XXVI BUKKAr OF AMKRICAN ETHNOLOGY 



ACCOMPANYING PAPERS 



The aeqiiisition of the ishmd of Porto Rico at the close 

 of the late war with Spain ureatly increased both popular 

 and scientific interest in Antillean archeology and eth- 

 nology throughout the United States. In order to meet 

 the growing demand for more literature on these subjects 

 the Smithsonian Institution in 1898 reprinted Professor 

 Mason's valuable catalogues of the Latimer and Guesde 

 collections. As is well known, the former was regarded 

 for many years as the most valuable collection of Porto 

 Rican antiquities in existence. It was ^desirable, how- 

 ever, to gather new data to serve in interpreting some of 

 the enigmatical objects that it contains. Field work in 

 the West Indies was inaugurated by the Bureau in 1900, 

 when the late Director, Maj. J. W. Powell, accompanied 

 by Prof. W. H. Holmes, made a brief reconnoissance of 

 Cid;)a and Jamaica. In the spring of 1901 and the winters 

 of the two years next folloAving, the Antillean field work 

 was assigned to Dr J. Walter Fewkes, who visited, in the 

 course of his work, the islands of Cuba, Santo Domingo, 

 the Lesser Antilles, and Porto Rico. 



The objective archeological material from Porto Rico 

 in the National Museum has been more than doubled by 

 these excursions, and now includes, in addition to the 

 famous Latimer collection, the collections of Neumann, 

 Zeno C+andia, Archbishop Merino, and others from Santo 

 Domingo and the Lesser Antilles. The data for the ac- 

 companying report are drawn, therefore, from the largest 

 and most representative collection of Porto Rican arche- 

 ological material in the world. 



Doctor Fewkes's report, enlarged by data from museum 

 material, forms the first of the accompanying papers. In 

 his treatment of the subject the author has made use 

 of three sources of information — ethnological, historical, 

 and archeological. Under the blighting influence of 

 human slavery the aborigines of Porto Rico rapidly dis- 

 appeared or were absorbed by incoming races, so that 

 their indigenous culture was lost in the first century after 



