Pre-Colombian Jamaica: Caribbean Archeology and Ethnohistory

Aboriginal Indian Remains in Jamaica by J. E. Duerden / 285
circular basin- like depressions cut in the rock with a trench running down toward
the bottom. . . . The most noticeable thing in this group of inscriptions
is the frequency of the grinning faces in a circle, often alone, often accompanied
by two others placed at the sides, which are universally met with in every
inscription found in the Greater and Lesser Antilles. The same may be said
of the human figure apparently swaddled in clothes like a very young infant,
the head and body more or less decorated, which is also very frequently found
(p. 136).”
While in the Bahamas, Lady Blake furnished the American Bureau of Ethnology
with an account and sketches of petroglyphs occurring in those islands.
They are referred to in the Report above mentioned (pp. 137–9). The carvings
were found in a cave on the northern shore of a small island at Rum Cay.
The inscriptions are very numerous and most of them rudely represent human
faces enclosed in a circle, “and the markings must have been nearly half
an inch in depth, cut into the face of the rock, and seemed to us such as might
have been made with a sharp stone implement.” Colonel Mallery considers the
petroglyphs to bear a remarkable similarity to those in British Guiana, “and
the authorship would seem to relate to the same group of natives, the Caribs.”
The well- known slab bearing ornamental inscriptions found in Guadaloupe,
and represented in the “Guesde Collection” (Figure 208), is also reproduced
in Col. Mallery’s Report, and its comparison with the Guiana carvings recommended.
These latter are very fully described and figured in im Turn’s “Among
the Indians of Guiana” (pp. 389–410), and certainly, along with these others
mentioned in different islands of the West Indies, bear some resemblance to
the Jamaican carvings, especially to those at Mountain River. [followed by unnumbered
Plate VII]
References
1605. Martyr, Peter. “The Historie of the West Indies.” (Published in Latin by
Mr. Hakluyt, and translated into English by M. Tok, Gent.), London
[about 1605].
1707. Sloane, Sir Hans. “A Voyage to the Islands of Madeira, Barbados, Nieves,
St. Christopher’s and Jamaica, etc.” 2 vols. Vol. II, 1725. London.
1740. Leslie, Charles. “A New History of Jamaica, etc.” 2nd edition. London.
1774. Long, Edward. “The History of Jamaica.” 3 vols. London.
1807. Edwards, Bryan. “The History, Civil and Commercial of the British
Colonies in the West Indies.” 4th edition. 3 vols. London.
1870. Major, R. H. “Select Letters of Christopher Columbus.” (Translated and
edited), London.
1870. Stevens, Edward T. “Flint Chips.” London.