MATERIAL CULTURE OF THE INDIANS OF SAM AN A 51 



the caves of the San Lorenzo Bay region. These picks are small, 

 are crudely shaped from the outer lip of the conch {Strombus 

 pug His) and were undoubtedly used to extract the conch from its 

 shell. Although merely an improvised tool, it is difficult to produce, 

 as it must be struck off with a single blow. Skill must first be 

 developed in striking the right kind of a blow to obtain the proper 

 lines of cleavage in the lip of the shell and to obtain the character- 

 istic shoe-button form of small hook at the thin end of the pick. 

 After striking off about 50 picks in the manner supposedly em- 

 ployed by the aboriginal cave artificer, the writer gave up the at- 

 tempt to obtain a characteristic form of shell-hooked pick as too 

 difficult. Not one of the shell fragments took on the right hook 

 shape to make the implement effective as a fork for removing the 

 mollusk from its shell. That the native artisan did not always 

 obtain the desired effect at the first trial was evident from the large 

 number of improperly shaped conch-shell picks found in the vicinity 

 of the cave hearths. 



Another form of pick or, rather, ax was recovered at San Juan 

 on the north coast of the peninsula. These implements were fash- 

 ioned from the worked sections of manatee ribs {Trichechus viana- 

 tus). Two of these are illustrated in Plate 12. No. 2, of Plate 12 

 (Cat. No. 341031, U.S.N.M), has been shaped by pecking to a sec- 

 tional thickness of 1.7 centimeters (0.7 inch). It is 22 centimeters 

 (8.8 inches) long and 5 centimeters (2 inches) wide. The outer or 

 convex surface has been pecked with a stone celt from one end to 

 the other, but the ends have been fractured through use. The broader 

 end is 4.6 centimeters (1.8 inches) wide and is serviceable as a hoe 

 or adze. The smaller end of the rib is rounded in section and made 

 an excellent pick (diameter, 2.5 centimeters). 



No. 1 of the same plate (pi. 12) has a hafting groove excavated 

 at its center. The transversely placed groove is less distinct on the 

 obverse or concave surface of the pick; elsewhere the groove is 0,8 

 centimeter deep and 1 centimeter wide. Hafting must have been 

 after the fashion of the North American Eskimo haf ted stone' adzes — 

 that is. the flat end of the wooden haft was placed against the 

 ungrooved surface of the pick; withes were then drawn around the 

 groove and then through a hole in the handle end. Dimensions: 

 26.5 centimeters (10.4 inches) long and 6.5 centimeters (2.6 inches) 

 wide. 



Armdets and zemis. — Decorative art in shell is best illustrated in 

 the form of amulets or the so-called zemis. One of the zemis of 

 carved shell (Cat. No. 341002, U.S.N.M.), was dug up from the 

 midden at the San Juan site. It is carved in a zoomorphic form 

 common to other sections of Haiti and Porto Rico as well. Some of 

 the striking points of similarity in zemis of this form is that they 



