Pre-Colombian Jamaica: Caribbean Archeology and Ethnohistory

242 / Appendix D.
larger than sufficient to hold a few living persons. The Halberstadt cave, for
example, could not by any means hold more than about a dozen living adults
however packed, while from the bones entombed we have evidence of at least
thirty- four individuals of different ages.
Similarly with the Richmond Hill, Botany Bay, and California caves. Further,
the proportions of the bones do not correspond. Compared with the
number of lower- jaws and the other bones, a deficiency of skulls is always evident;
while the limb bones do not show a corresponding completion. In this
connection it must, however, also be borne in mind that few of the caves are
probably now in their primary condition as left by the Indians.
No indications that the caves ever formed regular places of habitation are
presented. Tropical conditions would never necessitate such a course, and, as
shown above, the size of the holes precludes this. All the circumstances seem to
warrant the idea that the caves served the Indians as natural ossuaries, or places
where the bones of their fellows, perhaps some time after death, were collected
and deposited in common sepulture.
What historical knowledge we have of the methods of burial of the Indian
of the West Indies supports this view. Writing of those of Hayti, Ling Roth,
quoting Oviedo, Moralis, and Ferdinand Columbus states (1887, p. 277):
“When a cacique died two (or more?) women were buried with him alive. . . .
The best beloved of the King’s wives or concubines were buried with him. . . .
Their custom is, to place beside every of them in their sepultures, a cup of water
and a portion of the fine bread or cazabi. . . . In some cases the cacique’s
body is opened and dried at the fire, that he may keep whole. Of others they
keep only the head. Others they bring in a grotto, and lay a calabash of water
and bread on his head.”
In his second voyage, Columbus states: “On examining some things which
had been very cautiously sewn up in a small basket, we found a man’s head
wrapped up with great care; this we judged might be the head of a father, or
mother, or of some person whom they much regarded; I have since heard that
many were found in the same state, which makes me believe that our first impression
was the true one” (Major 1870, p. 52–3).
It would also appear from the finding of the skulls in earthenware vessels in
the caves as if special care were taken in the disposal of the heads; and, as already
mentioned, these vessels are the most perfect and ornamental.
Caves containing human remains in other West Indian Islands are referred
to by Mr. F. A. Ober in “In the Wake of Columbus,” and in “Aborigines of
the West Indies.” In the first work (1893), writing of the Bahamas, he states
(p. 75): “We have bones and skeletons, particularly crania, which undoubtedly
pertained to the Lucayan or Ceboyan, as he has been called. These have
mostly been found in caves, and generally beneath the cave earth or bat guano;