MATERIAL CULTURE OF THE INDIANS OF SAMANA 35 



Griddles for baking cassava are South American, even with regard 

 to form, while the typical North American stone mortar '' metate " 

 for the grinding of corn is apparently lacking in the West Indian 

 culture complex. Whatever archaic forms exist in native Tainoan 

 earthenware — that is, open pottery vessels with clay figurine heads 

 mounted at the ends and facing inward, likewise the peculiar punc- 

 tated decorative designs, and several of the peculiar arrangements of 

 luted ribbons of clay to represent eyes, mouth, and other facial 

 features — all these features in pottery decorative design need not 

 as a matter of course to have come to the Greater Antilles by way 

 of the Venezuelan and northeastern South American coast, but 

 might far more reasonably have been introduced by a less circuitous 

 route from Central American culture areas direct. Life forms 

 modeled and employed in embellishment are, on the other hand, 

 peculiarly endemic or West Indian in type. A tendency toward a 

 conventionalized treatment of realistic models of animal and bird 

 heads indicates presumably a long period of isolated development 

 of forms and shaping technic. 



Symbolism also has an important place in the designs incised on 

 stone, bone, and wood sculptures, also in painted designs. In their 

 decorative designs, the incised figures are well suited to the space 

 they are intended to occupy. Characteristic is the ornamentation of 

 a space in which a central pit is surrounded by a circular incised line 

 or a raised band w^hich in turn is surrounded by a series of broken 

 circles, the corners between these broken circles being filled in with 

 triangular or other angular linear incisions. 



Culture diffusion in the ^Yest Indies. — The connection of the island 

 Arawak with Floridan tribes was essentially one of trade and provi- 

 sioning. Transference of decorative designs, therefore, was inci- 

 dental to trade contacts. It is nevertheless true that the broken circle 

 is typical of the southeastern Atlantic States and occurs also else- 

 where in North America, but the penetration of Floridan designs 

 within the Greater Antilles remains an obscure problem. 



Peter Martyr mentions a species of tree in the Lucayan Islands ^^ 

 where many pigeons nest. Indians from Florida came to catch these 

 pigeons and carried boatloads back with them. In Guanahani the 

 Indians knew of a land lying northwest of the Bahamas; also, in 

 Cuba, natives knew of a land mass on the north. Just what relation- 

 ship existed in the making of coonti flour in native Florida and 

 cassava flour in the Greater Antilles remains uncertain. Methods 

 employed in the production of the root flour are similar and the 

 stages of bread manufacture run somewhat parallel. It is possible 

 that many other examples of Floridan and Antillean culture rela- 



" De Orbe Novo, p. 251. 



