382 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



It was an honest face [says Martyr], coarse but not gloomy, for it was 

 enlivened by confidence and softened by compassion. 



Their wants were few, and sea and land furnished them with the 

 necessaries of life, without exacting any severe or continuous labor 

 on their part ; so, as is almost invariably the case with natives of the 

 tropics, the Arrowauks were indolent and indisposed to hard work, 

 though showing considerable energy in their amusements, as we are 

 told that " it was their custom to dance from evening to dawn." 

 Another of their favorite pastimes was the game of bato, said some- 

 what to have resembled cricket. The players were divided into two 

 sides, which alternately changed places. The ball with which they 

 played was made of India rubber from the native milk withy, and 

 the elastic nature of the material was a surprise to the Spaniards, who 

 heretofore had not seen India rubber. Both men and women took 

 part in the game ; the ball was not caught with the hand, but received 

 on head, elbow, or foot, and repelled with great force and dexterity. 

 Wrestling and running for prizes were also well-known amusements 

 among these people. 



The great defect of the Arrowauks was their extreme immorality. 

 Some of their dances were exceedingly indecent and disgusting, and 

 the more abandoned a woman was, the greater was the consideration 

 in which she was held. The religions and beliefs of the Indians 

 varied more or less with the different tribes and races among them, 

 and no doubt the Arrowauks had a variety of sects and formulas in 

 the different islands. In broad lines we gather that they believed 

 in a supreme being called Jocahuma, who had a father and mother 

 residing sometimes in the sun and sometimes in the moon. Divine 

 honors were also paid to images of wood, stone, and cotton, called 

 zemis, which represented usually distorted versions of the human 

 face and sometimes reptiles. A consecrated hut or temple was set 

 apart in every village for worsip of these zemis, but only the priests 

 or Bohitos were permitted to enter these temples, and they acted as 

 intercessors for the people, besides practicing the art of medicine and 

 superintending the education of the children of caciques and men of 

 high rank. When the will of the cacique had received the approval 

 of the Bohito or priest, it was received by the people as the decree 

 of Heaven. 



The spirits of the good were believed to go to a pleasant valley 

 called Cozaba. There, surrounded by leafy trees laden with de- 

 licious fruits, the islanders looked forward to rejoining the spirits of 

 their ancestors, and in cool shade beside flowing rivulets to rejoice 

 in the society of the friends they had loved in the islands of earth, 

 in a land where there were no hurricanes, no drought, and no Caribs. 

 Each tribe appears to have considered that this paradise was situated 



