PREHISTORIC INHABITAXTS OF THE 

 DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 



I'.Y HERBERT W. KRIEGER, 



Curalor. l)i7'lsio)i oj Ethnoloyy. U. S. A'atioiial Museum 



The aborigines of the ancient island of Hispaniola were practically 

 exterminated within two decades following the Conquest. Oppor- 

 tunity for studying their ethnology at first hand therefore does not 

 exist and the scanty literature dealing with native life is in part still 

 buried in Spanish archives. Of first importance is a monograj^h of 

 a certain Catalan priest, Ramon Pane, who was authorized by 

 Columbus to study the ceremonial life and religious practices of the 

 inhabitants of the great central plain, known as the A'ega (meadow). 

 Pane's studies are accurate, for he lived among the natives and 

 spoke their language. A summary of his monograph appears in 

 Volume II of Churchill's Collection of \'oyages along with a 

 biography of Columbus written by his son Ferdinand. Other useful 

 records of native culture have been published by the Hakluyt Society 

 of London : of these, the '" letters " and the " journal " of Columbus 

 are perhaps the more important. Doctor Chanca's account of the 

 second voyage of Columbus, the historical writings of Las Casas, the 

 " decades " of Peter Martyr, and the works of Herrera and Penzoni 

 give a sketchy account of the historical tribes as they existed at the 

 beginning of the i6th century. 



When the Spanish explorers entered on the scene, a great struggle 

 was under way in the West Indies between roving bands of piratical 

 Caribs and ]:)eaceful Arawak fishermen and farmers. The Caribs had 

 succeeded in displacing the island Arawak on the smaller islands of 

 the West Indian group nearer the South American mainland before 

 the arrival of the Spanish in 1492. but Arawak resistance stififened 

 as they became acquainted with Carib practices and learned from 

 them the use of the bow. No' Carib raiders were ever encountered by 

 the Spanish west of Porto Rico. It is also significant that the aborigi- 

 nal Arawak population of Cuba, western Haiti, and Jamaica were un- 

 acquainted with the use of the bow. 



With the object of studying aboriginal culture remains in the Shetl- 

 and kitchenmiddens of northern Santo Domingo, the writer was de- 

 tailed by the Smithsonian to conduct archeological investigations in 

 the provinces of Alonte Christi and Samana of the Dominican Re- 



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