A Botanical and Economic Study. 117 



and extended in continuity to the Goajiros peninsula, the most 

 northern land of the continent." ' 



The Antilles and Bahamas were peopled by its members. 

 They were the first, therefore, to welcome Columbus to the 

 Bahamas, Cuba and Hayti. The Arawak stock was above 

 the stage of savagery. They cultivated maize, potatoes, 

 manioc, yams and cotton. They made gold ornaments, idols 

 of rude form, and canoes constructed of hollow logs. The 

 Guiana Arawaks cultivated maize, but cassava afforded the 

 chief food. The forest tribes planted in clearings inter- 

 mingled with wild seedlings and sprouts from stumps. Brin- 

 ton places the original home of the Arawaks somewhere in 

 the Bolivian highlands, where, no doubt, they learned the use 



of maize. 



The Timucuas inhabited the State of Florida, where they 

 have been extinct for a century and over. Gatschet 2 and 

 Brinton incline to the opinion that the Timucuas were related 

 to the Caribs in the Bahamas and the greater Antilles. 

 There is no objection to holding this view, for the Timucuas 

 were isolated as regards the surrounding tribes, and the Caribs 

 extended to the Bahamas, near the coast of Florida. 



This brief ethnological survey of the North and South 

 American tribes is useful in showing the comparative age 

 and cultural position of the agricultural races of Indians. 

 That the Mayas were the superiors of any other race on the 

 North or South American continent, and were the source of a 

 large part of the indigenous American culture is proved : (1) 

 by the fact that the tribes and mound-builders in the present 

 territory of the United States were just entering on the 

 agricultural state ; (2) because the Pueblos built structures 

 of scarcely higher order than the rock shelters of the cliff- 

 dwellers, who were driven by the invasion of wilder tribes 

 to build in the mountain fastnesses instead of living on the 

 plains in round or rectangular huts of stone and mud ; (3) 

 because the Nahuas evidently borrowed their agriculture 

 from the more advanced Maya tribes in the south, with whom 



1 Brinton, American Race, 241. 



- Bureau of Ethnology Rep., 1SS5-86, 123. 



