Pre-Colombian Jamaica: Caribbean Archeology and Ethnohistory

274 / Appendix D.
the varieties are numerous and all showy, and that it has been met with only on
one or two occasions in the kitchen- middens which have been examined in Jamaica,
so that the aborigines did not appear to have used the animal for food;
indeed it is too coriaceous to make this probable. The perforation is incomplete,
but is interesting as showing that, at any rate in this particular example, it was
executed by some drilling tool. The hole is perfectly conical with smooth sides,
in contrast to the irregular edges of the Oliva, and there is no preliminary wearing
away or thinning of the shell to facilitate the perforation.
The fresh colour of Triton femorale is brown, with white ribs, which, with
the well- marked varices and peculiar form of the shell, give rather a striking appearance,
and would render it a desirable object for ornamentation. The hole
was made through one of the thinnest parts of the body whorl.
Helix jamaicensis, from Mr. Vendryes’s researches, is not found in the eastward
parts of the island, but occurs in the central, mountainous districts. It
was probably taken to Halberstadt, from Manchester or Upper Clarendon. The
shell is a handsome one when fresh, being dark brown, with one, two, or three
white zones on the body whorl. The perforation is quite small with smooth
edges, as if bored. For purposes of ornamentation, and as articles of exchange
amongst partially civilized tribes, it is to be noted that marine shells are mostly
used in preference to land shells, by reason of their much greater hardness and
durability; those of the pulmonates being generally thin and fragile. The shell
of Helix jamaicensis is, however, a good sized, rather thick type.
Numerous references are given by the early Spanish writers to the dress and
ornaments worn by the aborigines of the West Indies, at the time of discovery
by Columbus.
In regard more especially to the use of marine shells as ornaments by the natives
of Hayti, Benzoni, as translated by Smyth (1887, p. 263) states (italics
added): “When the cacique of La Espanola wished to celebrate a feast in honour
of his principal false deity, he commanded all his vassals, both men and
women to come to him on a certain day. . . . the men painted black, red, and
yellow, with plumes of parrot and other feathers, with ornaments of sea- shells
round their necks, their legs and their arms.”
Accounts are given in the discoveries of the relics of the North American
Indians of the occurrence of shells, also first ground down and then pierced
with a hole in the lower part for the purpose of stringing them. Mr. Stevens
in “Flint Chips” (p. 445–7) refers to a deposit of Indian relics in Illinois, described
by Mr. Rau, amongst which was about a bushel of small fossil marine
univalve shells partly pierced and belonging almost entirely to the genus Conoculus.
“On close examination I found that these shells had been reduced, by
grinding to greater thinness at the place of perforation, in order to facilitate the
process of piercing.”