ABORIGINAL INDIAN POTTERY OF THE DOMINICAN 



REPUBLIC 



By Herbert W. Krieger 

 Curator of Ethnology, United States National Museum 



INTRODUCTION 



The Dominican Republic includes the eastern two-thirds of the 

 island known as Santo Domingo or Haiti, the black Republic of 

 Haiti occupying the western third of the island. The Arawak 

 aborigines named the island Haiti or Aiti, a name also applied to a 

 mountainous section of the Province of Higuey. Later, when 

 Columbus cast about for a suitable name, he called the island Espa- 

 fjola. This name was later corrupted into Hispaniola, a term still 

 in vogue, although geographical practice is to again employ the 

 aboriginal name Haiti when referring to the geographical aspects 

 of the island, but to refer to the island as Santo Domingo in con- 

 nection with its eastern portion, exclusive of the western third which 

 is occupied by the Haitians. The name Santo Domingo, originally 

 applied to the present capital city of the Dominican Republic, 

 gradually came to signify the countryside as well, although the 

 term is now obsolescent except as the name of the Dominican capital 

 city. 



The Dominican population in the cities is almost purely Spanish, 

 although the laboring classes show admixture with African strains. 

 Hybridization is more marked in the provinces, particularly in 

 Samana and along the Haitian border. Isolated agricultural com- 

 munities in the cacao-growing districts of the Vega (great meadow) 

 in the valley of the Yuna River, also in the coffee-growing sections 

 in the uplands of the interior, in the Provinces of Santiago, La 

 Vega, Azua, Espaillat, and Monte Cristi, are descendants from 

 Spanish immigrants, colonists, and soldiers of the royal armies of 

 Spain. Traces of Indian blood may be seen in some of the interior 

 villages of Samana, Monte Cristi, and other provinces, where iso- 

 lated communities have perpetuated themselves through the centuries 

 of political change and turmoil that disturbed the more populous 



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