Pre-Colombian Jamaica: Caribbean Archeology and Ethnohistory

Petroglyphs and Pictographs / 107
head dress,” but international comparisons suggest that in this case, as in others,
we might be able to be more specific about their symbolic meanings.
The images shown in the pictographs have, until recently at least, appeared
more varied than in the case of the petroglyphs. At Mountain River Cave (SC1),
the designs were executed in black on the ceiling. Watson (1988) was able to
identify 148 pictographs altogether, of which 61 were zoomorphic, 84 were
anthropomorphic, and three abstract. Recognizable figures include birds, tree
frogs, turtles, and reptiles variously identified as lizards, crocodiles, or iguanas.
At Potoo Hole (CC22), the pictographs appear along two walls at the base of
a vertical shaft. A preliminary analysis by A. G. and A. M. Fincham (1998)
has revealed the presence of at least 46 pictographs: 18 zoomorphic, seven anthropomorphic,
eight geometric, and 13 undefined. The zoomorphic images
include probable turtles, crocodiles, iguanas, and fish. For the most part they
were executed in red ocher and/ or a blackish pigment (possibly charcoal based).
The images are in general strikingly similar to those from Mountain River
Cave. There are other parallels as well. One of the striking scenes at Mountain
River Cave shows two men in bird masks facing each other and holding spears
or throwing sticks. Lee considered that this represented a hunting scene for
aquatic birds, but in Aarons’s view (1988) it had a wider religious or ceremonial
significance. As he pointed out, the most outstanding Jamaican example of
a human bird headed motif is one of the three wooden figures found at Spots
in Carpenter’s Mountain in 1792 (Appendix 44), a locality that in Lee’s view
may well be identical with Image Cave (MC3). This parallel reinforces a point
made by Roe (1991a, 1991b, 1999) in relation to the prehistoric art forms of
Puerto Rico. He maintains that lithographs were only one form of “spiritual
house” for the multitudinous spirits who formed part of the Taíno world. Other
vehicles for the same spirits were wood sculptures, cotton figures, and carved
stone portable images. In fact, he goes so far as to say that the “paramount medium”
for the Taíno was woodcarving, followed by carving in bone and shell.
Hence we should treat all these images as forming part of a unity, including the
other two from Spots, and the three wooden figures found at Aboukir (AC5)
(Aarons 1994; Saunders and Gray 1996): at Spots, a male figure probably representing
Boinayel the Rain Giver (Appendix 45) and another probable male
figure forming part of a cohoba stand (Appendix 46); at Aboukir, a male figure
probably representing Baibrama (Appendix 48), a bird figure forming part of a
cohoba stand (Appendix 49), and a spoon or scoop with a handle probably representing
Maquetaurie Guayaba, the lord of the underworld (Appendix 50).
Another point about Mountain River Cave relates to the petroglyphs, which