NONAGRICULTURAL CAVE DWELLERS 21 



(Xaragua). Las Casas lived in the villages of the extreme south- 

 western portion of the island in Xaragua. He did not see the cave 

 dwellers reported by other chroniclers, but reported the population of 

 Xaragua (Guaccairima, the present Haitian Province of Jeremie) as 

 resembling in their culture the Higuey Indians of Santo Domingo. 

 He mentions the " Ciboneys " as being a primitive group living in 

 the mountains of the interior and as not given to the practice of 

 agriculture as were the natives of the central valleys and coastal 

 plains. 



Aside from the casual and in part untrustworthy references to 

 the primitive cave-dwelling population of Haiti to be found in early 

 Spanish narratives, there exists no reference in the early literature of 

 the West Indies hinting at the existence of a pre-Arawak race of 

 Indians. 



It remained for archeological investigations to substantiate, at 

 least in part, the references contained in the literature cited. Har- 

 rington's discoveries in Pinar del Rio Province in western Cuba, also 

 in other sections of the island of Cuba, are well known. The recent 

 discovery of a somewhat similar culture from cave deposits in 

 eastern Santo Domingo by the United States National Museum 

 expedition is significant. It is possible that Arawak immigrants 

 to the islands of the Greater Antilles had subjugated these earlier 

 people in much the same manner as they themselves were supposedly 

 replaced by the Carib in the Lesser Antilles. Las Casas believed this 

 to be the case when he wrote, referring to the natives of Cuba, that 

 the "servants subjugated by the invaders from Haiti were known 

 as ' Ciboneyes.' " These aborigines of western Cuba spoke a lan- 

 guage that Columbus's Taino interpreters from the Lucayan (Ba- 

 hama) Islands could not understand. Harrington is authority for 

 the statement that " Ciboney " culture can be traced from one end of 

 the island of Cuba to the other. 



Caves were used by the island Arawak of Haiti, Cuba, and Porto 

 Rico for various purposes. Evidence collected by the United States 

 National Museum expedition points to their use of the caves of 

 Samana as temporary dwelling places at a time when the earlier pre- 

 Arawak cave-dwelling population had already been superseded. 

 From the literature we gather that they also employed the caves as 

 ceremonial chambers. The large " pillar rock " carvings, in which 

 stalagmites located near the cave entrances are so shaped as to resem- 

 ble anthropomorphic zemis or sacred images, point to the use of the 

 Samana caves as Arawak places of worship. An observation made 

 by Spanish writers is that fishermen occupying the small islands off 

 the coast of Cuba and Haiti were subjects of the superior Taino 

 (Arawak) , but that they did not live in caves. Neither do we find 



