﻿I78 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [VOL. 47 



objects. It is important to note that we have no early descriptions 

 of the ceremonies of the Porto Rican aborigines, among whom these 

 collars would have been the best known. No devoted Catholic 

 priest observed and specially described the Borinquehos as Roman 

 Pane, Morales, or Benzoni did the Haytians, What we know of 

 the Porto Ricans of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is derived 

 from the briefest possible references by Oviedo, Gomara, and 

 others, who say that in their time they were similar to the inhabitants 

 of Hispahola. The Porto Ricans may have used these collars in 

 both secret and public exercises, but as no one is known to have 

 specially described their ceremonies, there is no record of their pur- 

 port or use. 



All the available facts extant in regard to these collars point to 

 their religious, or rather to their ceremonial, nature. We naturally 

 regard objects made with so much care, and so highly symbolic 

 in their decoration, as idols or as connected with worship ; it is 

 therefore more as such than as secular implements or ornaments 

 that we can hope to decipher their meaning. As their strange form 

 presents enigmatical possibilities, we naturally associate them with 

 that other enigma in Porto Rican archeology, the tripointed stones. 



The most suggestive interpretation yet offered is by Sr. J- J- 

 Acosta, in his notes on Abbad Ihigo's great work, 1 that these stone 

 collars were united with the tripointed st< mes and that both together 

 form a serpent idol. 



USE OF TRIPOINTED STONES 



The use of the tripointed stones is as enigmatical as that of the 

 stone collars or rings. Many authors have regarded them as idols, 

 while others consider them as decorated mortars on which grain, 

 seeds, or pigments were ground. \n the latter interpretation the 

 conoid prominence is regarded as a support which was embedded in 

 the earth, thus imparting stability to the object, while the concave 

 base, turned uppermost, served as a -rinding surface. 



Two objections may be urged to the theory that these triangular 

 stones are mortars or grinding implements.'- In the first place we can 

 hardlv suppose that one of these objects of the fourth type, which 

 is only an inch in length, could have been very effective if used in 



1 Historia GeograUca, Civil y Natural </<• la Ida de San Juan Bautista dc 

 Puerto Rico: Nueva edition anotada en la parte histdrica y continuada en 

 la estadistica y economical Puerto Rice, [866, p. 51. 



".Many specimens of pestles with handles cut in the form of birds, quad- 

 rupeds, and human beings mighl he mentioned in this connection. 



