ABORIGINES OF THE WEST INDIES. 375 



munication with the present owners of the island, and who are be- 

 lieved to be descendants of the native Indians. It would be interest- 

 ing if some communication with these people could be established, 

 but meantime it is as likely they may be Maroons as Indians, for all 

 concerning them is too vague and uncertain to allow at present of 

 their being regarded as representatives of the aborigines. 



In Dominica, St. Vincent, and Trinidad a few of the primitive 

 inhabitants still remain. They are Caribs, who were a fierce and 

 warlike race, the bitter enemies and persecutors of the comparatively 

 mild and inoffensive Arrowauks. Both tribes still exist in Guiana, 

 and apparently have forgotten their old differences. It is probable 

 that the Arrowauks were the earliest arrivals in the islands, but when 

 their migration from the mainland took place there are not sufficient 

 data for saying: all we know is that it must have been long ages 

 before the arrival of the Europeans. In Hispaniola (now the negro 

 republics of Haiti and Santo Domingo) the absence of any legend of 

 a distant origin would allow of the native Indians having had a 

 legitimate claim to being an autochthonous race, or at any rate points 

 to the great length of time that must have passed since their canoes 

 had carried them across the breezy Caribbean Sea, from the cradle 

 of their race far away in the dense and mysterious forests of South 

 America. The Indians of Hispaniola, like many others of their 

 brethren, handed down their histories and traditions in songs which 

 were chanted before the people on festivals and other great occa- 

 sions, an(l which were often accompanied by dances. On great 

 occasions they danced to the sound of a drum made out of the trunk 

 of a tree and played by a cacique. In these songs or hymns the 

 tradition was recorded that the first men came out of two caverns in 

 the island. The sun was irritated at the advent of mankind, so 

 changed the guardians of the caves into stones, and metamorphosed 

 the men who had escaped from the caves into trees, frogs, and differ- 

 ent animals. In spite, however, of these efforts on the part of the 

 great luminary, the world became peopled. Another tradition de- 

 clared that the sun and moon themselves had come out of a cavern 

 in Haiti. 



The traditions of the Lucayans, on the contrary, all pointed to the 

 Lucayans having come to those islands from a land to the south, so 

 probably their residence in the Bahamas had not been for so long a 

 period as to blot out all recollection of the large islands where their 

 race had struck such firm root on its migration from the mainland. 

 That the Arrowauk occupation of the islands had been of long dura- 

 tion, a mass of evidence appears to show. In Cuba artificially flat- 

 tened skulls have been discovered imbedded in lime rock in caves 

 near Cape Maisi. With them were found fragments of pottery, an 



