128 BULLETIN 15 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



The nearest point in South America where excavations of shell 

 heaps have been made is the Pomeroon district, British Guiana, 

 whence we have a few specimens of pottery. Regarding the Pom- 

 eroon shell heaps, Im Thurn reached the following conclusions: 



(1) That they were not made by resident inhabitants of the country, but by 

 strangers; (2) that these strangers came from the sea, and not from farther 

 inland; and, (3) that these strangers were certain island Caribs, who after- 

 wards took tribal form in Guiana as the so-called Caribisi, or, as I have called 

 them, true Caribs.*" 



The nearest South American people to whom we would look for 

 a kindred tribe to the Arawak are the Guaranos, or Warrau, who 

 still inhabit the delta of the Orinoco, only a few miles across the 

 Gulf of Paria. Joj^^ce *^ points out the resemblance of some of the 

 heads of Trinidad prehistoric pottery from Erin, Trinidad, to that 

 which occurs " throughout the basins of the Aruka and Araau tribu- 

 taries of the Barima River, not far from Morowhanna. The Aruka 

 hills, isolated eminences stand now in a tidal mangrove swamp, and 

 were evidently at no very distant date actual islands." 



Many of the clay heads figured by J. B. P. Josselin de Jong *^ 

 from the Dutch Leeward Islands of Aruba, and Curacao off the 

 Parian coast of Venezuela are identical with clay figurine heads 

 from Santo Domingo. Concentric eye rings; projecting snout re- 

 gion; inward peering faces; also low annular feet such as occur 

 in tlie Lesser Antilles. White paint on the body of earthenware 

 vessels, as in Trinidad, Monte Cristi, and Cuba, shows an identity 

 too general to be of importance for purjDOses of comparison. The 

 globular water bottle with clay head luted to the lower neck occurs 

 in a find from Aruba, resembling finds in Peru, in the Colombian 

 uplands, and in Santo Domingo. 



Fragments of vessels from these islands of the Dutch Leeward 

 group, except urns and the coarser pottery, are well burnished and 

 X^ainted. Painted designs consist of black or brown lines on blue, 

 red, or white background, and white or yellow lines on a black 

 background. Pictographic designs of plants, animals, or men are 

 not found. Relief figures, with incised straight and curved lines, 

 include representations of human faces, and of frogs and frogs' 

 heads. Handles are fastened to the rim as knobs, faces, and loops. 

 Sometimes a second handle lower down is added to the one men- 

 tioned. Some painted vessels are also provided with spouts, as in 

 southeastern Santo Domingo. The paste is coarser in the undeco- 

 rated than in the decorated vessels. Tempering materials consist 

 of sand, coarsely powdered shell, and pulverized granite. Fre- 



" Im Thurn, E. F., Among the Indians of Guiana. London, 1883. 



"Joyce, T. A., Central American and West Indian Archaeology, p. 254. London, 1916. 

 *2 The Pre-Columbian and Early Post-Columbian Aboriginal Population of Aruba' Cura- 

 cao, and Bonaire, Int. Archiv f. Ethnog., Bd. 24, Heft 3-4, 1918. 



