26 BULLETIN 14 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



resembling in their culture the Higuey Indians of Santo Domingo. 

 He mentions the " Ciboneys " as being a primitive group living in 

 the mountains of the interior and as not given to the practice of agri- 

 culture as were the natives of the central valleys and coastal plains. 



Aside from the casual and in part untrustworthy references to the 

 primitive cave-dwelling population of Haiti to be found in early 

 Spanish narratives, there exists no reference in the early literature 

 of the West Indies hinting at the existence of a pre-Arawak race of 

 Indians. 



It remained for archeological investigations to substantiate, at 

 least in part, the references contained in the literature cited. Har- 

 rington's discoveries in Pinar del Rio Province in western Cuba, 

 also in other sections of the island of Cuba, are well known. The 

 recent discovery of a similar culture from cave deposits in eastern 

 Santo Domingo by the Museum expedition are here mentioned for 

 the first time. It is possible that Arawak imigrants to the islands 

 of the Greater Antilles had subjugated these earlier people in much 

 the same manner as they themselves were later replaced by the 

 Carib in the Lesser Antilles. Las Casas believed this to be the case 

 when he wrote, referring to the natives of Cuba, that the " servants 

 subjugated by the invaders from Haiti were known as ' Ciboneyes.' " 

 These aborigines of western Cuba spoke a language that Columbus's 

 Taino interpreters from the Lucayan (Bahamas) Islands could not 

 understand. Harrington is authority for the statement that *' Ci- 

 boney " culture can be traced from one end of the island of Cuba 

 to the other. 



Caves were used by the island Arawak of Haiti, Cuba, and Porto 

 Rico for various purposes. Evidence collected by the Museum expe- 

 dition points to their use of the caves of Samana as temporary dwell- 

 ing places at a time when the earlier pre-Arawak cave-dwelling 

 population had already been superseded. From the literature we 

 gather that they also employed the caves as ceremonial chambers. 

 The large " pillar rock " carvings, in which stalagmites located near 

 the cave entrances are so shaped as to resemble anthromoporic zemis, 

 or sacred images, point to the use of the Samana caves as Arawak 

 places of worship. An observation made by Spanish writers is that 

 fishermen occupying the small islands off the coast of Cuba and Haiti 

 were subjects of the superior Taino (Arawak), but that they did 

 not live in caves. Neither do we find any authentic reference in the 

 literature on the tropical South American tribes relative to their use 

 of caves for other purposes than as burial chambers or for spirit 

 worship. In South America some caves yield no skeletal material, 

 while others in tlie Orinoco Valley contain pottery urn burials. In 



