54 BULLETIN 14 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



similar figurine carving from the West Indies. Others will no doubt 

 come to light with future archeological research. Dimensions: 

 Length, 5 centimeters (2 inches) ; width, 2.6 centimeters (1 inch) at 

 the flexed knees; depth, 2 centimeters (0.8 inch) from eyebrow promi- 

 nence to flexed knees. Illustrations of the figurine may be seen in 

 Plate 11, Nos. 1 and 2. 



The Taino Indians of Haiti, Cuba, and Porto Rico were in 

 possession of many forms of totemic creations representing a wide 

 range of agents which were recognized as powers for good or evil. 

 Some of their highest expressions of art are fetishes designed to 

 control the various crises in life as they knew it. The spirit of the 

 hurricane, of the sun, moon, of ancestors, of sickness, death, birth, 

 of the sky, the earth; in fact of any powerful natural or human 

 agency must be invoked or appeased through the agency of the so- 

 called zemi or personal totem. Dr. Walter Fewkes classifies the 

 several forms of zemis as follows : " The name was apparently 

 aj^plied to the deities, idols, bones or skulls of the dead, or anything 

 supposed to have magic power. The dead or the spirits of the dead 

 were called by the same term. The designation applied both to the 

 magic power of the sky, the earth, the sun, and the moon, as well 

 as to the tutelary ancestors of clans. Zemis were represented sym- 

 bolically by several objects, among which may be mentioned (1) 

 stone or wooden images, (2) images of cotton and other fabrics 

 inclosing bones, (3) prepared skulls, (4) masks, (5) frontal amulets, 

 (6) pictures and decorations of the body." 



A curious similarity of form in ancester worship with that of the 

 Papuan of New Guinea may be noted in the Tainoan practice of 

 severing the head of an ancestor and of preserving it in a basket. 

 The New Guinea practice, as observed by Stirling, was to preserve 

 only the lower jaw or mandible in an artistically fashioned woven 

 bag which was carried suspended from the waist. Similar practices, 

 no doubt, have been observed elsewhere, all bespeaking a form of 

 reverence paid to some ancestor. Columbus found skulls stored in 

 baskets placed in native huts both in Cuba and in Haiti. Las Casas 

 writes that the huts where the preserved skulls were discovered were 

 larger than the rest, and that the skulls were probably those of 

 common ancestors. Pane tells us more definitely of the people of 

 Santo Domingo that for zemis " some have their father, mother, 

 kindred, and predecessors." In some cases the skulls or bones were 

 made up in a cotton parcel which occasionally were given a human 

 form. The zemis of this class were consulted through the medium 

 of a priest and were believed to give advice on all subje,cts touching 

 the welfare of their descendants. 



The amuletic zemis seem to have been for the most part of stone, 

 in the form of small anthropomorpliic figures. These, both in 



