FEWKEs] GOVERNMENT 33 



GOVERNMENT 



In the social organization of the aboriginal West Indians there was 

 a clan chief, called by the Spaniards a cacique, who exercised the 

 function of leader in peace and war and often served also as priest. 

 The political was closely knit together with the religious leadership, 

 and the caciques apparently performed both functions. The word 

 cacique was applied to any leader or chief of the Indians, being used 

 in an indefinite way by the early Spaniards. Authority over the 

 Indians, both secular and religious, was vested in chiefs of apparent!}' 

 different grades, as heads of clans, chiefs of phratries, rulers of prov- 

 inces, and even, it is said, a king, supreme ruler of the whole island. 

 The names of several prominent caciques of Porto Rico are mentioned 

 in the early history of the island. 



This office was generally inherited I)}- the eldest son, Init in case a 

 cacique had no sons it passed not to his brother's but to his sister's 

 son. If the office were inherited from the mother, the nearest relative 

 of the mother received it, following the matriarchal right of succes- 

 sion. Women caciques were recognized in both Haiti and Porto Rico, 

 but their true status in Antillean sociology, in all its details, is not 

 known. The sister of a cacique sometimes i-eceived the office directly 

 from her brother, but this devolution of power was appai-ently unusual. 



Although the Porto Rican Indians had a number of chiefs, or 

 •caciques, of different grades of power, we have very limited knowledge 

 of the so-called provinces of the island over which each ruled. We 

 do know that each of the islands was probably- divided into small 

 caciquedoms, controlled by powerful caciques, and each province was 

 subdivided into smaller divisions, comprising the inhabitants of val- 

 leys and isolated pueblos, governed by subordinates. A cacique called 

 Aguebana is commonly said to have been chief of the whole island of 

 Porto Rico, but of his supreme power there is some question. 



As a rule each village seems to have had a chieftain or patriarchal 

 head of the clans composing it, whose house was larger than the other 

 eouses and contained the idols belonging to the families. The cacique, 

 his numerous wives, and their children, brothers, sisters, and other kin- 

 dred were a considerable population, often forming a whole village. 

 In addition to the household of the chief, consisting of his wives and 

 immediate relations, a prehistoric village ordinarily contained also 

 men, women, and children of more distant kinship. Such a pueblo, 

 for instance the village seen by Columbus on his second voyage and 

 described by Munoz, sometimes bore the same name as the cacique." 



u This pueblo was probably situated near Aguadilla. It is called by Stahl, whose error the present 

 author has elsewhere repeated, the pueblo of Aguebana; but, as Brau has shown, there is no proof 

 that Munoz referred to the pueblo of this cacique. For another identification of the landing place of 

 Columbus on his second voyage sec Padre Jose Maria Kazario's Guayanilla y la Historia de Puerto 

 Rico, Ponce, 1893 See also Manuel Maria Sarnia, El Desembarco de Colon in Puerto Rico, Maya- 

 guez, 1894. 



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