 89.
5) 14 AS CASAS, Vol. 63, p. 173.
6) BERNAI,DEZ, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 73-74.

the other hand the Mexican standards with pennants of uncoloured
paper are well-known. Now as paper was unknown to the Tainos,
it is likely that their banners were of uncoloured cotton-cloth.
Each cacique owned a large canoe.1) Often the prows and
sterns of these were painted. 2 )
The great cacique-kings on Espailola were at any rate candidates
by virtue of their rank for the position of commander-inchief.
On the occasion of every particular outbreak of \var, they
seem to have been subject to an election by the council of subordinate
caciques. Thus in 1495 King Guarionex of Magua was
chosen "by the other caciques as their cOllnnander-in-chief"3) in
the vvar against the Spanish. In 1498 he is again chief commander
in conjunction with Maiobanex, the leader of the -:\Tazoriges.
King Caonaboa of Maguana was the commanding officer of the
warriors of his land (1494 and 1495). Rut then of course he was
a Lucayan, that had been called in to become king just because
of his warlike qualities. The fugitive Haitian cacique, Hatuey,
was not the king over Maisi, divided into many village communities.
It is likely that already before the invasion of the Spaniards
he had been elected as presumptive commander-in-chief. He
could therefore assemble "su gente"4) \vhen '-elasquez landed in
ISII.
Further to the \Vest on Cuba, the Tainos made no resistance.
On the rumor of heavy massacres in the large to\vn of Caon;'lO in
Camagiiey. the Indians everywhere moved out of their tOVI'llS, as
the Spaniards pressed further westwards, and it never came to
a battle. From Camaghey they rowed in part over to Los J ardines
de la Reina, wherever they could they put out to sea. 5)
Probably Cuban Tainos went over to Florida on that occasion.
\Ve do not meet with any war-chieftain after Hatuey in the conquest
of Cuba. It appears as if the Spaniards' move against the
Cubans was a complete surprise, so that they were not able to
arrange any election of war-chiefs.
") Ibid., Vol. II, p. 49,
2) Ibid. Compare p. 73. Old Harbour Bay. the cacique's large canoe.
3) MARTYR, l\IacXutt·s trans., Vol. I, p. IZI.
4) LAS CASAS, Vol. 65, p. J.
") 1,."5 C."SAS, Vol. 65, p. 26-27, and the province of Habana, p. 32.

In the conquest of Puerto Rico, already from the very beginning
King Agueybana II was in the power of Juan I)once de
Leon. They both were guatiaos, and therefore Agueybana ordered
his under-caciques to receive the Spaniards well. ,\Vhen the >'mr
breaks out later in the mountain-regions of the interior, it is the
less important caciques, in connection with Carihs from AyAy
(St. Croix), that are in command. Possibly the cacique with the
breast ornament of gitanin l ) was the commander-in-chief of the
Borinquefios.
In the period of time before the conquest, Ive know only of
vvar between the Spaniards and Tain05, and 110 great intertribal
'1'ai11a11 contests. It is only stated that when the adelantado, D.
BARTOLOMJ.~ COLON, met King Beheccio of Xaraguil for the first
time near the Rio Kayba, the latter ",vas engaged in an expedition,
to conquer the people along that river.2) Beheccio stood at the
head of an army, who carried bows and arrows for arms.3)
Moreover, LAS CASAS' account seems to intimate that even in
Spanish times there occurred insignificant border-wars4 ) Rut these
are described as almost bloodless, resembling closely children's
play.5) On F:spaiiola the usual occasions for war 'were if a cacique
promised his daughter to another cacique, and received gifts
as remuneration from him, but ga\-e the girl to a third cacique;
or if one community fished in the 'Yaters of another or hunted
hutias in the fields belonging to some othe::T tribe.6) A still more
serious reason for ,yar it must ha\~e been, when there was the
motive of revenge bccause of a horrible murder. \\~hen the cacique
of Saona was bitten to death by a Spallish bloodhound, the
Indians buried him with great lamentation and cries ,vhich they
directed to heaven.') Thereupon his over-cacique, Cotubanarrdl
of Higucy, detcrmined to begin war against the Spaniards, hecause
::-laona belonged to Higuey.8)
') OUEDO, 1,'01. 1. p. 480.
2) '-VIARTYR-:HaeXutt, VoL I, p. [IX.
3) L,\s CAS~\S, 1,'01. 63, p. 138.
') 1,'01. 66, p. I II .
") I/Jid., Vol ()3. p. 13S.
iii Apoi. Hi"t., Ed. SF\RR.\NO Y S:\XZ, p. [70--171.
') L,\S C.\SAS, Vol. 64, p. 4'"
') LAS CAS~\S, YoJ. 64. p. 40.

516
No especial warrior-caste existed among the Tainos. All the
people were obliged to do military service. In time of peace the
Tainos had weapons at home in their huts.I )
\Vhen strangers arrived, it was a sign of peaceful attitude
among the Tainos if all the people sat on their heels ,,-hen these
were received. Thus when a canoe containing 40 men from Tortuga
landed on the north coast of Marien, all the people sat on
the shore "en selial de paz" .2) Significantly enough the place
was named Puerto de Paz (Port de Paix). \Vhen the troops of
Narvaez entered the plaza in Caomlo (in Camagiiey), all the people
sat there on their heels. 3) In the town the Spaniards found a
large quantity of fish and cassava, so it is probable that they
intended to give a feast of welcome. Under such circumstances
the massacre must have seemed all the more unwarranted and
abhorrent to the Cuban Tainos. They must have learnt at that
very time, that under no circumstances could they expect clemency
from the Spaniards. It is clear that only the Cubans of
Oriente had comprehended from the accounts of the Haitian fugitives,
what the Spanish invasion really signified. Further westward
on Cuba the Indians seem to have been completely ignorant
of its meaning.
Not all of the caciques could have been war-commanders.
But this we can only divine from the fact that there were also
female caciques. \Ve have already named Anacaona and the old
cacica in Higuey, whose name LAS CASAS informs us was Higuanama.4)
An unimportant woman cacique is also mentioned on
the Rio Hayna, where she had her town three leagues from where
the present city of Santo Domingo is situated.5)
The names of the great caciques as they are handed down to
us, must not be considered as personal, but rather as titles that
they held because of the character of the land over which they
ruled. These names could allude to the geographic-economic
nature of the country. I have already mentioned the Lucayan
1) Apol. Hisl., p. 17!.
2) NA\"ARRETE, \'01. I, p. 244.
3) I4AS CASAS, Vol. 65, p. 22.
4) LAS CASAS, Vol. 64, p. 46.
") ibid., Vol. 63, p. 67.

Caonab6, "The Home of Gold", probably because he ruled over
the Sierra de Cibao, from which the greater part of the Haitian
gold, came. Guarionex was the hereditary name for all the kings
of Magua.I ) Possibly the Arawak ari (river), (either Yaqui or
Yuna) enters into the composition of Guarionex. In like manner
this same ari must form a part of the name Guacanagari, and
possibly also in that of his kingdom Marien, referring here to the
Rio Yaqui. Compare also the two Borinquenan kings, Agueybana
I and II, while at the same time there was also a river
named Agueybana2) in their principal province in the eastern part
of the island. The element Higuey must enter into the composition
of "Higuanama". On the other hand, Higuey was also named
Cotubanama3) as well as the cacique who ruled over the land later.
King BehechlO of Xaragua also bore the title of Tureigua
Hobin, "which means prince resplendent as copper".4) Others of
his titles were Starei, shining, Huibo, "haughtiness" and Duyheiniquem,
"rich river" .5) His sister Anacaona (Goldflower), the
widow od Caonabo, became his successor and recieved the same
title of Tureigua Hobin, probably in her capacity of ruling Queen.
Wherever there were really great caciques among the Tainos,
it appeared that these wanted to exchange names with the Spanish
officials as soon as they came into friendly contact with them.
Between themselves they became the so-called guatiaos or datios.
Such were Cotubanama and Esquibel6) on Espanola, Agueybana
II and Ponce de Leon on Puerto Rico,7) the cacique Ameyro and
1) MARTYR-MacNutt, Vol. I, p. 374.
2) OVIEDO, Vol. I, p. 466.
3) Apol. Hist., p. 9.
4) l'iIARTYR-MacNutt, Vol. I, p. 386. According to BRINTON, The Araw.
Lang. etc., p. 439, hobin means red in that language. Turey of course means in
reality heaven and in transferred signification gold. Here Turei has the meaning
of the heaven's splendor, and hobin a red metal. See MARTYR-MacNutt,
Ibid., previous citation, that the sons of caciques preferred names signifying something
shining. Indeed it was also reserved to the caciques to wear the shining
metal ornaments.
5) MARTYR-MacNutt, Vol. I, p. 386-387. This last name can possibly refer
to the previously named river in Xaragua., which was used to irrigate the cotton
plautations.
6) LAS CASAS, Vol. 64, p. 89.
7) Ibid., p. 236. OVIEDO, Vol. I, p. 467.

SIS
Mendezl ) on Jamaica. Significantly enough Cotubanama cried out
before he was killed at Saona by the sword of Lopez, "M ayanimacana,
Juan Desquivel daca," No me mates, porque yo soy Juan
de Esquivel 2 ), or literally, "Do not club me to death, for I am
Juan de Esquivel." The Tainos thought of the Spanish swords
as clubs.
Among the Island-Caribs, whose social edifice, unlike that of
the Tainos, was democratic, Itignaom,3) "compere" also implied
an exchange of names. Furthermore this signified, "s'il ne luy
donne pas sa traite, au moins ille prefere aux autres, et cela n'est
sans luy apporter quelque profit." The Island-Carib ligna must
be the same as the 'fainan tia. The Island-Caribs probably obtained
that word from the Igneris. There is also a Carib word
for "compere" compounded with their word for father. It can
be questioned if the Island-Caribs did not first obtain the idea of
an exchange of names after they came under the influence of
the Ignerian culture. Such a conception as tiao, lord, was
indeed foreign to their democratic social structure.
Adijaha is the name for daliao 4) among the True Arawaks.
The institution must originally have had an aristocratic character5)
among them, the same as with the Tainos.
LAS CASAS cites three grades of nobility among the Tainos:
I) Guaoxeri, "vuestra merced", probably meaning lainos, that is
the so-called nobility; 2) Bahari, "vuestra senoria", probably the
under-caciques or the lesser independent caciques; 3) M atunheri,
"vuestra alteza", the great cacique kings.6) High above these titled
men stands the guamiquina.
Already at the time of the first voyage, when the Haitians
1) Hakl. Soc., Vol. 43, p. 225.
2) LAS CASAS, VoL 64, p. 98-99.
3) BRETON, op. cit., "mon compere". Compare datiao, my tiao.
4) ALFREDO JAHN, Los Aborigenes del Occidente de Venezuela, Caracas, p. 213.
5) Compare the Arawak adaia, to have authority, to be a ruler, with its compounds
and derivations. It is from ada, tree also staff, wood, designating the
staff (baton) with which the chief gives the people orders about the work. See
C. H. DE GOEJE, The Arawak Language of Guiana, p. 19 and 128, Paragraph 89.
I have already stated that the Tainan caciques gave orders at work with their
commander-staff.
6) Apol. His!., Ed. Serrano y Sanz., p. 516.

5I 9
heard of the arrival of COLUMBUS, they believed that it was "el
Guamiquina de los cristianos" that came. "Guamiquina, Hamaban
al senor grande", wherefore all the towns gave the Spaniards
food and gold.1) When Roldan came to Xaragua the Indians
believed that it was the guamiquina of the Christians that came,
and therefore Anacaona made preparations for a great festival of
reception with dances. 2 ) He was understood to be "el nuevo
Guamiquina de los cristianos".3) Afterwards when the Haitians
were taught the Christian religion, they called God Guamechyna. 4 )
Guamiquina had a religious significance. The Spaniards were
believed to have come from heaven. None of the great kings on
Espanola was called guamiquina.
Dance and Dances of different character according to the
fest vals. import of the festival were very current among
the Tainos. Usually they were dances accompanied
by song, which had a special name, areitos. They occurred
at the various kinds of festivals which the cacique gave, and to
which he invited his people by means of messengers. 5) Of such
festivals, descriptions of an autumn feast and some few festivals
of reception can be found.
The autumn-festival is described by MARTYR according to
reports received from Canizares.6) There both sexes wore wreaths
of grasses and flowers on their heads, as well as strings of snailshells
on the arms, the hips and the legs, which jingled agreeably
as they danced, while approaching the hut of the cacique. Otherwise
they were naked, with the exception of the married women,
who wore their naguas. Moreover, no decorations of feathers
were worn, nor are they even mentioned in connection with the
areitos, that the Spaniards had the opportunity of seeing. Still
GOMARA says that in war, at festivals and dances the Lucayans
"se couurent d'un vestement faist de coton, et de plumes bien
1) LAS CASAS, Vol. 63, p. 34.
2) LAS CASAS, Vol. 64, p. 5I.
3) Ibid., p. 53.
4) MAR'i'YR-MacNutt, p. 37I.
5) MAR'i'YR-MacNutt, Vol. 2, p. 316.
6) Ibid., p. 3I6-3 I 8.

520
agences avec une certaine industrie, et sur la teste ils mettent de
grands pennaches."l) This passage in the sources can not be
taken as evidence that the I~ucayans had feathers fastened on to
cloth, as in Mexico. Therefore on these rare occasions they wore
an especial covering made of cotton, while on the other hand
among the 'l'ainos there were only women's garments of cotton.
Besides this cotton vestment, they wore feather mantles and
feather crowns. Social conditions among the Lucayans seem to
have been more democratic than among the rest of the Tainos,
so that it appears as if all wore the same attire. The I(ucayan
women were clad only in their naguas of cotton cloth at these
festivals and dances. The Haitian women wore garlands of different
kinds of flowers when they through the behiques took cassava
out of baskets as offerings to the zemis.
The use of branches or flowers in the dance is not exactly
general in the tropical lowlands of South America. Nevertheless
among the Mapoyes on the Orinoco, the dancing girls v\'Ore "coronas
de flores" in their hair when they approached the bride's
home on the wedding-day and a "ramillete (branch of flowers)
en la mano izquierda, y en la derecha las sonajas."2) Here, therefore,
appear strong resemblances to the description by Canizares
of the band that approached the cacique's house. The Mapoyes
were indeed Caribs, but showed more Arawak than Carib characteristics
in their cnlture, judging from the scanty information
available.
In the southeastern United States it appears that on some
occasions the women carried green branches in their hands at
festivals. At the great annual celebration among the Creeks, the
women entered with green branches in the hands.3) They had
turtle-shells, white stones or beads attached "to a piece of white
deer-skin tied to each of their legs", probably in order that these
vvould rattle in time with their dance-steps, just as the shells
jingled when the Haitian women danced.
In Mexico flowers played a great role as emblems of divinity
1) GO:'.1:ARA. op. cit., Paris 1587, Chapt. 6, p. 50.
2) GUlIUI,r,A, Vol. I, p. 181.
3) JOHN R. SWANTO:'-l', Aboriginal Culture at the Southeast, 42nd Ann. Rcpt.
Bur. Am. Ethnol. p. 597.

52!
and in religion, but I will not enter into this. When the Aztecs
held their fifteenth auniversary celebration, the priests laid down
green branches on the mountain.l ) But I do not know of any
band of women dancers with branches in their hands, from Mexico.
Flowers had different significations in Mexico. \Vhen they "vere
held in a warrior's hand it was a sign of peaceful rule. 2) A flowering
branch in the hand of the sun-god SELER interprets as "Glanz
und Schc)nheit, Feuer (Leben)".3)
At the great festival given by Behechio and Anacaona for the
adelantado, Don BARTOLOME COLON,4) the Spaniards were first received
in the plaza with all the people sitting on their heels, according
to the usual custom. Xaragua was famous because of its
fine manners as "Ia corte desta isla". The dialect spoken there
,vas considered the first language "la lengua universal" for all of
Tainan Espanola. Particular refinement was also revealed at the
festivals that took place later. Anacaona was also famed for her
proficiency in composing dances. On the first day the 30 wives of
Behechio danced, dad in their naguas and bearing green branches
in the hand. Then they kneeled before Don BARTOLOME and each
one presented her branch to him. After this all partook of a
banquet of baked cassava and boiled hutias, together with a
qnantity of salt- and fresh-water fish. The second day all the
people assembled again at the plaza and there a gladiatorial contest
took place. Two contingents shot at each other with bows
and arrows, with the result that four \vere killed and many severely
wounded. This game was only interrupted when the adelantado
requested that it should be stopped. Thereupon the people
performed their dances. From this we see that the first part of
the celebration was for the highest dasse, the second part for
the people.
Another reception festival given for the Spaniards on Cuba
1S described in an anonymous Italian document:') \Vhen the
') S.UIAGUX, Seier's trans. into German, Stuttgart 1927, p. 204.
2) SELER, Ges. Abh., Vol. 1, p. 238, cites Cod. Vaticanus, where the king bears
a flowering branch.
3) ibid., Vol. III, p. 266, and Fig. 6r, Cod. Borgia.
4) 1,A5 CASAS, Vol. 63, p. 138-139.
") Raccolta, Vol. I, p. 76.

522
guests \vere received in the great round hut of the cacique, twenty
youths entered and served decoctions of different kinds of fruits
in wooden bovvls. Then a large number of women entered and
danced and sang with the outside of the hand outstretched. This
last signified that they accorded the Spaniards religions homage.
They "were clad in "gotomine de diversi colori", by which naguas
must be meant. They wore necklaces and armbands of different
kinds of shining wooden beads. The aged cacique sat upon a
stool of dark \vood.
The cacique never participated in the dancing at these reception
festivities. It was his role to play the drum on certain occasions,
likewise during the traditional areito. It was not only the
duty of the caciques to teach their sons these areitos, but

523
his arm about the waist of his neighbour. I ) The leader of each of
the tvvo groups of dancers also led the singing.2) The singers
treated of bygone events, mostly in connection with caciques,
their conquests, their genealogy and good and bad seasons they
had known. The singers were accompanied by the drum. Each
song lasted 3-4 hours or until the leader finished his history.3)
The dancing continued until exhaustion, or until they successively
became intoxicated and remained lying on the ground. On special
occasions dances could occur, for instance after a victory, or
when the cacique was married. Preparatory vomiting caused by
a paste made of an herb, that was only held in the mouth, together
with a bath in the river were probably magic purgations.
III chapter XII I shall treat of the areitos in connection with
the zemi-cult.
It is certain that not all the dances accompanied by song
were festal and ceremonial. At times they were simply a spontaneous
pastime without the leadership of the cacique and without
the drum. They could also have a mimic, jocular character. LAS
CASAS designates such a dance as "nineria", to which they sang:
"tal pescadillo se tomo desta manera y se huyo." Of songs that
were sung without the accompanying dance, LAS CASAS mentions
only such as the women sang when they scraped yuca.4) The
songs of the areitos were memorized. The fathers taught them to
their sons. 5) The same occurred among the Island-Caribs. For
analogies between the dancing on Espanola and in Paria, I refer
to the preceding chapter under }'lusic. Vomiting before the Parian
dance is not mentioned. But on the other hand their sorcerers
placed a thin stick in their throat to induce vomiting6) before
curing a patient, just as the Haitian piaie vomited before he set
about the treatment of a sick person. Moreover vomiting by the
people in general before festivals had a wide extension in North
America.
') Apol. Hist., p. 538.
2) OVIEDO, Ibid., p. 127.
3) OVIEDO, Ibid., p. 127-128.
4) Apol. Hist., p. 538.
5) OVIEDO, Vol. T, p. 128. Compo Apol. Hist., p. 114.
") Apol. Hist., p. 641.

The game of
ball.
A popular pastime was the playing of ball (hatey)
on the plaza before the cacique's hut, with the
cacique aud principal men seated on duhos as
spectators. The old historians compared this game most of all
to the shuttlecock tennis, so popular in Italy at the beginning of
the sixteenth cel1tnry.l) Tainan hatey was played against the long
sides of the ball-court. The number of Haitian players ,vas great,
20 to 30 on each side. The sides played alternately. If the ball
went over the boundary or remained lying on the ground, it vvas
counted dead,2) exactly as in tennis. It was a question then of
taking it in the air, or when it was bouncing. The ball could only
be taken with the elbows, shoulders, head, back or hips.3) \Vhen
the women played, they took the ball with the knees, but never
with the shoulder or hip. It appears also that in the femal
ball-game the ball was kept low down, and that the object really
not had been more, that it should never be permitted to stop
bouncing. Since the early authors do not supply sufficient details
of the Mexican tlachtli game, BLOM was not able to ascertain
whether it was played across the conrt from ring to ring, or lengthwise
from one end to another. In favour of the latter alternative,.
the fact speaks that guards were placed "at the broad ends of the
conrt to stop the ball from entering there". Again, 011e of the
fine tricks of the game was "to bounce the ball against the wall" .4)
These walls, however, ran lengthwise. The red and green lines
crossing one another intimate that the play against the long sides
must have been somewhat complicated. \Vhen one side was defending
a stone ring, the long line separated them from their
opponents. 5) But there were other conrts with a ring across the
middle, and in these the ball probably was played chiefly against
the short sides. 6) The ball games of Yucatan and Mexico were
much too complicated to be adopted in all their details by the
less clever and not so capable Taillos. In Mexico the rules of the
1) MARTYR-MacNutt, Vol. II, p. 232, the I

525
game were, that at each throw the ball must cross the line. OVIEDO
describes the consistency of the ball as follows: "B las pelotas son
de UDOS rayc;es de arboles e de hiervas e c;umos e mezc1a de cosas,
que toda junta esta mixtura paresc;e algo c;erapez negra. Juntas
estas y otras materias, cuec;enlo todo e hac;en una pasta; e redondbula
e hac;eu la pelota, tamana como una de las de viento en
Espana, e mayores e menores: la qual mixtura hac;e una tez negra,
e no pega a los manos; e despues que esta enxuta tornasse algo
espongiosa, no por que tenga agugero ni vacuo alguno, como la
esponja, pero alijeresc;esse, yes como fofa y alga pesada".l) Therefore
the Tainos made their massive spongy balls themselves. As
has already been stated, there are native rnbber-trees in Santo
Domingo.
l'he balls from the southwest Amazon regions, that I know
from the Gothenburg Museum, are all hollow. Another ball
from the Mosquito Coast is massive, very hard and covered with
strips of palm-leaves, the same as a hollow rnbber ball from the
Cavinas. 2 ) The Mexican rubber balls were hard, so that they
were obliged to wear a piece of leather on the hips, where the
ball was received. The spongy Tainan balls must have been much
softer, indeed according to OVIEDO they bounced very easily and
it could not have been dangerous to receive them on a naked
Indian body. In South America the Chiriguanos had massive
spongy balls. The hollow ones are in South America a later invention.
The game there is not so hard, as it was in Mexico. In
the Gothenburg :Museum there is also a piece of the sticky mass
full of shreds and fibers, of which the Mosquito balls are made.
In fact OVIEDO states that the mass is sticky, although the ball is
not.
Occasionally on Espanola there were ball-games played behv'een
the people from different communities, in which case their
caciques offered small prizes, as for instance one of them "un
sayo de grana", and the other "un pano viejo de tocar." Also in
Mexico the victors received prizes.3)
1) KORlJE","SKICiLD, Om fndianernes Anvendelse at GU1'Ilmi 'i Syda1'llerilia, p. 82,
cites OnEDO.
') nid, Fig. p. 84.
3) BLO:vr, op. cit., p. 493, qnoting DURAN.

526
I agree with NORDENSKIOLD'S theory that the ball-game must
have come to the Tainos from the Mexican regions, all the
more because the 'l'ainan ball-courts earth-walls or rows of
stone-blocks set up on end to mark their limits, show resemblances
to those of the Mayas. No game for quite natural reasons
existed among the Indians including the use of a bouncing
rubber-ball in the southeastern States. Citing Gu~nI,LA, KORDEi\­
SKIOLD has reported ball-playing 011 the Orinoco among the
Otomacos. The Tamanacos, who lived further to the west on the
Orinoco, had balls of caucho which GILIJ1) attributed to a plant
in the land of the Otomacos, although he had never seen it. In
reality, the Otomacos must have obtained the caucho from the
forests in the upper Orinoco regions.
I do not know of any real ball-playing among the Island
Caribs. At a late date a game with rubber balls occurred
among the Macusis at their paiwari-festivals. They had these,
in addition to balls of maize-Ieaves.2) But I know of no game
whatever from the Guianan coast, that is played with rubber
balls.
l\lariage and Monogamy was general among the common
s(,xual conditions.
people,3) the subjects of the cacique, due to the
fact that a man could not support more than one
wife. But the kings had several, not alone for
economic reasons, but also with the character of a harem.4) Behechio
had even 30 wifes.
In any case, the great king-caciques had one wife who took
precedence of all the others. Such a one \vas Anacaona,5) 'who
therefore must be regarded as queen in Maguana. In the same
way Dona Ines de Cayacoa must be considered as the queen in
Riguey. Nevertheless LAS CASAS says that he could not observe
that any of the wifes took precedence. Perhaps such was the
case among the less important caciques that he learnt to know.
') Vol. If, p. 269.
2) h! THl.'RN, A mong the Indians of Guiana, p. 326.
3) OVIEDO, Vol. I, p. 133; Apol. lIisi., p. 520.
4) OVIEDO, Vol. 1, p. 500.
5) Ibid., p. 135.

The cacique's wifes lived with him in the great cacique-hut.
Such is shown to be the case in regards to Guacan:agari and his
wifes. 1 )
No information is given as to whether among the people the
man moved to the bride's town, or the bride went to the bridegroom's
town, or if the common people for the most part married
some one in their own community. They only married within
their own social class. Still as far as the cacique was concerned,
this might only have been true in reference to the real wife. The
cacique bought wives from the families of other caciques. A
cacique then sent to another, the father of his prospective wife, a
ciba-necklace or small plates of guanin, such as were used as earpendants,
the so-called taguaguas. 2) The marriage, however, could
not have been completed by this act. In this connection, I will
refer to the grounds for war previously mentioned. It was forbidden
for a man to marry a sister or the daughter of a sister.3)
Among the True Arawaks marriages are even forbidden between
nephews and nieces on the maternal side.4)
Contracting marriage was not without forms, that is, was
more than a mere settling together. Among the Lucayans
the girl's parents issued invitations to a wedding-feast?) But
among the Lucayans social conditions appear to have been
more democratic than among the rest of the Tainos. On Cuba
the contracting of marriage was dependent on the class to which
the man belonged, and the wedding took place within the intimate
circle of that class. If a cacique was to be married, he assembled
all the caciques who were to be present at the feast; if it was a
"hombre principal", all of his peers came together, and if it were
a man belonging to the common people, all of his own class, who
were to be at the feast. These guests had a chance to try the
bride first. "E despues que muchos la han probado, sale ella
sacudiendo el bra

grande ammo, quassi loandose que es valerosa e para mucho."l)
The Island-Caribs called the great zemis, who chased and frightened
the lesser ones so that these produced raill,2) manigat. The
less important zemis, therefore, were cowardly while the great
ones were fearless and enforced their will, compelling the former
to obey. The entire religious idea of rainstorms together vvith the
,;vords zemi and manigat the Island-Caribs must have obtained
through the women that they captured from the Igneris. I am
not in a position to decide whether the ceremony imparted by
OVIEDO permits an interpretation that the woman by crying
'manicato becomes elevated to the man's higher estate, and that
OVIEDO'S ~description refers especially to a meeting of the noble
class. According to OVIEDO, she only proclaims her spiritual
strength. As a matter of fact the meaning can perhaps be that
she also means by this expression, that she has been elevated to
the high estate to which her husband belonges.
l,AS CASAS and his confreres sought in vain to discover if divorces
took place. LAS CASAS did not think that such was the case,
because he often observed that both husband and wife were aged.3)
Prostitution. On Espanola, Cuba and Jamaica it was observed
that "a marriageable woman who has granted
her favours and prostituted herself to the greatest number is
reputed to be the most generous and honourable of all."4) This
does not seem to have been a question of paid professional prostitution.
Nor was it looked upon as shameful, indeed exactly the
opposite. In addition, hospitable prostitution occurred, which
caciques placed at the disposal of their equals on the occasion of
a visit. Even in that case for the most part we only know what
happened when the Spanish chiefs were received. vVhen COLU:\;l­
BUS was again received by Guacanagari on his second voyage, the
latter prostituted his wife and twelve naked girls to show hospitality.5)
Anacaona prostituted herself to the Spaniards many
1) OVIEDO, Vol. 1, p. 499.
') DE LA BORDE, p. ().
3) Apol. Hist., p. 520.
4) MARTYR-MacNutt, Vol. II, p. 325.
5) SCILLACIO, Raccolta, Pt. III, Vol. II, p. 90.

times.1) The only place in the historical literature where
hospitable prostitution between Baitian caciques is spoken of to
my knowledge, is where Maiobanex cited as proof of his friendship
for Guarionex that he had given up his wife to him.2)
Tranvestites. The term berdaches is borrowed from North
America. For South America MARTIUS uses the
word "Mannweiber", which characterizes them excellently. By
berdaches is to be understood men clad as women and assuming
in a certain measure a woman's position in the community and
the performance of a woman's duties.
I am not competent to enter into a psychiatric investigation
of homosexuality among the Indians. Sir BARRY JOHNSTON
accentuates the feminine tendency of the Indians in comparison
with the negroes.3) In America, also, men in female attire had a
comparatively greater extension than in Africa. Moreover, it lies
completely outside my subject to discuss transvestiture and its
dependent circumstances in other parts of the world.
Transvestites were above all observed by the Europeans,
who first saw the Indians in certain areas. They disappeared
amongst them later. The Spaniards waged war ruthlessly against
"el vicio nefando". In North America, which lay outside the
Spanish area of conquest, many tribes among which berdaches
were known to exist formerly, have become completely exterminated
or decultured. But transvestites did not exist everywhere
in America. Speaking in a general way, they did not occur among
the Indian tribes in the tropical lowlands of South America. They
existed in some measure among the Tupis on the coast of Brazil,
but in reference to this we must take into consideration the fact
that they were found between the Cadiue6s in Paraguay, over
which lead the La Plata route from Peru to the coast. They did
not occur along the Orinoco, below the rapids. They never had
any real extension in the Amazon regions.
The fact is transvestites were found in a great continuous
area, extending from Kodiak, among the Indians of the North-
34
4) OVIEDO, Vol. T, p. 135.
2) PETRI MARTYRIS, Decades Ires, p. 83.
3) The Negro in the New World, I.ondon 1910, p. 34.

west, furthermore in the plains, in the S. \V. of North America,
and in the southeastern States, in parts of Mexico and Central
America, in Andean South America down to the Araucanos.
In reference to the Tainos, it must be of great interest that
transvestites did not exist among the True Arawaks or in the Gnianas.
Nor did LAS CASAS find any "pecado nefando" in Paria,
Cnmana and Chiribiche,l) when he was a missionary there.
The geographical continuity indicates that transvestites were
a custom, and not isolated occurrences, and that this habit was
transmitted to peoples and between tribes. I do not know of
them amongst lower tribes, like the Fuegans, or Ges.
Now if berdaches occurred on Cuba but not in Paria and in
Guiana, it indicates influences from foreign parts after the 'l'ainos
had immigrated to the Greater Antilles. Their unimportant
extension among the Tainos can be interpreted as showing that
there existence among these Indians was a rather new phenomenon.
Their occurrence on Espaiiola can not be established with
exactitude. OVIEDO, who of course knew men in female attire who
performed the tasks of women in Darien, states that such must
have been common on Espanola.2) On the other hand, LAS CASAS
asserts that with his thirty years knowledge of Espanola, he had
never found "el vicio nefando" existent on that island. He had
his testimony emphatically verified by an old Haitian woman,
the widow of a Spaniard.3) Nevertheless in reference to this a
certain reservation must be made, inasmuch as the Indians must
have known of the hard treatment dealt out by the Spaniards
whenever they discovered any such practice. One thing is certain;
when the Spaniards first came into contact with the Haitians and
they were still living in their original condition, not a single case
of an Indian man dad in nagua is mentioned in the old literature.
That the emphatic assurances on the part of the Indians can
not always be depended on we learn from the statement of a
septuagenarian Cuban Indian "que la gente de la Espanola, Cuba
') Apol. Hist., Ed. Serrano y Sanz, p. 647.
2) Vol. I, p. 133--134.
') Apol. Hist., p. 518-519.

53!
y Jamaica, no usaban el pecado nefando. "1) Two concrete cases
of Indians clad in naguas can be brought forward from his
own island, Cuba. But at any rate, the occurrence was not common
on Cuba. I,AS CASAS says that when he was on that island,
he found "un indio s6lo que traia unas naguas, que es vestidura de
mujeres, con que se cubren desde la cinta ala rodilla."2) A sailor
that COLUMBUS sent ashore on the south coast of Cuba opposite
Los J ardines de la Reina, reported that he had seen "un indio
con una tunica blanca vestido y que hasta los pies cubria"3) among
thirty armed men. BERNALDEZ, to whom this was reported by
Cor;UMB"C"S after his return from the second voyage, adds "y despues
vinieron a el (that is, to the Indian in the tunica reaching to
his feet) otros dos con tunicas blancas, que les llegaban abajo de
las rodillas."4) Provided that the terrified Spaniard who was
sent ashore observed correctly, that these Indians really were
men, these must have been the same kind as the Cuban clad in a
nagua, that was observed by lAS CASAS. Because only women
wore naguas, here called "tunicas".
There were berdaches among the Timuquas at the mouth of
the St. John's River;5) they also had a considerable extension in
the southeastern States. According to SWANTON, they are not
mentioned as being in Virginia and the eastern part of the Carolinas,
but in most of the rest of the Southeast, especially Florida.6)
Probably the habit, starting from Florida, reached Cuba shortly
before the conquest. Communication between Cuba and Florida
seems to have been more frequent than from any other island,
and in Florida a Cuban colony existed. It is therefore not
impossible that the transvestation-habit in the Greater Antilles
only reached Cuba.
\Vhat social station transvestites occupied in Cuba the I.,iterature
does not inform us; nor whether they stood in individual rela-
') HERRERA, Vol. I, Madrid 1730, p. 234-235.
') Vol. ()4, p. 479·
") LAS CASAS, Vol. (j3, p. 57.
4) Br,RNALDEZ, op. cit., p. 6r.
0) LE MOYNE, Brevis Narratio etc. in DE HRY, Francoforti 1(j34, PI. XVII and
text; SWANTON, Early Rist. Creek. Ind. p. 373, cites I.E MOYNE.
';) A bor. Cult. Southeast, p. 700.

532
tion to another man, as can still be found among the Guajiros,l)
or accompanied in numbers the men on their hunting-parties and
expeditions of war, at the same time bearing the burdens and
preparing food, as among the Timuquas and Creeks, or belonged
to a cacique's harem and performed women's tasks in the cacique's
hut, as among the Cuevas.
Division of LAS CASAS 2 ) cites as the occupations of the women
work. the preparation of cassava, the care of the fowls
and the other birds that they had, bringing water
from the river, and the weaving of cloth and hanging mats. In
regard to such among the I,ucayan vvomen, MARTYR says that
they knotted nets.3) I have already talked about the cultivation
of the soil. The women shared in this work with their diggingsticks,
"unos palos tostados" .4) The wooden bowls in Anacaona's
store-room in Xaragua were made by woman on Guanaba. They
took a greater part in the bringing-np of the children than was
usual in Spain. The father taught them everything that concerned
customs, rites, religion, cult and government. This must have
included areitos, which were indeed traditional and which the
people must know at the festivals. The men must teach their
sons a variety of work, "because they had no slaves". Otherwise
I,AS CASAS does not dwell especially on male occupations
among the Tainos:5)
In Indian times, before the Spaniards had yet organized the
production of gold, only the men could collect gold. COLt:MBUS
was informed by the folk that he sent to Cibao to get gold, that
the Indians, before they set out to collect gold, fasted and lived
apart from their wives for twenty days. They said that if they
went to the gold-district accompanied by their wives, they would
not find any gold.6) Religious motives must have lain behind all
1) According to yolnntary information and obseryations of DR. GUSTAF Bo-
U"'DER from this tra\'els on the Guajiro peninsula in 1920.
2) Apol. His!., p. IT4.
3) MAR'I'YR-l\facNutt, VoL II, p. 251.
4) LAS CASAS, Vol. ()4, p. 71-72.
5) I,AS CASAS. VoL 64. p. II3. summarizes men's occupations in aHa parts of
America known to I,AS CASAS. and not those of the Tainos in particular.
6) OVIEDO. VoL T. p. 136.

533
this. For gold belonged to "cosas de turey"J) The Arawaks of
Paria, who to judge from the scanty information in the literature
resembled the Tainos more closely than any other South American
race, like the Tainos, called heaven turey and gold tureyg1ta. Probably
the Tainos believed that gold came from heaven, just as in
like manner they believed in l\Iexico that gold was the sun-god's
excrement. The Tamanacos believed that metallic objects, iron
axes and other implements got loose from heaven and fell down
to earth. 2 ) It is likely that the women on Espanola were not
allowed to be present at the collecting and washing of gold, because
they were looked upon as weaker than the men and more
susceptible to the inflnences of the evil spirits, and thus could
lead them astray in the search for gold. Of course fasting signifies
to the Tainos purification from evil spirits which a human
being has within. Indeed they were always very solicitous to
eliminitate these, as often as they called upon the zemis for aid.
The agricultural labours of the men among the Tainos extended
no further than the clearing of the ground. That this was
considered particularly a male occupation, the previously mentioned
ax-zemis bear witness. They are of the male sex. During
the first journey of COLuMBUS, young men were seen at Baracoa
digging in a field just brought under cultivation.3) As I have
already stated, the division of work in the sowing of maize was
influenced by Mexico-Central America. In taking up the yuca
out of the ground, among the Tainos the work was shared by the
men and "vomen in common.4) The men also heaped up the montones.5)
The boys protected the maize-fields against parrots.
Crime and The Tainos were of a mild and peaceful disposipunishment.
tion. If any controversy arose in a matter of
business, the parties went to the cacique, "who
had no greater trouble in governing his community than a father
1) The 'fainos cnlled bmss (Inton) which they received from the Spaniards
eagerly, ture}, "como a cosa del cielo" (1,'\'8 CASAS, Vol. 62, p. 4(2).
') Gn,IJ, Vol. II, p. 230.
3) NAVARRETE, Vol. T, p. 224.
4) Apol. Hist., p. 30.
5) ibid., p. 28.

534
his family". I

535
a sanguinary revenge even for a stolen fruit. 1) Among all these
tribes private possession consisted only of personal chattels in the
house, of the orchard contiguous to the house, and beyond the
house of the cultivated field assigned to him by the cacique for
the production of food for the consumption of the family. But
they had no cultivated plant "yhich could be bartered for other
wares. On the other hand, such was the case in the mountainous
valleys of the Carib Mountain west of Paria, where they protected
the hay (cocoa) plantations with walls. They only stretched a
cotton thread across the entrance. If anyone attempted to pass
beyond that really inadequate protection, this intrusion was regarded
as "gran sacrilegio". 2) Among the Mayas also the houses
lacked doors, as among the Tainos, and "tenian por gran delicto
de hazer mal a casas agenas".3) In this case therefore, even entrance
was considered an unwarrantable offence.
Thus among the Tainos, Island-Caribs and tribes in eastern
Venezuela, as well as along the coast of Guiana, stealing "vas
regarded as a brutal and unlawful procedure against the owner
himself, not in the proper sense a crime against the rights of
possession, as we consider it.
Therefore 'injz£ria was the only institution of a punishable
kind that ,vas recognized among the 'fainos, Island Caribs and
the agricultural tribes in northeastern South America.
Vengeance for the death of relatives only finds expression
against the behique, who did not look after his diet properly during
the treatment of a patient, with the result that the latter died.4)
1Iurder and homicide are not named. I have already told how
Cotubanama took up arms against the Spaniards in revenge,
because his under-cacique on Saona had been killed by a bloodhound.
Diseases and The only real sickness that the sources mention
means of cure. among the Tainos is syphilis. Nevertheless, the
symptoms are described too incompletely for even
a doctor to be able to decide definitely that the sickness in
1) GILlJ, Vol. II, p. 213.
2) Apol. Hist., p. 638.
3) LAXDA, Ed. Brasseur de de Bourbourg, p. 110.
4) PANE, Chapter XVUI.

question really was syphilis. On the other hand SAHAGUN gives
the Aztec designation for the external symptoms of syphilis,l)
through which the sickness ought to be identified medicinally.
If we pass over from the old chroniclers to archaeology, syphilis
of the bones (gummata) up to the present time has not
been established with certainty in a single case on skeletons,
indubitably originating from graves dating from before the Discovery
of America, either in the Old World or the New. In any case,
SAHAGUN states that "bubas" entered into the texture of the
bones,2) It is not indicated in the historical sources that syphilis
111 its worst forms was found on Espanola.
I will not go into the question if syphilis was already found
in Europe before America was discovered, but it is nevertheless
very peculiar that the sickness 'was rampant there in the period
right following the Discovery, while it was previously unknown
to European doctors. A medical reason which speaks for its American
origin, is the fact that the Indians had syphilis in mild
forms, and the infected Spaniards took it in the worse forms.
The old chroniclers, although there were no doctors among
them, say in a decided manner that the sickness which was found
among the Haitians from the very beginning, was "el mal frances"
or "las bubas" ,3) which attracted so much attention because of
its outbreak in Europe very soon after the Discovery of America.
OVIEDO devoted some attention to examining the witnesses,
that had returned home from Espanola, and among them such as
had accompanied COLUMBUS on his first three voyages to America,
about the origin of syphilis; and from these he received the in-
') SELER, Ueber die Ursprung del' Syphilis, Ges. A bh. II, p. 98-99.
2) SELER, Ges. A oh., p. 96 cites SAHAGU~.
3) PANE, Chapter VI, "ma1 que llamamos frances;" LAS CASAS, Apol. His!.,
p. 44, "las bubas, que en Italia Haman e1 mal frances;" OVIEDO, Vol. I, p. 55
calIecl "e1 mal frances" by the Italians, and by the French "el mal de Napoles,"
which name he often heard in Italy, and which he identifies with what others
call "e1ma1 de Ins Indias." Ibid., p. 363, "-- --- ell estas islas e aun en la Tierra­
Firme .-.- - .. -- es comun e1 mal de las buas" - -; COMARA, Chapt. 29, "mal
de bubas ... mal Francois, Ie mal de Naples, rongue (rogue = scab) d'E;spagna
and cites the doctor Vieo and the historian Sahellio in regards to the outbreak of
the disease in Italy in 1494 and 1497. In the former case it refers to the episode
of the transmission of syphilis to Naples by the French army of Charles VIII.

537
formation without exception, that the Spaniards first contracted
the disease on Espanola. He says that the Spaniards had good
thing in the gold which they took from Espanola and exported
to Europe principally to France and Italy, but they also at the
same time carried over there a sufferance owing to this disease.
To start with, the disease occurred properly only "entre personas
baxa:3 e de poco auctoridad". Among the more notable persons
that contracted it, he names "Mossen Pedro Margarita".l) OVIEDO
furthermore asserts that the disease was a "cosa nueva" for the
doctors of Europe, "no la entendian ni sabian curar los medicos,
ni otros por experiencia consejar al tal trabajo. - - - Pero
verdad es que de aquesta isla de Hayti 0
Espanola passo este
trabajo a Europa, segund es dicho; y es aca muy ordinario a los
indios, e sabense curar e tienen muy excelentes hiervas e arboles
e plantas, apropriadas a esta y otras enfermedades, assi como el
guayacan ... "2)
LAS CASAS asserts that the disease already existed on Espanola
when the Spaniards touched there during the first voyage
of COLUMBUS, and that on their return to Spain they carried it
home with them. He himself had seen COLUMBUS' sailors when
the smitten men landed at Sevilla in 1493. On the other hand,
as regards to the origin of the disease among the Haitians he says:
"yo hice algunas veces diligencia en preguntar a los indios desta
isla (that is, Espanola) si era en ella muy antiguo este mal, y
respondian que S1, antes que los cristianos a ella viniesen, sin
haber de su origen memoria, y desto ninguno debe dudar."3)
Historical evidence shows decidedly, therefore, that syphilis
was a pre-Columbian disease among the Tainos and that it was
brought to Europe from Espanola by the Spaniards. Thus we can
designate syphilis as a primitive Indian disease. If later it is to
be found that it originated elsewhere in the Old World as well,
it is not fitting to discuss it here.
Syphilis did not have any general diffusion in America in the
pre-Columbian period. In regard to this, it would be of the greatest
interest if we could state over what areas the disease was
1) Vol.· I, p. 55-56.
2) Ibid., p. 56.
3) Apol. Hist., p. 44.

spread at the time before the Discovery. The two regions where
it can be shown to have been prevalent are the Greater Antilles
and Mexico. But in reality syphilis must have had a still much
greater expansion at this time. As regards the Antilles it is of interest.
that in all probability it was widely rampant at a much
earlier date, both in Venezuela and Guiana, as well as in the Southern
States. Wherever pre-determined Indian methods of treatment
or cures for this sickness are found, it is more than highly
probable that the disease was of long standing. Where this first
centre of expansion in American lies, we do not yet know; nor if
it can ever be satisfactorily established, as already before the Discovery,
the disease had a considerable holding.
On Espanola as well as in Mexico syphilis was known to the
Indians as an ancient disease. In both regions it appears in
the myths, and in Mexico in the rites as well. They had
especial cures for it in both places. Its sexual transmission
is also made dear. The licentious goddess in Mexico, Teteoinnan,
had syphilis.
The Tainan name for syphilis is yaya. That word is not found
in the old Literatur, but is still retained among the Jibaros on
Puerto Rico.!) The Island-Carib yaya means in the 17th centary
"la grosse verole" .2) The word is presumably Ignerian, indicating
that syphilis was found on the Lesser Antilles already before the
Carib conquest. At that time small-poxes certainly did not exist
on these islands. The Mexican name is nanauatl, and the god
affected with scabby bubones caused by syphilis, was called
Nanauatzin, "bubonito". Even from the very beginning it appeared
dearly that the Spaniards contracted syphilis from intercourse
with Indian women.3) The Spaniards, who kept themselves
chaste, did not catch it. Only about one in a hundred Spaniards
escaped the disease.4)
The Indians of Espanola, both men and women, commonly had
the disease, but in a very mild form, no worse than "virue1as",
(chicken-pox), "pero a los espano1es 1es eran los dolores dellas
1) CaLL y TOSTE, Prehistoria de Puerto Rico, San Juan I907, p. 67.
2) Compare BRETON, p. 478-479.
3) GOMARA, Chapter 29.
4) Apol. Hist., p. 44.

539
grande y continuo tormento, mayormente todo el tiempo que las
bub as no salian."l)
The great age of the sickness on Espanola is also shown by a
myth in PANE. One of the Haitian "heroes", Guanagiona, visits
a vvoman, Guabonito, to whom he is much attached At the time
he is covered with syphilitic sores and is looking for "lavatorios
para lavarse". His condition is improved through Guabonito's
prescriptions for ablutions. Later she takes him to a Guanara,
that is, a distant place, where he becomes entirely cured. 2 )
Another indication of the ancient existence of the disease on
the islands appears also in the remedies that the Tainos developed
to cure syphilis. One medicinal means of cure, which they are
also said to have had from time immemorial, was guayacan. By
softening and boiling small pieces of vvood, they made from it a
decoction with which they treated syphilis. While taking the medicine,
according to LAS CASAS the patient had to diet; for three or
four days he only ate a couple of birds'eggs, then Y4 of a hen and
small loaves of cassava bread of the finest sort, which is called
xabxao. 3 ) According to OVIEDO he drinks the guayacan decoction
during a period of 20 days, during which time he is not allowed to
eat meat or fish. 4) Still more powerful was the palo santo on Puerto
Rico, another variety of guayacan. At the beginning of the
treatment on Puerto Rico, the patient was given a very hot drink
of the guayacan decoction, which resulted in strong perspiration.
'l'hen he is given the decoction as cold as possible. This treatment
continued for IS days with a frugal diet. The guayacan decoction
was also used for ablutions. This cure lasted during three months,
and the patient could not eat sour things (that is, not cassareep)
nor fish. In a third cure, cloths soaked in the scum that is
produced by the the boiling of guayacan-wood, are used. The
Island-Caribs placed "des plumaceaux de coton cruel" on "les
grosses pustules" when they broke.5)
The 'rain as used applications also for other "llagas por ser
1) Ibid., p. 44. Compare OVIEDO, Vol. I, p. 364.
") PANE, Chapter VI.
3) Apol. His!., p. 34.
4) OVIEDO, Vol. I, p. 364-365.
5) BRlnON, p. 478 -'479.

540
muy viejas e muy enconadas (inflamed) y denegridas que ya parecescian
mas de especie de cancer 0 de Sanct Lazaro". Referring
to this, OVIEDO l ) suggests either black cancer or leprosy. I do not
know of any direct information about leprosy being found among
the Tainos. Its pre-Columbian occurrence in Mexico is disputed.
There was another native sickness, caracaracol, "like scab
which makes the body very rough" and causes the hands to become
"rough and that so they held them very tightly."2) 'What
this was, I am not competent to judge.
It is very probable that the guayacan cures were regarded as
magical by the Tainos; to them the guayacan was a holy tree, of
whose wood they used to make their idols and sacred chairs.3)
The behiques and certain wise women had a great knowledge
of herbs that cured diseases. In Chapter XII I shall come to the
way in which the behiques cured sickness. A very important
means of cure was always ablutions with decoctions and baths.
Medicinal plants are named in the sources as purgatives and as
aphrodisiacs for the women.
'When anyone was seriously or incurably ill, he was exposed
to the weather. They placed the patient in a hammock between
two trees and set dishes with food and drink near the head.4) He
was left to die and they saw him no more. In other cases they
were strangled on Espanola. \Vhen they were undecided, the
cacique was left to decide whether or not the patient should be
strangled. 5)
1) "Vol. I, p. 365-
2) PANE, Chapter VII.
3) OVIEDO, Vol. I, p. 489--490.
4) Apol. Hist., p. 534.
5) The Admiral's letter, Bourne Edition, p. 3I3.

CHAPTER XI.
Burial Customs.
Different forms of both direct and secondary burials were
found contemporaneously on Espanola at the time of the Discovery,
according to what the old authors report. Archaeological
finds also often give us a good idea of how in part the burial
customs mentioned in the sources were effected; then too, other
facts that are not given in these, are brought to light. In many
cases the burial customs that are only known archaeologically,
appear to be local phenomena. Speaking in general, the usual
forms of burial occuring in the Greater Antilles, by way of the
Lesser Antilles, so little known in this respect, had connections
with the tropical lowlands of South America.
COLUMBUS summarizes the different burial customs that
were found on Espanola at the time before the Discovery:1) "They
open the cacique and dry him by the fire in order that he may be
preserved whole. Of others they take only the head. Others are
buried in a cave and they place above their head a gourd of water
and some bread. Others they burn in the house and when they
see them on the point of death they do not let them finish their
life but strangle them. This is done to the caciques. Others
they drive out of the house; and others they put into a hamaca,
which is their bed of netting and put water and bread at their
head and leave them alone without returning to see them any
more."2)
We learn here, that the burial customs were different for the
caciques and the people.
1) BOURNE, p. 313, cites D. FERNANDO, who cites COLUMBUS.
2) Compare LAS CASAS, Ed. Serrano y Sanz, p. 535, at a distance from the
town "en el monte". After death they became hupias, wood-goblins, who were
greatly feared by the Haitians.

542
Dessication, especially of the nobility, seems to have occurred
in Paria, also. Here they preserved the dried-up bodies of caciques
as "penates" in the house. 1 ) There is no mention in the
historical sources of the dessicated bodies of caciques being used
for this purpose on Espanola, but the existence of this custom
there is not excluded for this reason. Indeed the bones of the
dead were kept in the house as zemis, and the bones of caciques
were also placed in the interior of idols. These represented the
deceased caciques. The heads in baskets or clay bowls in the
house could also have had zemiistic functions among the common
people.
I am inclined to interpret the description of COLUMBUS to
mean that the dessication of the cacique's body could take place
within his hut, and that it does not refer to any real cremation
of the body. Nor do I know from northeastern South America
that the chief, in particular, \\Oas burned. On the other hand,
indeed, it can happen that especially medicine-men are burnt in
order to destroy their son1s, because they are wicked and after
death go about as jaguars in the night and cause damage and
death to mankind. To the Tainos, of course, the cacique's
soul was a good spirit, and such were worshipped by them as
zemis.
There is one place in P ANE2) which must not be interpreted
as cremation of the body. A charcoal fire is lighted and earth is
held over the dead, for the purpose of augury to discover if their
kinsman died through the fault of the piaie, or not.
Passing over to the burials of the common people, caveburial,
of which so many examples have been found on the Tainan
islands, emerges from the description of COLUMBUS. Also conservation
of only the head is brought to light partly by the observations
of the discoverers on Cuba and Espanola, and partly through
finds in caves.
It is certain that COLUMBUS was not acquainted with all the
forms of burial in use on Espanola in his time. He does not mention
direct burial in an excavated grave, with the body in a crou-
1) Apol. Hist., Ed. Serrano y Sanz, p. 646; MARTYR, Mac)Jutt's Trans., Vol.
II, p. 396. referring to Chiribiche
2) Chapter XVII.

543
ching position. This mode of burial, which according to EHREN­
REICH distinguishes the younger culture stage in South America,
and which can be archaeologically shown in the West Indies to be
predominant among the Tainos different from the Sib one yes on
Cuba who buried their dead lying straight, does not appear in the
Literature. But nevertheless we have every reason to believe
that such was the most common burial custom at the time before
the Discovery, as well as from all the time the Island-Arawaks
were settled in the West Indies. But cacique-burial under a
wicker-roof with the body seated on a duho, is also described.
This manner of burial, especially intended for distinguished persons,
must be a development of the simpler burial, in a crouching
position with or without hammock.
It remains an undoubted fact, that the Tainos had both
direct and secondary burials contemporaneously. Such a synchronous
existence predominated in Paria1) also, not to mention
other parts of northeastern South America, or the Southern States.
Direct and indirect burials differ from each other not
alone in external procedure. The religious element enters into
the direct burial only to the extent that the deceased has food
placed with him in the grave as nourishment in the other world,
and also other objects that he may possibly need. The secondary
burial has as its purpose a certain conservation. They wanted
to have the dead accessible and to make use of his spiritual powers,
among the Tainos his influence with the zemis of the spirit world;
indeed, his conserved remains are a zemi and have a zemi's power.
He holds for his possessor the entire position of a zemi that
receives offerings and is consulted as an oracle.
Certain of the Tainan mortuary customs are very much diffused.
They mainly correspond with the burial customs in
northeastern South America, whence the Island-Arawaks presumably
carried them along to the West Indies and retained
them there continuously up to the time of the Discovery.
Other mortuary customs, that can only be established archaeologically,
are local. Like other North American elements
they occur on the islands that lie adjacent to Florida and are not
found on Jamaica.
1) Apol. Hist., p. 646-~647.

544
I. Burial customs with
general diffusion on
the Tainan islands.
A. Direct burials with the
skeleton in a contracted
sitting or lying in
flexed position.
a. In excavated graves.
The graves of this kind that we know,
all lie in middens. Occasionally foodand
drinking-vessels are found at the
feet of the skeleton; at other times
no effects were present. But in the
latter case we must take into consideration
that a calabash-bowl for
water and a calabash or basket with
cassava,!) which later turned to dust, might have constituted
the mortuary gifts. The weapons 2 ) of wood or reed, where
such accompanied their deceased owners, must also have mouldered
away.
All the known single graves are in middens, indicating a close
connection with the town. Never has a particular necropolis been
found, nor any mound over an excavated grave.
The grave found long ago by Ramsing in a Tainan midden at
Salt River, on St. Croix, I have already mentioned. At a later
date, DE Booy found several graves with clay vessels,3) but he
does not speak of their location in the midden, nor of the possibility
that some of them might have lacked mortuary effects.
JIATT'S investigations are far more precise. In the midden at
Salt River he found two skeletons,4) "one of them is shown in
Fig. 15 lying on the left side". Both of these were without
mortuary gifts. Two of the skeletons that he found in a Tainan
midden at Magens Bay, St. Thomas, "were resting on the
right side with the knees drawn Up."5) With two of the skeletons
he found clay vessels,G) therefore in these cases there were burial
effects.
Neither FEWKES nor DE HOSTOS have published any graves
found in their investigations of middens on Puerto Rico.
On the other hand, DE Booy excavated several graves in the
midden at Rio Higuamo in Santo Domingo, certain ones without
1) OVIEDO, Vol. I, p. 234.
2) GOMARA, op. cit., p. 27.
3) The Virgin Islands, p. 60--64.
4) Arch. Virgo Islands, p. 37.
5) Ibid., p. 39.
6) Ibid., p. 38-39.

545
effects, others with clay vessels. 1) Where the skeletons were not
too far mouldered away, he could observe that they were buried
in a contracted posture and that the skulls were deformed.2) The
graves that KRIEGER excavated in a village site at Andres contained
flexed skeletons either, squatting or lying on one side.
There were earthenware food dishes "in front of the flexed
skeleton, the water jars being one at either side."3)
Other burial customs, to which I shall come later, were also
observed in the Tainan middens on St. Croix, St. Thomas, and at
Rio Hignamo on Santo Domingo.
In Cltba HARRINGTON has also excavated seven skeletons on
the Tainan Big Wall Site 4 ) in the Maisi region. Five of these,
where it could be ascertained, were found in a flexed posture.5)
In no case were there any burial finds. 6)
Human bones are found in middens at Cranbrook (Parish
of St. Ann) and Caymanos (Parish of St. Andrew) on Jamaica,
but further particulars are lacking 7 ) except in one case at Cranbrook,
where it evidently is an instance of secondary burial.
The same burial customs were prevalent among the Igneris.
At West Farm on St. Kitts, a grave was found that contained a
skeleton in sitting posture. This had a flattened forehead and
at its feet were pottery vessels. 8) FEWKES also found flexed
burials "in the Carib cemetery at Banana Bay" on Ballicealtx. 9)
This kind of burial characterizes the Island-Caribs, as well as the
Island-Arawaks. I would consider these graves at Banana Bay
to be Ignerian.
It remains doubtful if any of these skeletons in kitchen middens
can be considered to represent hut-buriaZ, which is also general
in this culture stage. Of course the refuse was thrown out of the
1) Santo Domingo Kitchen-Middens etc., Map., Pl. L
') Ibid .. p. I I4,
3) KRIEGER III, p. 40.
4) Op. cit., p, 289-.292.
5) See Ibid., Pl. I~XVI, in a sitting posture.
6) Ibid., p. 292.
7) DL'ERDEN, p. 6.
8) BRAXCH, Gp. cit., p. 337.
9) P1

house. But it can also be that the midden was inhabited at a
later period, and that in this case, the graves could represent
hut-burial.
BATT puts the question, if the four skeletons he found at the
bottom in the platform mound "behind the stone row" at Salt
River do not in reality represent hut-btuials, although he never
found any trace of house-posts on the platform.I )
EHRENREICH has found flexed btuial, especially in sitting posture,
to be typical for the high-standing, agricultural tribes settled
in the tropical lowlands of South America. It is certain, that
the Island-Caribs, and we have every reason to believe this
true of the Island-Arawaks, as well, brought this burial custom
to the \Vest Indies vvith them, when they emigrated from South
America.
b. Burial in crouching
posture within a
raised mound.
Such mounds, which are community
graves, are up to the present date only
established with certainty near the
plazas on Puerto Rico. FEWKES excavated such a mound by the
plaza at Utuado and found 10 skeletons, and among them one
in a contracted posture "with ceramic objects lying at one
side." It was possible to observe that two had flattened
frontal bones. 2) Among other pottery vessels, there was one3) that
contained a necklace of cylindrical beads with a transversal
pendent ornament.4) This must therefore have been the grave
of a rich person.
BACHILLER y MORALES mentions also on Cuba "caneyes" or
sepulchral mounds containing human bones. 5 )
The enclosure that lies near Monte Cristo, in Oriente, has a
circular mound in its interior, and there is another outside it,
with round, visible short-sides. 6 ) Possibly excavating would
bring to light btuials similar to those that are found near plazas
1) Virgin Islands, p. 37.
2) Fmvrms T, p. 82-83.
") PI. 77.
4) Ibid., PI. 87 H.
5) HARRINGTON, P. 128-- 129.
6) Ibid., sketch map, Fig. 51.

547
on Puerto Rico. HARRINGTON'S superficial digging in the mound
only resulted in bringing to light "two hammerstones and a few
potsherds" .1)
On the other hand, the irregularly constructed mounds2) in
connection with the enclosure at Laguna Limones, Maisi, are only
middens from the near-by town.3)
Burial in heaped-up mounds is foreign to eastern Venezuela4)
and to Guiana. On the other hand mortuary mounds are common
both in Florida and in the Mayan area in British Honduras and
southeastern Yucatan.
In Florida burials in mounds are very general. Many unlike
forms of sepulture, both direct and secondary, often occur in the
same mound. In the matter of direct burial, it is necessary to
make the reservation, that a skeleton in anatomical order does
not always represent a primary sepulture. If in reality the body
has first been reduced to a skeleton, this is shown by the bones
being held together by ligaments. 5) Direct burial occurs both
at fu11 length on the back and in a flexed posture lying on the
side; and both these forms of primary burial are often found
together. Moreover they often occur together with different
forms of secondary burial, with scattered bones, or bunches,
bundles and the solitary skull. A11 these forms of burial are more
or less usual for a11 of Florida. The northwest coast shows a
close agreement with the adjacent parts of southern Alabama.
They all occur within that area. 6 ) On the west-central part
of Florida's coast these same forms of burial are also found. 7 )
1) Ibid., p. 210.
2) Ibid., Map, PI. LXXI.
3) Compo p. 306-307.
4) According to GUMILLA, I, p. 228 the Betoyes constructed mounds over the
dead. But it is not said whether or not it was over a grave; and then these
Betoyes belonged to a primitive complex in Venezuela, completely different from
Arawak or arawakized tribes.
5) MOORE, Certain A boriginal Remains on the N. W. Florida Coast p. 229,
Burial No. 10; Certain Sand Mounds at St . .John's River, Florida, Pt. I, p. 84.
6) See MOORE, Certain Aboriginal Mounds ot the Appalachicola River, p. 492,
for burial lying on back, see The Northwestern Fla. Coast Revisited, p. 572.
7) See MOORE. Certain Aboriginal Mounds ot the Central Fla. West Coast, p.
492; on back see p. 382.

The sepulture of skulls under great bowls also occurs on the northwest
coast of .Florida. This form of burial does not extend east
as far as the Appalachicola River and only westward to St. Andrew's
Bay,l) and therefore is only found along a short stretch of
coast. Urn-burial does not really belong to Florida. Its most
southeastern occurrence is at March Island. 2)
Flexed burials3) and sepulture on the back also occur in
northeastern Florida.4) Secondary burial is generally revealed in
a bunched burial 5 ) or by bundles of bones6) and in exceptional
case bsy the bones being held together by ligaments,7) or by the
"skulls and long bones filled with roots". 8) In Duval County the
bunched burial appears to have predominated generally. 9) In
northwestern Florida the solitary skull seems to be lacking.
Abundant burials in mortuary chambers and in the interior
of mounds are found in British Honduras and southeastern
Yz{catan. 10) Often these prove to be house mounds,u) Many of
the mounds with plane upper side must have been such. THOMP­
SON refers to LANDA'S account of hut-burial among the Mayas,
in regard to burial in houses.12) This burial custom does not correspond
to the previously mentioned mound-burial at utuado on
Puerto Rico, but rather to HATT'S skeleton-find under the leveled
mound at Salt River, on which he assumes that the cacique's
hut must have stood. But this agreement only prevails, when
the house that stood upon these Mayan sub-structures was a
1) Ccrt. A bar. Nlounds of the Appalachicola River, P. 492.
2) Cert. Ahor. 1110unds of the Centro Florida West Coast, p. 437.
3) MOORE, Cert. Sand Mounds of St. John's River, Pt. 1, p. 88, 97.
4) Ibid., p. 88.
5) Ibid., pages 16, 43, 87.
6) Ibid., Pt. II, p. 200.
') See previous page.
S) MoO]{.B;, Ibid., Pt. II, p. 146.
") MOORE, Cert. River .Mounds of Duval County, Florida, p. 520, 521, 529.
10) Compare GAKK, The lHava Ind. of Southern Yucatan and :\'orthern British
Honduras, p. 41, 62, 72--73, II3, J25, 127; J. ERIC TuCJ:I!PSOC'f, Archaeological Investigation
-in the Southern Cava District, British Honduras, Field ]\Ius. Nat. History,
Anthrop. Sect. Vol. 17, NO·3, Chicago 1931, p. 320.
") OLIVER RICKETSON, Jr., Excavations at Baking Pot, l3ritish Honduras, Carnegie
lust. of Wash., Publ. No. 403. 1931, pages 8---24.
12) THCJ:\!I'SOX, ibid., p. 238.

549
private house. On the other hand, if a small temple once existed
on the top of these mounds, the connection with the burials in
chambers in the interior is of another sort, possibly representing
human sacrifices just before the building of the temple.
It is certain that all "burial mounds" were not substructures
for houses. At Wild Cane Cay on the south coast of British Honduras,
GANN excavated a genuine "burial place" consisting of
"several small mounds."l) The forms of burial in these Mayan
mounds are not only the direct sepulture with the skeleton
lying on the back,2) but as well secondary buriaP) and skull
buria1. 4 )
It is doubtful whether the mounds on Puerto Rico have a
Mayan or Floridian origin, or perhaps their existence is due to
influences from both localities. The fact that up to the present
time they can only be proved to exist close by the plazas, which I
have already attributed to Mayan influence, indicates practically
that these burial mounds can be ascribed to the same agency. If
we add to this also HAT'l"s find of skeletons under a mound with
level top near by the Tainan sanctuary at Salt River, the
probability that it must have been :Vlayan influence is further
increased.
So far as we know at present, the Tainos have only adapted
their common form of primary burial in flexed position to mound
burial.
c. Cacique-burial in a
grave furnished with
wooden supports, over
which is an arch of
branches topped with
earth. The cacique sits
on a duho.
This form of burial has not been
established archaeologically, but it is
mentioned in the historical sources,
and is described by OVIEDO and ENCISO.
OVIEDO states that the cacique was
dressed for the grave in cotton cloth
bandaging,5) and had with him there
1) CAXN, 1bid., p. 135.
2) RICKETSOX, Ibid., Fig. 3.
') (~ANX, Ibid., p. II3.
4) Ibid., p. 87, 40 skulls. and p. 78.
5) This wrapping was very hard and covered the entire body. See Cm,L:lmrS'
letter, R01TRNE, p. 313.

55 0
"sus joyas" and other things that he valued highly. This grave
\'IIas like "un silo", thus moderately extensive. The reason for
the arch of branches was that the earth should not touch him.
For lVIARTYR states in his description of King Behechio's burial at
Neiba, that the roof of branches had for its purpose that the earth
should not soil him. 1 ) In connection with this form of burial
occurred sutteeis'ln, that is, the favorite wife \vas buried with the
cacique. Among the Tainos the suttee was only customary among
the chiefs2) and everywhere that it occurs in America as among
the Galibis, the result probably of Arawak influence, in Venezuela
and Colombia, among the Cuevas in Panama, in the southeastern
States and along the lower Mississippi, it must be looked upon
as an aristocratic phenomenon. It occurred therefore only where
there were great caciques. The grave remained open for fifteen
days during which time the people celebrated the cacique's feats
and good rule in song.
OVIEDO and ENCISO have described the suttee on Espa·t"tola.
The wife who was interred alive with the cacique, according to
OVIEDO was called atabaene nequen. Even t w03) were buried with
Behechio. ENCISO states that a hole remained open during the
period of mourning, and that when the grave was about to be
closed definitely, any wife who wished to do so crawled down
through the opening, whereupon the grave was closed. 4 ) ENCISO
also says that the grave was large.
Among the True Aravvaks of the lower Orinoco the chiefs
were buried under a roof of wicker-work covered with grass, and
over this the earth.5) They were accompanied by all their weapons.
Nothing is said about their sitting upon a stool, as in Santo Domingo.
Nevertheless, such was the case in the previously mentioned
guaca from Antioquia. Sepulture in a mortuary-chamber
on a stool together with sutteeism must ultimately go back to
Andean Colombia.
1) Raccolta. Vt. III. Vol. 11, p. 51, letter of July 27, 1497.
2) Apol. Hist., Ed. Serrano y Sanz, p. 532.
") OVIEDO, p. 134.
4) l\NCISO, Ed. J. T. Medina, Santiago de Chile, 1897, XIX.
5) GrMILLA, Vol. I, p. 225.

55r
d. Direct burial in caves Many Tainan caves showing that form
with the skeleton in of burial were investigated by HARflexed
position. RINGTON on Cuba.!) All the skeletons
lack mortuary gifts. Still, COU:l\mus mentions expressly that the
Haitians on the occasion of a burial in a cave, placed beside
the corpse a calabash of water, and some bread,2) by which he
doubtless means cassava.
The cave that AITKEN excavated on Puerto Rico3) also contained
no effects.
These burial caves at Oriente and on Puerto Rico are difficult
of access, small or very deep, extremely poor in burial finds, and
it is very plain that they have never been used as zemiistic temples
nor for human abodes.
I do not know any examples of primary burial from the Bahamas.
On .T an~aica human bones are often found in caves, but never
a skeleton in anatomical order. Besides none of the Jamaican
caves remained in an undisturbed condition up to the time of
investigation.4)
KRIEGER says nothing of the posture of the skeleton "in the
rock ledge burials" in the tract about Constanza in Santo Domingo.
"A few stone beads, pendants, zemis, fragments of lmrial pottery,
and a small number of intact earthenware vessels "vere discovered
in juxtaposition to the skeletal remains."o) It is not certain if
genuine cave burials are represented by these finds.
Before we pass over to the secondary burial customs, I must
say something about the treatment of the corpse before it is placed
in the grave. Caonab6 informed COLUMBUS that it was the
custom to open the body of a deceased cacique, after which it was
dried with fire. Only the head of other persons was kept.6) As far
") HARRINGTON. p. 255---256, cave at La Patuna; p. 215, Cueva de los Indios
at Cantillo; 275, :Vlylodon Cave, Gran Tierra de Maya, all in Oriente.
p. 22(j.
2) BoeRNE, p. 313.
3) Porto Rican Burial Caves, Proc. 19 tho Int. Congr. held at \Vashington 1915
4) C011lp. Dl]ERDEK, p.LO.
5) KRn:GER III, p. 44.
6) BOl:RNE, p. 3 I 3.

55 2
as concerns Espanola, we do not learn what was done with the
trunk and limbs. Probably these parts were buried by themselves.
In what measure this can have been case in the several Jamaican
caves, can not the decided, on account of the fact that they are not
in their original condition.!)
In Paria2) and Chiribiche3) the skeleton was burned when the
head was preserved.
This form of burial with the conservation of only the head
was very current among the Tainos, and also often occurred along
the coast of Guiana and in eastern Venezuela among Arawak tribes
or those that had come under Arawak influence. At present
it can only be established here so far as applies to the conservation
of the head in the hut, in a basket or some other receptacle.
Indeed, along the coast of Guiana and in the lower Orinoco regions
there are no caves.
a.
The head in basket
kept under the roof
of the hut.
B. Secondary Tainan head burials.
COLUMBUS observed this during his first
voyage, in Cuba near Baracoa.4) A head
lay in a basket covered by another one,
hanging from a post in the hut. He and his seamen soon had a
chance to see others like it, when they entered different houses
in this region, from which the Indians had fled. \Vhen on his
second voyage COU;MBUS returned to Espafiola, the Spaniards
again saw heads preserved in a basket (esportilla) in the huts
of the residence town of Guarionex. From this they came to
the conclusion that these heads were those of the parents of the
huts' owners. 5)
b. The head in clay vessel This form of burial is reported from
in a cave.
several places in Puerto Rico and Santo
Domingo. But such caves have long since been emptied without
1) Compare DOERDEN. p. 25.
2) Apol. Hist .. p. 647.
3) MARTYR, MacNutt's Trans., p. 396 .
. 1) NAYARRETE, Vol. T, Kov. 29, I492, p. 223.
5) CHANCA in NAY ARRETE Vol. T, p. 363.

553
any scientists having had the opportunity of investigating
them. Only from Jamaica have we authentic finds.!)
c. The head without re- I know this form of burial from
ceptacle in caves. Jamaica only.2) Possibly this same sort
of burial will be found later on other islands also. It is at any
rate closely related to the form of burial that next follows.
d. Skulls in a row on a In the cave Boca del Plurial in Cuba
bed in cave, bones were found rows of skulls lying on a bed
underneath. 3 ) of ashes covered by stalagmites. Mingled
with the bones underneath them were found the remains of a number
of articles of food, of rodents, birds, fish, sea-mussels and a quantity
of seeds of the corojo palm. So these seeds had not been consumed.
They must have been intended for the dead alone, just as
the dead on Espanola roamed around in the forest at night and
ate a kind of quince-like fruit, that the living never ate. Moreover
we have here the proof that they ate a mortuary sacrificial
meal, the same as at the cacique-burials on Espanola.
II. Local forms of burial, These burial-forms are found in the
originating from the Tainan middens on the Antilles, within
Southern States. the area which can be shown by other
finds as well to have felt the influence of the Southern States,
especially Florida. As a rule they are the secondary, bunched
burial. I have already discussed direct burial in mounds. Of the
forms of primary burial that can indeed be connected with the later
high cultures in the Southeastern States, I know only one namely:
1. Burial in midden in
an inverted clay bowl,
especially of child.
This form of burial was found by
HATT in the Tainan middens both at
Salt River, St. Croix4) and at M agens
1) DUERDEN, p. 28-29, "associated with it were ... imperfect limb bones",
Goat Island, p. 31; Pl. 6, Fig. 1, Richmond Hill Cave; ADQI,F REICHARD, Globus,
Vol. 86, 1904, p. 255, caves at New Market, near Montego.
2) DUERDEN, p. 29, Pedro Bluff (coast of St. Elisabeth) "several skulls closely
packed together."
3) MONTANE, L' homme de Sancti Spiritus, Congr. Int. d' Archeologie, Monaco
1906, Vol. I.
4) Virgo Islands, Fig. 20 and p. 38.

554
Bay, St. Thomas. I ) The same form of sepulture was found by DE
Booy at Rio Higuamo in northeastern Santo Domingo. 2 )
The case that I know from the very southern part of Alabama,
does not present exactly this form of burial. The basin
that J\IOORE excavated, contained a combination of primary and
secondary burial, namely a complete child skeleton with four
skulls of children placed outwards from the radii of the receptacle.3 )
In another cemetery at Durand's Bend, Dallas County, was also
found a child-burial in an open bow1.4) In this case the burial
was direct. In the latter cemetery was also found the direct burial
of a grown person in an open receptacle. 5) In reference to
urn-burial for southern Alabama, MOORE directs the attention to a
connection with Georgia where that form of burial is often found6 )
and there it can also be complicated with "cremated remains" ,')
which is not the case along the lower Alabama River. I do not
know of any case of child-burial in an open receptacle from Florida.
But on Weeden Island FEWKES found the body of a baby
in a large shel1. 8) Child-burial in vessels also occur in mounds on
the coast oj Georgia. 9 ) It is doubtful whether this form of burial
was adopted in the Tainan area from Florida, where indeed it is
only known up to the present time with the substitution of a
large shell, or advanced to that region from Georgia over the Bahamas;
but in any case, it originated in the Southeastern States.
No urn burial in any form has been shownIO) on the lower Orinoco
or along the coast of Brit., Nederl., and French Guiana. KRIEGER
states that urn burials have been found in St. Vincent, in the Les-
1) Ibid., p. 38. "a cllild's skeleton covered with two large inverted bowls."
2) Santo Domingo Kitchen A1iddens etc., p. 132.
3) Cert. Aboriginal Rem. Alabama R., p. 299-300 and Fig. 7, mound at Matthew's
Landing.
4) Ibid., p. 3II--312. Compo Fig. 24, yessel 1.
5) Ibid., p. 312 and Fig. 25.
6) ibid., p. 300.
7) Ibid., p. 309.
S) IFeeden Island, Smiths. Misc. ColI. Vol. 70, 1')25, p. 13.
9) MOORE, Certain Aboriginal Mounds of the Georgia Coast, J. Ac. Nat. Sc.
of Phila., p. 32, the skeleton of a byo year old child in an upright vessel; vessel
G, contained "fragmentary bones of an infant;" p. 92, vessel A contained the
"skeleton of a child about six years" old and yessel B a mouldered child-skeleton.
11) Compare NORDENSKIOLD, The Changes in the 111at. Culture etc., Map. 16.

555
ser Antilles, but gives no details. I ) I know urn burial of the ashes
of cremated lords among the Mayas, but no case of child burial
in an open dish.
2. Bundle burial. This form of burial is very common in
the mounds of Florida. By his excavations
in the midden at Rio Higuamo, DE Booy has identified
bunched burial 2 ) within the Tainan culture. Its occurrence here
was complicated by the presence of vessels inverted over the
skull. "In some instances the vessel so large that it hid the
entire bundle-burial; in other cases it covered only the skull and
rested on the other bones." This form of bunched burial corresponds
essentially with one that MOORE describes from a mound
on the coast at Georgia,3) although it does not have an inverted
vessel over it. On the other hand there was one found over a
skull with bones "in a cemetry near Point Washington, Choctawhatche
Bay, Washington County, Fla."4)
KRIEGER found "several large overturned terra-cotta funerary
vases containing the skull and long bones of individuals"5)
in a midden at Anadel near Santa Barbara de Samana. Moreover
he characterizes the "earthenware urn burial with covering of
bowls" found at Anadel as "similar to that known from Georgia
and Alabama. "6)
Bundle-burial must have reached northeastern Santo Domingo
from Florida; this form combined with inverted bowl possibly
came from Georgia by way of the Bahamas.
Cremation. HARRINGTON found "charred, calcined and broken
bones" in the floor of caves in Cub a, but is
doubtful whether these are to be attributed to the Siboneyan or
Tainan culture. 7 )
Fig.90 .
') KRIEGER III, p. 32.
2) Santo Domingo Kitchen Middens etc., p. 132.
3) Cert. Abor. Mounds Georgia Coast, p. 6, Fig. 1.
4) MOORE, Cert. Abor. Rem. N. W. Florida Coast, p. 4So, vessel 26, and
5) KRIEGER III, P 32.
6) Ibid., p. lOS.
') HARRIXGTON, p. 399.

556
To judge from the fact that only Siboneyan objects were
found in Cueva de Cenizas in Portales District Vuelta Abajo, there
is great reason to believe that this cave at least is Siboneyan.1)
Other caves in Oriente with charred bones contained no burial
objects. HARRINGTO~ considers Cueva de Huesos, near Punta Galera
in southeastern Cuba, to have been Siboneyan originally
since it is close to the coast, and afterwards was "an occasional
camping place" for Tainos,2) but he cannot cite any grounds for
this opinion. In Boca Caleta, one of the La Patana caves, on Gran
Tierra de Maya, "charred human bones" are found mixed ashes
in a layer underneath, while an upper layer contains only" decayed
human bones." It remains uncertain if the lower layer can
really be considered to represent cremation. They could also
have been burnt by fires that were lighted at a later date. It is
not known whether the bones in the upper layer had fallen down
from the "rack of poles", which are supported by means of the
side-holes made in the walls of the cave, in part hewed out "with
a stone hatchet" .3) Neither ashes or charcoal are mentioned in
reference to the upper layer. It is therefore not very likely that
this could have been a bed for the dessication of a corpse. Possibly
"some crude bedstead made of forked sticks and boughs,"
found in a cave containing skeletons on Grand Calcos Island,4)
represent beds for dessication. In Paria they dried out the corpses
of their chiefs" sabre ciertas parillas hechas de canas, que alla
son muy gruesas y macizas."5) Dessication is distinctly a Tainan
burial method. It is hardly probable that if this took place in a
cave, any charred bones would have been left, seeing that great
care would have been observed least the fire get too far into the
body.
If cremation indeed existed on Cnba, there is the greatest
probability that it was a Siboneyan and not a Tainan burial cnstom.
Bnrning of the dead can scarcely be counted among Tainan
burial forms.
") Camp. Ibid., p. 338 ... 342.
2) Ibid., p. 194-1 95.
3) [bid., p. 259-260, and Fig. 7I.
4) DE Booy, Lucayan Rem. Caicos Islands, p. 100.
5) Apol. Hisi., p. 646.

557
Each different form of cremation must be placed in close relation
with the motive for its existence, as far as this can be done.
I have already stated that in Paria they burned the bones
when they preserved the head. G"ClVIILLA does not know cremation
as one of the mortuary methods in general use among the Arawak
and Carib tribes along the Orinoco. He found it for the first
time further up the river were the Anabali, a Betoya tribe l ) of
an entirely different culture than the previously named races, abandoned
the whole town for fear of ghostly disturbance, when there
was a death. \Vhen they returned afterwards, they burned the
deceased with all his domestic utensils and weapons.2) Presumably
here fear presents a motive and the purpose is annihilation.
The Cumanagotos had an interesting form of bone-cremation
combined with zemiistically coloured representation of the formation
of clouds and rain. While the chief men were buried in a sitting
posture, as among the agricultural tribes in the tropical 10wlands
of South America, "con sus armas, con comida y bebida
para el viaje yean todas sus alhajas" ,3) the bones of the common
people were collected and carried in a procession out on the savanna,
where they were buried and then their ashes scattered by
the wind. According to what they told BLANCO, the ashes formed
"las nubes y las lluvias" .4) This latter representation has something
Tainan in it only so far as that the Tainos considered that
the bones of the dead possessed the zemiistic power to cause clouds
and rain. The Cumanagotos were Caribs, but in this conception
of the formation of rain might have bee influenced by Arawak
tribes.
I can hardly consider the hypothesis that the Island-Caribs
burned "les corps de leurs Capitaines" in a remote time, long before
the Frenchmen learned to know them, in harmony with real
facts. 1)1

558
cremation of bones and in such a case probably only a part of
them. At the same time the probability that the latter report
was correct is increased by the fact that the Island-Caribs knew
well the meaning of this ceremony, that the courage and remarkable
warlike character of the deceased through his ashes were
transmitted to those that consumed them. I ) This custom must
be looked upon as foreign to the Island-Arawaks. This is not the
place here to go into details about its eventual occurrence among
the Island-Caribs.
Genuine cremation of a corpse was observed by FARABEE
among the Tarumas on the savanna of Guiana, and particularly
of a medicine-man. 2 ) I know of no real cremation from the
coastlands. In later times Arawak tribes, driven from the Brazilian
savanna, have advanced along the Rio Branco-route to the savanna
of Guiana and carried with them culture elements from the
Amazon. Possibly fear of the dead medicine-man's spirit is present
in this case. VON DEN STEINEN mentions from a Bakairi myth
the occasional burning of a body for revenge and hatred.3)
The cremation particularly of medicine men along the lower
Mississippi might not be equivalent to the Guianan burning of
the dead. It was probably only a cremation of bones. Indeed,
his kinsmen consumed his pulverized bones in a drink. 4) If
calcined bones indicates cremation with certainty, then in any
case MOORE'S excavations show that these are far more rare in
Floridian mounds than in those on the coast of Georgia.
Yet if cremation really did occur among the Tainos, there is
little reason to suppose any connection either with the land of their
origin in northeastern South America, nor with Florida. The
mortuary customs including either the cremation of bones or body
not only at Roraima but in the Southern States, are foreign to all
that we know of the Tainan culture. From these two forms of
1) Compare DE LA BORDE, p. 38.
2) The Centro Arawaks, p. 141.
3) Unter den Naturv. etc., p. 374.
4) CABEZA DE VACA, Schiffbriiche, Ed. Franz Termer, Stuttgart, 1925, p. 50.
The same report is clearly the ground for LAS CASAS Apol. Hist., p. 542, here
attributed to "Florida," which before the time of the Dil'covery the Spanish
comprehended as a far greater area than the peninsula alone.

559
burial that have been described, we can consider that the burial
of bones stands in a certain close relation to secondary burial,
The cremation of the body of the head of the family existed
among the 111 ayas, and the ashes were preserved in the cavity
of a wooden figure 1) These last "guardaban con mucha reverencia
entre sus idolos."2) Among the Tainos the bones of the
dead served in a similar way. But ,vhile the inclosing of bones in
a wooden image was a Tainan form of cacique-burial, among the
:.YIayas it was common to the people. The corpses of the lords were
burnt in Yucatan. The ashes were buried in large urns. A temple
was raised above, which LA?\DA himself knew was the case in IzamaP)
Then these urns stood in the Mayas' usual mortuary chambers
within the mound of the temple.
The only reference in the ancient literature which indicates
the possible existence of cremation of the dead on Espanola is
the statement of COI,U1\IBUS, that "a otros queman en la casa donde
mueren."4) It is indeed possible that when a death occurred, the
Haitians set fire to the house of the deceased, nota bene if it stood
by itself, as according to OVIEDO could happen, and not in a town.
But in such a case, this is not properly cremation, which, where
I know it from northeastern South America, took place in an
open field. Nor do I know of real cremation of bones from the
historical sources in reference to the Tainos.
') WAlTZ, Vol. 4, p. 311 cites HERRERA.
') LANDA, Ed . .Brasseur de Bmwbourg, p. 198.
3) LA2'JD.\, p. I98.
4) D. FERNANDO. Chapter LXI.

CHAPTBR XII.
Religion.
It is only through the Catalan Hieronymite friar RAMON PAKE
that we possess a connected acconnt of Taino religion, from notes
that he made on what was related to him by Guarionex, the
king of Magua, in Espanola. Therefore it happens that PANg'S
account bears a purely Indian stamp. LAS CASAS, who was personally
acquainted with PAKE, describes him as an »hombre simple
y de buena intenci6n », and besides rather unlettered.!) Instructed
by the Admiral he proceeded to Ma

561
akan mythology. \Ve find them in Espanola in the closing
years of the 15th century, and among the True Arawaks they are
kept alive to this day.
It is very unfortunate that PA~E'S Catalan manuscript is lost,
so that we only retain its contents in Spanish (LAS CASAS), Italian
(D. FER~ANDO COLm;;) or latin (MARTYR) translations. In this way
\'ariations are effected in Haitian names, and that not solely from
Spanish or Italian orthography. Frequently in some citing author
there are missing names that are found in another, and often
names are so differently rendered that not all versions - if indeed
any -~- can possibly be correct.
Beside PANE, only the Admiral, LAS CASAS, MARTYR, and OVI­
EDO, have handed down to us some item or other about Taino religion.
But these writers never touch upon the myths. For the
rest we must feel our way through such Ignerian elements as
have, from women's influence, become part of the religion of the
Island-Caribs. These elements reveal very obvious correspondences
with Taino religion. Among French writers of the 17th century,
only DE LA BORDE conveys to us some information as to the
religion of the Island-Caribs, which is found to contain many Arawakan
elements.
Among the True Arawaks of British Guiana there have strangely
enough been preserved into our times ancient myths that not
only present strikingly characteristic resemblances to PANE'S Haitian
ones, but also maintain a reminiscence of pre-Carib times
when peaceful intercommunication and trading intercourse still
obtained between Guiana and the Antilles. Here, too, PANE'S
myths are excellently well duplicated. While the Arawaks travelled
far north to islands that were not coastal, that had no flat
shores but rocky ones, among other things for the purpose of obtaining
tobacco, the Haitians turned to the south in search of
guanin and a kind of stone beads of great value to them.
Lastly there is archaeology, wherefrom we, so far as we are
able to interpret the finds, may learn about the higher forms of
Taino religion and cult practice. There are, for example, plazas
and cave temples, rock-carvings and rock-paintings, images of
deities, heads carved in stone, stone-carved masks and other zemiistic
SCUlpture and ornamentation, including also the stone col-
36

lars and three-pointers that are so typical of the Tainian area, besides
which also the pestles are adorned with zemiistic sculpture.
In every way the richly developed art of stone sculpture in
the Tainan islands, particularly Puerto Rico and Espanola, distinguishes
essentially the Tainos from the Arawak tribes of the mainland,
who however for the most part occupy regions where stone is
scarce or even entirely absent. Attempts have been made at explaining
this stone sculpture as having been influenced from the Mexican
mainland, and this may be correct in so far as the representation
in stone of larger figures, in a general way, is concerned. But a
closer examination of the character of the representations ill question
will show that this, on the whole, is Tainan, and representing religious
conceptions of the Tainos. Certain instances where these representations
might be connected with Mexico will be dealt with below.
Remarkably enough, the highest development of the stone
sculpture coincides with the area of the highest development of
cazique rule, that is to say in Espanola and Puerto Rico. Along
with the centralization of religion in the office of the cazique followed
greater facilities for developing higher forms of religious
ceremonies. Only caziques of great were able to acquire objects
of high quality and to engage in works that were required for a
more highly developed cult, such as erecting stone blocks for
sanctuaries, sculptures, etc. I have in the foregoing mentioned that
Mexican influence for the most part appears in connection with
high quality culture objects, such as insignia conveying glamour
to the dignity of chieftainship. In the central and the vevestern
portions of Cuba, the island nearest to the :Vlexican mainland, the
cazique institution was not of much account, and in these parts
Mexican influence is only exceptionally noticeable.
In the account here next following I will proceed in the order
in which PANE imparts to us his notes on Haitian religion. Such
facts as archaeology is able to provide us with a knowledge of,
could only to a limited extent have come within the observation
of PANE. We do not exactly know whether all of them formed
part of Taino religion at the time of the Discovery. But it is probable
that the Tainos discarded no object suited to their culture
when once they had acquired it. Thus their higher religious culture
becames increasingly richly developed.

The idea of God.
PAXE, Introdue-
Hon.
The Haitians believed in a Supreme Being, invisible,
and always dwelling in the heavens. LAS
CASAS, who, through possessing lV!ORAU:S' Haitian
vocabulary, may be considered as our most reliable
authority for rendering Taino names and words, refers to this
being Yocahzt Vagua M aorocoti. He stood high above the world,
and the Haitians never addressed him with supplications.!) He is
not the All-Father, like the supreme god of the Uitoto.2) He is
inactive - he does not cause the rain to fa11like the the gods of the
Uitoto. In fact, we cannot even find whether he is a world creator.
The episode cited in the foregoing from PANE, where the father
of Guarionex after caoba meets him in the dreamland and is imparted
the stunning prophesy of the annihilation of the Haitians,
shows however that on great and important occasions he could in
this way manifest himself. In the opinion of COLI. y TOSTE, Yocahu
is identifiable as a Yuca god }>who gave aud increased the
natural food plants of the Antilleans >i. FEWKES agrees with this
theory.3) It is probable that the compound part yoca is the
same as yuca. Possibly the Taino originally received yuca from
Yocahu. But after they had received it, it gro\vs through zemicooperation
Among the Pomeroon Arawaks a special yuca spirit functions
in this matter.4) But there is nothing to indicate that among the
Haitian of the time of the Discovery, that particular office was
performed by Yocahu. Nevertheless the name of Yocahu may
'well be borne in mind as implying that that primary deity had
something to do with yUca, and probably vms its original bestower.
Among the True Arawaks the primary deity dwells above
the clouds, being styled }>Dweller in the Height» (Aiomun Kondi).
He is the All-Father (Ijilici W' acinaci, >iGreat Our Father ») and
creator (FV' amurreti-kwonci, »Our :Vlaker »). He is the provider
of food, that is to say he makes the food plants grow. But
128.
1) Apol. Hist., ed. SI\RRAXO V SAXZ, p. 321.
2) K. TH. PREUSS, Die oherste Gottheit bei den iVaturl'61kern, Z. E. 1922, pI.
3) An Antillean Statuette with Notes on West Indian Religious Beliefs, A. A.,
n. s. \'01. 11, p. 355----356 cit. COLI, Y Toste.
4) ROTH, An Inquiry into the Animism, etc., p. 230.

nobody addresses supplications to him. 1 ) RODRIGO DE NAVARRETE
gives his name as Habuiri. 2 )
The Arawakan Achagua, too, believed in a supreme being,
Cuaygerri, that lived in the heavens. They did not either address
prayers to that highest god of theirs. The belief in him was handed
down from fathers to sons. 3 )
Yocahu cannot have been eternal, because he had a mother,
Atubei, jernao, Guacar, APito, Zuzrnaco, or Atabex (LAS CASAS).
PAKE expressly states that these five names denote the same per­
S011, but J,AS CASAS especially mentions Guaca (Guacar) as being a
brother of Yocahu. PA~E does not refer to Atabei as any kind of
All-Mother.
JOYCE considers }T ocahu to be the cloud god, and A tabex the
earth goddess. 4 ) In a general way the Admiral and LAS CASAS understood
the Taino religious belief to be that their god dVv'elt in
the heavens, and that the earth is the kind mother. But we have
no justification for identifying Atabex as goddess of the earth.
I,ike Yocahu she may be taken to have dwelt permanently in the
heavens, nor ever have been made to object of supplication or
ritual worship. RODRIGO DE NAVARRETE, who has written the earliest
account we possess of the 'i'rue Arawaks, says: »1 have understood
that their belief and object of adoration is the firmament
or heavens, because they say that in the greater heaven there is a
pOl'l'erful lord and a great lady, and that the lord created them
and sends them the rain to cause everything to grow on the earth
for their benefit and use. ,) Seeing that the religious beliefs of
the Tainos othenvise closely correspond with those of the True
Arawaks, it is possible that at one time also the former believed
in Y ocahu as the great sustainer of life who keeps all things in
nature in their proper courses, so that mankind is supplied with
food and all things needed for its subsistence. It is probable that
Atabex originally was the AU-:vrother.A deity of this kind is in
fact believed in by the True Arawaks, although we have no de-
')
p. 12,
2)
3)
'I)
BRF,T'l', Legends and _~I'yths 0/ the A iJoriginal Tribes oj Guiana, London r879,
Compo C. H. DE COEJE, The "1raw. Lang. oj Guiana, p. 191:1.
RODWAY'S trans!., Timehri li:l95, pt. 1, p. 10.
RIBERO, p. I I I.
Central Amer. and ~Vest Ind. Arch., p. 1i:lr.

tailed account as to her functions. This does not, however, imply
that she may have been an earth goddess.
:VIan's first In Espanola we find no true creation myth. The
appearance on Taino belong to those peoples who believe that
earth. PANE,
mankind originaily issued from caves.l ) These
Chapter I.
caves were tvvo in number, C acibagiu,agua and
Ama1·auba. For the time being they were guarded
at night by one, NI arocaef.2) One day he had forgotten to close the
caves, and the sun escaped out of it, along 'with the first human
beings. PANE says that 1110St of the people came out of the cave
Cacibagiag1£a. By this we are probably to understand that the families
belonging to the caziqne class came out of Cacibagiagua, and
the C01111110n people out of A maiauba. NI arocael rushed to the spot,
but was transformed into a stone. It should be noted that these
caves, situated on the mountain of Cauta in the district of Caanan,
or Caunana,'l) actually existed. This passage may therefore
be taken as referring to an image carved in the rock, probably
representing some deity guarding the temple cave against evil
spirits. 1v! arocael \vas turned to stone, probably sharing the same
fate as befell others that happened to behold the personified sun.
It is evident that cave myths of this description only can be
maintained in regions where caves actually exist, which as we know
is abundantly the case in the wide limestone areas of the Tailloinhabited
regions. In other parts, where no caves are found, the
first people made their appearance from out of the underground.
Among the Island-Caribs, on the other hand, the belief prevailed
that the first man, Louquo, who descended from heaven, had »tIn
gros nom bril d' 011 il fit sortir les premiers hommes. »4) The motive
of the first man coming clown from heaven, through a hole in
the sky - often by means of a rope -- is, according to EHREN­
REICH, typical of the Carib tribes.5) But the idea of the first people
') C0111p. EHREXREICH, o/'. (it., p. 32, liitoto, Peru, Mexico.
') Possibly a son of Jklaol'o(otti, i. e. of the highest god, with Yocahu as his
iirst name. In the Taino language the suffix el denotes >ison ".
l') Cf. Caonao. Ii is possible that these caves are situated in Siam de CaOH(lo.
') DE LA BORDE, p . .1.
5) op. cit., p. 60.

566
having issued from some interior region, in the present instance
out of the belly of the creator, agrees "vith the conceptions above
referred to. It is also to be taken into consideration that the first
man is called Louquo, vvhich is nothing else than the Arawak lukku,
the word for 'man'. The True Arawaks ca11 themselves Louquina,
a form also occurring in DE Ijl. BORDE. This word is also found in
the Taino languag~, to judge from lucayos, meaning "island-men."
I am not aCfluainted with any myth from the True Ar.awaks
to the effect that the first men issued from the earth's interior,
although on the other hand I know of one from the Arekuna relating
the sun's apperance from the interior of a mountain. This
Arawak tribe occupies a caveless country. But on the savanna
of the Guiana interior, mountains are found. A medicine-man of
the Arekuna, related to OTTO THULIN on his travels through those
parts in 1912 -a sun myth akin to the Haitian one, according to
vvhich the sun was fettered in a cave, but eventually escaped
from it through 1\[ arocael having forgotten to close it up. North
of Roraima is situated a mountain shaped like a cooking-pot,
named Weiatsipl4" »the suncatcheu. 1 ) Once, when the sun was out
walking, he was ambushed by some people who tied him up and
placed a large pot on top of him, the pot being the Weiatsii)u
mountain. Subsequently, however, an Indian smashed the pot,
and the sun came out. 2 )
On the second day a number of the first Haitian men went
out fishing. The sun caught them, and, according to PANE, turned
them into hobo-trees. Here we find another instance of the
sun's power of working a spell on such as he may happen to meet
when he apllears on earth. Of this myth there is an Arawakan
analogy. In the dawn of time, when Adaili, the sun, under the
name of Arawidi was a man who engaged in fishing, he got very
angry with a crocodile he came across in his fishing waters, and
gave it a beating by way of punishment. 3 ) Possibly those Haitian
fishermen, just referred to, had in the same "vay been trespassing
on the sun's preserves.
") In Arekuna, wei: "sun'>: asipo: "to catch".
2) THLL1X, in )Gi:iteborgs-Posten's ,) Saturday Supplement, 26.8. 1932, and
private information ghcn the author.
3) BRF.'f'l', Legends and }I.Iyths, e/(., p. 125: Q1.'A;\iD'f, p. 257.

The people of The Pomeroon Arawaks and the \Varraus, believe
the mythical that men and women derive from separate creaage.
l'ANE, tors.4 ) In PANE ,,'e find no creation myths. But
Chap. II--XI.
this is not all: real Culture heroes, teaching mankind
how to turn to practical use such things as
already have been created, are likewise absent. Referring to the
Arawak myth groups, EHRENREICH points out that »Die Gestalten der
Kulturheroen sind verblesst und nur indirekt an ihren arowakischen
Namen in anderen Mythenkreisen erkennban.1) Typical of myths
among Haitians as well as True Arawaks is the motive of a person,
or persons, setting out on a journey, in the course of which in some
strange country they incidentally among other people come across
things that subsequently have proved of great importance in
their material or spiritual culture. Among the Haitians such
travels are laid in a southerly direction, towards islands nearer
the South American mainland. Among the True Arawaks, and
the \Varrau influenced by them, the voyaging is done northwards,
to islands in mid ocean, probably implying the Antilles. On the
other hand the Haitians appear to have forgotten everything
about their immigration into Espanola, and even more completely,
that they may possibly have lived on the South American continent
still earlier times. The voyages seem to be connected
with their pre-Carib trading intercourse with South America,
whence they obtained guanin and costly stone beads. From the
mainland, on the other hand, voyages were undertaken to the
islands for the purpose of obtaining there first tobacco, the Arawaks,
on an occasion I have described in the foregoing, also in
order to secure greenstone, or axes made of greenstone. In this
case the objective must have been the Greater Antilles or some of
the northern Lesser Antilles.
As already mentioned, among the Haitians men and women
could not have been the objects of different acts of creation.
Differentiation as to sex originated was effected in another way.
In the begining of time there lived in Espanola a man named
Guaguiona, who was greatly favoured by the women wherever he
sejourned. That he had got syphilis was presumably ascribable
1) D~e Jvlythen tt11d Legenden, etc. p. 60.

568
to that circumstance. Of him it is related that he made a long
and interesting voyage in the direction of the South American
mainland.
Guagugiona was in need of a herb, digo, with which to wash
himself, as will appear from the following in order to cure himself
of his syphilitic affliction. He despatched another man to gather
the herb in question, but the sun caught the messenger and turned
him into a small singing bird. As he did not return, Guaguiona
decided to seek the assistance of the women instead. He called
upon them to forsake their husbands and children and to travel
\vith him to foreign parts whence they would bring back with
them a great supply of jewels.
Then Guagugiona departed with all the women and went to
the island of .Matinin6. rfhis fabled island, which was exclusively
inhabited by women - erroneously identified vvith Martinique 1 )
- had become part of the Taino popular ,,,,orld of conceptions.
Even as early as on his first voyage, the Admiral heard of it at
Golfo de las Flechas (B. de Samana) as being peopled only by
women. 2) In the foregoing I have mentioned the occurrence of
this legend also among the True Arawaks and the \Varraus, the
latter significantly enough calling it »;Vlen \Vithout. »3) This is
the form in \vhich the Indian »amazon myth » appears among the
Tainos and the True Arawaks, respectively.
Guagugiona left the women behind on lVIatinin6, and there
after only women are found on it. He himself then went to Guanin,
»an island that received its name from what he fetched away
from it ». There he sa\v in the sea a woman who111 he found very
delightful. He was then covered with syphilitic sores. She
taught him various 'ways of \vashing them, and directed him to
washing places (hot springs?). He was made to stay some time at a
1) IlRTNTOX. The A rawak Language, etc., p. 443. .,J\;Iatillillo., does not either
occur as an Ignerllan name for any of the Lesse,r Antilles. According to TIRE'fox,
op. cit., p. 412, Martinique was kno'Ytl as Ioiianacacra, >\the iguana island ,>, this
being iis Jgllerian name.
') N.H·.\RRETIi, t. I, p. 284'--285.
3) }lIa in }vIatinina is probably the negatiYe, mao ::\lARTYH gives it in the
form of 111adanina. In the Arawakan language of Cauixana, "man'\ is called Zinanni
(GoEJE, Arawak lang. etc., p. 219). Possibly this word may also haye belonged
to the Tai110 language, so that also Matinin6 meant ndthont man .\.

569
gttanara, which means »sitio apartado ». There he was cured of his
sores, and thereupon the woman gives him a new name, Biberoci
Guaggiona. \Vhen children of True Arawaks have been cured of
an illness they are given a new name.!) She also presents Guagug1:ona
with »muchos guaninis, y sartas de piedrecillas para que se
las atase en los brazos, porque en aquella tierra son las gargantillas
de piedra que se pareee al mclrmol y las traen atadas a los
brazos y en la garganta, y les guaninis en las orejas, haciendose
los agujeros en elIas cuando ninos, y son de metal de florin ».
The same myth recours among the True Arav\'aks. Arawanili,
a chief in Kaieri (Trinidad) is standing on the seashore.2) In
the water then appears Orehu, the \Vater Mother. At their second
meeting she dives into the water and fetches up white, shining
stones. Here we find again those white stone beads that also the
Tainos priced very highly. I~ike Guabonito, Orehu is versed in
herbal medicine. She hands Ara7f)anili a tree to plant in his garden.
From its ripened fruit, his wife and children, whom thc evil spirit
Yauhahu had hit with his arrows, were to regain their health.3)
The vyoman with whom Guagaiona stayed on Guam'n would
most likely not have been anybody else than the vVater Mother.
The men were then left in Espanola, and no longer in the
possession of women, although keenly feeling the want of them.
Many times, when it rained, they went out to look for traces of
them. Onc day, while out in the forest they saw among the,
tree-branches some kind of peoples, caracaracoles, that were neither
men nor women. They suffered from the skin disease known as
caracaracol. »Es el caracaracol una enfermedad como tina, que
causa gran aspereza en cuerpo ». This means that the skin becomes
hard and rough, like the bark of trees. Those caracaracoles
fled precipitately, and the Haitians could not get at them.
The caught a woodpecker, Iuriri. Then they captured a
!lumber of carcaracoles, and in these the vvoodpecker pecked holes.
In that \yay the Haitians ,,,-ere again l)rovided with women.
') ROTH, A n Inquiry into the Animism, etc.
2) BRWl"J', Legends and ]'.11'lhs, etc., pp. 18-19. Xotc: »the plume he wore,
as chief of Kaieri». I have already mentioned that feather cro,yns among Arawaks
al1d Tainos were properly only worn hy chiefs.
") ROTH, iuid .. p. 246.

It would seem that in more primitive versions those mythical
beings consisted of wood, at which the bird in question pecks.
In Britisd Guiana this motive occurs in the follo\'ling form: There
was once an old \Varrau man who had no daughter and no sonin-la\'l
that might have contributed to his support. He then
carved a female figure in wood, and transformed it into a daughter
of his. This he had the power to do because he was medicine-man.
One day the sun called on him, and fell in love ''lith his daughter.
The father gave her in marriage to the sun. Then she became
aware of her deficiency, but her father was unable to put it right.
She then sought the help of a bunia-bird, which pecked a hole so
that thereby she became a complete woman. l ) A variant of the
myth is recorded by ROTH from the Makusis. Here the bird is a
"woodpecker".2) In an Arawak myth the motive is varied in yet
another way. A man was chopping into a hollow tree for honey.
From the inside of the tree he heard a voice crying out "take care
that you do not cut me!" He opened up the tree and saw a beautiful
woman, whom he found to be M aba (literally "honey", i. e. the
Mother of Honey). She consented to become his wife on the condition
that he never uttered her name.3 )
PANE'S myth in which the origin of fishes and the ocean is
explained as due to the overturning of a calabash (Chap. IX),
corresponds to the motive im of the origin of the ocean met with
in the South American Arawak myth cycle. 4 ) A man known as
Yaya, whose real name we are not allowed to know,") had a son
named }T ayel. Presumably those two are the sun and the moon,
who among the Tainos were father and son, while in South America
they are two brothers, or even man and wife. Yayael had designs
on his father's life, but when the father became aware of this, he
forestalled his son and killed him. The bones of the slain son he
hung up in a calabash in his hut. His wife longed for her son and
") Ibid., p. J30'
2) Ibid., p. 135.
3) Ibid., p. 204.
") EHREXREICH, op. cit., p. 60.
5) Java, the word for 'syphilis'; d. supra, Chap. Xl. Probably] aya, also
denotes 'thc sun'. Among the Aztecs, too, the syphilis god, N anahuatl, is consumed
in flames, aud rises like the SUllo

57 1
vvished to see him again. Yay a then took down calabash and
flung the contents into the sea, whereby the bones were turned
into fishes.
In Haitian myths the twin brothers are four in number, born
by a woman, Itiba Tahuah14a, but are nothing to do with the
usual twin brothers, the sun and the moon. EHRENREICH explains
them as the four cardinal points. It is possible that they rather
represent the four posts of the hut, below, which the l'omeron
Arawaks place cassava before they are driven down. I ) In favour
of this interpretation is the circumstance that these four brothers,
after having provided the Tainos with cassava, and also tobacco,
end up by building themselves a hut. By procuring yuca and tobacco
they have rendered important service to Tainan material culture.
But they are not culture heroes in the sense that they have themselves
devised plans for putting to practical use things that already
\"ere in existence. They only passed them on to the Taino. The
journey motive recurs here too, and in the course of it they discover
that some other person possesses the cultural plants in question.
At first they stayed at Yaya's house. One day, when he was
out working in his gardens, he had forgotten to see that the calabash
was properly fastened to the ceiling. The brothers tilted it,
and a lot of water poured out of it. Thus the ocean came into
being. According to another Tainan myth, the ocean and the
fishes originally issued from a certain kind of shell, of which the
Haitians preserved specimens as relics. 2 ) Among the Carib Acka­
\voi of British Guiana a myth relates that a monkey removed a
basket that covered a hollow tree-trunk, and then came the delugeY)
The brothers took fright when they saw the effect of their
upsetting the calabash, and fled away from Yaya. They came
upon a man who subsequently was found to be a powerful wizard.
They saw him carrying a load of cassava, and said to him: "Let
us instruct our grandfather about this". This cassava becomes
') RO'i'H, An Inquiry into the Animism, eic., p. 230.
2) Cf. GmIARA, p. 37.
3) BrU!T'f, Ind. Tribes, eic., p. 381; 1M THLR;'\', Am. the Ind. etc., p. 380; Cf.
EHRI

572
what is to this day the daily bread of the Espanola Indians. One
of the brothers, Caracaracol, which as already mentioned means
»scabby» (from vinal), entered the hut and asked for cassaYa.
But the man instead poked into his nose a guanguaya1) filled with
tobacco in the form of snnff. The man hit him on the shoulder
with the calabash, referred to as »guanguaia» C aracaracol felt an
increasing pain from the blow, and a swelling appeared on the
spot where he had been struck. This swelling became very hard,
and the brothers had to use a stone axe for making a hole in it.
Out of it then came a female tortoise. This tortoise they took
with them to the hut they thereupon built, and there they
kept it in food. PANE says that he does not understand this
episode.
Neither is it from the early authors apparent that the tortoise
had any religious function among the l'ail1o. But that this
nevertheless was the case is eyident from the idol brought by
SCHO:.vIBURGK from Santo Domingo, representing a bird standing
on a tortoise and feeding it with its beak.2) This is undoubtedly
a zemi group, as in its upper part traces can be seen o'f a »canopy»,
or sacrificial table. On the Antilles, representations of tortoises
otherwise occur farther south.3 ) It is frequently represented in
Armvak culture in Trinidad. 4 ) JOYCE opines that a tortoise is
represented on a Puerto Rican stone chair,5) If this is correct,
we haye here another instance of the tortoise appearing as a
zemi. In this connection I would refer to what I have previously
cited from OVIEDO, namely that he that sits 011 a du/zo sits on it
not alone but accompanied by a zemi. Neither in records of the
Tainos, nor from northeastern South America have I found anything
in evidence of the Indians having kept tortoises in their
huts by way of some kind of household gods.
1) BRASSEUR DE BOURBOURG is of opinion that {.;uall{.;uiao means iia bag ",
but this seems unlikely. The authoritatiye sources make no reference to real
bags among the Tainos,
2) JOYCE, Centro Amer, and vVest Ind. Arch., pI. XXI.
:l)FEWKI\S, I, pI. 90, a--a; can-cd in wood, and pierced for sHspcnsioll, St.
Vincent,
4) FEWKES, I, pI. 58 a-a', of stone. In pottery FEWKES II, pI. 3 C, FE\\"­
KES I, pI. 115 b-b',
5) JOYCE, p. 223 and fig, 53: FEWKES I, pI. ')2 h--b'.

573
This ends PANE'S relation of the primitive myths of the Haitians.
From the comparison cited it will be evident that in their
essential features they agree with the myths of the True Arawaks
No appreciable foreign influence is noticeable. Certain modifications
no doubt took place in the Arawak myths after the move to
the Antilles. There is an absence of the greater part of the animals
that in tropical South America play such a prominent part in the
myths. Even in South America the part played by animals is
very considerably smaller in the Arawak myths than in those of
the Caribs and the Warraus.
Conceptions to The Haitians differentiated between the soul of
as to souls and the living, Goeiz1 ) and the spirits of the dead,
post existences Opia. LAS CASAS says: »hupia no era otra cosa
PANE, Chap.
XXII-XXIII. sino el anima de hombre, porque asi llamaban a1
anima. »2) Below, it will however be apparent
that he refers to the noctural spirits, that is to say the spirits
of the dead. Even a Goeiz is able to roam outside of its body.
This kind of Goeiz one is occasionally able to see, both in male
and female shape. Once a man met a Goeiz and wanted to lay
hold of it and fight it. But the Goeiz climbed up a tree, and
there clung to a branch. It may happen that while on a walk
abroad one may encounter the Goeiz of one's father, mother, or
brother.
Of a somewhat different character are the hupias. These are
as a rule, only abroad at night-time. Then they wander about in
the bush and pick a fruit resembling the quince, Guabaza. Occasionally
they join company with human beings. You then touch
them on the belly, and if there is no navel, then it is a hupia, and
it will instantly disappear. The Haitians greatly feared to walk
about alone in the night. In Guiana it is spirits of the bush that
at night visit women in the form of »their real husbands or lovers ».
The women are able to distinguish them by their having no big
') Among the True Arawaks, gaguche were the souls of the departed that
'went to dwell with the powerful lord of the heavenly kingdom.
2) Apol. Hist. ed. SERRANO y SANZ, p. 535. The word hupia may be accepted
as thc equivalent of the Calinago opoyem (f), BRETON, p. 424.

574
toe on the left foot, this marks them as not being real men. I )
OTTO THULIN has been kind enough to inform me that in many
instances he was told by the Indians of Guiana that a dream was
the fonndation of this kind of visit, and that this dream invariably
was accepted as a reality.
The dead have their feasts and dances in the forest in the
same way as the living. True Arawaks believe that the happiness
of the hereafter consists in there being no illness of any kind, and
that the time is passed in feasting and dancing.
The Haitians believed in a kingdom of death, Coaibai, situated
011 their own island. By Guarionex, PANE was told that the
name of that place was Soraya. But the latter only seems to have
applied to the realm of Guarionex. Every cazique of importance
in EspaTIola possessed a place of this kind in his kingdom.2) The
True Arawaks believe that the spirits of evil people after death
wander about in uninhabited, desolate places.3) The Island-Caribs
believed that all the spirits of the body, Omicou, except that of
the heart, which goes to heaven,4) went to the seashore or became
evil spirits, mapoyas, infesting the forests. Even such l1uipoyas as
they encountered on the edge of the sea brought them bad luck
and overturned their canoes. 5) Thus the postexistence of the
spirits of the dead differed between True Arawaks and Island­
Caribs.
On the Antilles no conception of an underworld, like that of
the :VIayas can be found.
In Espanola, on the other hand, there obtained a different
conception, alien to Guiana and the Island-Caribs. The kingdom
of death has a ruler \vho lives there in a house. This is a Mexican
belief. But the Haitian were so entirely uninfluenced by the
polytheism of Mexico that, while Mictlantecutli is a real god,
i11 achetauric Guanana originally is nothing but the first man, VdlO
after his death went to Coaiabai.
l) ROTH. 1bid., p. 172.
') The A dmiral's leiter, BoeRNE, p. 313.
:I) ROTH, i/Jid., p. 161.
') Dl' TERTRE, p. 312.
5) ROC'HI,rORT, p. 4 84.

lIedicine-men. Bohutios. buhitibus, piaies, and behiqttes among
PANE, Chap. the Tainos exercised two different kinds of functions.
For one thing, they were medicine-men.
XIV~XVIII.
Already in that capacity each had his own private
zem£ whom they consulted, whereupon they were able to impart
to the common people not only information as to whether a sick
man would recover, but also how he would fare in the matter upon
which he had sought advice from the piaie. For another thing they
acted as intermediaries for the zeml figures that were set up
in special huts, laying before them the supplications and offerings
of the people, delivering the oracular answers of the zemis, officiated
as priests of the cult and saw to it that the people did not
neglect the worship of the zcmls. and for the rest being a sort of
temple officials. \Vhether the piaies of the lastmentioned category
were identical with the medicine-men, or a separate class, is not
ascertainable from our sources of information.
The medicine-men proper were able to converse with the dead,
and to obtain from them information on the matter they had been
called in for, particularly in cases of illness.
The bohutio begins his treatment of his patient by prescribing
a certain diet, and a cleansing of the nose with cahoba snuff, sucked
up through a tube. He has himself to observe the same diet and
snuff the same cahoba as his patient.!)
All the persons gathered together in the house of the ratient
have their faces painted black at the visit of the bohutio - as
PANE says "con ho1l1n 6 carbon", but probably with xagua. They
are silent, and if there are children in the house these are sent away
so as not to make a noise and interrupt the buhitio in his performance.
From two herbs they make a paste which they swallO\v in
order to vomit. 'When by this means they have got rid of the evil
spirits that they may have harboured in their stomachs,2) they be-
575
') Among the True Amwaks, also the relatives of the sick person had to obsene
a prescribed diet, ROTH, ibid" pp. 348 and 352, This custom prevailed
also among other Guianan tribes.
') \Vhen the Island-Caribs preceived an offensivc smell they said "mapoya",
and thereby meant that an evil spirit had passed by. See ROCHEFORT, p, 464,
ft may not be unlikely that the vexations they suffered in the night-time from
rnapoya were due to flatulence,

gin to chant and llght some kind of illumination, probably a torch.
Thus it is the assemblage, not the medicine-man, that sings the
magic chant. \Vhen this has come to an end, the bohitio rises and
approaches the patient, who is lying in the centre of the hut, sits
down by him and touches various parts of his body. He then pulls
at him violently, as if he wanted to pull out (desollar) something.
After that he walks to the entrance of the hut, and calls out: »away
with you to the forest, or the sea, or wherever you like!» He then
returns to the patient, whose mouth he closes with shaking hands,
and sucks at various parts of his body while drawing in his breath,
as if sucking him even to the marrow.
"Vhen he is through with this, he begins to cough and gesticulate,
as if he had eaten something of bitter taste, and spits out a
piece of meat or a bone that he has been keeping in his mouth.
Then he says to the patient: »mark well that you have eaten something
that has caused you to be ill. I~ook what I have taken
out of your body. Some zemi has put is inside of you because you
have not approached him in prayer, nor have you built him a
house or set apart a garden for him ». In case it is a stone, he says:
»preserve this well! » Certain stones were believed to assist women
in child-birth, and these they kept in the hut, vvrapped in cotton
wool. These stones were trated in the same way as zemi figures, and,
like the latter, were provided with food.
The whole procedure observed by the medicine-man in treating
his patient is similar to that among the tribes of the tropical
lowlands of South America. But in the latter case it is only an evil
spirit that has entered the body of the patient. Not, in addition,
some god who has allowed this because of the sick person having
neglected the worship due to him. As early as among the True
Arawaks and tribes of British Guiana, as well as on the low-er
Orinoco, zemiism existed in nuce. Among the True Arawaks it
occasionally happened that the sick man, after he had got well,
brought offerings and gave a feast. Possibly PANE suggests this
(Cap. XVI) in his mention of the sacrificial feast. The cured
person owed a »satisfactio » to the zemi.
The treatment is not always successful, but the patient dies.
The relatives then consider the question whether the fault lies
with the medicineman, through his not having scrupulously observ-

577
ed the proper diet. In the foregoing I have described how the
dead body is painted with the juice of guaio (coca) and powder produced
by pounding the nails and the hair of his forehead. They
believed that the dead person would then tell them whether the
bohuti is guilty or innocent of his death.
They also possessed another means of throwing light on the
matter. They took charcoal from the hearth, and with that they
covered the corpse in the way a charcoal-kiln is built up. While
the corpse is embedded in the burning charcoal, they address
questions to it in the same way as is done after the treatment with
guaro. In the one case the dead is waked to life for a moment
through the stimulation of the guaio, in the other through the heat
of the fire. In the nails and the hair part of the vital power is preserved.
If either of these investigations brought an answer from the
dead that the medicine-man was responsible for his death, the relatives
some day get together, hunt him up and beat him with clubs,
smashing his arms, legs and head,l) breaking his body all up, and
then let him lie, believing him to be dead. But in the night there
come along a multitude of snakes -. white, black, green, and
many-coloured - and lick his face. This imparts to him a vitalizing
impulse, his limbs reassemble, and he sets off for his home
again. People he meets on the way ask him: »are you not dead? ».
He tells them that the zemis.came to his assistance in the form of
snakes. The avenging relatives of the dead thereupon kill the medicine-man
a second time, but on this occasion they do not neglect
to remove his eyes and testicles, because if this is not done, no medicine-man
is really dead. Thus, in the burning of the corpse
particularly that of a medicine-man at Roraima, what is aimed at
is total annihilation, so as to prevent him from ever returning to
the circle of the living.
A third method of ascertaining whether the medicine-man,
from not having observed the proper diet, has caused the death of
his patient consists in the relatives assembling in his hut. If it is
then seen that he is full of sores, and has lost his hair, it is evident
that he has failed to keep the proper diet. Thereby he would no
1) In the same sequence were dealt the club-blows to war-prisoners at the
('allllibal feasts among the Island -Caribs and the Tupis.
37

doubt have foregone his power to maintain his health against the
malign spirit influence that worked the patient's death. Then the
relatives conclude to kill him in the way described above.
By neglecting to keep diet, the medicine-man has exposed
himself to the influence of evil spirits that have worked mischief on
him. Among the Galibis of Guiana it is the Spirit Hyorahon that
causes the body to be covered with sores. 1)
Zemiism and The term zemiism in connection with Taino religion
was introduced by FEWKES. He enumera­
zcmi figures.
PANE, Chap.
tes the different kinds of zeln£s.
XIX--XXV]
Seeing that only zemis were accorded worship,
and XV.
or consulted as advisers or possessors of knowledge
as to future happennings it may be said that zemiism constitutes
the fundamentary element of Taino religion.
In order to explain the nature of zemiism, we must begin by
inquiring into what constitutes a zemi, its character and its functions.
PANE, and to a certain extent other authorities on the Tainos,
provide us with valuable information on these points. But no
enlightenment is supplied us as to the meaning of the 'worel itself.
This word, zemi, also occurs among the True Arawaks, and
from the various connections in which it appears we are also able
to form an idea as to the origin of zemiism, which derives from the
South American continent, although in its forms zemiism reached
a far wider development in Tainian - nay, even, if we may judge
archaological discoveries, though in a lesser degree, in Ignerian regions
then ever it did among the True Ara\vaks.
Seme is a True Arawakan word for a benevolent spirit. It
also stands for »to be sweet», or »delicate».2) A seme inspire;;the
medicine-m.an, semi-ci. At the time of RODRIGO DE NAVARRETE
(1545). the True Arawaks had a meeting place or school where
they assemble as in a manner for preaching. There are among
them old and wise men whom they call Cemetti, these assemble in
the houses designed for their meetings, and their old men raccount
the traditions and exploits of their ancestors and great men, and
also narrate what those ancestors had heard fron their forefathers,
") ROTH, Ibid., p. 181.
2) GOBJE, .4 raw. Lang .• p. 30.

579
so that in this manner they re-assemble the most ancient event of
their country and people. And in like manner they recount or
preach about heavens, sun, moon and stars>}.1)
There is nothing in this description of RODRIGO DE NAVARRETE
to justify the identification of these semet£s with medicine-men
Among the True Arawaks social conditions were not so aristocratic
as among their kinsmen in Espanola, where traditions above all
were handed down vyithin the caiique families. It is of great interest
for comparison with the Tainos that the True Aravvaks had
special places for religious meetings at which traditions were recounted.
Among the Tainos, as vve know, the areitos to a large extent
dealt with things ancient and traditional. Therefore, when
FEWKES describes plazas as dancing places it appears quite wellfounded,
even if they may have been used also for other religious ceremonies
and as ball-playing grounds.
In a later stage of development these assemblies of wise men
ceased to exist among the True Arawaks. In the course of time
semi-ci, semetti,2) came to denote medicine-man, sorcerer, doctor
lJriest, and semeci-hi witchcraft. 3 ) According to ROTH, not only
the medicine-man but also his magic equipment is called semi, of
semi-cihi 4 ) Among the True Arawaks ROTH has of this equipment
collected the puppet and neck ornaments.5) At Barima it was customary
to inter a deceased medicine-man together with a small
puppet carved in wood. 6) These puppets are used by the Arawak
madicine-men in their incantations. If the puppet remains erect,
the patient will recover (ROTH p. 331). Also the True Aravvaks
possess the word7) for 'medicine-man' corresponding to the Tai-
') RODW,\Y, Timchri, r895, p. ro.
') (;OE]E; Hel J1Ierwaardige Kamihisrh, Dc \\·cst·Indische Cids, decl 14,
's Cra\'l,nhagc 1

580
nian piaie. But on the other hand, neither among the Tainos nor
the Island-Caribs has it been possible to record out of the early
literature any apellatioll for 'medicine-man' of which zemi, or chemi,
forms a compound. Nevertheless, among both these peoples
the playes, or boies, intermediated communication with the spiritual
world, and among the Tainos particularly with the zemis even to
a greater extent than the Arawak medicine-men. Among the Island-Caribs
every boyd possessed a spirit of his own.!) In Espanola,
every piai was the possessor of a zemi figure vvhich he ahvays
carried about him.2) Among the True Arawaks, too, each medicine-man
had his own spirit figurine which he often wore round his
neck.3) Among Island-Caribs as well as the Taino it was not UllUsua!
for common people to carryon their person small figurines.
The Island-Caribs wore round the neck a figurine representing an
evil spirit,4) a mapoya image carved in wood. 5) Figurines were
worn by the Haitians not only round the neck,6) but also on the
forehead, the latter in particular when going into battle.7) The
difference of religious conception between the Island-Caribs and
the Tainos is here clearly discernible. The Island-Caribs put themselves
under the protection of a an evil spirit designed for striking
terror into enemies or malevolent powers, while the Tainos wore a
zemi, that is to say a figurine representing a benevolent spirit, as a
sort of helpmate, or for inspiring them with courage in war.
From these individually owned figurines which vvere not in
the strict sense accorded worship, there is a far cry to the large,
set-up idols that at special feasts were SUbjected to worship by the
whole community. To this latter --- and higher - stage the
Tainos had attained. They possessed a zemiistic cult, and zemlistic
oracles inspired through the images.
One of the sources of fully developed zemiism is, as already
described, the piaie's connection with the spirit world of the zemls.
1) ROCHEFORT. p. 472, BRIXTON, p. 5(1.
') OVIEDO, t. I, p. r 2(,.
3) Compo RO'l'H, An inquiry etc., p. 352---353.
4) ROCHEltORT, p. 479
5) Dr; TERTRE, p. 370.
6) OVIEDO, t. I. p. 126.
7) COMARA, cap. 28; lVLIRTvR-JYIacKlItt, p. 339.

581
Its ongm reveals itself in the position occupied by the Haitian
piaies as go-betweens of the large zemi figures. The intermediary
offices of the piaie with regard to the zemi figures owned by the
caziques or the communities en Espanola were necessary for obtaining
the benefits or the information that the supplicant was in
need of from the spirit world.
The assistance of the piaie had to be called in when it was
desired to find out to which particular departed cazique belonged
the spirit dwelling in a given tree, and, upon the tree by its
movements having supplied this information, to ask whether he
wished the tree to be felled and its wood carved into a figure
to be set up in a house and allotted a piece of garden for its
maintenance. I ) The piaie further inquired of the spirit as to the
fashion in which he wished his image to be made. Following the
spirit's directions he then manufactures the image,2) not in human
shape but grotesque - as I,AS CASAS says - of monkey resemblance.
Especially qualified wise men are thereupon appointed as
servants to the zemi (A pol. Hist., p. 332). Nor is it in particular
piaies, but more often certain elders, that, concealed in a corner of
the hut, by means of a speaking tube deliver oracular answers as
if coming direct from the zemi figure. But the piaies pass on to
the people the ordinary oracular answers of the zemi figure, after
having intoxicated themselves with cahoba snuff. Should a prophecy
not come true, the piaies pleaded that the zemi had subsequently
varied the advice it had given. Only the caziques and the
nobles were able, at their ceremonious cahoba meetings, to receive
direct inspiration from the zemi without the intervention of a
piaie.
In the foregoing reference has been made to the intermediary
position occupied by the piaies at the harvest feasts in Espanola,
when they received the women's offerings of cassava carried in
baskets, which they blessed, broke up, and distributed among the
people to be kept in the huts during the next twelvemonth as a
protection against perils, such as lightning and tempests. 3 ) The
same idea of intermediacy as in Espanola is met with among the
1) PANE, cap. XIX; Apol. Hist., ed. SERRANO y SANZ, p. 332.
2) PANE, cap. XIX.
3) MARTYR-MacNutt, vol. II, p. 319; GOMARA, cap. 27.

stlz
Guaraunos of the Orinoco delta, a tribe strongly influenced by the
True Arawaks in their religious conceptions. Here, too, the medicine-men
receive the people's offerdings of the fruits of the earth
in the same way as in Espanola. They then address the people in
a disguished voice, transmitting messages from the rain god, Gebu,
and the lesser spirits.l) Among the Guaranos the entire festival is
carried out in a form much resembling that observed in the corresponding
harvest feast in Espanola. But the Guaraunos possess 110
images. Instead, the medicine-men call down the presence of
Gebu by means of maraca, and at the conclusion of the ceremonies
send him back to the clouds with a farewell incantation. Among
the Guaraunos no such aristocratic organisation is found as that
which once prevailed in Espanola. They have no cazique among
them to conduct the feast. This was in Espanola quite naturally
closely connected with the circumstance that there the cazique
owned the zemi images. Among the Island-Caribs, too, the boyes
received the offerings (anacri) of oiiicoz£, (cassava-beer), \'V'hich
were deposited upon the low sacrificial table (matoutou), whose top
of interwoven oiia116man measured I to z square feet, was set on legs
four feet and a half in heighU) The offerings thus brought were of
kinds similar to those among the Tainos and the Guaraunos, viz.
cassava and the first-fruits of the season, to which among the Island-Caribs
was added ouicou, vvhich with them played a far more
important part at their feasts than among the Tainos. The boyes
appropriated the offerings to their own use.:J) In Espanola the
offerings had disappeared by the next morning, and the people
believed that the zernis had eaten them. 4 ) No doubt the offerings
here went the same way as among the Island-Caribs. Along with
their offerings the Island-Caribs put up no invocations, this being a
practice entirely unknown to them. 5) Neither did they possess,
set-up images. The boye began by calling down the spirit
concerned by means of incantation and then further enticed him
') LEOK\RD V. DALTON, Veuezuela, London] 912, p. 128-I 30.
2) DRETOX. p. 5(), 35]; Dg LA BORDE. p. I3; l{UCllEFORT, p. 472.
3) DE I,A J3clRDE, ibid.
4) PANE, cap. XVI.
5) BRETON, p. 433.

\vith tobacco smoke.I ) which tickles the spirit pleasantly in the
nose, and draws him on. 2 )
Among the Tainos the piaies lastly had to supervise that
the people properly observed the fasting prior to the ceremonies,
and to punish omissions in this respect.a) But as to what punishments
were awarded we have no information.
The medicine-roen's connection with the spirit world through
their own zemis, and their ability of being of service to such as
sought their assistance by virtue of those supernatural powers of
theirs, this is what constituted one of the sources of zemiism among
the Tainos. This simpler form of zemiism occurs, as has already
been mentioned, also among the True Arawaks, and there are
good reasons for believing that it had developed already before
the ancestors of the Tainos had left the South American continent.
And by it we are, in fact, able to explain the miniature image the
medicine-man carried about of his zemi. But from these tiny
figurines there is, as already pointed out, a long step to the large
and set-up images.
In the latter case the origin is to seek elsewhere. As already
mentioned, in Espanola the zem! figures were the property of
caziques - often representing some departed cazique or other -
were set up in the cazique's house and worshipped by the people,
through the intermediacy of the piaies, it is true, but under the
direction of the cazique when on the occasion of a feast he granted
admittance to the common people. We have also seen that, at
special cahoba meetings of the nobles, at which the cazique presided
and had the principal say, these worthies themselves, without the
intervention of piaies, were able to get into direct communication
with the zemi spirit world. This second factor in the origin of
zemiism thus reveals itself as ancestral worship, an institution
which among the Tainos had attained such a lligh degree of development
in connection with their aristocratic organisation that it
was without parallel among their kinsmen on the continent, the
True Arawaks. The latter have, on the whole, not got beyond
the stage of the zemiism of the piaies. Among the Tainos the
1) BRETON, p. 2I7.
2) ROCHEFORT, p. 47 2 .
3) GOMARA, Paris IS87, p. 39.

zemiism of the piaies had blended with the zemiism of the caziques,
resulting in a religious whole.
Among the Tainos, ancestral zemiism was above all bound
up with set up figures. But preceding these, there had however
been a stage characterized by remains of the departed having
been preserved with a view to benefiting, in some way or other,
by their magic power those who were left behind. In this connection
we must bear in mind the Indian belief that what remains of
the departed's soul survives in his bones.I ) That the utilization of
the bones of ancestors for supernatural puposes to the benefit of
the surviving relatives must have been of greater antiquity than
the practice of invoking the aid of ancestors by the medium of
images representing them, is apparent already from the fact that
in South America the preservation of ancestral bones is more
widely distributed than are the images in question.
The Tainos are also to be included with those peoples who
preserved the bones of their departed in baskets kept in the domestic
hut. As to this, I refer to the myth recorded by PANE in
the foregoing, in which account is given of how the ocean and the
fishes led their origin from human bones preserved in a calabash,
and to the human heads in a basket that the Admiral's men saw
in Cuba and Espanola. PANE expressly enumerates among zemis
the bones of fathers or mothers that the Haitians kept in their
possession (Cap. XV). But we have good reasons for supposing
that those bones were not as potent as the images. The Island­
Caribs preserved the hair, and occasionally also the bones, of
their ancestors in a calabash within the hut, "dont ils se servent
pour quelque sorcellerie, et les avertit du dessein de leurs enemis".2)
They also had "marmousets de coton" containing decayed
human bones which they consulted as oracles in cases of illness as
to whether the patient would recover or die. 3) Even the puppet
of the medicine-man among the Arawaks on the Pomeroon river
has for its business "to give prognosis, to lend assistance, etc. "4)
Among the Island-Caribs the primary object of the relics of the
1) Compo KOCH-GRUNBERG, Zwei Jahre, etc., Bd. II, p. 153.
2) DE LA BORDE, p. 15.
3) ROCHEFORT, p. 479.
4) ROTH, An Inquiry into the Animism, etc., p. 331.

dead were to give oracular answers. There is nothing to indicate
their having been able to do more than that. Among the Tainos
the primary and most incontestable character of the zemis, that of
being oracles, prevailed. But in addition they also had the power,
at any rate indirectly, to bring about events of material usefulness
to man, above all the rain required for the growth of the crops.
As I have already mentioned, in Espanola were found images
encasing bones of deceased caziques, each of which was invoked
under the names of the caziques concerned. According to LAS
CASAS, those images were made of wood.l ) If this is correct, they
must have been hollow. Among archaeologically recovered images
I do not, however, know of any of this kind. It would have been
more in the nature of things for the bones to have encased in
cotton cloth, wrapped round them, as among the Island-Caribs.
Images constructed of cotton are not, it is true, mentioned by
PANE. But MARTYR has in his own hands held "images, in the form
of seated figures, out of plaited cotton, tighly stuffed inside" .2)
When the Admiral immediately upon the conclusion of his second
voyage was entertained by BERNALDEz at the latter's rectory at
Palacio, he had with him Tainian images of various kinds. These
also included figures made of cotton, "de bulto'',3) which implies
that the were tightly stuffed. We are, however, left without
information as to whether these images contained human bones.
But CRONAU, who in 1903 visited the town of Santo Domingo,
heard of a cotton figure which had been discovered in a cave at
Maniel, to the west of the capital. "According to the same author
the head of the specimen was a skull with artificial eyes and
covered with woven cotton".4) In this figure will very markedly
be seen the characteristic Tainian features of eye-circles (inlaid),
ear pendants, knee-fillets, and, above all, the big navel.5) The
figure appears in erect posture. The Ignerian cotton figures that
were found by the French in caves in Martinique had inlaid eyes,6)
1) Apol. Hist., ed SERRANO y SANZ, p. 321.
2) MACNuTT's ed. p. 167.
3) BERNAI,DEZ, t. II, p. 79.
4) FEWKES I, p. 213-214.
0) Ibid., fig. 43.
6) Du TERTRE, t. II, p. 369.

586
like the Santo Domingo figure just referred to. As to whether
those Ignerian cotton figures contained bones nothing is said.
In Espanola it was properly only bones of departed caziques
that were incased in the figures. We also find throughout that
it was only caziques that after death were worshipped as zemis in
the form of set up zemi idols. In most cases it was the spirits of
caziques that dwelt in them, but exceptions did however occur
when this was not the case.
Among the Haitians the spirit of a cazique did not pass immediately
from his body into the figure as it did among the Caquetios,
who carved a wooden figure in representation of their diao,
or chief cazique, on the very day he died. I ) The Haitians
carved an image of a deceased cazique even generations after he
had died and only existed as a traditional celebrity in their areitos.
His spirit could only be embodied in a wooden figure after the
discovery of the tree in which it dwelt. PANE (cap. X III) relates
how hupias haunted the forests at night and there kept festivals
in the way the living did. As feasts were presided over by the
caziques it follows that also their hupias must have been present.
In the forest or on the savanna their spirits in the end took up
their abode in some tree. According to PANE, these wooden images
were exclusively made from trees in which dwelt the spirit of some
cazique or other (Chap. XXI). Trees of this kind were recognizable
by their roots moving (ibid). Another episode is related by
him in which a wooden beam found in a pit where a hunted animal
had sought refuge showed that it possessed life. This beam
proved to contain the spirit of Guarionex' father. They took it
home to their village and built a house for it, but the beam again
and again returned to the place whence it was taken, and even
tying it up in a »sack » (Cap. XXIV, »saco ») was of any use. In
this particular case no image was carved from the beam, but it
became zemi in its unaltered state.
With this, We are entering upon a property possessed by the
Haitian wooden images, viz. that of animatism. This property
may be inferred because when a tree or a log of wood showed
itself capable of supernatural mobility, seeing that in its mass
') OVIEDO, t. II, p. 300, p. zz.
Compo sain. tiao, lord.

there dwelt the spirit of a cazique, then it followed that the figure
that was carved frcm this material must be endowed with the
same quality, and this in a still higher degree on the ground of
its being in human shape. The spirit is then 110 longer confined
within a tree, where it only was able to manifest its animatism by
moving its roots whereby it was anchored to the soil, but has
become an detached figure with the power of moving about.
P AXE records several drastic tales of this kind, which were believed
in by the Haitians. I do not here propose to cite episodes that
only refer to images having left their stations, or even broken the
ropes by which they were tied by way of precaution (PANE, Cap.
XXII). A similar propensity as that of the hupias to enter a hut
ill the night and lie with a woman we also find in the case of a zemi
figure (Cap. XXI). Among the True Arawaks it was the nature
spirits that behaved in this way. But conceptions of untamed
and unattached nature spirits were among the Tainos of such
secondary importance as to be hardly traceable in our literary
sources.
Zemi idols have need of food in the same way as hnmans. They
take revenge and send illness upon him that neglects to give them
yuca to eat (PANE Cap. XX, and d. Cap. XVI). The images
are kept in good health by being smeared with yuca juice. l ) Once
a zemi figure had been damaged by burning by the enemy in a
war. It was then washed with yuca juice, whereupon it grew new
arms, and got new eyes, and regained its former stature (Cap.
XX).
The images found in Mayan villages2) also appear to have
been endowed with a11imatism. Even to this day the Mayas
ascribe to images of saints the ability of wandering about. »A
celebrated wooden image supposed to represent San Bernardo
used to betake itself to the bush for the purpose of hunting wild
pigs ».3) It is probable that the Tain05 were influenced from
Yucatan both as regards the manufacture of wooden images and
') B,' this is probably meant cassareep.
") Compo Ronrm'r REDFIEI,D and AI,i"ONSO VII,I,AR, Chan Kom, A 1'vlaya
Viila!;e. Carnegie lntitution of Washington, 1934, p. 107---109. !)Santo is closely
iclentifyed with its illlmage}) (p. 108).
3) G,l"N.. Bur. Am. Ethnol .. Bull. 04, p. 40.

588
in their belief that images were able to move about independently.
To this belief they were also predisposed by the supernatural
movements of tree from which the image was carved. These
movements were by the Haitians explained by the tree, or the
log, being inhabited by some deceased cazique. ROTH is personally
acquainted with Arawaks who believe that the silk cotton tree
"moves within a circuit at midnight, and returns to its proper
place". DANCE states that its guardian spirit "walks round the tree
at mid-day and at mid-night"l). But True Arawakan belief does
not include the idea of a deceased person's spirit dwelling in a
tree and giving rise to supernatural movements. Neither are
large, set-up images known among the True Arawaks. Among
the Indians of Guiana SCHOMBURGK found "not the slightest trace
of idolatry".2) Nor does RODRIGO DE NAVARRETE, who has given us
the earliest account of Arawakan religion, mention anything
about large and detached images, not even in his description of
their religious assemblages where the cemetus, or "old and wise
men", spoke of their traditions and the "great men" of the past.3)
But even though images were unknown among the True
Arawaks during the era while they still remained uninfluenced by
European culture, we are not justified in definitely deriving at
any rate the wooden images of the Tainos from Yucatan or the
Southeastern States. Images also occurred in the tropical lowlands
of Sonth America. \Vith his somewhat limited knowledge
of the early literature, EURm,RF;IcH only knew images from the
upper Amazonas in regions that were influenced by Peruvian
culture. But NORDEXSKIOLD, being more thoroughly acquainted
with this literature, has established the distribution of images also
in lower districts of that region. Thus among the Curipul10S and
the Zurinos of the Purus delta were found wooden images of such
naturalistic execution that Acuna recommends their study to the
sculptors of his home country.4)· These Indians were directly
') ROTH, A n Inquiry intn the Animism, etc., sect. r64.
2) ROTH, Ibid., p. 137, cit. ;';CHmmURGK.
3) Timehri, r895, pt. r, p. ro.
4) According to MARTn:s, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 415, Curipuno means "water
men", a name applied to several tribes, entirely differing in origin, that inhahited
the middle region of Amazonas.

S89
influenced from Peru, because Quichua words form part of their
language.1 ) Indians on the lower reaches of Tapaj6z and Trombetas,
and the Araquizes living between this river and the Madeira,
possessed painted wooden idols set up in huts, and in particular
worshipped a fertility deity.2) Proceeding farther north, we learn
that a Palicour Indian informed HARCOuRT (1608) that higher up
the \Viapoco it was said that there lived a tribe known as the
Marashewaccas who possessed a stone image: "They haue placed
it in a house made of purpose for the greater honour of it, which
they keepe very deane and hansome. This Idole is fashioned like
a man sitting vpon his heeles, holding vpon his knees, and resting
his elbowes vpon them, holding vpon his hands with the paimes
forwards, looking vpwards, and gaping with his month wide open.
The meaning of this proportion he could not declare, although
he hath been many times amongst them, and hath often seene
it".3) \Vhen comparison is made with the Tainos, the posture of
this figure is of the very greatest interest. A wooden figure in a
similar posture has been found in Santo Domingo.4) This is the
posture once assumed by the common Tainan people when in
the open air they set up a united shout in farewell to the Admiral's
ships during his first voyage. Very probably this valedictory
chorus was addressed to the celestial powers, seeing that the
Tainos, as we know, to begin with believed that the Spaniards had
descended from heaven.
As regards Trinidad I mentioned in Chap. I that "Harova, a
stone god for the headache", was known to the Arawaks of Curiapan.
\Ve have no reason to suppose otherwise than that DuDLEY
is referring to an ordinary, unworked stone and not to a stone
idol. In any case the Arawaks of Trinidad possessed small amn-
1) MARTH1S, ibid.
2) ERI,AND NORDEKSKIiiI,D, L'/lnheologie dn lJassin de l'Amazone, p. II, cit.
ACT-XA.
3) NORDENSKli\I,D, ibid., p. 15, cit. HARCOl:R'l', Hakl. Soc., Ko. 60. I do
not beIieye that this tribe, Ii'dng far inland, were of Caribean stock, but more
probably Arawaks who had learnt stone sculpture from their kinsmen of the lower
Amazonas. The Palicour Indian has, as we know, repeatedly visited this village,
a thing yery unlikely if it had belonged to the hostile Caribs .
. 1) FEWKES 1, fig. 38.

590
lets of sculptured stone. 1 ) Archaeological finds from this island
are derived from middens in which there are no great possibilities
for the survival of of wooden sculptures.
On the Orinoco below the Raudales 110 large set up images
existed that might have been characterizable as zemis. GL"lYIII,LA
mentions that in the roof-trees of the huts were suspended images
woven of palm-leaves, each representing some enemy slain. These
constituted qualifications for chieftainship.2) It is probable that
this passage refers to the Otomacos. It is evident that this was
not a case of zemiism.
It is only when attention is given to regions higher up the
Orinoco that correspondences appear with the image world of
the Tainos. 'rhe Spanish Fathers noted that, on a mountain-top
difficult of approach, the Salivas possessed painted figures carved
out of the rock. Up to these they laboriously climbed for the
purpose of obtaining, through their »priests )}, oracular answers
from the images.3) Here we find two remarkable points of agreement
with the Tainos, viz. images carved out of the solid rock,
and images consulted through medicine-men as oracles. In the
religion of the highly cultured Arawakall tribe, the Achaguas, we
find several characteristic correspondences with Tainian religion.
At their festivals they carried images in their processions. For
the rest the feast did not go beyond a dance at which they were
individually attired in festal garb.4) I)ke the Tainos and the
True Arawaks they believed in a supreme being, called by them
Cuaygerri, »el qne todo 10 sabe», \vho lived in the heavens. Like
the Tainos, they addressed no invocations to this deity, but instructed
their sons as to its existence (RIBERO, p. III). Their
minor deities corresponded to a certain degree with the zemls
of the Tainos. But the minor deities of the Achaguas were sharply
classified into fnnctionaries for the harvest, general prosperity,
fire, and hunting, etc.;') goddesses, such as Tabarninarro, »cria-
1) PJ-;WKhS I, pI. LVIII, a--a', amulet representing a small animal, possibly
a frog.
2) Gr~IIl.J,A, t. IT, p. 107.
') RIBERO, p. 277--271l.
4) RnJJ-:Ro, p. 106.
") RIBICRO, p. II3.

59!
dora de los Achaguas », a twilight goddess, and a goddess represented
by a star.l ) The zemfs of the Tainos also had their different
functions, but their images were not divided up into separate
categories, each with its definite function. The latter was only
the case with their magic stones, which, however, also possessed
the character of zemis. The similarity existing between the
Tainan caoba-assemblages where in by the participants intoxicated
themselves with tobacco-snuff, and the mirrayes of the
Achaguas where yopa-snuff was used in the same way, I have
described in the foregoing. This similarity, was not, however, of
an original nature seeing that both snuff-tubes and the method
of their application in connection with caoba had been imported
by the Tainos from the Orinoco region, and this probably via
Trinidad only after having settled in their islands.
The difficulty in tracing the origin of set-up idols among the
Tainos back to South America mainly lies in it having proved impossible
to show that such images ever reached those Arawakan tribes
which were most closely related to the Tainos and lived nearest the
Antilles, namely the Arawaks of the Guianan coastland, of Paria
and Trinidad. The idol from a region on the upper Wiapoco, referred
to a little while back, showed, as we remember, a typically Tainan
posture. Bur this may of course also be accounted for by those
Indians having held, in their invocation of the spiritual powers of the
heavens, religious conceptions similar to those of the Tainos, and
their figure-representation having consequently reacted similarly.
Other difficulties present themselves if connection with South
America may be searched for by way of the Lesser Antilles. That
the Igneris possessed cotton images we have seen from DuTETRE'S
account, cited in the foregoing, of the cave in Martinique. 2 ) Chances
are slight to wooden sculptures to have been preserved in the
Lesser Antilles, where limestone caves only occur in Barbados.
Small amulets carved in wood have nevertheless been recovered, as
shown by a skilfully carved tortoise from St. Vincent.3) Reference
1) Arte y Vocabulario de la Lengua Achagua, trascentado - - de Juan Francisco
Regio, Ano de 1762, Madrid 1928, p. 86.
2) Du TER'I'RE, t. II, p. 369-370.
") FEWKES I, pI. XC, a-a', stated on p. 196 to have been found by OBER,
in 1878, in a cave.

592
has already been made to the sma11 wooden figures that the Island-Caribs
wore round the neck.1) It is possible that they had
borrowed this custom from the Igneris, and that they subsequently
passed it on to their kinsmen, the Galibi, on the mainland.2)
Of any tradition as to the Igneris having possessed set-up images
carved in wood no trace can be fonnd in the earliest authors. BRE­
TON mentions, however, that the Island-Caribs carved for their
children "des marmonsets" out of indestructible guayacan wood.3 )
It is not unlikely, however, that dolls that are played with by small
girls among Indians constitute relics of images of female deities.
The Igneris, and with them their religion, had, as we know, passed
away, and could only in specific instances have survived through
the medium of the women. In case the Igneris did possess set-up
images, this constituted something which could not have been
handed down through women's intermediacy. In Chap. II I have
cited a statement that in 1750 an image was discovered in a cave
in Barbados. Nothing is mentioned, however, as to what that
image was like. The Island-Caribs possessed household gods, it is
true, but only a boye could address any supplication to them.4)
Offerings were laid for them on a sacrificial table (matoutou) , as
did the Tainos for their zemi figures. The offerings were brought
four the same purpose as among the Tainos namely in order to
secure a full manioc crop, and for safeguarding health.5) But there
was no image set up behind the table. Among the Island-Caribs
the household god was invisible. In material form the zemis only
appeared among the Island-Caribs in the shape of the bats that in
the night flitted about the house. These were looked upon as household
gods. 6)
In the southern of the I,esser Anti11es stone sculpture had
attained a remarkably high degree of development. It sti11 remains
an unsolved riddle whether, among the problematical objects
composing the find at Fancy, St. Vincent, any had been made for
1) ROCHEFOR'l" p. 479; Dc: TERTRE, t. II, p. 370.
2) Figurines in Mus. du Troeadero.
3) op. ,:it., p. 354. Guaiaeal1 is the usual material for Tailli an idols.
4) ROCHEFORT, p. 472.
5) DRETOIS', p. 56.
6) DE LA BORDE, p. 14.

593
ceremonial uses. Possibly it may have been the case with the naturalistically
carved head reproduced in FEWKES II, pI. 5I D
(height 2-5 inches), on the under side of which is a concavity
by means of which it may possibly have been socketed
on a stick cemented on. With its rows of circular depressions
on the crown it may be grouped together with the head, pI. 45 E
(height, 3.5 inches). The head, pI. 45 F, of different appearance is
possibly also referable to the same group. These three heads are
too small, however, for classing with the large stone heads, with
the neck forming a peg designed for mounting them, that have
been recovered at plazas in Puerto Rico. In Tainian culture small
heads are nevertheless still to be met with, but they are not provided
with necks that are particularly suitable for fitting into a
handle.I ) The Fancy find appears to be composed of representations
in the soft volcanic tuff of a variety of objects that once belonged
to the Ignerian culture. The material of their prototypes
would in all probability not by any means always have been stone,
but also clay or wood. The objects in question did not, however, to
any great extent serve any utilitarian purpose, in particular as regards
the representations of animals or human beings.
Of large-sized figures, the only sculpture hitherto known from
any of the Lesser Antilles consists of what JOYCE calls a "pillar
stone", from Nevis. 2 ) It is made of sandstone, and differs considerably
from all other West Indian stone sculptures. Its three corpUlent,
erect-standing male figures are executed in gingerbread
fashion, similarly to stone figures of Huaxtec SCUlpture. Of clay
figures, so commonly appearing on the Mexican archaic horizon, I
do not, however, know any from the West Indies. Still, the Nevis
pillar represents in the West Indies a higher stage of development
as against Tainian pillar stones on which figure-representation is
hardly more than petroglyphic. The three figures have their hair
arranged in corkscrew curls. The only Indians known to me to
have dressed their hair in this fashion are the True Arawaks. ROD­
RIGO DE NAVARRETE, who knew the True Arawaks in their original
') See HATT, Fm Vestindiens Stenalder, fig. 39 b, of coral limestone, Salt River,
St. Croix.
2) JOYCE, Preh. Antiquities from the Antilles in the Brit. Mus., p. 419 and pI.
LVI.
38

594
state, says of them that "they curl and make their hair crispy" .1)
Possibly their kinsmen, the Igneris, dressed their hair in the same
way. The three figures hold their hands clasped above the stomach,
a posture not found in Tainian sculpture, whilst in Huaxtec
sculpture hands placed across the stomach are occasionally to be
seen. 2 ) Of the face appearing between the legs of JOYCE'S left-hand
figure I know 110 counterpart from the \Vest Indies. The feather
ornament that is set erect has its feathers spirally disposed, not
straight as in Guiana. They eyes have their lids, as it were, drooping,
in the way common in Mexico. By the right and bulbous
cheek a feather ornament projects slantingly dovynwards. The
mouth is archaically elleptic. But this face is not to be counted
among the most primitive of archaic sculpture. All this figural
sculpture from Nevis must belong to a later and higher stage of
development. This doubtful Nevis pillar is not by itself enough to
indicate the presence of large and detached images in the Iorking stone. But
not even a single large-sized stone figure in the round has been discovered
in any of the I

595
caziques. They were worshipped in the cazique's house, or in a
special house erected for them, or in a cave, but always under the
direction of the cazique. The private individual of the common
people possessed no large idols.
That the Tainos had possessed their idols through influence
from Yucatan, and not from any part of South America, is
above all evident from the circumstance that Tainan images often
,vear on their heads a "canopy", a counterpart of the altar table
top surmounting caryatids of Chich en Itza. 1 ) The probability of a
Yucatan origin is further strengthened by the animatism of the
Haitian wooden images still possessing its counterpart in the animatism
that to this day may occur in images of saints in Yucatan.
From the Southeastern States the Tainos only would seem to
have been influenced as regards the manufacture of effigy vessels.
By this it is not to be inferred that the earthenware images of the
Southeastern States show any resemblance to the idol vessels of
the 'l'ainos. In the Southern States idol vessels only become as
far weshvards as Arkansas, and it is only there that points of resemblance
with Tainian representations in earthenware begin to
appear. 2 )
The group of Southeastern States nearest to the West Indies
- Florida, Georgia, Alabama - has proved to be devoid of large
images. Middle-sized earthenware images from Florida may be
massive,;)) but in most cases consist of effigy vessels. It was only
farther np the coast that, in "Virginia", Aylloll came across two
images, a male and a female, as large as a three or fonr years old
child, which were set up in a courtyard and worshipped as cropfertility
reprcsentatives. 4 ) Along the Gulf coast we have to go as far
as K a tches on the lower Mississippi in order to come across images.
1) SEI.EH, Ges. Ailh. r', Die Ruinenvon Chicken Itza, Taf. XVI, 1.
"I Cf. Silllil:lrity of posture ill the male figure in MOORE., A ntiqU'ities of St.
Francis, rVhite and JJlaek Rivers, A rkansas, ibid., voL J 4, pt. 2, pI. XX, with two
Taill

At this place was also found, preserved within a temple, a stone
figure representing the original ancestor of the caziques.1)
If we now turn to northern Florida, we find that different
kinds of offerings to spirits undeniably were practiced. There,
too, the spirits - like the Tainan zemis -- were in need of sustenance.
\Vhen the Indians of Tampa Bay ,vere told by "the devil"
that he was thirsty, they were obliged to sacrifice to him. 2 )
But in this connection nothing is mentioned about any image.
From the time of the Discovery of Florida I do not know of any
large, set-up image. One episode is however noteworthy. At his
visit to the mouth of St. John's River in 1562, RIBAULT erected a
pillar. \Vhen LANDONNIERE three years later arrived 011 the spot
he found that the Indians had placed several small baskets filled
with maize at its looP) CUSHING'S excavations in Key Marco
revealed a highly developed wooden sculpture, including human
and animal masks. There was, it is true, also a statuette of "the
Lion or Panther God."4) Tablets carrying a human figure in incised
stylistic outline and painted, and at the lower part provided
with a projection for inserting into some other object,5) did not
exceed 8 inches in length.6) CUSHING considers these tablets to
have been head ornaments corresponding to "certain objects represented
on the head-dresses of human figures etched on shell
gorgets found in the ancient mounds of the Mississippi valley."7)
But not even a single human image of lar;er size was recovered
in Key Marco. The occurrence of images among the Tainos does
not in any likelihood derive its origin from the Southeastern States.
In Mexico-Yucatan the distribution of images of deities is too
well known for me to enter upon here. In :vlexico are found both
figures and figurines carved in stone. Even the small figurines
that are placed inside the incense burners when the Lacandones
and the Mayas brought incense offerings of copal are made of
') SWAX'l'OK, 1 ndian Tribes of the Lower j1Iississippi Valley, Bur. Amer. Ethno1.,
Bull. 43, \Vash. 1

597
stone, often jade. I ) In former times the Maya commoners also
had wooden idols to which they gave ritual worship.2) I have in
the foregoing mentioned those which contained the ashes of
ancestors. I,AXDA says that stone images were few in number.
They would most likely only have consisted of images of gods set
up in the temples or in the shrines. }irore numerous were wooden
images, 'vvhich were handed down as heirlooms. By this, LANDA
probably alludes to the abovementioned images that represented
ancestors. Most abundantly occurring were small earthenware
figurines,:l) as was the case in Mexico. Especially in Mexico and
Oaxaca these figurines were found to represent such gods as were
mostly worshipped. In comparison with the Mexico of the Mayas,
as well as with Central America, Andean Colombia and Manabi,
earthenware figurines are remarkably rare in Tainan islands. The
Tainos did not, by the way possess any great and generally popular
gods, and were unacquainted with mass-production by the
matrix process. FEWKES I, pl. LXXXII, Santo Domingo, reveals
however the presence of considerable artistic skill in the manufacture
of massive clay figures. The remainder of the Tainan
clay figures are in reality only effigy vases.
Cotton images. As already has been mentioned, there is no evidence
to show that Tainan cotton images contained
human bones or a desiccated body, while the Island-Caribs, on
the other hand, preserved bones of the dead wrapped in cotton wool.
The Island-Caribs possessed no cotton images, although such certainly
occurred among their predecessors, the Igneris in Martinique.
Cotton images are dependendent upon the art of cottOl1-
weaving. In this respect the Tainos could therefore not have received
impulses from the Sontheastern States. The culture element
in question was on the South American continent undoubtedly
of a \vesterly origin. In northern South America cotton
images occurred at all events as far east as Sierra de Merida. The
Caricas, in the neighbourhood of Trujillo, had special huts for "a1-
1) .:HFRED M. l'OZZER. A. Comparative Study of the }'vloyas and ]>acandones,
Lomlon H)07, p. 87.
2) TOZZER, ibid .. p. 107, n. I, cit. I,A:

598
gunas figuras de algodon, tierra cozida y palos >}. To them they
made offerings of balls of cotton thread, »sartillas de quitero »,
i. e. strings of variously coloured stone beads, and green stones.1)
Thus it will be seen that the offerings were entirely different from
those of the Tainos.
1Vooden images. As \yill be apparent from the observations recorded
by the Admiral, PANE and LAS CASAS, of the
zemi images kept by the Tainos for worship in the cazique's hut,
or in huts set apart for them, the majority were carved in wood.
Fortunately several Tainan wooden images are preserved to us.
\Vhere the circumstances of their finding are known, they all
prove to have been recovered from caves. But from the literary
sources we know that most of the images were set up within huts.
The islands from which I know of wooden images having been
published are the follovVing:
Santo Domingo: FEWKES, I, fig. 38, pl. XC, c-c", p. 699 - "cave
in Loma Sucia, near Ysabella"; pI. XCI, b--b', p.
201, "according to F. A. OBER found in a cave near the ruins of
Isabela" (below the illustration erroneously given as "Caicos, or
Turks Island"). JOYCE, Journ. R. Anthrop. Inst., Vol. 37, pI. 1,1
(according to Tidskr. Oldk. 1852 acquired by Sir ROBERT SCHOM­
BERGK during his journey in Santo Domingo)
Cuba: MOXTAN:?~, Congr. Int. d'Anthrop. et d'Arch.,
Monaco 1906, p. 144, figs II2--II3 (HARRINGTON,
pl. VIII, from a cave near Cape :.vlaisi. 2)
.Jamaica: JOYCE, pIs. XINIII and XLIX, fig. 3; pI. XLIX,
figs. 1-2; pI. I. and 1.1, fig. I, all three found in
1792 "in a natural cave near the summit of a l\Iountain called
Spots, in Carpenters Monntain, in the parish of Vere".
1) SnWN, Quarta Noticia, p. 395.
') 1 do not include MONT",,},. fig. 11 T, according to HARRINGTON, p. I IS ..
"said to have been found at Santci Spiritus ". This figure is in Congo style, and
its pose anel the expression of its face places it with negro culture.

599
The West locality not particularized: FEWKES I, pI. XCI,
Indies: a-a', in Tainan style in the form developed in
Santo Domingo and in Puerto Rico; JOYCE, pI.
LIT, figs. 1-2, p. 403, "the engraved ornament is characteristically
Antillean, and there seems no reason to doubt that it is
a piece of old \Vest Indian work."
The wooden idols of Santo Domingo either carry directly on
their heads a round disk, FEWKES I, pI. XC, c-c', and XCI, b-b'
(fractured) in fig. 38 with a cylindrical extension, or else the disk
is mounted on a base, JOYCE, pI. LI. The latter is also the case
with FEWKES I, pI. XVI, a-a', which I have not hesitated in referring
to Tainan culture, and which therefore quite well may originate
from Santo Domingo or Puerto Rico. Only one of the three
Jamaican images, JOYCE, pI. XLIX, figs. 1-2, has a disk of this
kind, not like the Santo Domingo ones centred on the base, but
projecting above the image's head.
I agree with JOYCF,'S explanation of these "canopies" as being
tables on which to place the cahaba snuff, a theory supported by
the Admiral's observations in Espanola.I ) The Admiral writes:
"In this house (i. e. where the zemi images were set up) they
have a finely wrought table, round like a wooden dish, in which
is some powder which is placed by them on the heads of these
cemis in performing a certain ceremony; then with a cane that
has two branches they place in their nostrils they snu£1 up this
dust. "2) From no other part of America do I know of any similar
arrangement on the heads of images, or made in one piece with
the image, nor of snuff-taking, for visionary purposes so intimately
connected with images. It is therefore to be inferred that this
form of snuff-taking first developed within the Tainan culture itself
in the Antilles, whilst both the forked snuff-tube and visionary
snuffing by caziques in conclave were imported into the
\Vest Indies from Venezuela.
The Haitian image, FE\VKES I, pI. XC, c--c", represents,
apart from having a cahaba plate on its head, also another interesting
element of Tainan religion, viz. the speaking zemis. Sr.
') JOVCE, l'reh. Antiquities /1'om the Antilles, etc., p. 403, and Centro Am. and
West Ind. Arch., p. 193-J94.
2) The letter of the Admiral, trans!. by ROl:R~E, p. 312.

600
IMBERT, of Puerto Plata, to whose collection it belongs, classes it
as such in his manuscript catalogue. In the back of its head it
has a round aperture, presumably designed for insertion of the
speaking tube. I ) The head is hollow. The open mouth is halfclosed
with "a piece of shell of the plastron of a turtle."2) No
doubt also its remaining half was once similarly filled up. It is
not quite apparent whether the incision running from the hole in
the back of the head up to the caoba dish goes right through or
not. Therefore it is impossible to determine whether the spoken
sounds issued through this slit or were confined to the cavity inside
the head. If the latter was the case it would no doubt have been
possible to produce the hollowness of speech that would appear to
the Haitians as a mystical spirit voice. So far as I am able to ascertain,
the speaking tube arrangement was no doubt an independent
Tainan contrivance. I have not found it either in northeastern
South America, Mexico-Yucatan, or the Southeastern States.
The above images were apparently all designed for caoba.
The frontlet worn by some of them mark them out as representing
caziques. 3 ) A11 of them are anthropomorphic except one,
JOYCE, pI. II, fig. 2, Santo Domingo, which constitutes a composite
group of a bird and a turtle. :From it may be inferred that
the Tainos in their caoba ceremonies not only employed human
but also animal zemis. PAKE makes no express mention of animal
zemis, although on the other hand he records a zemi, known
as Opigie1guourian, \yho had "four feet like a dog, and he was of
wood" (cap. XXII). But in Espanola there were of course no
large quadrupeds. The image in question may in fact at the
same time have been of human shape, possibly of a kind similar
to FEWKES I, pI. XCI, b-~b', which supports its long arms on the
ground.
The remainder of the images enumerated above lack the
caoba "canopy", but are nevertheless also classifiable as zemls.
There is none from Espanola among them. The fact of the three
Jamaican ones having been found in caves proves them all to
1) FE\YKES J, p. 200.
2) Ibid., p. 199, cit. I:vIBER'r's catalogue.
3) FEWKES T, fig. 38, pI. XCI b--b', Santo Domingo; J OyeE, pI. XJ~IX, figs.
1··· .. 2, Jamaica,

60r
have been zemi images. One of them is, as will be noted, provided
with a caoba plate, and has been dealt with in the former category.
JOYCE interprets his pIs. XLVIII-XLIX as a rain-making
zemi by reason of the grooves below its eyes which may be
presumed to have contained - stuck into a resinous matrix -
small pieces of shell representing tears.1) In a general way he
points to analogies in Mexico and South America. At the first
Aztec festival of the year, Quaitl cua, when the small children
cried and the tears clung to their eyes, the people said: "It is
going to rain; their tears signify rain."2) In the religious processions
of the Chibchas there walked persons wearing masks with
painted tears.3) In a Macusi tale it is related that when the
mother of two human heroes is sorrowful, then it is her tears
that stream down the slopes of the Roraima mountain4.)
Even JOYCE, pls. L-LI, jig. r, must, together with the other
two Jamaican images - not only from the circumstances associated
with its finding be classed as zemi. Made in one piece with
this image is a soc1e, indicating that it may have been stood
erect for worshipping. This bird image is provided with a frontal
fillet, an ornament reserved, as we know, for caziques. Referring
also to the above described animal group from Santo Domingo,
we here find additional confirmation of the Tainos having
also worshipped animals as zemis. The only reference in the literature
to animals having been held in honour - if not as zemis,
at all events as a supernatural beings - is that of the manati
ofaXaraguan cazique.5) In British Guiana the water spirits
may assume the form of a manati. 6 ) Possibly this may also
have been the case among the Haitians, who with the True Arawaks
of British Guiana shared the conception of a "water mama".
As to caziques after death assuming the form of a bird, no authority
for this is to be found in the literature, nor that the rank
of cazique could be conferred upon animal zemis.
") JOYCE, Cert. Am. and West Ind. Arch., p. 184--185.
2) SAHAGUN, SELER'S trans!. p. 58.
3) VICENTE RESTREPO, Los Chibchas, Bogota 1895, p. 68.
4) ROTH, An Inquiry into the Animism, etc., p. 135.
S) MARTYR, MacNutt's trans!., yo!. I, p. 373.
0) ROTH, Ibid., p. 243.

602
The Cuban image, MONTANE, figs. II2-II3,1) is similarly
provided with a foot-base. It is bicouical, and only provided
with human sculpture in relief. One eye still retains the inlaid
piece of shell, and is adorned with a cazique's frontlet. In the
posturing of its arms and legs it presents a remarkahle correspondence
with human figures 011 three-pointers, and I am inclined
to think that, like these, it is of phallic character. For that reason
it, too, may have been intended for burying in the ground for the
purpose of promoting fertility. That wooden images were used to
that end is clearly evident from an episode related by PANE (Chaps.
XXV--XXVI). When Guarionex, who is referred to in the foregoing,
gave orders to his people to cut up seven images, of which
the catechumens had had charge, six Indian boys took them and
carried them away. The images were covered with earth, and water
was poured on to them with the words: »N ow your fruits will be
good and great». And then they were buried in a cultivation
field. On that spot subsequently grew up three ages. Of Tainan
wooden figurines I so far only know of one that has been published
(KRIEGER II, pl. II, fig. 3). It was found in the ground at
Anadel, on the north shore of the Samana Peninsula. On its
head is a representation of a low feather crown. Like the stone
or shell figurines it was probably worn as a personal appurtenance.
It has large and globular eye cavities, a feature also otherwise
so typical of the proper Tainan culture. Eye circlets and a
large and elliptical mouth in relief besides bear witness to
its having been copied from prototypes among earthenware heads,
which often can be shown to apply also to stone sculptures
and even to some of the few images that have been preserved
from Espanola. As for example FEWKES I, fig. 38,pl. XCI b-b'. In
this connection may also be mentioned figures on "swallow sticks",
pl. LXXXVIII, a--d, and pl. L, 2, Santo Domingo, and the head
on the stool, Fewkes I, fig. 39, Turks Island. In Jamaica, where
the grotesque, apelike earthenware heads of the proper Tainan
culture are entirely absent, the human faces of the images are naturalistically
represented, although the primitive Arawakan Indian
racial type manifests itself through the broad and open nostrils.
") According to HA]{RING'l'OX, p. I 14 of guayacan wood, and "found in one of
the higher cliffs of Maisi."

Stone images. Apart from the Puerto Rican engraved pillar stones
there have in the Tainan islands been found
only a very few larger-sized stone images. They must have been
far fewer in numbers than those made of wood. PANE refers to
stone zemi images in general (Cap. 19). In the two instances
\"here he makes special mention of zemi images made of stone,
these were connected with rain magic. In the cave out of which
the sun and the moon were said to have origina1y issued, were
found »dos cemis de piedra del tamano de medio brazo, y parecia
que andaban, a los cua1es tenian en gran veneraci6n, y cuando
no 11ovia, dicen que iban a visitarlos y a1 punto llovia, e1 uno de
ell os se Hamaba Baimiael y el otro j'V[ araia. There was also a
stone image representing the female zemi Guabancex who could
bring on tempests and rain (Cap. 23).
\\'ithin the proper Tainan culture the art of stone sculpture had
reached such a high stage of development that, now and again,
one finds it surprising how exactly the effect aimed at has been
achieved. FEWKES has published a stone image 1 ) that he considers
»a true product of that culture which reached its highest development
in prehistoric Porto Rico and Santo Domingo (Ibid.,
p. 349). The image in question is shaped exactly as if it had been
carved in wood, which shows how supremely the Tainos mastered
also the stone material, The" canopy" indicates that it was
designed for cahaba, like similar Haitian wooden images. FEWKES
II, pl. 120, of stone, is nearly akin to FEWKES I, pl. LXXXII, a,
of burnt clay. Both these Santo Domingo images represent a
man sitting on a stool and wearing a sort of cap which presumably
belonged to a cazique's insignia. The girdle seen round the stone
image's waist may also be that of a cazique. The clay figure
I have already interpreted as representing a cazique who, at the
conclusion of strict fasting, is on the point of indulging in cahaba.
'Whether these middling-sized figures actually are zemis or not,
seems to me difficult of determination.
All of the stone images just dealt with represent that higher
Tainan culture which especially developed in Puerto Rico and
Santo Domingo. If next we turn to Cuba, we do not there find a
') A n A ntillean Statuette, A. A. n. s. vol. I I, pI. XVII]'

single stone image that can be said to represent that culture. The
Cuban stone images, each differing from the rest, must either be
considered as "sub-Tainan" or else as products of such inferior
workmanship as not to exhibit any higher Tainan culture.
Au erectable Cuban image of coral rockl) is undeniably very
crude, but HARRTNGTO~ nevertheless does not hesitate in classing it
as Tainan, particularly because "the ear-lobes show Tainan earplug
ornaments. "2) This kind of dished ear-pIng is frequently
seen in Tainan sculpture. Cuban stone sculpture, though undoubtedly
Tainan, does not as a rule present the same artistic skill as
that of Santo Domingo or Puerto Rico. I only wish to draw attention
to a pestle "from Loma del Cayuco, "3) near JVIaisi, which in
its formation is not far removed from the image just referred to.
Tainan orgin I also attribute to HARRI~GTON, pl. XVI, "from a cave
in the Baracoa district", although himself suggests a Siboneyan
origin. Its large eye cavities were no doubt designed for filling, in
the Tainan way, with resin so as to hold pupils made of shell. Its
ribs are marked out, but whether it is similarly provided with a
backbone I cannot say, as the image is not depicted as been from
the back. Especially the latter is common in Tainan sculpture and
modelling. For the rest the image conveys the impression of being
an attempt at, in stone, copying a wooden sculpture. As unquestionably
Tainan HARRINGTON puts down his jig. I, "found on the Hacienda
Valenzuela, near Bayamo". It has a \veight exceeding 50
pounds (p. 31). Its broad and flat base indicates that it was designed
for standing up. It has large eye cavities meant for stopping
up, but lacks emblems and attributes, and present no marked
points of resemblance to that higher Tainan culture which in a
later era was transmitted from Haiti to Cuba. S. K. LOTHROP finds
a kneeling stone image, for the most part consisting of a head,
Indian Notes IV: 4, jig. I35, Porto Rico, recalling "the stone stools
of southern Central America, manufactured by Chorotegan and
Chibchan tribes", and connects the supposed resemblance with the
importation of Indian slaves from Central America. For the rest
1) FI

605
he considers it to be a piece of work of "unadulterated l'ainan
craftsmanship" (Ibid., pp. 33I-332). Personally I am more inclined
to class it as a zemi, with the basin carried on its head designed
as a receptable for cahaba snuff.
IHonolitllS. This is a term I do not apply in a equally wide
sense as FBWKBS employs "pillar stones". By it I
refer to large, elongated boulders planted in the ground. They are
for the most part provided with a human figure carved in a crude
manner, with cup-shaped eyes and oval mouth, and arms suggested.
In the more detailed FBWKES I, pl. LXX, b, there is also a navel.
Such of these monoliths as in their lower part are shaped into an
axe-edge I have already discussed. Monoliths of that kind are confined
to the extent of the proper Tainan region. They are found
in Puerto Rico (FEWKBS I, pl. LXX) as well as in Santo Domingo
(HATT, fig. 7, Constanza Valley). Widely known, although never
published, is the tumbled-down monolith in the middle of Corral de
los Indios, in Maguana. The "pillar stones" that FBWKES knows
from Puerto Rico in situ form part of upended stone blocks demarcating
ball courts (FBWKES I, pp. I75-I76). Here they had probably
been placed with some religious import, in the same way as
the sculptured blocks forming the Tainan stone row excavated by
Hatt on Salt River, St. Croix.
No monoliths have so far been recorded in Cuba. And, like elements
of the proper Tainan culture, they are also abscent in Jamaica.
Also in the case of monoliths I am inclined to believe in influence
from the Maya-Mexican mainland where stone images planted
in the ground occur.1) The Secotans on the coast of N. Carolina,
danced between wooden piles sculptured with a human face
(\VITH in Voyages, pI. XVIII). But monoliths do not characterize
the southeastern States. In the Lesser Antilles, as in northeastern
South America, they are likewise absent.
Rock images. Immovable stone images sculptured in the rock
occur in Caicos Island and in Oriente, in Cuba.
In a cave inscribed with petroglyphs in East Caicos Island
Dp; Booy discovered a realistically sculptured head, "slightly
') Compo Fr

606
larger than life-size. }}1) The Cuban rock images were found
by HARRINGTON in Cueva Zemi, in the eastern terraced country of
Gran Tierra de Maya.2) They are most nearly suggestive of the
semi-plastic engravings that are found on the pillar stones of Puerto
Rico, where they belong to the proper l'ainan culture. In Cueva
Zemi they are carried out on stalagmites. The erect-standing fulllength
figure that DUERDEN has published from a rock face at Dryland,
in the parish of St Mary, northeastern J amaica,3) is naturalistically
sculptured in the round, and carries no resemblance to
the halfraised sculpture after the fashion of the pillar stones of the
Cuban caves. For the rest it was recovered from a gorge, now
dried up, )}probably at one time a river-course ». Its purpose was
no doubt the same as the river pictographs of Puerto Rico. -
The sculptures that HAEBERUN collected in Cueva de la Seiba, in
Puerto Rico, consist of faces only.4) These archaeological finds of
zemiistic cave sculpture, as well as zemiistic petroglyphs found in
caves, go to show that the Tainos believed the zemis to reside
in caves. That such was the case is confirmed by PANE. In
the cave known as Javovava, whence originally issued the
sun and the moon, there were found not only the two zemi
images of stone bnt also rock-paintings. By virtue of their
zemi character, most of the wooden images have accordingly
been discovered in caves, as well as duhos provided with zemiistic
sculpture, the significance of which I have already cited from
OVIEDO.
But zemis were not only occulJants of caves but also dwellers
in the interior of rocks. MARTVR cites from PAKE: "Others,
who have heard the voice amongst the rocks, make their
zemes of stone; while others, who heard the revelation while
they were cultivating their ages -- make theirs of roots. "5)
\Ve have no reason for supposing otherwise than that smaller
zemi images privately possessed by the common people are here
referred to.
") Lucayan Remains of the Caicos Islands, p. 104, fig. 17.
2) HARRTNGTOX, pIs. LIX and LX.
3) Ind. Rem. in ] amaica, p. 48 and fig. 3.
4) A. A., n. s., vol. H), figs. q. and T 5.
5) MARTYR, JYIacNutt's transl., vol. I, p. 173.

607
Figurines. 'While large-sized Tainan stone images are few in
number, figurines of stone have, on the other hand,
been numerously found. They must be regarded as forming part
of the paraphernalia of the private individual, and carried for personal
protection. Ovnwo mentions that the Indians wore zemi
figurines in their necklaces or on the forehead. 1 ) In particular
the Haitians, when going out to fight, used to wear small zeml
figurines on a string round the heacP) In the case of the Island­
Caribs, the small wooden figure that was worn round the neck
represented a mapoya, that is to sayan evil spirit designed for
frightening off malevolent powers. But among the Tainos the
zemi figurine, which represented a benevolent spirit, was more of
the character of a helper who endowed its vvearer with more power.
AcrrNA says that certain of the images that were worshipped by
the Indians of the lower Amazonas were intended as inspirers of
courage in war. 3)
The figurines of stone, shell or bone that to my knowledge
have been published from the Tainan islands are the following:
Jamaica: DUERDI{N, fig. XIII, crystalline limestone; two,
fragmentary except the heads, from a dwe1lingsite
in Long Mountain (Clarendon); JOYCl

608
II, pI. rr6, C. D. E. F fig. 61; KRIEGER I, pI. 10, fig. 3, of shell;
pI. II, fig. I, of bone, "midden at Anadel"; "Hispaniola": pIs. 12,
c an k, 13 a, b, s, f (probably including Santo Domingo). (All
the others that are mentioned in this paper have been published
n FEWKF,S I, or later in KRIEGER II). DE Booy, Santo Domingo
kitchen-midden and burial-mound, fig. 7, Tr. 44488 ("Santo Domingo",
Call. Lunglade), 5542 ("Vallee de Yaqui"), 20036 ("en
jade blanc", Call. Denon, Santo Domingo).
Puerto Rico: FEWKES I, figs. IS, 16, pI. LVII, a (according to
pI. 143, there are altogether three amulets of this
kind preserved in Lat. Col1.); my own, Pl. XV,3, Nat. 2\lus., Copenhagen;
HAEBERLIN, Amer. Anthrop., n, S., vol. 19, p. 234, figs. 32
and 33; Smiths j}lisc. Call., vol. 76, fig. 97, four, one being of
shell and three of stone, l\1ayaguez.
Citing OVIEDO, I have already pointed out that the Tainos
wore small zeml figurines both in their necklaces and on their
foreheads. FJ

noted that the side projections are somewhat deflected, thus making
the object less suitable as a breast ornament, but well adapted
for the forehead. In the foregoing I have ventured to interpret
as frontal ornaments small shanked heads of shell from Cuba,
and of stone from Santo Domingo.
The material obtained from Santo Domingo is besides sufficiently
extensive for distinguishing also certain other conventional
groups. Important among these is a type with goggle-eyes,
hands nearly meeting across the stomach, legs doubled up into a
squatting posture, and with a convex back. '1'0 this group belong
FEWKES I, pI. LVII,b -b', and KRIEGER I, pI. 13, a and b.
It is this group, from northern Santo Domingo, that, in its representation
of the posture of the figure, presents a remarkable
resemblance to ::Vlixtec figurines.!)
A third group represents females. The attitude of the body
is by FEWKES described as follows: "it will be noticed that the
arms are raised above the head, that the legs are retracted, and
that the knees project on each side. "2) Belonging to this group
are FEWKES I, pI. LIX, a-a', discovered on Vega Real, in the
source region of R. Yaqui, and b-b' from Guanabina, near Santiago
de los Caballeros; KRIEGER I, pI. II, 1-2, of shell, Tr.5542,
from the Yaqui valley, and 20036. A similar posture is found
in JOYCE jig. 5I, from Jamaica, and FEWKES I, pI. INII, a-a',
from Puerto Rico, which together with two others in Lat. CoIL,
and HAEBERUN'S fig. 32, forms a separate group.3) Not having
been able to ascertain the sex of these figurines I am not prepared
to group them with those of Santo Domingo just referred to.
As an established fact, however, remains that also in Jamaica and
Puerto Rico were produced figures in this posture.
The remainder of the Haitian figurines are each peculiar in
its own way. Feather crowns occur in FEWKES I, pI. I,XX, h-h';
KRIEGER I, pI. 12, 2; and FEWKES II, pI. II6, E, showing that even
1) SIlLER, Ges. AM. II, p. 364, Abb. IIZ, I)lVlixtekische Steinfigiirchen '>, and
p. 366, Abb. II4, band d, Teotitlan del Camino; G. M. z3·6. 388, 389, 39I, 392,
with flat back; 386, 387, with back longitudinally rounded, 390 with back trans­
\'ersely rounded; all from Mixtex regions.
2) FIlWKES I, p. I43.
3) Ibid., p. ]42 •
39

610
in stone the Haitians were able to produce figurines with limbs
carved in the round, like the only Haitian figurine known to us,
viz. KRmGER I, pI. 12, 2, Santo Domingo. DE Booy, pI. VI, North
Caicos, may, on account of its flat back, be supposed as having
been worn as a figurine on the breast or, possibly, forehead. It is
wearing a low feather crown, and below this is seen a basketry
ring in 'Vvhich the feathers are fastened. Its nose has a trunklike
dovmward bend, as in a Chac or a Mayan rain god,2) and it protrudes
its lips like a Quetzalcouatl. But it conveys a certain
impression that its Tainan creator has conceived these features as
being animal in character. For, instead of toes, the figure is provided
with long and dovm-bent talons. It stands with bended
knees, like a prairie Indian executing a bear dance. A similar
pose is however also found in HARRINGTON, fig. 3.5, "from ~Iesa del
Sordo, near Jauco". Approaching this figurine in posture there
is FmvKEs II, pI. rr6, C, Santo Domingo, and, though in a less
degree, HAEBERLIN, fig. 33, Puerto Rico. The examples from Cuba
and Santo Domingo are especially to be regarded as belonging to
a common group. Here we find further evidence of the higher
Tainan culture having been imported from Haiti. KRIEGER I, pl. 12, a,
Santo Domingo, a human head of shell, has a downbent nose but no
protruding month, although on the other hand the rows of teeth are
strongly developed. This head is shafted, like HARRINGTON, fig. 26,
"from Holguin". In these examples a remarkable correspondence
between Haiti and and Oriente, Cuba, is noticeable, 110 doubt due
to the Tainan population of Oriente having at a late date immigrated
from Haiti. Another small head of shell from Cuba,
HARIUKGTON, fig. 87, "Lagnna Limones site", Maisi, is shaft less,
and, in place of the rest of the body, is only provided with a
pair of feet.
All human figurines lack the cazical frontlet. This may be
explailled from the mere fact of their being of such small size that
it is hardly possible to reproduce a detail of that killd, but may
also be ascribable to their forming part of the private individnal's
paraphernalia, and that they constituted 110 important zemls
representing any deceased cazique.
The four figurines from l\1ayaguez, Puerto Rico, each be-

6rr
longs to a different type, and they are all rather plain and lacking
perforation for being carried on a string.
In the foregoing We have seen that birds were occasionally
worshipped as zemls. Figurines representing birds were also used
as amulets carried on a string threaded through a perforation.
Two such have been found, one from northern Santo Domingo,
VEWKES I, pI LIX, i-·-i', of stone, and from Oriente, Cuba, HARR­
ISGTO!,;, fig. 88, Limones site.
The twin figurine, Fl

612
d'tme collection ethnographique recueilli a la Guadeloupe par Ie docteur
F. L'Herminer ciMath. Guesde, Pointe-a-Pitre 1867 ,pI. XII,I)
»des environs de l'Anse-Bertrand» is of a swaddled baby type
very much akin to FEWKES II, pL 36, a, St. Vincent area, in whic:h
the perforation for a cord is discernible. Both of them are pierced
for suspension on a string. At the sidcs of the head they are
provided vvith two protuberances (the Guadeloupe example having
a additional one in the middle), and the orbits are widely
apart.
The figurines that the Island-Caribs wore round their necks
to avert or mitigate the dangers from the Mapoyas, were made
of WOO(P) In the literature no record can be found as to the Island-Caribs
having possessed any stone sculpture in the strict
sensc. It therefore seems reasonable to refer these few figurines
of the I

613
corded so far south as Nasca. But they are foreign to the Arawak
tribes. Probably the Igneris never knew the significance of
these unspecified "protuberances" which, in association with this
entire type of figurines, had come to them - probably via Venezuela
- from the far-distant Andean Ecuador.
So far as is ascertainable from the scanty material it would
seem as if figurines reached the southern Lesser Antilles from
South America, where, strictly speaking, they are a western culture
element. Also another kind of effigy ornament for. hanging
on the breast has from the western parts of South America made
its way to the southernmost of the Lesser Antilles. FEWKES II,
pI. 36, B, "St. Vincent area", represents a bat and is pierced with
two holes for suspension. Wearing a bat worked in stone for a
breast ornament is especially characteristic of northwestern Venezuela'
particularly the valleys in Sierra Costanera1) and the Timote
district in Cordillera de Merida, where the well-known
"Klangplatten" or "placas de serpentino", according to G1GLIOLI
are supposed to represent bats.2) No hanging ornament representing
a bat is known to me from any of the Tainan islands.
The occurence of bats modelled on Jamaican ceramics is quite a
matter apart. This only characterizes Jamaica, and forms part
of the internal cultural development in that island.
Just as stone sculpture on the whole among the Tainos must
be put down to Mayan influence, stone figurines, too, are to be
similarly ascribed. Stone figurines in considerable numbers have
been found in votive caches in British Honduras.3) In the case
of the firstmentioned group of figurines from Santo Domingo
there is an obvious similarity with Mixtecan figurines. This
kind of figurine also occurs, however, in the Lower Amazonas.4)
Considered by itself, it must nevertheless be considered that this
similarity between Santo Domingo and the Lower Amazonas
') A. ERXST, Verh. BerI. Ges. Anthrop. EthnoI. u. Urgesch., Z. E. Bd. I7,
p. I26-128; AI,FREDO JAH~, Los Aborigines del Occidente de Venezuela, Caracas
1927, p. 321-323 and photograph p. 337.
2) J AH~, ibid., p. 323, cit. GIGI,roI,r.
3) J. ERIC THOMPSON, Archaeological Investigations in the South Cayo District,
Brit. Honduras, Field Mus. PubI. 301, Chicago 1931, pI. XXXI, 8-II, XXXV,
XXXIX, g, e.
4J NORDENSKIOI,D, L'Archiologie du Bassin de l'Amazone, pI. XL, Sucuraju.

must be of divergent nature, in the way that both regions have
been influenced from Central America-Mexico. For it has been
shown by NORDENSKIOLD that in a later era Central American influence
penetrated into parts of Amazonas. This being so is apparent
in the later culture of Lower Amazonas, to which the abovementioned
stone figurine in fact belongs. Even if in both cases
no stone figurines of this kind have been recovered over wide intervening
areas, it is however possible that there occurred wooden
ones through which the influence was spread until in far distant
places it manifested itself in stone.
From what has been adduced above it should be apparent
that among the Tainos figurines essentially originated from a
:Vlaya-Mexican influellce, but among the IgHeris mainly from impulses
that at first hand originated from Ecuador.
'Wearing figurines on the forehead is not essentially characteristic
of northeastern South America. Even the Island-Caribs
wore their mapoya figurines exclusively on the breast. Figurines
worn on the forehead, on the other hand, frequently occur in
:Mayan images of gods or in the case of officiating priests.!) The
custom of wearing zeml figurines on the forehead must therefore
in Espanola be ascribed to :Ylayan influence.
Pottery idols. OVIEDO also refers to zcnll Images of clay (1. p.
I26). These would however seem to have been of
rare occurrence. K either does clay readily adapt itself to the
manufacture of large figures. It is strikingly apparent how among
Tainan finds there is a total absence of those middle-sized or
small, usually erect-standing, figures, that we know in such abundance
from .Mexico, Central America, Ecuador, and the Andean
Colombia and northwestern Venezuela. Kether does there exist
any find indicating that the Tainos knew the art of moulding
clay figures. an art so widely distributed in Mexico. In the same
way there is an absence of the seated female figures that were of
such widespread occurrence in :'vIexico and Central America, and
1) Cf. SPIXDl~". pI. XVIU, stela 13. Piedras Negras, which in addition carries
a mask on its girdle. Cf. aboye the masks that were attached to girdles and
presented by Haitian caziques as gifts of honour.

615
by impulses in later times thence carried even as far as 1\laraj6.1)
The few earthenware figurines that are known to me from Tainan
islands are are very heterogeneous in character. The artistically
executed FEVi'KES I, pI. l,XXXII, a, discovered "in a cave at Rancho
Viejo", between Bani and Azua in southwestern Santo Domingo
(Ibid., pp. 187--188), probably had zemiistic significance.
Already the locality of the find points to this. In a foregoing
connection I have mentioned that this figure represents a cazique
\vho is gaunt from a spell of fasting in preparation for communication
with the spirit world.
Among larger Tainan clay figures are effigy jars. Male figures
squatting on their heels are represented by DE ROSTOS, Amer.
Anthrop., n. s., vol. 21, fig. 50, from Puerto Rico, and Plate
XV I, a typical specimen of Tainan pottery referable to Puerto
Rico or Santo Domingo.
Ewn KRIEGER III, p. 8, c. sits squatting on its heels, while
on the other hand b is seated erect, in European fashion. From
KRIEGER'S reproductions I cannot venture to say that these two are
female. In the same manner as the latter is seated a, \vho, with
its crossed arms and in its posture generally, assumes an attitude
characterictic of Aztec mountain gods 2 ) and X ochiPiUi 3 ), a posture
hitherto unknown to me in any Tainan figure. These three figures
published by KRIEGER are stated to have "a provenience in
the yicinity of Santiago" .'1)
As early as in archaic cultures effigy yessels occur in Amazonas.5)
In the late painted ceramics of l\1araj6 and Para the woman
in a sitting pose is no doubt ascribable to late Central American
influence in Amazonas. Effigy vessels of archaic culture in
British Guiana, on a "four-legged base" ,6) are of a type entirely
eign to the Tainos. Neither do other effigy jars from mounds
1) SPI:S'DEX, op. cit., pI. IX, and p. Sy.
2) SEI.ER, (~es. Abh., Brl. T, Die Ausgrabungen am. Grle des Haupttempel" in
.it exico, p. 853, Abb. 53.
3) JOYCE, Alaya and l'vlexican Art, London 1927, fig. p. 83.
') KRIEGER III, p. I54.
0) l\If.:TRAI.'X, L' A rchtJologie du COUYS Superieur et }Ill oyen de l' A mazone, Reyista
rlel Museo de T.a Plata, t. XXXII, Buenos Aires 1930, p. 147, p. 1tH, fig. 9,
probably the lower part of an offigy image.
6) ROTH, 38th An!!. Rept. Bur. Am. EthnoI. pI. 31.

616
on the coast of British Guiana present any closer Tainan resemblances.
1 )
In the South-Eastern States effigy jars are rare. It is only
farther west in the lower Mississippi region that they are of more
common occurrence. Here we also find male figures squatting on
their heels,2) These are no doubt due to Mexican influence which
did not penetrate farther eastward.
Possibly effigy vessels were used among the Tainos for
pouring out water in order to call forth rain. In this connection
I would refer to HATT'S find of the funnel pierced
through the stone slab on Salt River in St. Croix, through which
the water drained off, after having been poured in from the opposite
side.
The earthenware full-length figures that HARRINGTON has published
from Cuba were probably not zemls. The non-descript
flat, female, fig. 70, La Patana, Maisl, is by him regarded as being
possibly a do11, and that is most likely what it represents.
In the La Patana site he also found fragments of several figures
of this kind. Neither is it probable that the flat, partly incised,
fig, 13, from Banes, near Holguin, was intended as a zemi, but
rather -- as he also suggests - as a dol1. It is similarly possible
that the clay figurine that was found by HATT in the Tainan site
on Magens Bay, St. Thomas, was only intended as a dolta)
From the Lesser Antilles there is only ,MASON, Guesde Col1.,
Guadeloupe, fig. 210, c-c', that may be considered as indicating
that even to the Igneris earthenware full-length figurines were
not unknown. This little figure is only a half-finished piece of
work, not altogether modelled, but also in part cap/ed out of the
dry clay. This represents a method of manufacture not elsewhere
known to me from the \Vest Indies.
As zemi, the Taino would also worship natural objects not
formed into images, that were believed to contain some spirit or
possess spiritual powers. As already has been mentioned, the Indians
brought home to their village the log in which dwealt the
I) Ibid., pI. 32.
2) MOORG, Antiquities at the St, Francis, White and BZack Rivers, A,rkansas,
J oum. Ac. Nat. Sc., vol. 15, Philadelphia IgIO, pI. 20, painted.
3) Arch. Virg, Islands, fig. 5, m.

617
spirit of Guarionex's father, and built a hut for iU) And the
stones that the piaies extracted from a patient's body became actual
zemis in that they were carefully wrapped up in cotton-wool,
were placed in a basket, and given food, just like the zemi images
that were preserved in the huts. These stones lent aid to women
in childbirth. 2)
The caziques possessed three different kinds of stones, each
with its particular function. "One they say helps the corn and
the vegetables that are planted; another the child-bearing of women
without pain; and the third helps by means of water (i. e.
rain) and the sun when they have need of it"3). From this nothing
further can be read than these were ordinary natural stones.
Such, as we have seen, was also the case with the stones that
were supposed to ease the pain of childbirth.
Worship of images was far more developed among the Tainos
than among corresponding agricultural tribes in northeastern
South America. And, moreover, the activities of the zemis in the
clouds when bringing about rain were bound up with their images
on earth. The female zemi Guabancex, who ruled over and
organized the rain in the kingdom of the cazique Aumat, had her
image "made of stone of that country". As her immediate subordinates
she had two male zemis. Of these, too, it is said in connection
with Guabancex's stone image "y los otros que estflll en
su compania". One of them, Guatuaba, is the "pregonero" of the
rain, and calls together, on the order of his mistress, all the zemis
of the country to produce - viribus unitis - wind and rain.
The other, Coatrisquia, collects the streamlets from the mountains
to run down the valleys. When Guabancex is in an angry mood
she commands all the country's zemis to unite in working up a
tremendous rain-storm. This has a devastating effect on the
fields. 4) PANE'S description has been interpreted as identifying
the hurricanes.
The Haitians' belief that stone images were en rapport with
the zemis of the clouds is further confirmed by PANE'S relation
1) PANE, cap. XXIV.
2) PANE, cap. XVI.
3) Letter of the Admiral, BOURNE's trans!., p. 313.
4) PANE, cap. XXIII.

of the two stone images that were set up in a cave. For when
these images perspired, then it was going to rain.
The Island-Caribs possessed no rain-making images. 'With
them, only the cloud zemis were the direct producers of rain.
According to the strongly Ignerian-influenced myths published
by DE LA BORDE, they believed" que Ies premiers eaux viennent
de l'urine et de Ia sueur des Zemeens", and that to this was due
the salinity of the ocean. This myth is undoubtedly of Ignerian
origin. But on the other hand they also believed that the Caribean
zemi, Savazou, turned himself into an Erabier, a kind of
large bird which caused "la grande pluye". Achinaon, another
Caribbean zem!, caused "petite pluye et grand vent. "1) In the
former case hurricanes were probably referred to, in the latter,
the squalls connected with the trade winds. Both these heroes
were besides stars. Among the Island-Caribs there existed a belief
that the ascension of certain constellations in the sky effected
rain and gales. The Scorpion, for example, causes "de grands
vents" .2) But it is not demonstrable that in the religious conceptions
of the 1'ainos the stars played as important a part as among
the Island-Caribs. The zemis that the Island-Caribs had borrowed
from the Ignerians dwelt in heaven, it is true, but only in the
meteorological heaven. Frequently they were the spirits of the
deceased, who in their lofty abode possessed more wives than
they had had on earth, and a multitude of children 3) In thunder
and lightning it is the big zeml who is chasing the smaller zemis,
"qui ne sont pas lVIanigat" 4) "Le grand Maistre de Chemeens
qui sont leurs bons esprits" is angry because he has received no
offerings of cassava and ouicou (chicha), and sends down rain for
several days, causing "le deluge de l'onragan" (DE r,A BORDE, p 7)
Thus we see how among the Island-Caribs the Lord of the Rain
in his wrath sends too much rain, just as the Mistress of the Rain
did in Espanola vvhen in the same frame of mind.
In the clays of RODRIGO DE NAVARRETE the True Arawaks be-
1) DE LA BORDE. p. 7--8.
') BRETON, p. 65.
3) DE I,A BORDE, p. 9.
4) Probably the 19nerian equivalent of the Tainan manicata, "of noble birthgreat
and powerful".

619
lieved that the powerful I,ord of Heaven sent them rain. I ) But of
the circumstances under which this was done nothing is mentionecl.
According to hI THrI

620
LXI, a, shows a zemi image inclosing a humerus or a femur, and
from it descends a zigzag-shaped thunderbolt. d represents a face,
by a zigzagging thunderbolt connected with a cloud above, symbolized
by a spiral-shaped figure. From this cloud, rain is seen
to fall. Here We see how the human zemis on earth are conceived
to bring down thunder and rain from the sky. The images in
question were "casas de turey", and turey means the heaven.I ) All
benefits came from the heaven. 2 )
Among the Tainos there did not between benevolent spirits
and their near equals, the evil spirits called mapoyas, exist the
same differentiation as among the Island-Caribs. Even the nature
spirits, particularly those of the forest, had almost ceased to
play any part in Tainan conceptions, while among the True Arawaks
they are very important. This I think might well be connected
with the fact that the Antilles are deficicnt in large and
imposing forest animals. Nature spirits are apt to appear in
animal form. The properties of the nature spirits had in some
degree been adopted by the zemis. In Espanola it was zemis
that in the night visited women, while among the True Arawaks
these parts Were played by nature spirits.
Ceremonial
purifications.
The Tainos were unable to conceive any communication
with the zemis without preliminary ritual
purifications in order to rid themselves of the disorder
that they were bound to harbour within their bodies, even
when they were not actually ill.
According to LAS CASAS, it was necessary to fast and at the
same time only to drink the juice of a certain herb, before being
fitted to taking part in a caoba and seeing visions.3) Similarly
men and women fasted in Espanola preparatory to the feast vvhen
to the zemi images they brought their offerings and presentcd
their supplications.4) Fasting was necessary for such as desired
oracular answers from the zemi regarding the future. 5) The feast
") CHAXC~, KAVARRE'I'H, t. T, p. 369.
") Letter of the Admiral, ibid., p. 335.
3) Historia, t. 64, p. 475.
4) COMARA, p. 37.
5) PAXH, cap. XXV.

62!
had to be preceded by vomition effected by putting a small stick
down the throat. GOMARA expressly states that this was done
"pour monstrer a leur Idole qu'il ne leur reste aucune chose mauvaise
en leur estomac".1) This, it will be seen, was a question of
a religious act of vomiting, not a hygienic one, which also was
customary in Espanola as a preliminary to partaking of the festive
meal pertaining to nocturnal dances, when the revellers "por
sanidad tomaban ciertas hierbas en la boca".2) Likewise, prior to
the behique beginning his treatment to cure a patient, those present
put into their mouths a paste made from the gioia herb in
order to vomit.a) Even in this case there must have been a ritual
purpose, that of clearing the stomach of evil spiritual influences
that might counteract the magic of the piaie.
But the special vomiting appliances were no doubt only meant
for more important pUblic ceremonies.
Swallowing sticks of this kind have been archaeologically recovered
in considerable numbers. Thus HAT'!' found some made
of shell, well adapted for putting down the throat, in the Tainan
culture in the site at Magens Bay, St. Thomas.4) One of these
implements, with a rounded spatulate blade, has a bird figure on
its handle. Another swallowing stick from the same site is made
from "a rib of the manati", and has its handle formed into a
human figure. 5) Of the Magens Bay finds a special group is formed
by swallowing sticks of turtle bone.6 ) In these the blade is broad
and straight - not curved like the rest of that site - owing to
the nature of the material. DE Booy mentions a swallowing stick
from Puerto Rico, "made from the lip of a conch",') butthis .
has never been published. Swallowing sticks from Santo Domingo
have larger blades and smaller handles as compared to those of
Magens Bay. KRIGER I, pI. II, of manatee rib has its handle
carved into a bird image. Of similar matter is no doubt FEWKES
') p. 38.
2) Apol. Hist., ed. SERRANO y SANZ, p. 537.
3) PANE, cap. XVI.
4) Arch. Virgo Islands, fig. 9 a and. p. 35.
5) DE BODY, Arch. Virgo Islands, pI. IX, and p. 95-97.
6) HATT, Arch. Virgo Islands, figs 9 d, e and 10, j, h.
7) DE BODY, p. 97.

I, pI. LXXXVII, d-d', "made of bone". The mere locality of
the finding of the five swallowing sticks of wood FnWK:E;S I, pI.
LXXXVIII, with the handle carved into human figures, is sufficient
for classifying these objects as ritual. They were found in
a cave in "Loma Sucia, near Isabela" in association with the
"speaking" w-ooden image pI. XV, C--C'l) FEWKES II, pI. II7, E,
of bone (manatee?), Santo Domingo, differs as regards type from
the remainder from this island.\Vith an animal head in its upper
part it has a long handle and a short and broad blade. In the
top part of the handle this swallowing stick is pierced for carrying
on a string.
The Cuban swallowing sticks are all of bone, and have all
been found near Mais1 or in Gran Tierra de Maya, that is to say
within the region of the Tainan culture proper which in a later
era was imported from Haiti. The two swallowing sticks published
by HARRINGTOK, fig. 80, a, "El l,indero site", and b, "Big Wall site",
both localities near lV1aisl, have a comparatively long blade, although
broader than is usual amollg swallowing sticks from Santo
Domingo. a is the only swallow--stick hitherto published that in
the upper end of the handle has a knob instead of a human or
animal sculpture. The lower edge of the blade is serrated. 2 ) b is
provided with a human head. HARRIKG'l'ON'S fig. 20, "Baracoa
distr.", has a human head with the grinning rows of teeth that is
so usual in small shell sculptures, and its blade is comparatively
short. His fig. IS, from Pueblo Viejo, Baracoa, only consists of a
fragment of the handle 'with a crawling human figure with its
backbone accentuated in the Tainan way, and part of the broad
portion of the blade.
From Jamaica no swallowing stick is known to me. Swano w­
ing sticks accompany the proper Tainan culture which, after having
developed in Santo Domingo and Puerto Rico, spread weshvard
to Oriente, Cuba, and eastvvards to the larger of the \'irgin Islands.
The magically purifying vomitioll that preceded ceremonies
placing the people in contact with benevolent deities, I COlI sider as
1) FEWKES T. p. 195 and 199.
2) Serration which is deeper and more sprea

having reached the Tainos from North America, where it was
\videly distributed in the Southern' States, in the Southwest, and
among the prairie Indians. On the other hand I have not found
it in 'Venezuela or Guiana. And, so far as I know, it is also absent
in Yucatan as well as in the rest of the Mexican high civilizations.
The Yuchis, a tribe in Korth America to whom the
hammock had spread, had learnt from the Sun how to prepare a
decoction from two kinds of emetic plants. "The town has charge
of the preparation of the emetic, aided by the four boy initiates".
The vessels containing the decoction "are of a special form with a
decoration on the rim representing the sun". vVhcn the sun is
at zenith they drink the decoction, and continue with this pnrification
right until "a feast of the first corn and smoking" takes
place.t) Similarly we find that the Haitians performed their
emetic ceremony before entering the cazique's hut in order to
bring offerings of cassava to zemi images. 2) The emetic rite in
which the effect was in the same way attained by drinking prepared
beverages ",vas very important among Muskhogean tribes" .
.Nowhere among them were swallO\ving sticks used. 3) In the Southeastern
States the men vomited before celebrating the autumnal
feast of the corn. The emetic here consisted of the black drink.
Among the Pueblo Indians only the medicinemen vomit.'l) In
l~spmlola the \vhole community vomited before the feast. In the
Southeastern States the harvest feast was preceded by fasting
(ibid.), just as the Tainos fasted in preparation for their feasts.
The ]\' atchez took emetics before the feast, and vomited until blood
appeared: 5 ) Even the remote Siottx, who however had a southeastern
origin, fasted and used emetics before the sundance,6)
1) SPECK, Ethnol. ,"uchi ind., p. 115.
') ::\IAHTYR, MacNutt's transL, vol. II, p. 3T6, quoting CAXIZ,\RES; GmTAlu,
cap. 27.
3) CHARLOTTF, D. GOWER, The Xorthern and Southern .'1 ililiations ot the A n­
tillean Culture, Mem. Amer. Anthrop. Ass., numb. 35, 1927, p. 39--40.
4) FRA"K C. SPECK, Some Outlines of Aboriginal Culture in the Southeastern
Stales, A. A., 11. S., yol. 9, I907, p, 2C)1.
5) SWANTON, Indian Tribes at the LOWe!' lVlississippi 'Valley, p. 15R, cit. DI'
PRA'l'Z.
';) J. OWEN DORSEY, A Study oj Siouan Culis, 11th Ann. Rept. Bur. Amer.
l;t!moL, p. 450.

From Korth America I know of 110 case where vomition was
brought on by the use of swallowing sticks, which - especially if
manufactured with artistic elaboration -- remain an exclusively
Tainan culture element.
According to DAVIES, the Island-Caribs vomited, before the
dancing began, in the Carbet, or commt111al house, so as to show
the invisible spirit that they harboured no evil thing in their
stomachs. This method of purification they had probably borrowed
from the Igneris. On the mainland of north eastern Sonth
America I have not found it. It is probably that the Igneris had
borrowed it from the Tainos.
Cultus. The Haitian system of religious rites at the harvest
festival consists of (r) an areito tothezemls, (2) invocation
and prayer, and (3) the cassava offering brought by the
women. Lastly, the piaies hand one of these cassava cakes to
each participant, who until the next annual feast preserves it in
his hut as a protection against thunderbolts and storms. I )
The anacri, offerings of cassava and first fruits of the earth,
of the Island-Caribs, were as a rule of a private nature.2) No
petitions 'vere offerred up by individual commoners. But the boye
made his spirit descend,3), and it was he that passed on to the
spirit the wishes that had been conversationally expressed. The
ouicou of the Island-Caribs might, it is true, have been combined
with anacri, as for example prior to their sea-raiding expeditions.
But in itself the ouicou was nothing but a great drinkingfeast
with guests invited from other villages, or a cannibalistic
victory feast of the kind that was practised on the mainland among
Carib and Tupi tribes. There were neither areitos to the icheeri or
chemiin, among the Island Caribs and invocation was unknown. 4 )
On the other hand there was celebrated among the Guaraunos
of the Orinoco delta a harvest festival at which the first fruits
of the earth were given as offerings to Gebu, "a supreme being",
and the lesser spirits. The medicine-men summon them by means
1) "'fAR'fYR, MacNutt's trans!., vol. 11, p. 387, quoting CAXIZARES.
2) Cf. ROCHEFORT, p. 472 .
3) BRHTON, p. 56.
4) JlRETON, p. 433.

625
of maraca. "In a disguised voice, supposed to be that of 'Gebu',
a medicine-man asks why the god has been summoned. Subsequently,
through the same medium, Gebu promises to give consideration
to their expressed wishes, whereupon the medicineman
bids him farewell with a cantation".1) Probably the Guaraunos
have borrowed this fertility cult from the True Arawaks, from
whom they also in other respects have received religious impulses.
But feasts including offerings of the products of the fields do not
in later times appear to have been customary among the True
Arawaks. Neither is there any mention of such in the earlier,
scanty writings. The Quayanas (Roucouyennes), on the other
hand, observe an annual festival with the fruits of the earth in
baskets. 2 )
In the Southern States harvest feasts with offerings of first
fruits occurred among the Muskogee3) and the Natchez.4)
In Mexico, as is well known, harvest feasts were widely
distributed.
Festivals involving first fruits belong in America to the
higher agricultural stages where maize is the principal cultivated
plant. It must still remain uncertain, however, wether harvest
festivals of this kind reached Espanola by means of impulses
emanating from the Southern States, or from Mexico.
Masks. When the Admiral's men entered huts inland of
Nuevitas in Cuba they there found "muchas estatuas
en figura de mugeres y muchas cabezas en manera de caratona"
(i. e. caratula).5) The early writings contain no references either
to dance masks or face masks. The Admiral's statement is not
sufficiently explicit to justify the conclusion that objects of that
kind occurred in Cuba. At Port-au-Prince a human face mask is,
however, reported to exist, made of wood. 6) It is of naturalistic
form and not in any way grotesque.
') DALTON, Venezuela, p. 128-130, cit. PLASSARD.
2) J. CREVAUX, Voyage dans l'Amerique du Sud, Paris 1883.
3) GOWER, op. cit., p. 40.
4) SWANTON, Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi Valley, p. 122, cit. LE
PE'l'IT.
5) NAVARRETE, t. I, p. 194.
0) Cf. FEWKES I, p. 136 and 2IO, cit. CRONAU.
40

626
DE LA BORDE mentions among the Island-Caribs the occurrence
of "des masques de diverses couleurs et figures" at their dancing
feasts when they appeared in gala attire with feathers and other
decorations. I) BRE1'ON only gives one Caribbean word for "mask",
ottanaragaona, but does not specify what kind of mask is meant.
Face masks and dance masks are absent in Guiana and northeastern
South America as a whole.2) But Caribbean raids extended
up the Orinoco even as far as the Raudales, and it is of course
conceivable that it was from them they got to know the mask.
The gold-inlaid masks that were carried on caziques' girdles
I have dealt with in Chap. X. ~When the Spaniards asked the Indians
of the village of Guacanagari about the masks on the belts,
the latter replied: "jurey (turey), que quiere dedr cosa del cielo" .3)
The objects in question thus represented zemls.
3'Iasks of shell.. Two such have been published by FEWKES I, pI.
LXXXVII, e, "Porto Rico", and II, pI. II7 C,
also "Porto Rico" (according to p. 235, bought in Arecibo). These
are far too small for covering a human face, so cannot possibly
have been face masks. Being provided with perforations they
were probably once attached to some sort of backing. A perforation
in the lower part of the chin in II, 1'1. II7 C is not very suggestive
of a pendant. \Vheter they have been attached to a cazique
girdle is not possible of determination.
Stone masks Stone masks, or rather stone faces, devoid of any
and stone arrangement for mounting on a shaft, have been
heads. recovered in Puerto Rico and Espanola. Of such,
FEWKES I, pI. LIV, b-b', and LV a--a' resemble stoue heads in
the sculpture. FEWKES I, p1. LV, band e, represent a flat design.
Both of them carry decorated cazical frontlets. PI. IN e has a
face in relief all flatter ground, and a cazical frontlet. All of the
abovementioned are from Puerto Rico. FE\VKES II, pI. 94 Band
C, is said to originate from Espanola. On Gonaives \vas recovered
FEWKES II, p1. 93 D and E; which has a rainure round the edge,
presumably for a string. Plate XV, 2 is from Puerto Rico.
") ap. cit., p. 39.
2) KORDE:;[SKli:iI,D, The Changes in the ]'vIat. Culture, etc., map. 12.
3) BERNAI,DEZ, p. 32.

~ 0 true stone masks are known to me from Jamaica. There
is, however, a masks carved in relief on the plane surface of a
semicircular stone. I )
In no case is locality specified as regards the finds of stone
masks. It is probable that they were held in the hand during
ceremonies. Stone heads are suggestive of having been lashed to
a handle, a theory advanced by Fewkes and not subsequently
called in question. The type best adapted for lashing has projections
at the top and at the base, the former provided with a broad
lashing groove above the head, while the latter constitutes the
neck of the figure. Of this type are FEWKES I, pI. 1,1 a--a'; and
b--b'; LIlI c-c', all from Puerto Rico; FEWKES II, pI. III D, Santo
Domingo; DE HOSTOS, Amer. Al1throp. Vol. 25, fig. 80, Macoris,
Santo Domingo. To this type also belongs a remarkable specimen
fonnd at Manati in Puerto Rico, and lJUblished by R. \V.
and S. K. LOTHRop.2) This head is coated with "a thin layer of
plaster". The two Lothrops were already well acquainted \vith
"the use of plaster to finish stone carvings from Mexico and Central
America". This constitutes a very interesting record of
?dexican influence among the Tainos. It strengthens the great
probability of the Tainos having learnt from Maya-Mexico what
the really knew of figural stone sculpture.
FE,VKES I, 1)1. LIV a-a', is only provided with a neck for
lashing to, or socketing in, a handle. A third type, represented
by FEWKES I, pI. 1,1 b-b', and I~IV c-c', has a separate hinder
portion, with a groove between it and the head proper. These
two were no doubt meant for snspension on a string.
~ 0 localities are given as regards these zeml heads. A miniature
head, with a groove above the cazica1 frontlet and another
on the neck, is HA'I'T, Virgo Islands, fig. 10 b, recovered behind the
stone ro\v of the plaza 011 Salt River, St Croix (p. 38).
On ellipsoid stones are represented both seated fnll-length
figures in low relief,3) resembling those which may occur on celts,4)
1) LONGI,EY, Kitchen ]vliddens of Jamaica, fig. p. 300.
") A. A., n. s., Y01. 2g, p. 728--730, and fig .. p. 729.
Cl) FEWKES IT, pI. 94 A, I,es Cayes, Haiti.
4) Compo for instance Ibid., pI. 88 C, St. Thomas(?).

628
and a face mask together with arms and fingers,l) as well as a
face mask provided with three protuberances.2) There also occur
stone nodules simplified to the extent that only the three protuberances
are present.3) These protuberances must have possessed a
specific significance which, however, is unknown to me. It is not
possible to determine whether they represent pathological formations
or, perhaps more properly speaking, cluds of earth kneaded
together for the fertilty cult, in the same way as the Huaxtecs in
their fertility rites used to have circlets of daubed clay, or the
like, round their eyes. On the stone mask FEWKES II, pI. 94 B,
Haiti, there is a protuberance on each, while "knobbed heads"
are only found in Puerto Rico. It is possible that these ellipsoid
objects with zemi mask belonged to such as were buried in the
ground to promote the germination of cultivated plants.
Three-pointers. In his account of the different kinds of stone
zemis that the Haitians used for speeding up the
growth of various edible roots, PANE writes: "otros tienen tres
puntas y creen ser producidas de la yuca, son semejantes al rabano."
(Chap. XIX). I agree with JOYCE4) in accepting the objects thus
referred to by PANE as the "three-pointers" of archaeology. Presumably
PANE only came across specimens of a plainer, and unsculptured,
kind, and, as regards their resemblance to a turnip,
particularly such as had a large and raised point in middle. Sculptured
three-pointers are, as we know, principally occurring in
Puerto Rico. It would seem that the Tainos, generally speaking,
only possessed small and unsculptured three-pointers.
Numerous finds of small and plain three-pointers in latter
years been made in various islands. J OSSELIN DE J ONG has shown
their distribution to be far wider than previously known. 5)
A plain form in which the peak is wholly predominant, and
the lateral projections are absent or only very vaguely suggested
1) Ibid., pI. 93, C-R, Haiti.
2) FEWKES I, figs. 29-30, »Porto Rico »,
3) Ibid., fig. 31, »Porto Rico».
0) Centro and West Ind. Arch., p. 185.
5) A natural prototype at certain three-pointed stones, 21 st Int. tongr. of Americanists,
first part, The Hague 192 4, p. 43-45.

- if not even fortuitous -- occurs in Cura

a more primitive conception of sympathetic magic formed the
basis of their rise and use. The cone is the primarily essential
element, and the most primitive, in their develorment. Pane
expressly states that the Haitians manufactured for themselves
zemiistic objects that resembled the food plants they wished to
push on (Cf. PANE, Chap. XIX). As regards three-pointers in
particular he mentions, as already said, that they were ,vere designed
to makf' yuca grow. D1

among whom it no doubt it was a tradition they had received
from their Ignerian women.
The sculptured figure in F'EWKES' type I in many cases consists
of a man more or less distinctly represented as wearing a
cazical frontlet.I) In other cases the head is that of an animal,
while the hinder portion is still that of a man. In this, preference
is given to some aquatic animal, such as a cayman,2) or a duck,3)
or possibly some other water fow1. 4 ) This indicates that these
three-pointers were meal1t to cause the rain to fall, so that there
by the yuca roots vvould sprout in the ground. Only in one case
where the head is clearly discernible does it appear to me as not
representing a waterfowl but rather a parrot,5) although the figure
is too indistinct for me to be quite certain.
FEWKES' type II I consider as to significance and import
closely allied to his type 1. Type II I look upon as phallic, and
the points as nothing else than phalli. 6)
The three-pointers that have been recovered in Puerto Rico
vastly outnumber all that have found in other Tainan islands.
HATT expresses an opinion that those which have been found in
St. Croix and St. Thomas are even more numerous than those of
Santo Domingo. 7) \Ve have good reasons for supposing that
sculptured three-pointers of stone recovered in St. Croix were
actually manufactured in Puerto Rico. HATT discovered "a few
of them in kitchen-middens in eastern Santo Domingo, none in
the Cibao Mountains. "8) Not a single one has been found in a
Tainan site in Cuba.
') FEWKES I, fig. 17, pIs. XXXII, XXXIII, XXXV a-a', b-b', c-c',
XXXVI, XXXVII, XXXVIII, XL, all from Puerto Rico; FEWKES II, fig. 50,
pIs. 101, 102, 103 A, B, 104 B, C; JOYCE, J ourn. Anthrop. Inst., vol. 37, pI. LIlI,
figs. G and 7; Plate XVII, from Mus. du Trac.; FEWKES I, fig. IS wears a
feather crown.
2) FEWKF,S I, pIs. XI,I, b-b', c--c' , XI,TI a-a', b-b', XI,III a-a', all
Puerto Rico; FF;wKrtS II, pI. T06 D.
") FEWKES I, pI. XLIII, b·-b', c-c', both Puerto Rico.
4) Ibid., pI. XI,IV, b'b', IOuerto Rico.
5) FEWKF,S I, pI. XI,IV a-a', l'uerto Rico.
") I. e. FEWKES I, pI. XI,VII, Puerto Rico, and pI. Xr,YlII, the latter from
Santo Domingo; Figs. 2 T, 23, Puerto Rico.
') Notes on the arch. of Santo Domingo, p. 5-S.
8) Ibid., p. 6.

No three-pointers of any kind have so far been recovered in
Jamaica, which suggests that this culture element never reached
that island. The question as to where the earliest three-pointers,
in the form of a single cone, came into existence still remains
unsolved. Perhaps in the southernmost of the Lesser Antilles,
or possibly in the Dutch Leeward islands off the coast of Venezuela.
As particularly regards sculptured three-pointers with large
lateral projections, it is evident - as shown by HAT'!.' not only on
the basis of their frequency but also from the diversified development
of types, and their artistic finish - that their origin must be
sought in Puerto Rico. From there, only FEWKES' type I has
spread southwards. This type has even extended far beyond the
Virgin Islands. In Mus. du Trocadero is preserved a large and very
beautifully worked three-pointer, Plate XV II I, which is stated
to originate from Dominica, although I am, inclined, however,
to refer it instead to Santo Domingo. This same three-pointer is
depicted in FEWKES,I) with 110 locality given. He considersi t
unique, in that it is provided with heads on both sides FEWKES II,
p. 214). The ornaments on its forehead, too, are peculiar. He
interprets them as arms.2) Detached arms occasionally occur on
earthenware faces among the ceramics excavated by HATT 011
Rio Nisibon on the northeastern coast of Santo Domingo. I therefore
incline to the opinion that this particular three-pointer at
aU events was manufactured in Santo Domingo. Even its material,
greenstone, susceptible to polishing, indicates a more northerly
island. Be it however as it may as to this three-pointer in Mus. du
Trocadero actually originating from some locality other than
Dominica, there remains nevertheless the find of a sculptured
three-pointer of stone in St. Vincent. It is preserved in the British
Museum and published in JOYCE, R. Anthrop. lust., Vol. 37, pI.
LIII, fig. 9, thongh one of its lateral projections is broken ofP)
1) FEWKES IT, pI. 105 A.
2) Ibid., p. 214. PEWKES I, fig. If), is similarly only proYided with heads,
although 011 one side a human head, and on the other that of a duck. Locality
not stated. The three-pointers published by FJ>vnms arc mostly from Puerto
Rico, though some are stated to be from Santo Domingo.
3) Compo Ib/:d., p. 407 and Centro Amer. and West Ind. Arch., p. 186.

JOYCE states that "the rock from which it is cut is not so heavy
and much coarser, workmanship is far rougher, and the projection
is distinctly pyramidal". These divergencies from Puerto Rico,
above all as regards the rock material, point to this three-pointer
having actually been manufactured in St. Vincent or in some
other island of late volcanic origin among the I~esser Antilles.
A sculptured three-pointer is even stated to have been recovered
in Venezuela.I) The exact locality is not givell. 2) Its
head is distinctly that of a man, while the hinder part is much
worn, or was perhaps never finished in detail. The rock material,
so far as can be judged from a photograph, does not point to Puerto
Rico, but the head with its long and aquiline nose resembles Puerto
Rican representations. I do 110t propose to discuss this threepointer
more fully, seeing that its locality has not been definitely
fixed.
Stone collars. In taking up the subject of stone collars we are
engaged upon a great problem in Antillean archaeology
where it is a question of explaining the origin, significance
and use of this class of objects.
No relation with, or true resemblance to, stone rings from the
State of Vera Crnz3) exists in the Antillean ones. Still less do I
propose in this connection to give prominence to the sculptured
Totonac stone yokes whose import at the burial of sacrificed
warriors KRICKEBERG has shown.
Stone collars are definitely a purely Tainan element. In
Puerto Rico finds have been made of the different stages in their
manufacture,4) how in a large boulder of suitable size a pit is drilled
and made larger and larger until it goes right through, and the
shaping of the circular ring can be started on. 5) The conventional
carving applied as a finish is not in congruous seeing that also
in the case of other objects of various kinds the Tainos are found
to have been clever SCUlptors. The sculpturing is far more perfect,
") JOSSEr,IX DE JOXG, 21 st Int. Congr. Americanists, pI. II, fig. 8.
2) Ibid" p. 44.
3) Cf. FEWKES, Cerl. Antiq. East. Alex., p. 251 and fig. 4

and has achieved a vastly richer formation of details in the slender
collars made of fine-grained, plastic rock than in the massive collars
made of coarse-grained and hard-workable rock. Through
studying these details we may perhaps succeed in forming a theory
as to the significance of these collars. This, however, still remains
a problem unlikely to receive its exact solution, and so is also the
reason why the Tainos manufactured large stone rings at all. Their
significance does not in any case appear identical with that of the
Vera Cruz stone rings.
Incontrovertible is at all events FEWKES' classification of
these objects as (r) massive collars and (2) slender collars. These
two different classes of collars are each made from different rock
originating from different quarries, and consequently of different
geographical origin. The fine-grained rock of which slender
collars are made - probably greenstone - lends itself far more
readily to carving and polishing than that which forms the material
of massive collars. It allows of a much more delicate and
graceful finish. It is probable that the coarser-grained rock of
the massive collars is too friable for venturing to produce from it
rings as narrow as the slender collars, the material of which is
firmer and less brittle. Slender collars appear throughout to have
been made of a single kind of rock, while in the case of massive
collars the material in some degree varies. FEWKES II, pI. 95 1 )
Puerto Rico, is evidently of a more plastic kind of rock than
generally used in the manufacture of massive collars. Sculpture
of such artistic quality is not elsewhere to be seen in massiv
collars. In particular the apelike human face in its centre is of a
kind otherwise found on slender collars, besides which this collar
is provided with a elbow bend, although not so pronounced as in
slender collars.
All massive collars of which locality is given are from Puerto
Rico,2) and so are all slender collars3) unless belonging to the
') JOYCE, Centro Amer. and West Ind. Arch., pI. XIX.
2) FEWKES I, pI. LXIII, LXIV, LXV c, d, f; FEWKES II, pI. 95, 97 D; Plate
XVIII, 2 (Tr. 63475).
3) FEWKES I, pI. 66, 67; FEWKES II, pI. 96, 97 A and B; FEWKES, A. A., n. s.,
vol. 16, fig. 97 (Mus. in Bremen); Two examples in R. M. at Stockholm; Plate
XVIII, I (Mus. Tr.).

Borinqueiian culture that crossed over to the Virgin Islallds. I )
For the rest I only have FEWKES' authority as to several examples
also having been recovered in Santo Domingo.
It is therefore to be inferred that stone collars are a Puerto
Rican culture element. 'iI/here they are concerned we do not
elsewhere find earlier and more primitive types, as in the case of
three-pointers. 1"ItWKES cites several theories advanced in explanation
of the origin and significance of stone collars. 2) A later theory has
been propounded by J OYCE,3) and further developed by DE HOSTOS4)
JOYCE considers that stone collars have as their prototype a forking
whithe whose branches have been tied together, and that thns
the point of bifurcation is denoted by the elbow in slender collars.5)
On basis of PANE'S statement, JOYCE also seeks to explain the
reason why the Tainos cut from the tree such forks which they
tied into a ring, said have been held together "by a cotton bandage"
(ibid.). It should however be noted that the passages in
the writing forming his authority only refer to the spirits of departed
caziques who had taken up their dwelling in a tree or a
log. From \vhat PA).JE writes it is not possible to speak of "the
prevalence of tree-worship in the Antilles". Tree-worship proper
was, so far as can be ascertained, unknown to the Tainos. The
conception that the spirit of a deceased person dwells in a tree
and manifests its presence by its branches suddenly rusting, still
survives among the Indian-mixed popUlation in the Luquillo
Mountains in l)uerto Rico. The resemblance to PANE'S account
of the cazical spirit in the tree is unmistakeable. A native labourer
related that one day as he was passing a tree, he heard "a noise, as if
its branches were suddenly shaken by someone hidden there". He
knew that "the spirit of Don Carlos had been heard there before" .6)
') JOYCE, R. Anthrop. lnst., vol. 37, pI. 53, fig. 5 "found at St. Thomas ,;.;
DE Boo\", Arch. V1:rg. Islands, fig. 32, St. Croix; RATT, Arch. Virgo Islands, pp.
39--Ao, mentions, from the Copenhagen Museum, one from St. Croix and another
from St. John, and also scycral fragments from St. Croix; Cf. Chap II and Plate I,
fig. I, fragment from the sllell-heap on Salt River, St. Croix.
2) FEWKllS T, p. 167--172.
:I) R. Anthr. lnst. vol. 37, p. 410.
4) A ntillean Stone Callal'S, R. Antllr. lnst. vol. 56, p. T 35- 1.42.
,,) CL Centro Amer, and West Ind. Arch., p. 188.
6) DE Hos'tos, R. Anthrop. lnst., vol. 56, p. 140.

Here we notice the close correspondence between Espanola and
Puerto Rico, even to the detail that the spirit occupying the
tree is that of some high-bred man.
According to DE HasTas' investigations among the primitiveminded
woodmen and mountaineers of Santo Domingo and
Puerto Rico it would appear as if, when "a noise proceeding from
vegetation" was heard in a remote part of the forest, this noise
was caused "by one or two branches, and not by a rustle of the
entire foliage of a tree" .1) He does not, however, adduce any
instance of a branch or branch-fork having actually been secured
by present-day inhabitants and bent into the shape of a ring that
was preserved on the strength of its inherent spiritual power.
According to J ayeE, the spirit was subsequently transferred
to "a stone habitation already prepared for it".2)
It is only slender collars that are provided with more elaborate
SCUlpture, while massive collars, with the one exception
mentioned above, only adopt two motives from slender collars,
viz. what FEWKES calls the "shoulder ridge", and occasionally a
field with geometrical angular ornamentation in low relief. FEWK­
ES' table of the different fields on slender collars (FEWKES I, fig.
25) is conventionally common to them all. If we examine the
fields it will be apparent that slender collars are compounded of
two religious elements. Both of these are separately sculptured
on the panels. The "undecorated panel" I am inclined to regard
as, so to speak, the "obverse" of a slender collar. Here is always
found an elliptical "pit". This pit I interpret as representing an
eye, properly speaking an animal eye, which once in the Tainan
manner was inlaid with resin and a morsel of mother-of-pearl,
representing the pupil. Animal eyes - birds's eyes in particular
- it may be noted are usually made elliptical, while human eyes
are generally of a rounded shape. What FEWKES refers to as "the
boss" I take to represent the forehead and the top of the animal's
head. On account to the extremely conventionalized stylization
it is very difficult to determine the kind of animal it is intended
to represent. Its not being a snake or some other reptile I think
will be apparent from its convex forehead. I am instead inclined
1) Ibid., p. 139.
2) Journ. Anthrop. lnst., p. 410.

to interpret it as representing a bird's head. Birds, and aquatic
birds in particular, played as we know an important part in Tainan
zemiism. In support of this theory I will adduce a highly interesting
bird figure of stone, FEWKES I, pI. LVI, a-a', "Porto
Rico" .1) It will be seen that the somewhat flattened duck's bill
ends at an elbow bend ronnd which runs "a bandage", exactly
in the way observable in collars. There beyond, the beak is continued
by a curved, elbow-bent portion which becomes part of
the bird':; body, so that the entire figure is closed up like a ring.
FEWKES determines this bird as a duck. Another duck figure of
similar form FEWKES II, pI. IIZ, A, "Porto Rico", lacks a bandage
at the bend of the beak, and has its fot shaped like a bent human
arm 'Vvith fingers and wristlet. The posture of this arm is exactly
similar to that occurring in Puerto Rican three-pointers where
arms are added. 2 )
It would not be correct to say that there is anything 'whatever
in the way of a beak in front of "the undecorated panel" found in
slender collars. But from the face of the bird there projects,
however, a tubular figure surrounded by one or more bandages,
probably having the same significance as in FEW~ES I, pI. LVI
a-a'. But what, then, does this tube represent? .Might it perhaps
be a pipe that the bird is supposed to blow? The Mexican
wind god, Eecatl, is in picture-writings represented as blowing a
pipeY) The explanation of this "shoulder ridge" in front of the
undecorated panel as a pipe meets, however, with great difficulties
seeing that it never appears to issue from the interior of a beak.
Frequently this detail terminates in a funnel-shaped expansion.4)
In this there is occasionally found a pit, suggesting that the "shoulder
ridge"') is meant to represent a tube. Exceptional among
slender collars in general is FE\VKES II, figs. 34--35, which outermost,
in front of the "shoulder ridge", has a cayman's head. The
cayman being and aquatic animal, it is possible that in this connection
it symbolizes rain. Behind the "shoulder ridge" IS seen
') Cf. FEWKES I, p. 137--138.
") Ibid., figs. 18 and 82.
") SELIlR, Ges. Abh. Rd. I, p. 239. figs. 164, 165.
4) FEWKES T, pI. LXII, FEWKES II, fig. 44.
5) FEWKES I, fig. 25, iIlustratiye of that author's terminology.

the customary figure with an elliptical orbit. These two details,
taken together, I am inclined to interpret as a pipe-blowing bird,
and therfore symbolizing wind. The combination as a whole
would then symbolize wind and rain.
The sculpture in "decorated panels" is likewise definitely
conventionalized, whereby it may be inferred that they, like
undecorated panels, carried some definite religious significance.
To the terminology of the sculpture and ornamention FE\VKES
of their different parts has devoted an fundament study.l) In
this connection I only propose to deal with the questions as to
what the sculpture found on the rings may be supposed to represent.
The most readily identifiable element of this sculpture
consists of a man's head flanked by arms which are distally curled
into circles.2) Representing extremeties as curling upon themselves
is a notion which in South America only occurs iu Guianan
clubs. Itven in these, the extremeties are occasionally curled
almost into circle.3) In some cases the head between the arms
does not OCCUr.4) To slender collars approaches in this respect, as
already mentioned, the massive collar, FEWKES II, pl. 95, with
large and dished ear-disks on either side of the head, fingers, and
farther out on either side a vertebra with processes. Regarding
the anthropomorhous sculpture in the panel below, the head and
arms,") FEWKES has attached especial importance to the navel
seen ill the centre. I, too, incline to the belief that the three
circles, which, like navel circles, have a small circle in the centre,
in FEWKES II, jig. 4L, actually represent navel circles. Strangely
enough, in two cases this anthropomorphous panel is exchanged
for a panel containing woven palm-leaf ornamentation. 6 ) In
Tainan sculpture great importance is frequently given to representing
the spine. Thus FEWKES II, jig. 42, is ou either side of the
navel provided with two vertebrae with processes.
1) FEWKES II, p. 19I~-I98.
2) FmVKES II, figs. 37,39,40; Plate XVIII, I, ;VIus. du Trocadho, Puerto Rico.
3) SrOU'E, Congr. Amcricanistes, dixiE-me sess. Stockholm 1894, p. I04,
figs. 27 and 28.
4) FEWKES II, figs. flI, 42, 45, 46.
5) Ibid., figs. 39, 4 2 , 43.
6) Ibid., fig. 37.

All this anthropomorphous sculpture on decorated panels
may reasonably be classed as zemiistic. The cazical frontlet
does not so far as I know occur on any of the heads. It is possible
that the anthroponlOrphous part of slender collars symbolizes
human zemis causing the crops to grow, while the bird in the
"undecorated panel" produces wind by blowing out air, and there-­
with rain. I have already mentioned, citing DE LA BORDE, that,
the zemi, Sava

elements of the Tainan culture proper. This element has only in
a slight degree spread beyond Puerto Rico, its cradle. In the
larger of the Virgin Islands, as we know, Tainan culture occur. In
the case of stone collars, nothing is known of the exact localities
in which they have been recovered. The fact that fragments
have been found in the Salt River midden tells us nothing as to
where they were employed. And the method of their employment
in religious rites still remains unknown to us.
Elbow stones. Already in his first monograph FEWKES has pointed
out that there exists a relationship between "elbow
stones", stone collars and three-pointers. Their point of connection
with slender collars consists in both having an elbow bend. At that
time, however, FE\VKES only knew Puerto Rican elbow stones with
a human face, FEWKES I, pl. LXIX, b-b', sculptured on a wide
surface. In his later monograph the type is also found represented
with legs below the face, FEWKES II, pl. 98 B, and fig. 48.
All three of them, as also I I, pI. 98, are wearing cazical frontlets.
The realistic representation of the face in this type of elbow
stones resembles that which occurs in certain stone masks and
three-pointers.
'While the anthropomorphous sculpture on elbow stones
shows no correspondence to the anthropomorphous sculpture on
decorated panels, the sculpture on elbow stones, FEWKES II, fig.
47 and pI. 99 A ,1) presents exact correspondence with undecorated
panels.
As to the origin of stone collars, I however hold a theory
differing from that suggested by JOYcJ:.:, which seems to me more
plausible. It is quite probable that in Puerto Rico from the
beginning the two kinds of elbow stones were co-existent. Probably
then both these elements were conjointly employed for
producing a composite magical effect. Subsequently both elements
were reproduced in a common slender collar in which,
however, the human element was given a peculiar anthropomorphous
formation.
FEWKES emphasizes that the distribution of elbow stones
') Not the Guesde Collection, as here stated by FEIVKES, but the Latimer
Collection, Puerto Rico.

"corresponds closely with that of stone collars and the threepointed
stones."I) It is however a fact that three-pointers were
actually far more widely distributed. Of great interest is also
that the relationship between stone collars and elbow stones
reveals itself also in their corresponding distribution. Both of
them are of Puerto Rican origin and manufacture.
Elbow stones are occasionally pierced with a hole. 3) On
FEWKES I, pl. LXIX, b-b', this perforation is placed so that,
when suspended, the face would hang upside down, while at the
ceremonies it would no doubt have been used right side up.
Pestles. By reason of the Tainan pestles being as a rule sculptured
vvith a human face or a full-length figure, they
are occasionally interpreted as some kind of zemis. This is correct
in so far as the figure no doubt represents some zemi or
other. But actually they may be supposed to have been employed
for some practical purpose, and the zemi figures may only have
acted as helpers in the work.
A very striking feature in Tainan culture is the discrepancy
between the abundance of stone pestles and the fewness of stone
mortars. This discrepancy is in strong contrast to Californian
finds. It is therefore possible that among the Tainos some other
kind of underlay was used in the place of stone mortars. I have
never found the bottom face of a Taillan stone pestle scored.
This points to these implements not having been designed for
crushing any hard grains, nuts or seeds, as in California.
Emphasis has frequently been given to the similarity existing
between Tainan and Polynesian pestles particularly noticeable
between those of Puerto Rico and of the Marquesas. The
Polynesian ones are used for pounding poi, a paste or pudding
of taro flour. This paste is very tough and has to be
kneaded vigorously. If a stone pestle is not available, the Polynesiau
women use for a kneading implement a natural stone of
suitably ovoid shape. Probably the Tainos used their pestles for
hard kneading as well as for pounding. It is however unknown
to me exactly what kind of tough mass they may have kneaded.
') FHWKES II, p. 1')9.

Stone pestles do not constitute any specifically Tainan element,
but are widely distributed over the American continent.
But it is only in the Antilles that pestles in their upper part are
sculptured a head, face, or entire figure, and in certain cases they
are provided with a "seal", as in Hawaii, Tahiti and the lVIarquesas.
Both of the abovementioned Antillean islands are as regards
stone pestles and other stone sculpture representative of proper
Tainan culture. But, contrary to what is otherwise the case,
where pestles are concerned it is Espanola and not Puerto Rico
that takes the first place. Typical of the majority of proper Tainan
pestles is that they are provided with a "seal", ,vlth or 'without a
ferrule. Only from Santo Domingo do I know of this "seal" being
globularly shaped (FmvKEs I, fig. 6, pl. XXVI, band e; XXVII
e, f, g, s, t). The usual sculpture at the top of the pestle consists
of a face, occasionally supplemented with a contracted lower
body resting on its stomach. This sculptural design is found not
only in Espanola but also in Puerto Rico.1) In association with
Borinquenian sculpture it has also spread to the Virgin Islands
(I:tr~WKES II, pl. TT4 B, St Thomas). But in Espanola there have
in addition been recovered pestles with other kinds of sculpture.
Of human sculpture may be mentioned a pestle with an upturned
human face at the top (FEwKltS I, fig. I2), and another with a
figure reclining on its back (Ibid, pl. XXIV, a). A number of
pestles from Espanola reJlfesent birds (FEWKES I, fig. I4, Pls.
XXVI, b: XXVlI, i). The two pestles from Pnerto Rico, which
differ from the ordinary, face sculptured, type, present a more
mediocre sculptural art (FE'WKES I, figs. 9 and IO).
HARRIKGTON has shown that the pestle --- even the unsculptured,
plainly conical one of Cuba -- does not belong to Sibonyean
culture. 2) This type is besides the only one that has been found
in the western part of the island where the culture has proved itself
as for the most part remaining at a "sub-Tainan" stage. In
Oriente, on the other hand, sculptured pestles of a Tainan character
have been discovered, One of these3) retains the form of an
1) Indian Kotes, vol. I, 1927, fig. 72.
2) Compo op. cit., pI. CVIII.
3) Hid., fig.

elongated cone above an engraved face. Another,l) with a broad
body and an elongate head - uncertain whether human or animal
..-
was recovered in a cave in association 'with Tainan culture.
A third 2 ) is of coral limestone, and probably of local manufacture.
It has a decidedly Tainan appearance, even to the extent
of having a "sea1", and is only singular inasmuch as it possesses
three faces.
From Jamaica, eight pestles have be ell published.3) All of
them are sculptured, are conical of body, and- vvith the exception
of DFERDE~, fig. I-have a flat under side. None ofthem has
a »sea1», but in DrERDEN, fig. 4, and JOYCE, figs. 2 and 4--5, a
slightly raised ring is defined. The four appearing in JOYCE, and
DUERDEN, figs. 3 and 4, have human heads, the 1astmentioned being
provided with a low feather crown,4) and JOYCE, fig. 5, a plain
fron1et. JOYCE, fig. 2, has large ear pendants and engraved arms
\vhich with the fingers of the hand reach up to the face. DUERDEN,
fig. I, consists ~f a full-length figure.
Conical pestles are "distinctly characteristic of St Kitts", 5)
and have also been recovered on other islands of the I,esser Antilles
as well as in Trinidad. Of great interest is that in the St. Vincent
region have been recovered not only smooth and conical pestles,S)
bnt also sculptured ones, not, it may be noted, like the Tainan
ones proyided 'with heads, but at any rate with faces. 7) To infer
that in case impulses frOll1 the Espaiiola-Puerto Rico region
may be taken into account from the presence of "seals"8) seems
to me only reasonable. EYen other points of similarity may be
noted. In one case the body is globular,9) which is a feature occa-
1) 1I,id, fig. IO, ca\'e at Alcala, near Holguin. For the general shape of this
pestle, compare FE\n';:ES I, pI. XXVII lll, Santo Domingo.
') Congr. Int. Anthrop. Arch. t. If, 11ol1aco 190(), fig. 110.
3) Dn:RDEX, pl. 4: JOYCE, R. Allthl'Op. lnst., YO!. 37, pl. 1,XV, 2 anel 4-,6.
4) Feather crOW11S are also representec1 on heads in Jamaican pottery. See
Dg Boo\', ."t. A. n. s .. yol. 15, pI. XXXVTlI, figs. T anrl 2.
0) Compo BR,~XCH, op. cit. p. 317 and 1'1. 21.
6) FE\YKES II, pI. 34 II and 35 13, SL Vincent.
7) lute! .. figs. 5, h, :-I, ,,,hill' 7 only has three pits representing eyes and mouth.
s) I bid., figs. 4'--5 and pI. 4(), I, the latter fro1ll Fancy, St. Vincent. I hm'e
already pointed out that these objects of ,-oJeanie tufa often represent implements
unploved by the Igneris.
") Ibid .. pI. 3+ K.

sionally also found in Santo Domingo. l ) Some pestles are in the
top part provided with two conical projections.2) Smaller projections
of this kind are sometimes found on pestles from Pnerto
Rico.3)
In British Guiana only occur, so far as I know,4) smooth and
conical stone pestles, in addition of stone mortars.5) RlYrH says:
"There is reason to believe that stone pestles and mortars employed
for both pounding and grinding (pI. 82, A, B. C,) have been used up
ro very recent times for maize and cacao" .6) In the southeastern
States, too, stone pestles occur. In Georgia the plainly conical
type is also found;7) a type which besides is met with even elsewhere
in the eastern States. S ) CAnBZA DE VACA saw "nllmerous
mortars for cracking the grain" at Apalachee, aud in "Brevis Narratio".
p1. XXVIII, is seen "a native" 'with a stone poestle in his
hand "in the act of grinding something for the feast", probably
"some fragrant herbs as seasoning for the food". 9)
In Mexico the crushing of the soaked maize "vas done with
rubber and metate. 10 ) In the earlier culture of Valle de lVlejico
there occur, hO'wever, pestles of truncated cone-shape.H )
It is probable that already at the time of their emigration
from South America the 'fain os were acquainted with the smooth
stone pestle even if they, like the agricultural tribes of the tropical
lowlands of South America, possessed mortars and pestles made
') Fmvlo;s I, pI. XXVI, c, XXVII e-f, s--1.
2) FEWKES II, pI. 35 C, St, Vincent, and fig, 5,
3) lbid" fig, 58,
") In this region, it may be noted, can-iug in stolle was not llnknown, as has
been shown by the presence of elongated, curved celts, See ROTH, A n introductory
study, pI. 5 A~~R, from Sandhills, Demerara River. These objects are probably
Arawakan,
;,) Ibid" pi, 82, G, D, E, F, pestles; A, H, n, C, mortars, These objects originate
from the eoastland, and are 110 doubt Arawakan,
6) Ibid" p, 382,
7) JONES, op, cit" pI. XVIII, b,
8) :YI00REHEAD, vol. If, fig, 503, Piqua, Ohio, and 504 b, Louisville, Kentucky,
with j\seal »,
') I bid" p, 309,
") Comp, TH, A, JOVCE, j1Iexican Archaeology, London 1920, p, 154,
") GEORGI'; c. VAILJ~A"T, Excavations at Ticaman, Anthrop, Pap, Amer,
Mus Nat, Hist., Y01. 32, pt. 2, 1931, pI. 88.

of wood, as mentioned in Chap. VI. Even in the coastal region
of British Guiana stone pestles and stone mortars were, as we
know, used. Within the Tainan culture proper there have
subsequently developed several forms of stone pestles, in particular
such as were provided with a spreading "seal". Certain of these
higher forms have, as part of this culture, been directly transmitted
to the Virgin Islands and eastern Cuba. In the conical pestles
of Jamaica no impress of this higher Tainan influence is discernible.
The nniformly simple type without "seal" may have been brought
along by the Jamaicans already when they first settled in the island.
Towards the east, however, even as far as the remote island of
St. Vincent, Tainan influence is noticeable in the formation of pestles.
Earthenware
pestles.
My opinion that Tainan stone pestles were not
made for pounding hard grain but for the purpose
of squeezing or kneading. I consider confirmed
by the fact that in later times earthenware pestles have been
discovered by KRIEGER in his excavation of a midden at Constanza,
Santo Domingo,l) which must have been too fragile
for pounding purposes. These pestles, six in number, which
KRIEGER depicts are all of different types, and all of them
recur in Tainan stone pestles. 2 ) It is possible that the Tainos used
their pestles for crushing or working up maize that had been
soaked or boiled, or perhaps even in the preparation of mazamorra.
In this case, as in Polynesia, the underlay is not likely
to have consisted of a stone mortar. It is pobable that the sculpturing
- a head or a full figure - with which they were provided
was of a zemiistic character. That such spiritual aid was thougbt
necessary points to their having been put to some hard work. 3 )
Zemiistic orna- The ornamentation I here refer to by the above
mentation. term is only such as occurs on objects of zemiistic
significance, and indispensable at religious ceremonies.
Just as animals played a minor part in Tainan zemiism
1) KRIEGER III, pI. 55.
2) For pI. 55, I, Cf. FEWKES I, pI. XXVII, I, Santo Domingo. The other
five are uppermost provided with a head or a face.
3) Compo RATT, Notes Arch. Santo Domingo, p. 6 for manos.

and myths, it also strikes one as remarkable that among the
Tainos there was an almost complete absence of theromorphous
ornamentation. DE HOSTOS 1 ) has analyzed the various ways in
which the Tainos have represented the different parts of the human
head, including the frontlet, as well as the posturings of
stone figures. He records2) the absence of zoomorphous forms.
FEWKES has stressed the important part the navel plays in the
decoration of stone rings.:!) That a circle is actually intended to
represent a navel is deducible from its size and from its central
position in the anthropomorphous figure of which it forms a
part.4) A large navel surrounded by a circle is seen in the cotton
idol, FE,VICES I, fig. 43, from the Republic of Haiti. The human
image on a stone duJw has a large navel engraved 5)
The great significance of the navel is specific of Tainan ornamentation.
It must not be confused with the representation from
Mexico-Central America of Chacmol's bowl-shaped depression
on the stomach merely in the form of a low-relieved ring. 6)
Eartenware
stamps.
Cuba:
Among Antillean religious objects I also count
pottery stamps. Of these, both flat and cylindrical
types have been recovered in the Antilles.
HARRINGTON, part of a stamp, pI. 80 C and p. 317;
flat, region of l~l Cobre.
Santo Domingo: FEWKES I, pI. LXXXVI, a, cylindrical; b, discoidal,
incised on both sides; DE Booy, Amer. Anthrop.,
fig. 27, a and b, discoidal, incised on both sides; fig. 28,
a-b, circular, »surmounted by a raised figure on one side and
with incised pattern on the reverse »; pI. IX, a-a', incised 011
its under side, and 011 its upper with the figure of a frog for a
handle; b-b', c-c', and d-d', rectangular, somewhat rounded
') A. A., !I. s., vol. 25, !IO. 4, p. 525-557.
') Ibid, p. 547.
3) FEWKES II, p. 196.
4) FEWKES II, figs. 42 and 43.
5) FEWKES II, p1. 1I3 Il.
6) n. g. S. K. LOTHROP, Indian Notes, yo!. III, no. 3, fig. 55 b, Finea Arevalo,
Gnatemala.

lateral sides, bottom face incised, and handle at the top shaped
like a frog, all those just mentioned originating from the Salado
caves, Higuey; FEWKES II, pI. II7 G, fig. 62; KRIEGER I, pI. 15,
fig. 1. a-b, discoidal, San Juan site, Province of Samana; fig. 2,
a, discoidal, h, cylindrical, Provo of Monte Cristi; KRIEGER II, pI.
17, I, discoidal (fragmentary), 2-3, same as I, pI. 15, fig. I, a--b,
4 (fragmentary), 5, discoidal, all from the San Juan site. KRIEGER
III, pI. 36, 1---3, Santo Domingo and La Vega provinces.
Puerto Rico: DE HOSTOS, Amer. Anthrop., Vol. 21, figs. 48, d,
49, b, c, 51, i, j, k, 1, m. All seen in fig. 51 were
"taken from the same heap" on the western coast (p. 310). DE
HOSTOS mentions besides that in a private collection in Puerto
Rico he has seen a cylindrical, or roller, stamp (p. 392).
St. Croix: :Nat. Mus., Copenhagen, 0.30267, of greenstone,
'with involuted eyes; 0.2855, handled, with pointed
stellate patterns.
St. Vincent: Brit. Mus., M I, 217, circular, concentric pattern,
much worn. FEWKES II, pI. 70, A, represents a
human face and is provided with a handle, Band C are circular,
and handled.
Barbados:
Grenadines:
JOYCE, Centro Amer. and ~West. Ind. Arch" fig. 64,
a-b, handled.
ROTH, 38th Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol., pI. 33,
circular and handled.
Trinidad: FEWKES, Amer. Anthrop., Vol. 16, fig. 71, circular
and handled; from a shell heap at Erin Bay.
\Vith few exceptions the flat stamps are of circular shape.
Among this group must also be counted the fragmentary stamp
from Barbados which however, as originally it had four points
with a corresponding number of arched incisions between them,
was of stellate shape. As to the fragmentary Cuban stamp, when
ct this ,vas rectangular, and provided with a figure represent-

ing a mouth of some sort, probably that of a frog, projecting in
a curve. This flat stamp forms a class of its mvn among Antillean
stamps. Three of the stamps with frog-shaped handles from the
Salado caves, Santo Domingo, are rectangular with sides that are
slightly rounded.!)
DE Booy has divided the stamps that he found in the Salado
caves intol) "those that are circular or oval with incised lines on
both sides", and2) "those surmounted by a raised figure on one
side and with an incised pattern on the reverse".
Discoidal stamps incised on one side have been recovered
both in Santo Domingo and in Puerto Rico, while those \vhich
are incised on both sides only have been found in Santo Domingo.
FEWKES I, pI. LXXXVI, b-b', Santo Domingo, are discoidal
and, incised on both sides, like the stamps from the Salado caves
Incised on one side are KRIEGER I, pI. IS, fig. I, a and b, Samana
province, 2, a, Monte Cristi prov.; KRIEGER II, pI. 17, figs. I, 4
and 5, San Juan site, Saman{L prov.; DE ROSTOS, figs. 49, band c,
51, i, j, k, 1, m, 11, Puerto Rico.
A circular stamp from Puerto Rico, DE ROSTOS, fig. 48, e. 2)
has a handle and two modelled birds' heads. Handles also occur
from Santo Domingo and Puerto Rico, albeit their shapes are
entirely different, and they are found in different kinds of stamps.
Of great interest are the frog-handled stamps that DE Booy
recovered in the Salado caves. These, it may be noted, rattle
when shaken,3) whence it may be inferred that they were put to
some special magical use, possibly for summoning the benevolent
spirit preparatory to applying the frog-pattern. In later excavations
carried out by KRIEGER in Santo Domingo have also been
recovered some fe"" other objects with a rattle pellet inside.
Constructed in this way were some cylindrical handles of pottery
vessels recovered in the San Juan site. 4 ) Another, horizontally
projecting, handle of a vessel, according to him "shaped in the
form of a bird's head", was similarly rattling. 5) In 2\Iexico ratt-
') DE Booy, pI. IX, b, c, d,
') See 1 bid., p. 392.
") FEWKES, A, A. n. s., vol. r6, p. 2r6.
4) KRIEGER III. p. 83-84.
5) Ibid., pI. 25: 5, and p. 84.

ling earthenware feet are very common. In Tainan ceramics pottery
feet are absent. Pellets enclosed within rattles representing
animals or human beings, or inside the feet - often modelled in
animal shape -- of clay vessels are, as vve know, very frequent in
Central America and Mexico. Tainan clay figures are either massive,
or consist of effigy vessels. In DE Booy, fig. 28, on which
crab's claws are modelled, the body itself of the animal, constituting
the handle, consists only of an open ring, thus making it
unlikely that this stamp contained any rattle-pellet.
The stamps of the l~esser Antilles and Trinidad are all provided
with conoid handles. 'fhey are as a rule circular. The ste11ate like
stamp of Barbados I also refer to this type.!) A circular stamp with
a similar handle has also been recovered in Santo Domingo. 2) To
an entirely separate class belongs FEWKES II, pI. 70 A, St. Vincent,
modelled with a human face, which is quite unsuitable to bodystamping,
and therefore cannot possibly have served such a purpose.
Roller stamps are mainly known from Santo Domingo. I refer
to the four that have been mentioned above. DE
Hos'l'oS has only seen one ro11er stamp from Puerto Rico, but his
statement that snch stam})s have also been found in the Lesser
Antilles is so vaguely formulated that 110 definite conclusions can
be drawn from it. LIJ'\XE has compiled a map of the distribution
of cylindrical stamps in America.3) He finds their proper area of
distribution to be "the extreme northwest of South America", and
on Rio Ucayali.4) Along the South American coast they occur
archaeologica11y as far as Aruba. 5) On the Orinoco they are unknown
below Rauda1es. Finds of ro11er stamps have been made in
the Cerrito culture at Lago Tacarigua.6) Ro11er stamps being alto-
') Stellate pottery stamps are of ancient origin in the Valley of }fexico. See
C. G. VAILI,ANT, Excavations at Ticoman, Anthrop. Papers, Amer. -;VIus. Kat.
Hist., Vol. XXXII, pt. 2, 1931, pI. 83 with concentric pattcrn like of Barbados.
2) KRIEGIlR Ill, pI. 36: 3.
3) Darien in the T'ast, Goteborg 1929, map. 4.
4) Ibid., p. 40.
5) l/;id., map 4.
6) According to RAFAilL REQUENA, Vestigios de ta Atla.ntida, Caracas 1932,
p. 312, three specimens foun(l in the }fus. de Prell., Caracas. Possibly they
correspond to his figs. 011 p. 43 and 45, the provenicnce of them not being assigned.

gether unknown in North America, it is probable that they reached
Espanola from Yucatan-Mexico, and that they 'were incorporated
with the higher Tainan culture in that island,
Flat stamps. Far more widely distributed in America are flat
stamps'!) They constitute an invention of a simpler
nature than roller stamps. Flat stamps, such as we know them from
the West Indies, are designed to impress the pattern of some small
figur, while the roller stamps produce a repeated, uniform design,
From shell heaps in the Barima district of British Guiana I
know a circular stamp2) with the handle in the form of head. In
the centre of the stamping face it has, however, a conical projection,
w'hich must render it unsuitable as a body-stamping implement,
For the rest, the pattern only consists of small pits, irregularly
disposed. From Venezuela GILIJ,3) who mainly deals with
the Tamanacos and the Maipures, is acquainted with stamps for
body-painting, but whether these were flat or roller stamps we
cannot ascertain. In any case they were not hO'wever small, round
figure stamps. Their patterns were "vaghi rabachi", that is to say
continuous, and possibly meandric. Patterns of this kind may however
be produced both with flat stamps and with roller stamps.
MAI~CA::-H)4) depicts from the Piarems rectangular flat stamps with
repeated patterns, partly meandric. Very interesting is that he also
reproduces a circular figure stamp of truncated cone shape, thus
unlike the small, circular figure stamps from the Lesser Antilles
which consist of a disk provided with a handle. The conical type
of stamps may have originated in the southern parts of Central
America,5) whence it spread to the Raudal district. The type of
figure stamp consisting of a circular disk with a handle would
seem to have spread to the Antilles direct from the 1Iexico-Mayan
reglOn. From the Greater Antilles it may be supposed to have
spread to the I,esser Antilles.
') See LrN"~:, map, 3,
2) G, 111. 31. 24, 388" from Sheba, near Aruka,
") T, II, p, 58,
4) Ethnographie Pr/cololllbienne de Venezuela, Mem. de la Soc, Anthrop"
2e ser. t. 4, Paris, 1890.
5) Compo MAC CURDY, A Study of Chiriquian Antiquities, Conn. Ac, Arts Sc,;
vol. 3, 19II, p, r64, fig, 262.

As regards stamps no ccnnexion exists between the \Vest Indies
and the southeastern States. The "modelling paddles"l) occur
ring in the latter region were designed for stamping vessels. These
stamped ceramics had their specific distribution in the higher cultures
of the southeastern States. It is probable that the practice of
stamping clay vessels was of a very ancient origin in these cultures.
For when ceramics are discovered at a higher level than the primitive
culture without pottery in Duval County, Florida, there are
soon revealed also stamped ceramics, as has been shown by
\VYlVIAX'S and MOORE'S excavations, and confirmed by NELSON. 2)
Stamped ceramics have not been shown to occur in the \Vest Indies.3)
In the southeastern States there further occur thick disks
with stylized animal figures. 4 ) These are supposed to have been
designed for playing games. Body-stamping, so far as I know, was
unknown in the southeastern States.
As regards the application of the stamps, they cannot, in the
\\;est Indies, have been designed for ceramics for the reason that
stamped ceramics, so far as I know, are entirely absent, nor even
for the stamping of cloth, seeing that nowhere mention can be
found as to the naguas of the women having been painted. Most
likely they were only used for body-stamping at fecundity festivals.
The patterns on the flat stamTls provide indications of that
way. Icrog motives are common on Antillean flat stamps. On
stamps from the Salado caves the handle is in the form of a frog
\vhile the stamp pattern consists of a stylized frog motive. Not
quite so strongly accentuated is the stylization in DE Booy pI. IX,
b-b'. In c-c', d-d' and a-a' is seen a severely simplified stylization
of a frog, in the form of a St. Andrew's cross, with fore and
hind-legs extended. a-a' is of circular shape, and the same kind
of stylization is found in DE Booy, fig. 27. a and b.
1) HOL"mS, Aboriginal pottery of Easten1 Cniled States, 20th Ann. Rep.
Bur. Amer. Ethnol., pI. CXIII, the Cherokees.
2) Chronology in FI07"ida, New York 1918, p. TOO dealing with the Oakhill
shell mound on the ;Ylosquito Lagoon.
al KRIEGER III, p. 54, mentions, it is true, that the use of a check stamp, or
of a more elaborate pattern stamp as in Florida and the Gulf states occnrs,
but is not C01l11110n to aboriginal Santo Domingan pottery. He dtes no proof
for his statement.
4) NELSOX, Ibid., fig. 60.

Another kind of stylization, representing a frog with fore and
hindlegs bent inwards, as if preparing to jump, is universally
prevalent ill the Antilles. To this group belong FEWKES I.
pI. I{XXXVI, b', Santo Domingo; DE HOSTOS, Amer. Anthrop.,
Vol. 21, figs. 49, band c, Puerto Rico; FEWKES II, pI. 7;, 11,
St Vincent.
Still more stylized are ROTH, 1'1. 33, B, The Grenadines, and
FEWKES, Amer. Anthrop., Vol. 16, fig. 71, Trinidad, where each pair
of legs is made to form a semicircular figure. The two stamps just
referred to from a transition to the "labyrinth", which I look upon
as an extremely stylized frog motive of this class. For it may be
noted that the "labyrinth" occurs on FEWKES I, pI. LXXXVI, b,
the reverse of b', \vhere the abovementioned stylized frog is prelJaring
to leap. Here the connexion between frog and "labyrinth" is
evident. On the Salado caves stamps it will be seen that the
frog figure on one side is supplemented by a frog motive on
the reverse. The "labyrinth" is also found in DE HOSTOS, fig. 49, j,
Puerto Rico.
I know the "labyrinth" exclusively from Antillean stamps. In
Arawakan shell heaps in British Guiana labyrinth figures are, hov\,­
ever, found on the bottom of vessels with annular foot. The design
itself may be supposed to have been passed on to the True
. Arawaks by their kinsmen iu the Lesser Antilles. Labyrinth-stylization
has primarily evolved as contingent upon the circular shape
of the stamping face. For the rest its design is most probably a
representation of the two bent pairs of limbs of a frog.
The "labyrinth" is an indigenous Antillean ornament that
has been developed in the Antilles. Its significance is that of a
frog. In the Antilles the "labyrinth" only occurs on frog-pattern
stamps.
Another symmetrical ornament with the outermost circle
ill the form of a line of dots occurs both ill FEWKES II, pI. 70,
e, St,Vincent, and in the circular stamp Piaroas, referred to
above.
I am of opinion that the women among the Island-Ara\vaks
employd these frog-pattern stamps for stamping themselves with.
Aztec women of high rank painted the face yellow, and then, with
earthenware stamps impressed upon it patterns in red paint.

Stamps constituted female toilet requisites. Their patterns were
symbols of the female sex.I )
In Espanola the frog was looked upon as a female being. PAKE
relates that when the women of the country referred to as "Guanin"
had become separated from their children by a brook, the latter,
"asking for'the breast", cried "Toa Toa", whereupon they were
immediately turned into frogs. "It is for this reason that in the
springtime the frogs make these sounds."2) UJ"LOA must have conceived
PANE'S text erroneously, and has nane, "dwarfesses", instead
of rane, "frogs".3)
According to him, the Haitian word for
frog was Tona.4 ) BRASSEUR DE BOURBOURG suggests that in both
cases the word might have been Toa. 5) If so, a play on words would
have been intended, showing that among the Haitian the idea of
'\voman"was closely connected with that of "frog". MARTYR gives,
as we know, only the word Toa which on the one hand would
thus mean "mother", while on the other it imitated the sound made
by frogs "in the springtime."6)
In the coastland of British Guiana the frogs that perform
sacred functions are considered to be females. An Arawakan medicine
man on the Moruca River gave to ROTH a chest ornament incised
with a female frog. 7) In tales collected from the True-Caribs
the "rain frog" is an old woman. 8) It is an unfailing sign of rain if
this frog begins to croak. It lives in a tree which is only found on
the Pomeroon and the Barima rivers. Among the "Varraus the
wauta frog was originally a woman. 9) She passed throngh a hole
into a tree. There the wauta frog dwells to this day, and it is from
there that her croaking may be heard.10) The frog is also connected
- --- -
') SEJ~J

with the origin of cassava. An old female frog had "a white spot
on her shoulder." \Vhen she picked at this spot there issued from
it cassava starch.l ) N anyobo (literally a big kind of frog), who
likewise was an aIel ,voman, vomited out fire that ,vas to be used
for cooking.2) The frog also serves woman as a provider of omens.
\Vhen Arawak women on the Pomeroon are pregnant they tickle
the sorukara frog to make it jump, "anel accoreling as it lands on
its belly, so will her child prove to be a girl or a boy".;])
In his above-cited statements ROTH refers, it is true, not only
to Arawaks but also to Caribs and \Varraus. But both these latter
tribes have since long ago been influenced by the Arawaks, not
least in their religious conceptions. We have well-founded
reasons for supposing that the Island-Arawaks brought with
them from South America a system of conceptions as to the part
played by the frog as a woman, and its connection with female
functions. Their myths are essentially Arawakall. Stamping
with frog motives in the Antilles is, however, not in itself any
Guianan culture element. Because the frog of the Guianan
world of conceptions is a woman \vhenever it is accredited with
magic functions it stands to reason that in the Antilles those
figure stamps were used by the woman for stamping the face.
This was the .custom in Mexico, and it was even from that \'ery
region that the discoid face stamp originated. In Guiana it was
only by drawing that the Arawak women ,,,'ere ablo to produce
small and conventional figures upon the skin of the face. Influence
as to face stamping had evidently reached C;uiana, probably from
Trinidad, but the stamps themseh'es were lacking.
Small, flat face stamps -- circular or oval --- -with handles
had their origin in .:.vrexico, where in Valle de Mejico they occurecl
already in the Early Zacatenco culture at Ticuman. 4 ) They were
assimilated by the Teotihuacan Toltec culture 5) The concentric
pattern is also found in Mexican circular stamps6) Already in the
') Ibid., sect. 37, True Caribs.
2) li;id., sect. 33" --34, True Carihs.
') Ibid, sect. 222.
4) V.\n~L_\X'f, op. cit., 29() and pI. 83, bottom row figs. I and 2.
") ilrAXFEr, CAMIO, La Poblacion del Valie de Teolihuacan, 1. I, C. ,le :\Iejico,
T

Teotihuacan culture the manufacture of stamps had been highly
perfected, and the Aztec culture shows still greater development1)
1Iayan stamps do not present the same refined workmanship as the
Aztec or Zapotec ones. From the First Empire flat stamps have
been recovered in abundance in the Ulloa Valley,2) and among them
several circular figure stamps.
Against any supposition that circular stamps may have
reached the Antilles via Venezuela speaks, firstly, the fact that
they have not been shown to have penetrated as far as Cumana
or Faria, and, secondly, that the circular stamp, above referred
to, from the Raudal region is conicaP)
Roller stamps occur, it is true, in Venezuela both at Lago
Tacarigua4) and in the Raudal region,5) as well as on Aruba,S) but
cannot, any more than flat stamps, be shown to have extended
farther westwards. In the Antilles they have only been recovered
in Santo Domingo and in Puerto Rico, a circumstance pointing to
cultural influence having come directly across the ocean from
the 1Iayas. 7)
From the account I have given above it will no doubt appear
that Tainan religion carries its roots back to conceptions brought
along from northeastern South America and shared with the
True Arawaks. But on the other hand the development of cazique
rule among the Tainos resulted in a religious concentration ot
which no parallel is to be found among the True Arawaks. Divine
\vorship of deceased caziques, combined ,vith idols and other sculptural
representations, is entirely unknown to True Arawaks. This
national Tainan religion imported certain concrete forms from the
:\laya-l\Iexican sphere. \Vith the exception of a wind-god "vith
') SEI,ER, Ges. Abh .. JI, p. 319. fig. 43, Cf. particularly circular stamps a---cl.
Cf. p. 32.3.
2) GEORGI

projecting jaws, the Tainos did not, however, borrow any Maya­
Mexican deities' but contented themselves with adopting the art
of stone-carving itself to their own zemiistic religion. Theirs was
a polydemonistic, not a polytheistic, religion, unlike that of the
Mayas and in Mexico.
The motives of their sculptures are founded upon zemiism in the
form it developed in the Tainan culture proper. In regard to religious
stone sculpture, Jamaica remained at a more primitive stage,
and was never reached by those impulses of a later date. Neither
does any evidence exist as to girdle-masks in inlaid work having
reached Jamaica, although the opposite was the case with strings
of stone beads arranged in rows one above the other, an element
also originating from the Maya-Mexican mainland.
Not only the occurence of idols among the Tainos, but also
the custom of setting them upp behind an altar upon which
harvest offerings were placed, is ascribable to Mayan influence.
Even to this day the Mayas of Yucatan have their "santos"
arranged in this fashion in the "oratorios". If to this it be added
that a santo is "closely identified with its image", just as was the
case with the Tainan zemi idol, and that the zemi idols were
supposed to exercise about the same sort of functions as the santos
in the interests of the village people or the members of the community,
correspondences will appear very close in these respects.
In the case of the Tainos there is, however, the additional element
of the zemi idols' oracle-giving by means of caoba snuff placed
on the idol's" canopy". This caoba ceremony is naturally altogether
unparalleled among the Mayas, it being, as we know, among the
l'ainos of South American origin. But, departing from the South
American practice, the Tainos invested their zemi idols with oracular
powers. Taken as a whole, the occurrence of idols among the
Tainos must be referred to Mayan, not South American, influence.
Tainan myths are in every case entirely Arawakan. Only the
conception of a distinct Lord of the Nether ·World would among
the Tainos appear to be of Mayan origin. But to such a degree did
the Tainos adhere to their belief that a zemi is the soul of a deceased
person that this "lord" was no other than the first dead person
that arrived in Coaibai, and not a real deity ruling the nether
world, as among the Mayas and in Mexico.

Summary.
The Tainos were a people that long ago became extinct. Such
relics in the form of objects still used, or ancient superstitions
occurring in folklore, as may still be found among their mestizized
descendants in the El Yunque massif in Puerto Rico, of
Oriente in Cuba, or, possibly, among the negro-interbred population
of Santo Domingo, are only able to present to us an extremely
imIlerfect and fragmentary picture of their ancient ethnography.
\Vhat there is for us to learn about the original state of the
Tai110s is therefore restricted to the \vritings of such 16th century
\'"Titers as either themselves saw these Indians, or else, like MARTYR
and BERNALDEZ, obtained fresh information from eyewitnesses. The
Admiral's first voyage supplies us with a graphic description of
the first meetings with the Tainos, with all that was striking and
unusual to the eyes of the Spaniards. He \vas principally interested
in searching for gold. Acting upon information received from
the Indians, his quest finally took him to Espanola where gold
was washed out of river beds, the ontcrops being located in Sierra
de Cibao. Of the Tainan islands it was only in Espanola that the
Indians were rich in gold, and there only in Magua, ::Vragnana and
;Vlarien. The main portion of the gold thus obtained was not distributed
Yery far beyond the region of its origin. The Tainan islands
formed no importation centre for the gold of the mainland. On
the other hand, as early as the first voyage of discovery the fact
became evident that in Espanola Colombian tumbaga, i. e. guanin,
was being imported by way of the island chain of the Antilles.
Even though the Admiral in most cases did not go ashore,
and therefore had few opportunities for himself seeing the natives
in their daily life, he nevertheless has proved himself an alert observer
of things that came under his own eyes, and an excellent
recorder of his messengers' reports. His letter of April 25 th, 1493,
to his son~reigl1s, wherein he summarizes what he has observed and

learnt of the Tainos on this first voyage of his, reveals his lively
and exact interest in their ethnography. The Admiral is the only
one that has been able to describe the Tainan islands in their original
state, while powerful caziques still \vere maintaining their
courts and at festive occasions were able to appear with unimpaired
dignity; while big canoes rode upon the waters, and when the
r~ucayos in small canoes traded between the islands with their
light stores of merchandise. Of the more important caziques there
remained however Behechio and Anacaona, at whose festal receptions
later visitors had opportunities of witnessing and observing
remarkable things in Xaragua which, though poor in gold but
prosperous through its cotton cultivation, set the standard of
refined culture in Espanola.
No writer appears to have come into more intimate contact
with the Indians than RAMON PANE. His simplicity in conjunction
with his obviously scrupulous veracity has lent value and
reliability to his naive conceptions of traditions and religion in the
kingdom of Guarionex. Comparison with traditions among True
Arawaks of British Guiana made at a far later date, bears further
witness as to the truth and correctness of these accounts given by
PANE of Espanola in the early years of the 16th century.
BARTOLOME DE LAS CASAS' experience of the Tainos derives in
the first place from his lengthy sojourn in Espanola, where he first
arrived in the suite of its new governor, Nicolas de Obando, in 150z.
That very year he took part, along with the governor, 111 the concluding
events of the conquest of the island, viz. the second Higuey
war. To Cuba he went in IS1Z, at the request of Velasquez. There
LAS CASAS was mostly on the move, which was unfavourable to his
acquiring any really intimate knowledge of the Indians of the
various parts of the island. At the last stage he ran, together
with his friend Renteria, a hacienda near Xagua. As early as 1514
he left Cuba for Spain for the purIlose of advocating a better
treatment of the Indians, a philanthropic object to which his
ethnographical interest had to yield place. Towards the end of 1516
he returned to Espanola as Protector General of the Indians.
The picture that LAS CASAS gives us of the 'l'ainos is therefore
essentially of those in Espanola, "esta isla", an expression recurring
throughout in his descriptions. Unfortunately he does not men-

tion from which parts of the island he made his observations or
collected his records. But we have reasons for supposing that
they are mainly referable to the northern districts of the island,
and in particular to Vega Real. I.AS CASAS' descriptions of
the economy and material culture of the Haitians corresponds
with those given by Ovnmo, although these two writers worked
independently of each other. But in their estimation of the moral
qualities of this people they differ in their opions. They are both
,'("rong, however. OVIEDO, like the rest of the colonists that to the
ntmost limit pressed the Indians to wash gold, rated thEm as mere
brute beings devoid of any higher qualities. LAS CASAS, on the
other hand, whose philantropic way of thinking was far ahead of
his time, takes a far too ethical view of them.
\Ve have no grounds for supposing that LAS CASAS spoke the
language of the Haitians. But in his descriptions of implements,
cultivated plants, etc., he was careful to ascertain their names,
as well as to note accentuation.
As an ethnographer OVIEDO gives to his descriptions greater
detail and more graphicalness than does LAS CASAS. Before coming
to Espanola, OVIEDO had become well acquainted with the
Indians of Darien. He frequently discovers points of striking
similariity as behveen Darien and Espanola, but also mentions
instances of dissimilarity, particularly in cases where something
or other ,vas lacking in Espanola while found in "Tierra-firme".
That the Ta1na11 culture then generally proved inferior will be
apparent. OnEDo arrived in Espanola at a time when the In-­
dians had been pacified and disarmed, and had lost the high culhue
that had been bound up with the cazical regime. A man
deeply imbued with military interests, Oviedo has but little
to report as to weapons possessed by the Tainos. The
comielldas had materially destroyed their ancient social and
judicial system. But their substistence still depended upon their
ancient husbandry methods, and in his capacity of superintendent
of the gold-founding -OVIEDO had occasion to write an excellent
essay 011 their gold-washing, although it must be conceded that
the Indians by that time had from the Spaniards obtained more
efficient tools, such as hoes, which among the Tainos did not
belong to the Indian era. Through his close relationship with J nan

660
Ponce, OVIEDO gained acquaintance with the former's report on
the conquest of Puerto Rico. \Vithout OVIEDO'S account our knowledge
of the Borinquenos and their relations with the Caribs would
have remained quite slender. It is however principally an account
of warlike events, as such, and therefore not directly of their culture.
BENZONI lived among the Haitians at a later period. Of interest
are his notes on their food and their methods of preparing it.
GOMARA is a \vriter at second hand. From him we have,
however, a brief description of the I,ucayos, probably dating from
the time when they were deported by the Spaniards for the purpose
of filling the gaps in the gold-washing work left by the more
and more dwindling Tainos in Espanola.
BERNALDES, who received the Admiral as a guest at his
rectory, has in his Historia published an excellent description of an
Haitian cazical girdle in the possession of the Admiral, \yhich he
had seen with his own eyes, and, in addition, a full and exact
account of the gala equipment of a ] amaican cazique and his suite
as they came in their canoes to visit the Admiral's ship in Old
Harbour Bay.
From the account given above it ,\'ill be apparent that our
knowledge by means of the early literature on Tainan ethnography
mnst be based on the ethnography of the Haitians. Even when
account has been taken of all that has been \vritten by LAS CASAS
and Ovnmo, our knowledge as regards Tai11an culture and its
impnt can110t be but fragmentary. There is much of that culture
that the authors took no lJains to study in detail -- some of it
may have appeared to them too insignificant or trivial for recording
-- which nevertheless would have been interesting enough
to latter-day students. As a tropical South American element,
the fire-fan, occurs in Florida it seems easy to seek its origin at
first hand among the Tainos --- but our literary authorities make
no mention of it in Espanola, although it may nevertheless have
existed there. Other South American elements, such as blovvgul1s,
are 110t mentioned from the islands but vvould no doubt have been
referred to if they had existed there. And, as NORDF;NSKIOI,D has
shown, it is only in later times that the blowgun to any greater
extent spread over South America. Poisoned arrows are particularly
mentioned as being alien to the Tainos.

66r
Tainan ethnography, such as we knmv it from the early \Hitings,
illustrates how genuinely South American - not to say
Arawakan - \vas the 1'ainan culture fundamentally. This not
only refers to husbandry, 'where cassava \yas the staple food, but
also to matters ullconnected with material utility, in their conceptions
as to the origin of mankind, the derivation of cultiyated
l)lants, the mysticism of nature and communication with the
spirit world, the Tainos reveal obvious and typical correspondences
with their Arawakall kinsmen on the mainland.
Only slight reference is made ill the writings -- strictly
speaking ollly in those of the Admiral --- to matters of high cultural
quality of ,yhich we cannot in northeastern South America
find the counterparts; I refer eSl)ecially to the Haitian caziques'
insignia in the form of presents of honour. Already from what
the Admiral noticed and eX]Jerienced we are ill this respectable to
discem imlJulse.; from the }Iexican mainland.
A partly different picture of the 1'a1nos is provided us by
archaeology. There is not enough in the writings for obtaining
an idea of the endemic culture development -- only archaeologically
knowll to us -- in far] amaiea, a fact showing of how little
efficiency was the Tainan sea-traue at extended distances, even
\\'ith their large canoes. In the writings Espanola is shovved
as representing the peak of 'l'ainall culture, especially as regards
the high development of the cazical institution. But they supply
110 information as to the higher forms of Tainan religion, of which,
on the other hand, finds of stone sculpture bear witness. And
again, they tell us nothing of this ritual sculpture having in fact
reached its highest development not in Espanola but in Puerto
Rico, of 'which too little is knmHl to 11S from the writings, where
part of the objects in questioll, such as stone rings and thereto
related objects, in fact had their origin. To a certain extent LAS
CASAS accounts of a late immigration of the Tai110s from 'western
Espanola into Cuba, and of the aborigines in Pinar del Rio, are in
agreement I\'ith archaeological evidence. Thus there exists on the
plateaus of Oriente a true Tainall culture rich in relics a lower
Tainan culture farther west - so far as can he judged from the
scanty material - and remains of a llri11liti\'C~ populatioll, as
I-Li.RRI)JGTOX has showed, not only in Pinar del Rio but also once

662
upon a time distributed along the coast regions of the entire island.
But by exclusively studying early Spanish writings on Cuba we
should sti11 be left in complete ignorance of the place whence those
Guanahatabeyes, or Ciboneyes, emigrated for settling in Cuba.
Thanks to archaeological analogies it can now be shown that those
primitive Indians came from Florida, and not like the Arawaks
fro111 South America and subsequently along the succession of
islands.
For the rest I need hardly point out that it is by archaeology
alone that we are able to obtain conclusive results as to cultural
development in its sequences and local variants in the Greater
Antilles, in what may possibly have been pre-Arawakan primitive

ence in the Lesser Antilles of axes, in their prototypes going back
to Andean Colombia, and also other objects, such as earthenware
cups 011 a high annular foot, stamps, etc. -- all these objects furthermore
shed light upon by the circumstance that the archaeological
duhos of the Greater Antillcs are of a type not Guianan but
Colombian - might falsely lead to the conclusion that immigration
afterwards took place from Colombia. From the fact that
the women ,vhom the Island-Caribs retained of the earlier population
were of Arawakan race, from the traditions relating to the
Igneris transmitted to us by French writers, and from the culture
elements and traditions passed on by the women, we know, however,
that in actual fact no intermediary people of Colombian origin
ever existed in the I

Still holding good is FEWKES' important conclusion that Tainan
culture attained its peak w-ithin an area embracing Puerto
Rico and Espanola. Through HARRINGTO~'S researches Oriente in
Cuba has been added. HATT has shown how true Tainan culture
as a whole-- that is to say not merely by importation of objects
-- spanned over from Puerto Rico to St. Croix and St. Thomas.
As to the degree in which the Bahamas were an annexe to the
proper Tainan culture remains a question for 'whose solution the
archaeological material is still too meagre. Although primarily
of indigenous \\' est Indian development, the proper Tainan culture
recei ved fertilizing impulses from various quarters.
The Taillos ,vere an Arawakan people, with a culture essentially
Arawakan, \'o'ho by emigrating missed a later cultural developnent
in South America. In Espanola are therefore lacking
many things that after the 'fainan emigration SlJread through
the tropical lowlands of South America. By this 'we obtain a
certain relative chronology, even as regards cultural development
in northeastern South America. I~rom the finds it is however
evident that subsequently to their settling ill the Greater Antilles
the 'l'ainos by no means became isolated from the South American
mainland. But later on it was not so much influences from
cultural development in the tropical South American lowlands but
in a far greater degree such as had spread eastwards in northern
South America, for the most part impulses that, originating in
Andille Colombia, penetrated through the Antilles.
During the extended period preceding the brief one during
which the Island-Caribs occupied the Lesser Antilles, archaeological
remains show that the cultural impnlses that had entered
these islands lJrimarily originated from Colombia, and that in
many cases they had been transmitted to Tainan cultnre in the
Greater Antilles. Througll the Igneris the Tainos thus continued
to be cOllnected with the South American mainland. Of the commerce
carried on 'with South America there remained at the time
of the Discovery only the importation of guanin, at \vhich the
Island-Caribs --- \vho \vere enemies of the 'l'ainos --- acted as
go-hehveens.
Of later South American elements of Tainan culture the Colombian
are most in evidence, while those of Guiana are less indi-

vidualized and consequently more difficult to prove. Proper'1'ainan
pottery is strongly modelled and in this respect more suggestive
of pottery from the refuse mounds of British Guiana than of J a­
maican ceramics. Until the Lesser Antilles have throughout
been more completely investigated \ve must however leave for
future research to determine the question as to the degree in which
the rich modelling in proper Tainan pottery represents local develorment,
or \vhether it is due to impulses from a southeasterly
directioll. Modelling of heads from St. Vincent and Carriacou
show resemblances with Erin Bay, Trinidad, and even far-distant
I,ower Amazonas, but only exceptionally, as, e. g., FE\\TKES II,
pI. 65 B, Carriacou, with the 1'ainan modelling. Neither is it altogether
impossible that an impulse of pottery with moulded heads
may from British Guiana have reached Puerto Rico, without our
being in a position to point to any intermediary stages in the
Lesser Antilles.
Such Colombian impulses as are archaeologically demonstrable
must have reached the Tainos subsequent to their immigration.
In Jamaica they are absent. Unfortunately 110 duho has so far
been discovered in that island, and thus we cannot know whether
the J amaicalls possessed the Chibchan or Guianan type of stool.
III regard to other elements, such as the spear-thro\ver of estolica
type, or the forked snuff tube the latter originating from northwestern
Amazonas, and both probably at the time of the Discovery
found in Trinidad, the time of acquaintance is rather at a loss.
Did the '1'ainos import either of these elements from its cradle in
northeastern South America, possibly including Trinidad, or was
it only later that they acquired them? As regards the forked
snuff tube I am decidedly of the opinion that it was imported
some time after the immigration. It never extended to Guiana,
and neither did it occur among the Island-Caribs, who chewed
their snuff. The presence of s11uff »canopies» 011 Jamaican idols
\vould seem to IJoint to its haying reached that island even though
it is not referred to in the scanty information we have of Jamaica.
The culture of a people must necessarily be founded npon its
economy. Apart from emigration for reasons of war, an emigrating
people is apt to find for itself some region suited to the particular
economical system it has already developed. Thus we see

666
how the Arawak tribes of the South American tropical lowlands
have distributed themselves in such regions and taken possession
of certain districts suitable for cultivation of manioc, their staple
food. It is only in exceptional cases that Arawakan tribes have
settled in areas lacking conditions, - climatic, and to certain
degree as to soil - adaptable to manioc. By this I refer to the
Chanes west of the Chaco, to the Campas, and to the Antis of 1

higher degree, to a richer development of the resources that the
immigrants brought with them. FrOtH the literature we know
that the Tainos, especially in Xaragua in Espanola, and in J a­
maica, were great cotton-growers. They were also greater users
of cotton than the True Arawaks, not to mention other Arawakan
tribes in the tropical lowlands of South America. In Espanola
hammocks were made of cotton yarn. The Tainos, Jamaica included,
were also acquainted with the art of weaving cotton cloth.
The women's nagua were made of this cotton cloth. In both these
latter cases influence from the high civilizations of lVIexico­
Yucatan must have been active.
For their subsistence the Tainos were principally dependent
upon agriculture. Next in importance came fishing, not hunting.
But great difficulties arise when it comes to determining the
degree in which their fishing methods were part of the culture
they brought with them, or whether they only became developed
in the Antilles. In fresh-water fishing we note the method of
poisoning the fishing water employed by South American lowland
tribes. But the 'l'ainos were essentially sea-fishermen. They
settled in islands where fish was abundant along the coasts. The
swampy coast of British Guiana is unfavourable for sea-fishing.
Refuse heaps nevertheless occur on elevated pieces of ground
in the swamps along the coast. They no doubt mark ancient
sites of fishing camps on former islands now land-bound. (By
"fishing camp" is meant a place with temporary dwellings occupied
during certain seasons of the year for the purpose of fishing).
But in historical times the fishing carried on by the Caribs south
of the Orinoco delta was properly speaking exclusively for crabs.
1\ow it appears to me that the original South American home of
the Island-Arawaks properly is to seek in Faria or in Trinidad
There, along the coasts, they would then have had some preliminary
practice in sea-fishing, and subsequently have brought with
them, to the Antilles, certain ocean-fishing methods. An element
such as the fish-hook for sea-fishing the Tainos might quite well
have brought along from Faria, and no inflnence either from
Florida or Yucatan need be supposed.
Tainan agricultural methods present on the vvhole identical
correspondence with agriculture in the tropical lowlands of South

66B
America. The cultivations of the Tainos not, however, being situated
in forest districts, they adapted themselves to savanna
lands with fertile soil through employing the monton system.
This method they possibly learnt from the Southern States. In
northern South America cultivation on the monton plan has only
been shown to exist in certain parts of the coastal region, as,
e. g., among the True Arawaks, on Santa :.Vlarta, and on the 100ver
Magdalena, where it was introduced by Caribs. But in actual
fact it was nevertheless no doubt more 'widely distributed in
those parts. Its occurence among the Island-Caribs seems to
explainable by its having been taken over from Ignerian 'women.
There are, 1 think, reasons for supposing that it was passed on
by the Island-Caribs, and that its sporadic occurence in South
America is due to impulses from the Antilles 'where, in turn, the
system of heaping up montones was learnt from the Southern
States. The Tainan word conuco, a cultivated field consisting of
montones, is identical with the Arawakan hunuku, forest, indicating
that the South American ancestors of the Tai110s at one time
made their cultivations in the forest.
Like the agricultural tribes of the South American tropical
lowlands, their only agricultural implement was the dibble. In
regard to agricultural implements there is no question of impulses
either from the Southern States or from :\Iexico, and in their ori
ginal state the Tainos never used hoes. In the case of the sowing
of the maize, however, one impulse from the }Iexicall mainland
is apparent, inasmuch as this was exclusively men's 'work.
Correspondence with the agricultural tribes of the tropical
lowlands in eastern South America is clearly marked by the fact
that the poisonous yuca was the most important cultivated plant,
and cassava the great staple food. In these matters the Tainos
had attained the height of technique. The entire apparatus ,yas
common to both parties: as for example the grater (guarzqueten)
of wood beset with stone chips; the cibucan (matapi), the large
roasting dish of coarse ware (buren), and in addition cassava-tnrners.
The grater ,vas however flatter and more primitive than
in Guiana. This should primarily be regarded as an original
feature, while the more elegant curved graters of northern
South America represent a later stage of development. Graters

669
from Honduras-Caribs accordingly prove that the Igneris had the
same primitive straight type as the Tainos. The Tainan buren,
on the other hand, by being edged with a 10"w rim, represents
indigenous development of a higher degree than attained even by
the Ignerian griddles of the Virgin Islands.
It is not only through cassava that the poisollous manioc has
established the vegetarian diet of the Tainos. Uke certain tribes
of the lowlands of northern South America, they also boiled down
its poisonous juice to cassareep which they used together with
aii for pepIJer pot. Thus their animal diet was also stabilized.
Of ages (Dioscorea) and sweet potatoes, batatas, which together
\vith yuca ,vere the principal plants cultivated in montones,
the former were grown in northern South America in pre-Columbian
times, and the latter ,vas still more widely distributed
in both South and Central America. The monton-cultivated
roots, yuca, ages and yahutia, were in Espanola as well as in South
America of ancient origin, and only propagated by sets.
The mere Ta1nan word maiz proves in conjunction with cogl1ate
words ill other Arawakan languages that maize was known
to the Tai110s already prior to their emigration from South America.
l\lexican influence is evident not only from the method of
maize cultivation. The occurrence of stone rubbers and metates
also point in that direction, besides which in their connection
cultivation of hard maize would appear to have been imported
from the l\lexican mainland.
Groundnuts \vere at the time of the Discovery already widely
distributed in South America, whence the '1'ainos had brought
them along to the \Vest Indies.
As regards arrowroot the problem is a difficult one. It
has been maintained that it only reached America in connection
\vith the importation of slaves. To this day arrowroot, as we
kno\y, is a very important food of the \Vest Indian negroes. \VISS­
I,ER, and SAPPER, are h()\vever of the definite opinion that it is indigenous
to tropical America. OVIEDO and l,AS CASAS mention it
hy its Tainan name, liren. OVIEDO knew it already earlier also
from Panama. I am therefore inclined to agree with VVISSLER and
S.'l.PPER. In the Indian era it was not counted among the more
ortant food plants of the Indians. However this may be, it

is one of those cultivated plants which the Spaniards never observed
or knew in South America by their Tainan names, altthough
they nevertheless may have existed there under other Indian
names. I incline to the former alternative because otherwise
no specifically Central American cultivated plant can definitely
be shown to have been possessed by the Tainos.
The Phaseolus bean (the kidney bean) had in America a very
extensive pre-Columbian distribution even in regions with 110
markedly tropical climate. Its presence among the Taillos probably
had a South American origin.
The problem as to tobacco is of a very complex nature. As
far as I can see, the use of tobacco must originally have been
very little developed among the ancestors of the Tainos, or may
even have been nnknown to them. I have referred to the rainan
word for tobacco, caoba, and the Island-Caribbean word chacouba,
to chew, especially as applied to snuff, a word which in that case
may be taken as originating from the Ignerian woman language
of the Lesser Antilles, thus in its turn indicating that the Island­
Caribs adopted tobacco snuff from the Igneris. There is much
which suggests that ill northern South America tobacco spread
from the west. 'l'obacco appears to have spread to the Antilles
before reaching Guiana, where in earlier times it was instead
imported from the Antilles. Among the Tainos tobacco \vas
above all used in the form of snuff at the caoba ceremony. This
method of its employment, and still more its being sucked up by
means of a forked tube, definite points to western Orinoco and
northwestern Amazonas as the areas of its origin, and, be it noted,
it must have been adopted by the Tainos at some date subsequent
to their emigration from South America. To their kinsmen
the True Arawaks it was never known. The cigar was in
Cuha and EspallOla more generally distributed than at the time
of the Discovery can be shown to have been the case in Amazonas
and Guiana. \Vith the Tainos the cigar constituted a profane
means of stimulation. As has been sho\yn by NORDENSKIC)LD, ill
tropical South America tobacco-smoking was at the time of the
Disco\'ery not a profane but a ritual element that also formed
part of the treatment given by medicine-men to the sick. From
PAXg'S description it appears that in curing the sick the Haitiall

medicine-men employed magical means other than cigar-smoking.
It is however a fact that the Island-Carib boyes summoned their
spirits, from above, with the smoke of cigars. The occurrence of
the cigar in Cuba and Espanola may be due to a Mayan origin.
At the time of the Discovery coca used for magical purposes
was known in Espanola and in Oriente, in Cuba. As far as the
vVest Indies are concerned, it appears to have originated in Cumana.
Among the Tainos its use was magical. Its profane
chewing along with lime, as in Cuman{l, was still unknown to
the Tainos.
Our literary sources unfortunately give us no Tainan word
for cotion, either the plant itself or its spun yarn. Consistently
with its common occurrence also among the South American Arawak
tribes, the Island Arawaks may be supposed to have brought
it along to the vVest Indies. Among the Tainos it was more extensively
used than among the Arawak tribes of Brazil and Guiana.
Like the civilized peoples of the western mountain belt of
the continent the Tainos wove cloth and had a special women's
dress, naguas. They also cultivated, on poles, a very fine kind of
cotton, known to OVIEDO only from the islands. vVhether in Espanola
cotton was an indigenous plant, or only had become wildgrowing,
and whether this fine cotton was descended from some
indigenous improved variety, are questions I am not prepared to
pronounce upon.
The Greater Antilles being devoid of monkeys, fruit-growing
there proved more profitable than in tropical South America.
Already at the time of the Discovery nearly all the fruit trees
'were the same as those found in the latter place, such as hobo
(Spondias) , guayaba (Pisidiurn guayana) , guanabana (Anona), caymito
(Lucuma caymito), ·mamey (AI armnea americana, another variety
of the Mexican zapote). Only guayabaro (Inga Feuillei) was
in northern South America of western origin, and its presence
among the Tainos may be ascribable to trading intercourse with
Colombia. OVIEDO mentions that the guayaba of the islands
was of a quality inferior to that of Tierra-firme. In the former
region it may have degenerated. He also states that the Espano­
Jan pineapple did not equal that of "Tierra-firme". Its presence
in Espanola and Puerto Rico was undoubtedly due to connections

672
with the Lesser Antilles. It was even discovered by the Admiral
in Guadeloupe.
According to OVIEDO, the Laginaria calabash was post-Columbian
in Espanola. Similarly the \Vest Indies are also devoid
of all cultivated plants specifically typical of Mexico.
The agricultural tribes of the tropical lowlands of South America
obtain their animal food principally from fishing, and only in
a minor degree from hunting. Among the Tainos we find represented
the same fishing methods that in South America are used
in fresh-vyater fishing, such as fish-poison and shooting fish with
many-pointed arro\ys, fish-traps and fences, while, as shown by
NORDENsKlen,D, the harpoon is of extreme antiquity in America.
That the fish-hook is absent in ,Amazonas is dne to the circumstance
that the piranhas bite off the line. Our more detailed ethnographical
knovvledge of fishing in tropical South America is limited
to fresh-water fishing. But to the Tainos seafishing was by
far the more important. As indicated by the numerous shellheaps
it was mainly lJUrsned on the leevvard shores of the islands,
where the small fishing canoes were not hampered by the trade
surf. l\Iost likely these heaps represent fishing villages. These
also depended on other food suoffs, as is shown by the considerable
numbers of griddles (buJ'enes) recovered in the shell-heaps.
Tainan sea-fishing does not appear to have derived from (~uiana.
The Island-Caribs as came from that country did not possess fishing
nets, but fished principally with hooks, vvhile the Tainos largely
used nets in their sea-fishing. These were probably seines,
not stationary nets. The early writings give 110 description of the
Tainan seines. The fishing nets of Guiana only consisted of dipnets.
Although CUSHl:t\G ronnd seines in Key Marco, where they
were only used for fishing in shallow shore waters, in the tide
water region it is probable that the seines that the Tainos used
in the open sea are more likely to have originated from the
l'aria coast. In this case their introduction most certainly took
place prior to the immigration of the Island-Caribs, because
by them nets \vere not used in sea-fishing. The abundance
of mollusk shell in the heaps indicates that the Tainos were
also strandgleaners, but as to this the early writers supply no information

In hunting - as also in battle - bow and arrow played a
minor part. The Tainos present a parallel to the Polynesians in
that the bow had degenerated. As far as the Tainos are concerned
\w are not justified in connecting this circumstance with the
absence of big game in the islands. As a hunting weapon the
bow was in the South American tropical lowlands properly used
for bird-shooting. Birds are of not great importance as food
supply. It is their brilliant feathers that make them desirable.
'l'herefore the arrows are frequently given a blob head so as to
avoid blood-staining the plumage. Suitable birds do not occur
in the Greater Antilles in such a number of varities as in the
forests of tropical South America. Feather ornaments were not
used by the Tainos as extensively latter regions, and such birds
as Nere found in the islands were hunted by the Tainos by other
methods. In Cuba parrots were captured by means of decoy
birds. Of edible birds geese were caught with the help of floating
calabashes. An edible bird known as biaya, with low powers of
flight, was in Cuba secured by rnnning down on foot. A substitute
for the South American hunting of the agouti was in Espanola
the great hutia hunt, involving the burning off of the savanna
in the dry season.
In summing up the economical conditions of existence we see
how in the islands the Tainos were able to maintain to its full
extent their ancient agricultural system which especially through
manioc. its technique and products, equalled its highest development
in northeastern South America, as it included both cassava
and pepper pot. Difficulties as to adaption in that the extensive
yuca fields had to be laid out on wind-dried savannas were got
over by means of cultivation by montones. In the same way the
Tainos had retained the northeastern American methods of freshwater
fishing. Although no proof is available, their methods of
sea-fishing may reasonably be traced back to Paria.
In view of their having crossed over to the GTeater Antilles
large and seaworthy canoes must naturally be postulated. Especially
when spanning the last gap, that to Jamaica, large canoes
must have been necessary. I have already described their large
canoes in particular those on the northern coast of Espanola.
Long voyages in large canoes, as from Guiana to Trinidad, were
43

in ancient times also undertaken by their near kinsmen the True
Arawaks.
The Tainan house, with its wa11s strongly built of poles with
interwoven withes exhibited a higher degree of development than
the houses of the Guianan coastland. On the Guianan savanna,
however, bare of protection against the wind, there is more similarity
to the Tainan house. But in the Antilles there are the
trade winds, besides which terrible hurricanes have to be provided
aginst. OVIEDO records, however, that in Espanola the houses
were solid enough to withstand even the most violent hurricanes.
Although from their polygonal shape they presented plane wall
surfaces to the wind, their posts were so firmly planted and consisting
of timbers so strong, and the withes so tough, that not
even the most violent gale could break them down. The square
house with a gabled roof had at the time of the Discovery penetrated
as far as Paria and Trinidad, but cannot in the purely
Indian era be shoW'n to have existed in Espanola. NORDENsKlor,D
has shown that in South America it advanced from the west.
The Tainan house constituted a highly developed adaptation product
suitable to the West Indies. To what degree this adaptation
constituted an independent invention cannot be determined by
reason of the inadequacy of our knowledge as to the construction
of the houses of Paria and Trinidad. But houses with withed
walls did however occur in northeastern South America in places
where they were needed on account of the wind. I therefore
think it probable that the Tainos brought with them from those
regions the type of their house, and that they, through selecting
the most suitable materials for the strong and deeply planted
poles and the tough Iv-ithes, made their houses still more windresisting
than had been necessary in Paria and Trinidad.
N ORDENSKI()r,D has shown that it was mainly by Arawak tribes
that lliled wellings were propagated to the swampy regions of tropical
South America. The Tainan method of employing a forked
pole for support differs from the peg-supported pile-dwellings in
Key Marco, and goes instead back to their South American traditions
vvith forked poles although it may be admitted that their
pile-dwellings are not in themselves a direct repetition of a those
distant South American ones, but merely an adaption of their

method of placing crossbeams on top of posts. The geographical
connection with South America is in this case interrupted from
the circumstance that in the J~esser Antilles marshes do not occur
to any great extent. Among the Tainos pile-dwellings are strictly
speaking only to be found in far-away western Cuba.
Ijke the rest of the Arawaks the Tainos ""ere a peace-loving
people, and their entire economic system was based on peace.
Intertribal wars did occnr, but were of minor importance. It was
only when the Caribs came on the scene that they were compelled
to defend themselves. It is on that account we note a markedly
superior warlike equipment in Puerto Rico, which ,vas nearest
to the Caribbean islands. The strong war bow was universal
in Puerto Rico, and as a chief's wealJon also in Higuey, whence
lively intercourse by means of canoes was maintained with Puerto
Rico. Tn Riguey, too, the three-pronged war arrow - particularly
pain-inflicting on the wounded -- was a chief weapon.
'While the Caribs possessed poisoned war arrows, the Ara\\'aks of
Trinidad and the Guianan coast had three-pointed war arrows.
This would seem to have been an element that only shortly before
the Carib invasions was passed on by the Igneris to Tainan regions
more adjacent to the Lesser Antilles.
Farther away from Puerto Rico the Tainan bows and their
arrows with a single point of charred wood appear as war weapons,
though of slight efficiency. Similarly to Andine Colombia,
however, but contrary to Guiana, the spear-thrower was the
longrange weapoll. This Haitian garrucha is, in fact, of estolica
type, that is to say of the type prevalent in Colombia.
In Trinidad the spear-thruwer also existed, but we have no
information as to its type. It is probable that the estolica
from Colombia IJenetrated eashYards, and along the northern
coast of South America, although it never reached Orinoco, and
still less Guiana, but on the other hand the Antilles by way of
Trinidad. Among the Tainos it thus in time supplanted, as a war
weapon, the degenerating bow. In Esy;anola the arrows were
above all adapted for the spear-thrcrwer, and therefore unfeathered.
The Tai11an weapon for hand-to-hand fighting was the club,
of macal1a type, i. e. a club widening out towards the flat npl'c'f

side of the head. But in the wars\vith the Spaniards no fighting
at close quarters ever came to JJass for the reason that the Haitians
always beat a retreat when the former followed up their attacks.
It was only in Higuey that 1·nacana-armed chieftains offered
resistance. Club-fighting by massed contingents, as amollg
the Tupis, was altogether unknown. The macana club does not
among the Tainos appear to have been a weapon for the common
man, as it was among the Island-Caribs. This type of club
existed among the Tainos, the Island-Caribs, and, as we know, in
later times in the Gnianan caastland in types closely related to
the Tainan 111acana and the boutott of the Island-Caribs. In South
America the 111acana club is exclusively restricted to Guiana,
where also occurred other varieties .- twin-headed - than the
single-headed one of the Tainos, Ciguayos and the Island-Caribs.
From the early literature we are unable to ascertain whether the
111acana also existed in Paria or in Trinidad. Beyond doubt the
Tainos possessed their type of club in common with the Lesser
Antilles and a small coastal region in northeastern South America.
Tainan furniture was less variegated than that of the Island­
Caribs, in that tables such as the 111atoutous of the latter are nowhere
referred to in the literature. Their hammock was of hamaca
type, as among the Island-Caribs, True Arawaks and True Caribs.
The Tainan variety being made of cotton yarn was not due to
Carib influence but to the circumstance that among the Tainos
cotton was applied to a greater variety of uses - in connection
with its more highly developed cultivation - than among their
Arawakan kinsmen on the mainland.
The 'l'ainan stool, duho, belongs to the type found among the
Chibchas and the Achaguas, but differs altogether from the type
of stool found in Guiana and Amazonas. In this we meet \vith
one of those cnlture elements which have penetrated northern
South America eastwards from Colombia and subsequently crossed
over to the \Vest Indies.
Among the Tainos we do not find the same rich devc10Tnnellt
of basketry as among the Island-Caribs and the True Caribs. In
the case of an Ara\\'akan people like the 'l'ainos a lower proficiency
in the art of basketry is only to be expected. Its poor development
among the Tainos is hOlivever especially remarkable.

Everything points to their not having in this respect, neither prior
to their emigration from South America nor after their settling in
the Greater Antilles, received any impulses whatever from the
Caribs. Their only type of basket mentioned by the early writers
is the hava, a water-tight basket made of He1yconia leaves split
in halves along the middle nerve and used for goods transportation
in wet weather. Although the Tainos manufactured manioc
presses of woven palm fibres it does not appear that they used
that material for making baskets. And still less can it be shown
that they possessed rush-woven baskets, which among the Island­
Caribs were represented in such a variety of forms.
Whether the weaving 100m of the Tainos was the "Arawak
100m" we do not know. But we know for certain that it existed
among the Island Caribs, and therefore presumably also among
the Igneris. The Tainos differed from the Island Caribs and the
tribes of Guiana, not to mention Amazonas, in that they wove
cloth and in the nagua possessed a woman's dress of undyed cotton
cloth. This was in the form of a mantle which consequently,
if it had been woven on an Arawak 100m must have been cut
through its middle so as not to remain tubularly woven like the
woman dress of the Guarani tribes, the tipoi. The occurence
among the Tainos of manta as a kind of petticoat not sewn together
I interpret as being due to influence from the civilized
peoples of the West where woman's dress of that kind was common,
with particular reference to Yucatan. Among Tainan women
the wearing of nagttas of different length in some degree
denoted their different social stations.
C azical insignia provide further evidence of influence from
the Maya-Mexican mainland. During the Admiral's first voyage
they were especially met with in the gold-abounding northeastern
section of Espanola, where the caziques were strongly established
in power and dignity. Influence from Maya-Mexico is indicated
by wooden masks inlaid with gold and attached to girdles made
of cotton cloth embroidered with rows of stone beads applied
dose together. From Espanola girdles of this kind are known
only as presents to honoured visitors, not as an article of apparel,
and it is only from that place that gold-inlaid masks are known.
From Jamaica we.,know that at the visit of the Admiral's ship in

Old Harbour Bay the cazique wore a girdle composed of different
kinds of beads, and that his daughter had on her girdle suspended
a tablet of various-coloured stone beads fastened on a network
of cotton. Haitian caziques' head fillets set with rows of
beads and a central golden jewel also belong to insignia presenting
Maya-Mexican technique and inspiration.
The early writings make no mention of knee-bands of cotton
worn by the men, such as occurred among the Island-Caribs and
in the Orinoco region, as well as being more widely distributed
among the higher-cultured tribes of the tropical lowlands of
South America. But zemi images made of wood prove that this
kind of knee-band also must have existed among the Tainos.
Of ear ornaments the Admiral only mentions small bits of
gold, occasionally suspended from a piece of string. In Guiana
are found ear ornaments of different kinds, although not large
disks of wood or clay as in Mexico This culture element is of
western origin. Earthenware heads from the Cerrito culture at
L. Tacarigua prove that it penetrated as far eastwards as Venezuela.
Finds of ship-block-shaped ear-plugs, of volcanic tuff in
St Vincent and of stone in Guadeloupe, indicate their occurrence
among the Igneris. Ear-disks with a perforation in the centre are
not infrequent on '1'ainan earthenware heads, and are still more
distinctly in evidence, with or without a central perforation -
or even dish-shaped - on wooden zemi images and onstone sculptures
Ear-plugs of annular shape even occur on a Jamaican wooden
idol. As far as the '1'ainos are concerned it remains uncertain
whether this western culture element originated from South America
or the Mexican mainland.
The practice of piercing the septum for nose ornaments has,
as shown by NORDENSKIOLD, a 'wide distribution in northern South
America and Amazonas. Its occurrence for the purpose of inserting
golden or guanin ornaments - with or without a fastening
string ~- has South American connections.
Body-painting with bixa or iagua is among the Tainos a definitely
South American element, to which in the case of the '1'ainos
there was in addition the women's painting themselves white
with the juice of an indigenous plant.
Gold ,vas by the '1'ainos exclusively used for ornaments. To

them, :vI:exico was of no importance as a gold-exporting centre.
From information given him by the Indians, the Admiral was
guided to Espanola, where gold production as well as craftmanship
were indigenous. The Haitians knew how to beat the gold
into thin sheets from which they cut out their ornaments, but
were unacquainted with casting, an art practised in Mexico and
Central America. Ornaments of tumbaga, or guanin -- as metal
alloy was called by the Tainos - were importation ware pure
and simple, at first hand originating from Colombia. This commercial
intercourse existed even at the time of the Discovery, and
the Island-Caribs acted as middle-men. Ornaments of copper and
silver occurred sporadically, but utilitarian objects of copper were
unknown. At El Cobre in Oriente, Cuba, virgin copper is found,
and therefore it is not improbable that the metal possessed by the
Tainos was of native workmanship. The solitary silver ornament
seen by the Admiral was, on the other hand, not of native manufacture,
but imported from Florida or possibly Mexico.
N ORDEN SKI OLD has studied the occurrence of the ntbber ball in
South America. He has established its distribution in two separate
areas, a northern one in various localities in Venezuela and
British Guiana, and a southern one in the region of the headwaters
of the rivers Madeira, Tapajoz and Xingll. These localities
may well be supposed to be interconnected.
The communication may have taken place by ,yay of Rio
Negro to ;\liddle Amazonas and then up the abovementioned
southern tributaries. The rules of the game that the ball must not
be touched ·with the hand but only played by means of the head,
shoulders, hips or feet is identical throughout South America, in
the southern area as in the northern (Otomacos), as well as in
Espanola. In this, therefore undoubtedly exists a connection
between South America and EsparlOla, and it must date from
Ignerian times. The Island-Caribs possessed no game played with
a rubber ball. But such games existed, as we know, also in Mexico
and among the Mayas, and it is here that their origin is to
seek. I do not wish to dwell upon the fact that in Mexico the
game had attained a more complicated character than its simpler
form in Espanola and South America. Along the Atlantic coast
of Central America my southernmost acquaintance with the rubber

680
ball is from the Mosquito Coast. It is not known from Colombia. It
therefore comes nearest to hand to snppose that the Tainos borrovved
the game from Yucatan, and that it was propagated to South
America via the Lesser Antilles.
As far as the Tainos are concerned, ball courts bordered by
earth walls or upended bottlders point to influence from the lVIexican
mainland. They have not crossed over to South America.
The paucity of mus£cal £nstnnnents provides an interesting
illustration of the way in which the Tainos lost touch with later
South American cultural impulses. Those which they had retained
were employed in their dancing. An example of this is seen
in maraca, which appears to have altogether lost its wide application
in summoning the spirit that it was used for even among the
True Arawaks. The method of obtaining communication with
the spirit world was among the 1'ainos of an entirely different
character. It may, ho\yever, be called into question whether the
medicine-man did not summon the spirit, or drove away malevolent
spirits, by means of some percussion instrument before
curing the sick, although 1) ANE' S description of this is not such that
it can be applied to any instrument of percussion hitherto known
from America. If in earlier times the Tainos possessed the Schlitztrommel
as it existed in Paria, Cumana and in the Orinoco region
we are not in a position to know. In its stead, at the time of the
Discovery there existed in Espanola the Zungentrommel, whose
cmelle was undoubtedly :\Iexico. The drum was unknown in Guiana.
Tai110s only possessed instruments of percussion. \Vhether
wind instruments of any kind existed in the Greater Antilles
cannot be established.. 1\O\vhere in the writings mention is made
of its most primitive form, the shell trumpet, as a signalling instrument.
A find made by HNrT of a shell trumpet in a midden at
Coral Bay proves its existence in St. John in Ignerian times. Still
more remarkable is the find of a bone flute with four finger holes
in a Tai11an culture deposit at l\Iagens Bay, St. Thomas. IZIKOWITZ
has shown that it belongs to an earlier type vvith no slit iuits upper
part serving as a embouchure, and that this earlier type is absent
also in Guiana. 'fhe wooden trumpets mentioned as having been
seen in the cazique's suite at the meeting with the Admiral's ships
in Old Harbour Bay I look upon as an error.

681
The social system among the Tainos was throughout aristocratic.
In this respect it was most highly developed in Espanola,
where kingdoms actually ruled over by caziques existed. In Puerto
Rico a cazique of the eastern }Jart ruled over the entire island
The religion of the Tainos corresponds in a large degree with
that of the True Arawaks. The myths that PANE recorded in
Espanola present many characteristic points of correspondence
as to motive with such as 'were collected in far later times among
the True Arawaks. Even zemiism, in as far as it concerns divine
powers exercising benign influence on the growth of the crops,
existed l:n nt£ce among the True Arawaks. Only the Tainan conception
of a nether world and its ruler is of :Mexican origin. To
a still higher degree it seems that zemiism was developed among
the Igneris, if \ve may judge by descriptions given of the Island­
Caribs' religion. No idols have however been found in the Lesser
Antilles. The Island-Caribs only obtained their oracles from
wrapped-up human bones, and the benign spirits to whom they
presented their offerings of first fruits on altars were invisible.
Among the Island-Caribs as well as the Tainos it was the pl'aie
that presented the offering and subsequently communicated the
result to the private individual.
Among the Tainos we find zemiism fully developed. They
possessed idols to whom they made offerings of their agricultural
produces and who gave them oracles by means of the effective
caoba ceremony preceded by fasting. Sculptured idols, the
conception that a pO\verful Sl)irit animates the idol, as well as
the idol's animatistic powers of moving about at will, its command
of the forces governing the growth of crops, \veather and
rainfall, all these things had not developed among the True Ara­
,yaks but were among the Tainos ascribable to Mayan influence.
But from this it is by no means to be inferred that the
Tainos had adopted the Mayan pantheon. They were not in any
way polytheistic. The Tainan idols were not animated by any
deity but by the spirit of some pO\verful, deceased cazique, or by
some other spirit, unknown as to its origin, qualified to benefit mankind.
Zeml idols representing large birds also occurred.
'l'he caoba ceremony did not exist among the True Arawaks.
In itself it belongs to a culture complex, characterized by intoxi-

682
cation effected by inhaling snuff through a forked tube, originating
from the western Orinoco region where the Achaguas practised
a ceremony of that kind. The uttering of oracles is among the
Tainos intimately connected with the zemi idols in cases where
the snuff was placed on the circular disk surmounting, and made
in one piece with, the idol's head. From the fact that only the
nobles were admitted to the select caoba assembly it may be said
that a kind of religious secret society existed among the Tainos.
Although Tainan religion in its general character remained
Arawakan with its origin in norteastern South America even in
that the benevolent spirit powers dwell in the sky and thence produce
the rain needed for the crops, and although from Yucatan
it probably adopted idols with direct influence on those spirit powers
in the heavens, and undoubtedly from the northwestern lowlands
of South America adopted intoxication with snuff inhaled
through forked tubes in order to establish communication with the
spirit worlds and thereby to obtain oracles, although in this way
Tainan religion is composed of elements originating from various
regions in America, these elements are however so harmoniously
blended together that Tainan zemiism assumed the character of a
true national religion. The central idea of this religion is that the
idols, which as a rule were animated by the spirit of some departed
powerful cazique - whether once actually having existed or only
mythical - rule over the benevolent and active spirits that dwell
in the sky, and are capable of unravelling things otherwise occult,
such as foretelling future events or, when questioned, giving proper
advice as to the best course of action when some calamity had
befallen, when worship had been neglected, or whether things
should be done or not done.
Ethnology is able to tell us whence came the objects that characterize
the Tainan culture. Comparative ethnographical researches
also provide us with a relative chronology of their acquisition.
The greatest difficulty confronts us, however, in the case
of those elements which spread in an easterly direction in northern
South America. I am of opinion that the northern South American
home of the Tainos was not the Guianan coastland, whence the
Caribs set forth in later times, but more probably the Paria coast.
If the latter was the case we are faced by the problem as to what

western elements the Tainos had adopted prior to their emigration
from north-eastern South America, and what they had acquired
subsequent to their having settled in the Greater Antilles. What
I have said above must suffice as an answer in each individual case.
Archaeology provides us however with material revealing how
cultures have crossed over to the West Indies and how, from, or
independent of, later impulses, cultural sub-provinces have there
arisen. Examination of the frequency of occurrence, or of additional
elements, produces one very important result, namely that
in the Ignerian era - that is to say the long period when the Igneris,
who were kinsmen of the Tainos, still had possession of the
Lesser Antilles - along that island arc there had from South America
penetrated a number of cultural impulses, most strongly in
evidence in the southernmost islands and diminishing by degrees
in a north-easterly direction. For the whole of this Ignerian region
these impulses moulded its culture, nota bene in the form we
know it archaeologically. In the Greater Antilles they are only
more sporadically perceivable, and then mostly in the adjoining
islands of Puerto Rico and Espanola, while they can hardly be
shown to have existed in the more distant Jamaica. In the case
of the Greater Antilles, and there in particular in the Tainan culture
proper, there appear besides impulses from the Southern States
and the Mexican mainland. The latter are mainly concerned
with sculpture, without, however, the religious import of this
thereby becoming Mayan. Consistently with the circumstance
that religion was centrally bound up with caziquedom, these influences
are found not to have their proper distribution in Cuba,
the island nearest to the mainland, but in Espanola and in Puerto
Rico, where cazical rule was most highly developed.
I have not dealt more fully with cultural sub-provinces of
Ignerian culture as this is a subject not properly coming within the
scope of this work. FEWKES has established that culture had
reached a particularly high degree of development in an area embracing
Puerto Rico and Espanola. This we might by now refer
to as the proper T ainan culture. HARRINGTON has shown that it
also became predominant in Oriente, Cuba, and HATT that from
Puerto Rico it spread east-wards to the Virgin Islands, and that
there it occurs superimposed upon Ignerian culture.

As regards Cuba, HARRINGTON distinguishes between sub­
Tainan and T ainan culture which in a later era was imported from
Espanola. This distinction he essentially bases on ceramics. No
decidely important examples of sub-Tainan pottery in Cuba are
however adduced by HARRINGTON. It is possible that FgWK8S' finds
at Nipe Bay might be classed as such. Sub-Tainan ceramics are not
so pronouncedly modelled as the Tainan, and therefore presents
more resemblance to Lesser Antillean ceramics. It is only in this
respect that some support may be found for HARRINGTON'S theory
that Jamaican pottery are referable to the sub-Tainan.
For it should be uoted that Jamaican ceramics are in a class
by itself. It may be supposed to have developed out of a sub­
Tainan sub-stratum. But so far as our present knowledge of J a­
maican pottery goes, it must be the result of indigenous development.
It is only in certain instances it shows influence from proper
Tainan culture, while still retaining its own specific style.
The fact that very little, if any, sub-'l'ainan ceramics have
been recovered either in Jamaica or in the region of the proper Tainan
culture I think can be explained by the hypothesis that the
earliest Arawakan settlers were few in number and that the population
subsequently rapidly increased and spread. Their culture
would then simultaneously have developed in directions that resulted
in Jamaican and proper Tainan cultures, respectively.
Typical of the ceramics found at the mouth of R. Nisibon, in
northeastern Santo Domingo, are "relief faces surrounded by representations
of the limbs." These ceramics, which do not present
the pronounced modelling of the proper 1'ainan style, come instead
nearer to the 19nerian, and may be classed as sub-Tainan. From
Puerto Rico 110 pottery other than Tainan has hitherto been published.
Conditions of geographical distribution ill the 'Vest Indies intlicate
that the 1'ainos, subsequently to their emigration from the
South American mainland and up to the Spanish conquest which
cut short their development, practically speaking only possessed
the petaloid or amygdaloidal celt. At the same time there had ill
the Lesser Antilles of neo-volcanic origin the axe of Colombian
type -- that is to say not T-shaped as in Peru and Ecuador -
been introduced and gone on developing into a multitude of forms

685
characteristic of these islands. A South Antillean develo~ment is
thus, for example, that the processes were given the form of bird
of prey-heads. The numerous variants of the axe appear in particular
to have had centres of development in St Vincent and Guadeloupe.
With St. Kitts-Kevis they cease to be generally represented.
In the northeastern Antilles and the Virgin Islands, which
for the most part consist of old eruptive rock not easily chipped,
their frequency diminishes. In Puerto Rico as well as in Espanola
and in Oriente, of Cuba, axes only occur sporadically, and in Jamaica
they are entirely absent.
The interrelated axe with marginal notches, and the T-shaped
axe, have from Peru and Ecuador in South America spread over
the eastern lowlands and even reached Guiana. But in the \Vest
Indies they only occur very sporadically in Trinidad and in the
Lesser Antilles. Very remarkable therefore appears the occurrence
in sit1t of a T-shaped axe in far-away Jamaica.
I am strongly inclined to locate the home of monolithic celts
to the region where culture had attained its highest development
in the Southern States, i. e. above al1 in Tennessee. In the Tainan
islands specimens have been recovered in the Bahamas, Cuba,
Espanola, and Puerto Rico. Accordant with Southern States influel1Ce
generally speaking not being noticeable in Jamaica,
neither has any example been recovered in that island. One specimen
has in addition been found in Guadeloupe. Other imitations
ill St. Vincent and Nevis are monolithic clubs with wedged-in
celt. No example has so far been found in Trinidad. Along the
South American coast it is necessary to go as far v\'est as Santa
Marta before it is again met with. But in times before Carib
interference came into play, coastal sea-borne trade with the
southernmost \Vest Indies must have been of greater frequency,
indeed it may well have reached the southernmost islands of the
Lesser Antilles directly thus giving Trinidad a wide berth. Colombian
influence is in fact in most respects seen to be greater
in the southernmost of the Lesser Antilles than in Trinidad,
where accordingly Colombian types of axes are absent all the
more as this island is devoid of the material of young lavas. From
Santa }Iarta it appears that the monlithic axe likewise by the maritime
route spread to the Mosquito Coast and then penetrated

686
inland as far as the Kicaraguan highland. Connection between
North and South America together with the Atlantic region of
Central America lies, as far as the monolithic axe is concerned,
via the \Vest Indies and not by way of Mexico, \vhere it is absent.
As to flint implements, the Tainan technique was originally
grinding, not chipping. It therefore follows that they brought with
them from South America no flint technique. Chipped ano\\"­
points of highly developed technique have been found in the hinterland
of British Guiana, and small arrowheads of simpler manufacture
and less qualified workmanship in the Aruka Hills on the
coast. Not even arrow-points resembling the latter can be shown
to have reached the Antilles.
The I"esser Antilles offer but few facilities for manufacturing
arrow-head by chipping. Only a few of them possess flint-bearing
strata. Such flakes of fractured flint as are known from Guadeloupe
and St. Kitts can hardly be accepted as standardized artefact.
The Tainos must have had to start from the very beginning
in order to produce artefacts by chipping flint or some other similar
material.
HARRINGTON'S researches in Cuba have established that the
earlier local inhabitants, the Siboneyes, who had immigrated
from Florida, possessed true flint artefacts which were adopted
by Island-Arawaks of later arrival.
In Espanola the problem presents greater difficulties. KRIE­
GER'S find in a cave on the south side of SamanA Bay makes him
suppose that also in Espanola once a primitive aboriginal people
existed. Should this dednction of his prove correct, it is ho\',­
ever not possible on the basis of those remains from the cayes
to identify this primordial people with the Cuban Siboneyes. As
especially regards chipped stone implements from one of these
caves, they are so crudely chipped that they may at the most be
accepted as highly imperfect half-finished pieces of work, and that
in such case they marked the site of a stone age \vorkshop.
But in this connection it may be noted that in the Province
of "!\Ionte Cristi KRIEGER found two true artefacts, yiz. a one-edged
knife and a double-edged artefact with a lengthwise ridge in the
middle, of pointed shape. Artefacts of a similar type have also

een found in Cuba. Further similarities with Cuba appear in
HATT'S finds from La Barrera, near Azua. These finds not only
include unspecified cutting implements but also two well made
one-edged knives with a sharp point, double-edged knives or
scrapers, and one diskshaped scraper. Attempts at the making
of an axe leads one to suppose a Tainan origin of these finds.
Until the existence of a primordial people with Siboneyan culhue
has been established, it must be supposed that the Tainos
of Espanola from their kinsmen in Cuba had learnt to work
flint by the same method of rather primitive chipping as was
prevalent in Cuba. That at the time of the Discovery the Haitians
also supplied the throwing spear with a flint head establishes
the presence of an additional flint artefact. Neither in regard to
Espanola nor to Cuba has any undoubted stone point for dart
or arrow hitherto been archaeologically established.
As Tainan must be classed two dart points, one of them possibly
a knife, that DE Booy has published from Providenciales,
Caicos Islands. No finds of scrapers or knives of the type of
those from Espanola or Cuba are known to me from the Bahamas,
wherefore their flint culture cannot be correlated to that of
the aforementioned islands, besides "vhich this type of stone point
for the throwing spear is unknown from Espanola.
The only known type of stone artefact from Jamaica is on
the other hand exactly the tanged dart point. From the \Vest
I ndies this type is so far unknown. The independent occurrence
in ] amaica of a type of point so highly developed ~ at the manufacture
of which secondary percussive chippings must be presupposed,
i. e. methods not employed on the artefacts of the other
islands, l)oints to external impulses that passed the other islands
by. These impulses can hardly have originated else,'.·here thar.
in Central America.
A Southern States element is found in carved and fretted shellwork,
recovered by excavation in Oriente in Cuba, on the north
coast of Santo Domingo, and in Tainan deposits in St. Croix and
St. Thomas, while in Puerto Rico only one shell mask has hitherto
been found. From Jamaica no shellwork is known. N either has
it been recorded that fretted shellwork from the Virgin Islands
has penetrated farther east than the Lesser Antilles. Carved shell-

688
,York from St. Kitts and Kevis is not perforated into open-work,
but at most pierced with small holes, or a large hole is cut out
for rings.
Tainan pottery is cOllspicously rich in vaulted vessels and
cazuelas. Its modelled heads are generally turned inwards. Its
decoration is incised. Its development has in the main proceeded
locally, only in few instances having been reached by casual impulses
from northern South America over the Lesser Antilles.
The pottery of the Island-Arawaks constitutes a ramification
of the archaic ceramics that in South America were spread over
Amazonas, Guiana, and the northern Venezuelan mountain districts,
as well as the Dutch I"eeward Islands.
Comparative studies of pottery show that the Arawak settlers
in the West Indies to begin with only possessed wide-open clay
vessels, and that the art of moulding was very poorly developed,
Early Ignerian pottery comprising the sub-Tainan and the J a­
maican, may on the whole be said to have stopped short at
this stage, which once appears to have been distributed over
the entire \Vest Indian group. Even the earlier, unpainted type
of Ignerian pottery has adopted additional accessories from South
America, while the Erin Bay ceramics subsequently influenced
modelling in the southernmost of the Lesser Antilles. As a rule
these South American accessories never reached the Greater Antilles.
An exception to this is found in bandhandles, which penetrated
as far as Jamaica. This notwithstanding, in Tainan ceramics
are more often found the preliminary stages of merely a
pierced lug, or loop. In late Ignerian times a thin-walled, hardfired
type of pottery, painted before firing, represented in finds
from the Dutch Leeward Islands, Margarita, St. Bernard on
Trinidad, and St. Kitts-Kevis penetrated even as far as the Virgin
Islands where, as has been shown by BATT, where it existed
already before Tainan ceramics were introduced by the Borinquenos.
Authentic records as to its having also spread to Puerto
Rico and Santo Domingo have not so far been adduced.
Under influences from Florida, the proper Tainan ceramics
subsequently developed with vaulted vessels, modelled, grotesqe
clay heads, and engraved lines terminated vdth a pit,
Jamaica remains at the stage of only l~ossessing wide-open

vessels, generally elliptical, and round clay pots with horizontal
handles. It is only by ,yay of exception that proper Tainan influence
is perceptible. Its moulding has not reached the same
stage of development as proper Tainan pottery. Terminating
pits are absent, and so are such features as Tainan pottery possesses
in common with Florida.
Strangely enough there occurred in Cuba and Espailola not
only wooden sculpture but also wooden ?Jessels. This is an ele··
ment that the Tainos did not bring along with them from South
America, where wooden vessels have a westerly distribution.
\\-ooden vessels are 011 the other hand found in Key Marco. It
cannot, it seems, be ascertained whether in Cuba the Taillos learnt
the art of manufacturing wooden vessels from influence from Florida,
or from the Siboneyes, those earlier settlers who had emigrated
from that region. Hitherto it has not been possible to establish
the existence in Espanola of any primitive population of
North American origin. Possibly the Haitians learnt hmv to
make wooden vessels by influence received at second hand from
their kinsmen in Cuba, in the same way as they received their flint
technique from that island.
Compared with the Galibis of the Guianan coastiand, the
Caribs of Trinidad, and the Island-Caribs, the bashetry of the Tainos
was but little developed. The Taillos were, as we know, Arawaks
too, and their emigration from the mainland wonld seem to
have taken place prior to the Caribbean invasion into eastern
Venezuela and the Guianan coastiand, and before the highly developed
basketry technique of the Caribs had inspired the basketrymaking
of the Arawakan tribes. The only form of basket referred
to in the early writings is the spherical hava, designed for carrying
minor articles safely in wet weather. This form of basket is
unknown to me from Guiana. \Vhat the True Arawaks call habbo
is, on the other hand, a rectangular open basket on four legs,
made for storing cassava cakes. In the writings on the Tainos
mention is not even made of the Guianan shoulder basket, in
fact, we can learn nothing whatever as to how the produce of the
fields was carried home.
Excavations have revealed the '1'ainos as one of the peoples
that buried their dead in a squatting posture, a mode of burial
4~

690
\dlich VON Dl~N STEINEN has sho\v11 as belonging to a higher stage
of culture than that in which the corpse is interred laid down
flat. In regard to Cuba, HARRINGTON has established that there
the Ara waks buried their dead squatting and the Siboneyes laid
out straight. Burial in squatting posture has among the Taillos
been found not only in a dug graves, as in South America, but
also in tumuli. Mound-burial is very frequent ill Plorida and
.\labama, but is also found in Mayan culture in British Honduras.
;\s fas as the 'l'ainos are concerned I am, however, inclined to
refer the origin of this burial mode to Florida. Burial in a flexed
position was by the Tainos also adapted to interment in caves.
Entombment of ehiefs in eharnbers - among the 'fain os as on
the lower Orinoco - roofed over with woven withes ultimately
may have originated in Colombia. It is this very burial mode
that is connected \vith suttee.
\Yhere grave furniture occurs it is composed of ch?y vessels and
ornaments as well as of strings of stone beads placed in vessels.
Clay vessels with stone beads also occur in graves at l,.ago 'facarigua
in Venezuela, and in Mayan graves. This custom derives in
any case from the higher cidlizations in the west and southwest.
Desiccation of the bodies of chiefs was practised by the 'fainos,
who may be supposed to have brought it along from their original
home. It occurred, as We know, in Paria.
Even the 'fainan form of re-burial, the skull placed in a basket
susl;ended in the roof-trees of a hut, has its parallels among the
Island-Caribs anel ill northeastern South America.
Incidental to the \yide-s])read use in the islands of cave-ent0111
bment, to Ivhich natural conditions gave facilities, skulls were
also placed in caves, and then often within clay vessels.
Beside these funeral customs of South American origin the
'rain os also adopted others from the ,S'outheastern States. Among
such we find secondary bundle burial, with the skull at the top and
occasionally an inverted vessel placed over the skull (Santo Domingo),
and child-burial under an inverted clay bowl (1'ainan culture,
::-;t Croix and St 'fhomas). In Cuba HARRINGTON found that
Tainan skulls, contrary to Siboneyan, had a flattened forehead, a
feature which besides is of common occurrence in skulls from the
rest of the islands and also has been shown to occur in an Ignerian

69 1
grave 111 St Kitts. Deformation of the forehead existed in Espanola
at the time of the Discovery. To the Island-Caribs the practice
may have passed on by the Igneriall mothers. As deformation
of the forehead occurred on the north coast of South
America as far east as Cumalla, it \vill not be necessary to seek its
origin among the Mayas, it having more likely been spread O\-er
the \Vest Indies by the earliest Arawaks. It appears to have been
commonly practiced even in Jamaica, where otherwise later imrulses
from the continent did not penetrate.
III the early \uitings is recorded the existence in Puerto Rico,
Espanola and Jamaica, of an aristocratic orga11ization with caziques
in high authority over the people. It is only in Espanola that
\ye find actual cazique kings, each at the head of a kingdom, while
in Puerto Rico there existed a tendenc)- towards the unification of
the island under the cazique of the Agueybana dynasty, who ruled
on'r the western part of the island.
These paramount caziques appeared with a suite aml in regal
pomp. They possessed insignia of their dignity. Among the Aray\··
aks of Trinidad the cazique 'was conspicnous from the commOll
people by his wearing a feather CIOyYl1, or a diadem of guanin, i111-
l;ortcd from Colombia. Even to the Tainos was transmitted Colombian
an article greatly valued by them and more or less
l1uiYcrsally acquired by their aristocracy. But for the Tainos' part,
where insignia are concerned, COllllcction ,yith )Iexico manifests
itself, while as regards this article Florida alJpears to have had no
part. Al1tltiple-rowed bead fillets lor head-dresses and girdles, or
girdles set lC'itlz bead;:, of bone or other material elnbroidercd on ran7'as
in Espanola. provided in front\\ith a gold-ill.laid\\ooden mask
are referable to a ~\Iayall origin.
From the Mexican mainland the Tainos not only ilnportecl
;:alilcsif.ith rubber ball but also ball (ourts bordered by earth walls
or up-ended boulders. The btter 118.\·e net passed into South Amer­
Ica. in the \'Vest Indies they cannot be shmcHl tn han:,
reached either jamaica or the Lesser Antilles.
Dancing ,yas accompanied
This is of ~\lexi·
eU1 origin, while its Taina1l name, magua)" possesses a COUllterin
Uk South American SclilitztIOllllHel, illdicating that the
Tainos _.._. like the trilws on the 011no('0 and ill Faria origi.nal1y

692
possessed Schlitztrommel, \\7hich later on they replaced with
Zungentrommel.
As to the character of their myths -~ no creation in its proper
meaning, the absence of actual heroes, the superhumans of the
dawn of time only being finders, mankind already existing but C011-
fined and only needing to be let out, water mama, etc. - the
Tainos correspond with their kinsmen, the 1'me Arawaks. Only
their conception of a hngdom of death, and its mler, is of Mexican
origin.
Among True Arawaks there is also £n nuce found zemiism, but
the zemis only dwell in the heavens, whence they may be called
down by the piaies at certain occasions at festive assemblies,
Among the Ignerian-influenced Island-Caribs the zemis have already
approached nearer to the humans and receive, through boyes,
offerings on sacrifial tables and in huts, though still remaining i11-
\'isible. Among the 1'ai11os the zemfs, through their idols, were
still more closely connected with the earth and mankind. 'rhey
were appealed to by offerings of foodstuffs, and were even allotted
gardens. Other zemis dwell like the foregoing in the skies. but
were capable of being influenced by the zemis of the idols so as to
let down the rain needed for the crops. Another department of the
activities of the zemis was that of giving oracles. Among the Island-Caribs
this could be effected by means of the bones of ancestors.
Among the Tail10s the method of establishing conullunication
with the spirit \vorld, and to be told things of the future,
consisted of getting intoxicated with tobacco snuff inhaled through
the nose by rncans of a forked tube. 'fhe SHuff was often placed
on a disk surmounting the idol's head. })Canopies» of this kind
may be considered as characterizing oracle-giving zemi idols.
Inhalation of snuff through a forked tube, as vvell as its ritual
llse, is in South America of a westerly origin, llamely the upper
Orinoco and north-western Amazonas. Snuffing through a forked
tube was unknown to the True Ara\vaks.
Zemiism was among the Tainos bound up with the cazical in-­
stitution, and the idols were the property of the caziques. The
caziques conducted the religions festivals, and they, as well as the
nobles, were at the cahoba ceremonies able to obtain direct inspiration
from the spirit world. The piaies were among the Tain05 be-

sides pure and simple medicine-men also conveyors of the people's
wishes to the zemis.
It is probably from Yucatan that the Tainos learnt to make
iduls of wood or stone, as well as other religious stone sculpture.
All these religious objects represent, however, exclusively 'fainan
ideas and have nothing to do vvith Mexican deities.
In regard to religious or magical objects Puerto Rico has been
]lHwed to be the chief centre. But religious conceptions and forms
must bave been much the same in Espai1ola, or else these objects
\yould 110t have been imported from Puerto Rico.
Slender collars, and to them closely related objects snch as
elbov,- stones, are Puerto Rican in origin. In St Croix they conform
to Borinqueiiiall cultnre. By reason of their coarse-grained
material. massive collars '"ere not capable of receiving such fine
and detailed sculpturing as slender collars. The former may be
];resumed to derive from a different district of F'nerto Rico where
the finer-grained and more plastic rock of the slender collars
was unobtainable. Stone collars appear to have formed part of
sliecifically Borinq nenian ceremonies which probab1y referred to
\yind and mill. ilThree-pointersil in plain, smooth forms have by
.lOSSELl~ DE .lONG'S researches been proved to extend from the
Dutch islands off the coast of Venezuela. There they consist of a
r1ain cone, without lateral1)fojections set \vith smaller cones. This
:-,imple type also occnrs In Ignerian culture even as far north as St.
J olm, and may be set down as primordial. In Tainan cultnre in
St Croix and 5t Thomas, excavations by HATT have beside the
simple cone also revealed ob.iects with lateral projections. The
fully deve10red ,nticle-- the true three-pointer - may be classed
as a Tain8n element, and even more so its various stone-sculptured
forms. Those made of stone were in the main manufactured in
Puerto Rico, although a few specimens recovered in Santo Domillgo
differ from the Puerto Rican type. Similarly to a number
of elements developed within the tme Tainan cultnre, the threepointer
is absellt in ] amaica. A crudely fashioned three-pointer of
:stone recovered in St Villcent is probably of local mallnfacture, it
is true, hut its existence there indicates influence from Tai118n
culture. A three-pointer preserved in the :Vluseu1l1 of the American
Indian, Heye Foundation, stated to have been recovered in

Venezuela is at all events of l'uerto Rican manufacture.
In PA~I';
we read that in Espanola three-pointers were resorted to for pro··
moting the grovvth of root crops. The sculptured figures on three·
pointers I consider as symbolizing procreation, with the harvest
for offspring
Pestles are widely distributed ill the mainhmd of America.
Plain, conical jJestles occur both ill British Guiana and C'eorgia,
as well as in early cultures in the Valley of l\i[exico and in the
Lesser Antilles besides, by reason of which in the case of the
Tainos r am inclined to refer the origin of pestles to South America.
n is only in the Antilles, hO\yever, that they ,vere at the upper
part provided \vith sculpture, usually a face, but in Santo Domingo
a150with a full-Iellgth figure. Sculptured restles are not exclusively
eXl'otlents of the proper Tainnn culture. They have also been
found not only ill Jamaica but also ill St Vincent, amI possibly
eyen in other islands of the l~esser Antilles, The meaning of this
figure may have been, as suggested by HATT, to pnwide a helper
lending strength to the woman in her tiring work.
In this summary I have Hot been able to include the more de·
tailed results -. the archaeological ones in particular-- that are
found in the foregoing chapters, but have here only dealt with the
principal features of 'l'ain3n cultural de\.-elopment. This I may in
conclusion epitomize as follovvs: -
The Talnos ,vere a people closely related to the True Ara\vaks,
although probably Hot directly originati1lg from the coastland of
British Guiana but JIlore likely from l'aria. Alrend~- before their
emigration they appear to have to a certain extent been influenced
from the west, but generally speaking it seems that culture elements
influenced from Colombia reached them only subsequent tp
their immigration into the Greater Antilles, ra most cases these
Col 0 ITl bian acl

ongm the spear-thrower of estolica type, and with a hook carved
in stone, is at nearest hand of Alldille Colombian origin, while the
forked tube for the inhalation of snuff, connected \vith intoxication
as a means of establishing communication with the spirit world,
is most directly traceable back to the southwestern Orinoco reglOn.
At the time of their immigration the '1'a111os only possessed
the celt, while their pottery consisted of nothing but wide-open
vessels.
To the earliest Arawak settlers the islands presented no very
great difficulties as to the adaptation of their ancient mode of
sustaining themselves. The greater aridity of the climate was
compensated for by monton cultivation. Even if at the beginning
the settlers were ff:W in nnmbers, extensive areas of arable soil in
conjunction with a, generally speaking, favourable climate admitted
of a rapid increase of population.
At the time of the Discovery, however, they were found to
have attained the highest stage of that development in the cultivation
of )iuca bral!a and preparation of cassava whereby their vegetable
food supply had been stabilized, and in the art of boiling
out the poisonous cassava juice into cassareep for pepper-pot, by
means of which the preservation of other food stuffs can be e­
stablished,
Along with this growth of the popUlation then developed the
1 )roper Tainall culture. characterized above all by its ceramics
of vaulted vessels and a pronounced style of modelling. Its
vessel forms were influenced from Florida, as also fretwork in shell.
From Florida ",,'ere also imported certain funeral customs.
Social development became more aristocratic than in northeastern
South America. Their great caziyues adopted insignia
frorn the ':\lexican mainland. From that region also derived 1101
only rubber ball games, \vhich continued to spread southwards
through the South American tropical10wlands, but also ba11 courts;
the latter, hO\vever, not extending beyond the limits of the proper
Tainan culture,
Zemiism developed, with incorporation of idols owned by the
('azlques and representing their ancestors or mythical great caziques.

In Jamaica a local culture developed, founded on ancient and
more simple traditions, and to no appreciable extent reached by
impulses from Florida.
It is only in Cuba that the immigrated Arawaks can be proyed
to have come into contact with any early primitive people of North
American origin, and from these aboriginals the Cuban Arawaks
learnt how to manufacture certain flint implements. All the
kinds of these were adopted by the Tainos of Espanola. Among
these artefacts no correspondence can be shown with the only
J amaicari kind of flint artefacts, namely the tanged stone points.

Addenda.
1. On effects of tobacco.
If, for comparison, we tnrn to Mexico we there find similar
physiological effects of tobacco as in Espanola after cahoba-snuffing.
Thus the Tarascan priests by the use of tobacco attained
an ecstatic state during which they saw occult things and established
comnnmication with the gods (SEI,ER, Die alten Bewalmer
del' Landschaft 1\Ifichuacan, Ges. Abh., Bd. III, pp. II 9--
120) _ The Mexican priests chewed their tobacco.
2. The myth uf Trumcn's IsLand.
The amazon myth taking the form of an island exclusively
inhabited by women is typical not only of the Tainos and the Ciguayans,
but must have had a wider distribution in America.
On his arrival at Colima, COR1'ES heard the Indians speak of
"the Province of Ceguatan, where, it is strongly affirmed. there
is an island only inhabited by women without a single man ... ,
and that many people from here have gone there and have seen
it. They tell me as well that it is very rich in pearls and gold"
(CARL SAUl,R and DONALD BRAKD, A ztatlan , lbero-Americana : r,
Berkeley, r932, p. 42, cit. Cadas de Cortes, Paris, r866, ed. p.
2,)0--289). \Ve note here a twofold correspondence-- hardly an
accideutal one --- with the Haitian myth of the women's island
knowll as Matiniw\ rich in guanin and other je-wels. It is possible
that the Haitian myth found its way across to Mexico and
thence spread farther west. Near Tullum there is an Isla de
las }lujeres, the reason for the name being ullkno\Vll to me.
At any rate the conditions of the Antilles are more favourable
for the origin of such an island myth than those of Yucatan
with its small adjacent coast islands.

Plate 1.
SALT RIVER, ST. CROIX.
I . Fragment of slender collar. 2/ •. 2- 4. Pottery fragments. 2/ •.
National Museum, Copenhagen.

6
Plate II.
1- 9. SALT RIVER, ST. CROIX. Figs. I - 4, 6- 9, Pottery fragments . ' /" Fig. 5,
Limestone figure of shark. ' / 1 ,
National Museum, Copenhagen.
10. RADIX POINT, TRINIDAD. Pottery {tugment. 3/2, G. M. 1916. 15. 28.

Plate Ill.
1- 2 . SANTO DOMINGO. Effigy celts. 2/5. 3. ST. CROIX. Salt-axe. 2/,.
National Museum, Copenhagen.

Plate IV.
1. GUADELOUPE. Club-sh aped 1/2, 2 - 4. ST. CROIX. Axes. 1/2, 5. ST. THOMAS.
Grooved celt. 1/2,
National Museum, Copenhagen.

Plate V.
I, 4-5. ANGEL, ECUADOR. Axes. 1/2, 2. VALLEY OF CAUCA AT MANIZALES,
COLOMBIA. Axe. 1/2, 3. VARINAS, NEAR L. DE VALENCIA, VENEZUELA. Axe. 1/2,
National Museum, Copenhagen.

Plate VI.
I. ST. CROIX. Celt. 1/2, 2 . SANTO DOMINGO. Limestone head. 1/2, 3. ST.
CROIX. Shank-hammer. 1/2,
National Museum, Copenhagen.

1·
plate VII.
VIRGI"N ISLANDS.
sd
0
"'" 5'''''' imp/,m"" 'I, " , S' C

1.
BARBADOS. Axe. "/10' R. M.
' / 2 , G. M. 1922. 6 . 163.
Plate VIII.
GRENADA. Adze. ' / 2 , G. M. 1922. 6. 34· 2.
190 5. 17. 221. 3. ST. VINCENT. Knife.

Plate IX.
;:j
SANTO DOMINGO.
Pottery fragments. 1/ 2'
I. VIEQUES. 7, 9- 10, I3 .1.1!" SAMANA, 8, II- I2 . R . YAQUI, VEGA REAL.
National Museum, Copenhagen.
10

P late x .
ST. CROIX. ESTATE OF CONCORDIAS JUDER. Clay bowl. 1/3.
National Museum, Copenhagen.

Plate XI.
SAN TOMAS DE JANICO, SANTO DOMINGO. Monolithic celt. Height 23 em.
Mus. du Troeadero 12.331.

plate XII.
b-l

1
6
10
Plate XIII.
OI,D HARBOUR, J AMAlCA,
Stone points.
G . M. Call. 1927.26. Figs. 1- 10 (27.26-42, 8, 44, 20, 3, 21, 41, 6, 43 and 18).

Plate XIV.
ANTILLES.
Twin figures of stone.
I. Collection Capitan. Height 20 eill.
2. Mus. du Troeadero 38.808. Height 14 eill.

3
Plate XF.
I. })ANTILLES ,}. Stone figure. Height 22 cm. Mus. du Trocadero 20.022 .
2. PUERTO RICO. Stone head. I-Ieight 13 CUl. Collection Capitan. 3. PUERTO
RICO. Stone figurine. 1/2. National Museum, Copenhagen.

Plate XVI.
SANTO DOMINGO.
Effigy clay-vessel. Height I I cm.
Mus. du Trocadero 20.967, Collection Dusommerand.

Plate XVII.
DOMINICA.
Section at a three-pointer. Section length 2I cm., total length 43 cm. Mus. du
Trocadero 33.442.

Plate XVIII.
PUERTO RICO.
Stone collars.
I. Mus. du Trocadero. Length 45 cm.
z. Mus. du Trocadero 63.475. Length 45 cm. Marble.

Plette XIX.
HOXDURAS, Caribs.
Cassava graters .
R. M. 14.6.3. and 14.6.5.

INDIAN
WEST INDIES
"=
-- 0 P. ...
,sl-. Croix