122 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [vOL. 45 



The heads of these idols, however, are not apparent, although no 

 idol can be regarded as complete without the head. For this im- 

 portant part, which in all idols among primitive men is most carefully 

 made, we look to another group of polished stone objects, also 

 peculiar to the islands in which the stone rings are found, viz., the 

 masks and heads, called mammiform images, which have been figured 

 by several writers on West Indian antiquities. These masks are 

 supposed to have formerly fitted certain roughened surfaces on the 

 stone rings forming the coiled bodies of the serpent, in the manner 

 indicated in plate xli, 2. The arguments for and against this 

 liypothesis, which was first suggested by Sr. J. J. Acosta in the notes 

 to his edition of Inigo's Historia de Puerto Rico, cannot be given 

 here, but will be considered more at length in other publications. 



Idols ivith Conical Projections. — Among the stone objects in the 

 Latimer collection, described by Prof. O. T. Mason,^ occur cer- 

 tain tripointed specimens to which he gives the name " mammiform 

 stones." These specimens, like the stone collars, have remained 

 enigmatical up to the present time, but the true use of some of them, 

 in the opinion of the writer, was, as above suggested, for attachment 

 as heads to the coiled serpents or reptiles of which the stone rings 

 represent the bodies. 



Several of the tripointed stones bear representations of fore or 

 hind legs (plate xliii, 6) on a projection opposite that which contains 

 the head. The fore-legs, when present, are cut on the sides of the 

 conic elevation, while in the region of the shoulders are pits, which 

 indeed are sometimes present even when there is no representation 

 of limbs. In one or two instances there are two of these pits on 

 each side. Some doubt arises whether these pits represent ears or 

 shoulders, but their position on the legs corresponds with similar 

 depressions sometimes found on the front legs of stools made in ani- 

 mal form. Possibly stone or shell ornaments were once inserted in 

 these pits, in which case they doubtless represented ear pendants. 



The fact that several of these tripointed stones have fore or hin^. 

 legs cut upon them shows conclusively that in some instances they 

 represent the complete bodies of idols, and were not fastened as 

 heads to stone rings or other objects. An examination of the form 

 of the head, and especially of the mouth, of these stones, reveals a 

 similarity to corresponding parts of different animals, as fishes, 

 lizards, and birds. 



In considering the outlines of these tripointed stones it is found 



^ Latimer and Guesde Porto Rico Collections, Smithsonian Reports, 1876 

 and 1884, reprinted 1899. 



