30 BULLETIN 14 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



The Ciguayan Indians of Samana were so named because of their 

 long hair, " ciguay " in Arawak speech meaning " long-haired." With 

 respect to their hirsute adornments, the Ciguayans resembled more 

 the Timucuans of Florida as represented in a drawing by Jacques 

 Lemoyne de Morgues." Other accounts speak of the Ciguayans as 

 wearing a half crown of upright feathers inserted at the back of 

 the head as the warp or passive element in a woven headband. This 

 form of headdress occurs far in the interior of South America among 

 the interior Arawak Tribes. 



Columbus took with him to Spain from Samana four young male 

 Ciguayans who were to serve as guides and to point out the islands 

 occupied by the Caribs. He sailed from the Samana Bay on the 16th 

 of January, 1493. On the 12th of November of the same year he re- 

 turned and set ashore at Samana (locality indefinite) one of the four 

 Ciguayans who had made the journey to Spain with him. The re- 

 leased Indian was supposed to convert the Ciguayans to the Catholic 

 faith and to tell the natives about the wonders of Spain. At Port 

 Angeles a group of Ciguayans, some wearing necklaces and earrings 

 of gold, came aboard with their canoes to barter their canoe load of 

 provisions. They related, through interpreters, that their cacique 

 wanted to know who the Spaniards were and to invite them to remain 

 and trade for gold and provisions. 



Later, after circumnavigating the island, he found the natives of 

 Higuey — ^that is, of southeastern Haiti — as hostile as had been the 

 Ciguayans, and, like them, also threatening to bind the Spanish with 

 ropes. Also on the north coast, at La Navidad settlement, near Monte 

 Cristi, returning from Spain on his second voyage, Columbus found 

 two dead Spaniards bound with native ropes. 



It appears that the only serious hostilities between the Spanish 

 and the Ciguayans of Samana Peninsula, other than the initial skir- 

 mish which occurred when Columbus first landed at the Bay of 

 Arrows in January, 1493, was due to the loyalty and hospitality 

 of the Ciguayan cacique Mayobanex to Guarionex, cacique of the 

 native Province of Magna (Cibao Valley). Guarionex had con- 

 spired with Roldan and other Spanish deserters to overthrow the 

 power of the adelantado Bartholomew, the brother of Columbus. 

 When forced to flee to the mountains of northeastern Haiti by a 

 punitive Spanish force, Mayobanex received the fugitive at his vil- 

 lage near the mouth of the San Juan Kiver near Cape Cabron, on 

 the north coast of the peninsula. 



With aid received from Mayobanex and his Ciguayan warriors, 

 Guarionex made desultory warfare on isolated parties of Spanish 

 soldiers and on native villages which had not joined the revolt. In 



" Smiths. Misc. Coll., vol. 81, No. 4, fig. 1, p. 6, by David I. Bushnell, jr. 



