22 BULLETIN 15 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



any authentic reference in the literature on the tropical South Amer- 

 ican tribes relative to their use of caves for other purposes than as 

 burial chambers or for spirit worship. In South America some 

 caves yield no skeletal material, while others in the Orinoco Valley 

 contain pottery urn burials. In eastern Brazil occur caves that were 

 formerly used as shelters by groups of hunters. Caves on the island 

 of Trinidad j^ielded no skeletal remains, although caves on the island 

 of Jamaica contained burials. No burials were found in the caves of 

 Samana, although rock-cleft burials on near-by islands were uncov- 

 ered by the Museum expedition. 



HISTORICAL NARRATIVES AND ARCHEOLOGICAL FIELD WORK 



Source material to the ethnology of Santo Domingo. — One natu- 

 rally turns to the records left by Columbus and other Spanish ex- 

 plorers for the first account of aboriginal life and customs in Santo 

 Domingo. There is, however, scant mention there of aboriginal 

 earthenware beyond the bare statement that two kinds of vessels, 

 drinking goblets and food dishes, were seen. Herrera later writes 

 that the water containers were handsomely painted. The Hakluyt 

 Society of London has done excellent work in publishing in English, 

 first, the Select Letters of C. Columbus, in 1847, and, later, in 1893, 

 the Journal of the First Voyage of Christopher Columbus. This 

 journal is a complete account of his contacts with the natives of 

 the island and has been used by such historians as Las Casas, who 

 had access to the original manuscript of Columbus. 



The two great works of Las Casas are the Historia General and 

 the Historia Apologetica de las Indias. Las Casas mentions the 

 fact that he began this latter work in 1527 while living in the Do- 

 minican monastery near Puerto Plata. In 1875 there appeared a 

 complete edition of Las Casas's works in Spanish. This great 

 Spanish historian is the principal accuser of Spanish misrule and 

 chief defendant of the aboriginal population. 



In the second volume of Churchill's Collections of Voyages and 

 Travels there is embodied the narrative of Ferdinand Columbus 

 written in the form of a biography of his father, Christopher Co- 

 lumbus. During the interval of his second voyage, Columbus de- 

 tailed a Franciscan monk, Friar Kamon Pane, to study native 

 religious practices and ceremonials. His observations regarding 

 mythology and objects used in religious art give a first-hand inter- 

 pretation of the clay figurines and stone and wood carvings of life 

 forms. He narrates that " in the island of Ganabara (Gonave in the 

 Gulf of Port au Prince) wliich lies at the western extremity of 

 Hispaniola, it is the women who are thus emploj^ed; the various 

 pieces are decorated with representations of phantoms which they 



