Pre-Colombian Jamaica: Caribbean Archeology and Ethnohistory

268 / Appendix D.
limestone rocks in the island. The surface was much smoother originally, and
has now a mottled white and brown patina.
The ears are prominent, bearing a large non- perforated, lower lobe, and
present an ornamental folded pattern of the same type as that exhibited on
the crown of the first described specimen. The eye and mouth cavi-[following
unnumbered page is Plate IV] [43]ties are also of the same character; but the
former are smaller, oval in shape, and bear a projecting rim, while the latter is
large, with a sub- marginal groove. A narrow groove above may perhaps be intended
to distinguish a flat covering or crown to the head.
The specimens have each a flat base, and show no evidence of having been
used as pestles; indeed the coral and sandstone are scarcely of the necessary
hardness.
The faces may be compared with that on the stone stool or chair figured on
p. 827 of the “Guesde Collection,” the eyes, mouth, and ears having much in
common.
One finds it difficult to discriminate between such carved figures as to
whether they should be regarded as images or pestles. Comparing these two
objects with the one represented in Figure 1 on the same Plate, there is much
similarity in design and execution. The latter, however, is rounded at the base,
as if it had been employed for pounding, while the former are flattened.
Wooden Images
In the last number of the Journal of the Institute (1896) is a facsimile, reproduced
on the previous page, of an engraving in “Archaeologia” (1803) of three
Jamaica wooden images in the British Museum. With regard to these the Editor
supplies the accompanying details; “In 1799 they were exhibited at the Society
of Antiquaries, London, and the following account appears of them in the Appendix
to ‘Archaeologia’ Vol. II, 1803, p. 269.”
April 11, 1799
“Isaac Alves Rebello, Esq. F.A.S., exhibited to the Society Three Figures, supposed
to be of Indian Deities, in Wood, found in June 1792, in a natural cave
near the summit of a mountain, called Spots, in Carpenter’s Mountains, in the
parish of Vere, [Carpenter’s Mountain is 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 placed with their faces (one of which is that of
a bird) towards the East.”
The wooden carvings are extremely interesting when compared with two
existing in the “Guesde Collection” (1885, Figures 203–205). One of these