﻿l8o SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS LvOL. 47 



limiting- the term to a belief in a supreme beneficent being, or god, 

 and a malignant being opposed to the same, finds that the Borin- 

 queiios were absolutely wanting in religious ideas (" carecian en 

 absoluto de ideas religiosas"). He may be right in his criticism 

 of Oviedo and other historians, that they read their own ethical ideas 

 into their accounts of the West Indian religion, but he is certainly 

 in error in concluding that there are no proofs, archeological or 

 otherwise, to justify belief in the existence of any religious cult 

 among the Borinquen Indians. 



" The Antilles," writes Professor Mason, " are all of volcanic 

 origin, as the material of our stone implements plainly shows. I 

 am indebted to Professor S. F. Baird for the suggestion that, from 

 the sea, the island of Porto Rico rises in an abrupt and symmetrical 

 manner, highly suggestive of the mound in the mammiform stones, 

 so that with the aid of a little imagination we may see in these objects 

 the genius of Porto Rico in the figure of a man, a parrot, an alligator, 

 an albatross, or some other animal precious to these regions where 

 larger animals are not abundant, supporting the island on its back." 



Earlier in this article I have referred to a few paragraphs by Pro- 

 fessor Mason regarding the legend of Typhoeus killed by Jupiter and 

 buried under Mount Etna. As he points out, " a similar myth may 

 have been devised in various places to account for volcanic or moun- 

 tainous phenomena." 1 



According to Sr. Agustin Navarette, Dr. Calixto Romero Cantero 

 in his refutation of Dr. Stahl recognized in this tripointed figure the 

 genius of evil weighed down by Borinquen, represented by the moun- 

 tain Lucuo or Luquillo, and symbolized by the conoid prominence. 

 He finds this theory of Cantero as objectional as that of Dr. Stahl 

 that the Borinquehos had no religion, because there is no reason to 

 believe that the Kiche god Cabraken was thought to be buried under 

 Borinquen. Navarette 2 finds in this image a " cosmoteogonico " 

 symbol conforming perfectly with a tradition given by Buret de 

 Longchamps. "The cone." be says, "is chaos, from which, in the 

 form of sunken rocks [escollos], arose Taraxtaihetomos, the prin- 

 cipio creador, perfectly defined, represented by the head, and Tepapa, 

 tin- inert unformed matter, represented by the posterior part ' crossed 

 by rays ' [posterior appendages and feet!]." The universe was born 

 from this " principio creador " and matter, as was likewise the firma- 



1 Op. cit, p. 380. 



2 Esludii>s dr Arqueologia de Puerto Rico. Resultados dc una excursion 

 cientffica. Articles 1 vin, firsl printed in the periodical El Noticio, May, 

 1896; reprinted in Aquila, Ponce, April and May, 1904. 



