416 MAN: PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



arts, determining events, forecasting the harvests and so on by 

 the conjunctions of the stars, and every village has its native 

 " Zadkiel ' who reads the future in the ubiquitous crystal globe. 

 Even certain priests continue to celebrate the "Field Mass," at 

 which a cock is sacrificed to the Mayan Aesculapius, with invoca- 

 tions to the Trinity and their associates, the four genii of the rain 

 and crops. " These tutelar deities, however, have taken Christian 

 names, the Red, or God of the East, having become St Domenic ; 

 the White, or God of the North, St Gabriel ; the Black, or God 

 of the West, St James; and the Yellow Goddess of the South, 

 Mary Magdalene 1 ." 



To the observer passing from the northern to the southern 

 division of the New World no marked contrasts are 

 at first perceptible, either in the physical appear- 



to South ance, or in the social condition of the aborigines. 



America. 



The substantial uniformity, which in these respects 

 prevails from the Arctic to the Austral waters, is in fact well 

 illustrated by the comparatively slight differences presented by 

 the primitive populations dwelling north and south of the Isthmus 

 of Panama. 



Most of the insular connecting links, such as those offered by 



the Cebunys of Cuba 2 , the nearly extinct Caribs of 

 an^Lucayans. t ^ ie ^ est Indies, and the entirely extinct Lucayans 



of the Bahamas, have no doubt disappeared with all 

 the other aborigines of the Antilles. But the chain of native 

 populations would appear to have been formerly continuous from 

 the Timuquanans of Florida through the Windward and Leeward 



1 Reclus, Vol. xix. p. 156. 



2 The rapid disappearance of these Cuban aborigines has been the subject 

 of much comment. Between the years 1512-32 all but some 4000 had perished, 

 although they are supposed to have originally numbered about a million, distri- 

 buted in 30 tribal groups, whose names and territories have all been carefully 

 preserved. But they practically offered no resistance to the ruthless Conquista- 

 dores, and it was a Cuban chief who even under torture refused to be baptised, 

 declaring that he would never enter the same heaven as the Spaniard. One is 

 reminded of the analogous cases of Jarl Hakon, the Norseman, and the Saxon 

 Witikind, who rejected Christianity, preferring to share the lot of their pagan 

 forefathers in the next world. 



