46 THE ABOKICJINES OF PORTO RICO [eth. ann. 25 



floor above the ground probabh' arose at a time when the people lived 

 along the shore, possibly in lagoons where pile dwellings were a 

 necessity, as the}' are to-day among the Warraus, inhabiting the delta 

 of tlie Orinoco. These frail modern dwellings, constructed after the 

 same tj'pe as the aboriginal, are well adapted to the climatic and other 

 conditions of the island, which fact is supposed to account for their 

 persistence. 



Apparently no remains of extensive prehistoric stone and adolje 

 structures exist on the island of Porto Kico, and the same is true of Cuba 

 and Haiti, where Indian ruins of stone or adobe walls have never been 

 observed. This absence of permanent buildings has weight in theories 

 of the origin of the aborigines, for if their ancestors came from Yuca- 

 tan we should expect evidences of a survival of the stone-building 

 habit, for which the Maya and kindred Yucatan Indians were famous. 

 In the valley of the Orinoco and its tributaries, where there is build- 

 ing material identical with that used by the natives in Porto Rico, stone 

 houses were unknown, and the architecture of houses in that region is 

 practically the same as in the West Indies; this resemblance is one of 

 the manjr which can be advanced to indicate kinship of the people of 

 South America with those of Porto Rico. 



The most aboriginal of the above-mentioned tyjaes of Porto Rican 

 cabins are those whose walls and roofs are made of thatch and palm 

 leaves (plate vi); others are modern innovations. These types of 

 dwelling are not confined to Poi'to Rico or to the West Indies, Ijut 

 occur likewise in the tropical parts of South America, where the}' are 

 the common forms of dwellings inhabited by very poor people, whether 

 Indian, negro, or white. But they are found only where certain 

 building material is available and although confined to no race or 

 people are limited to certain latitudes. Although they are so widely 

 distributed they reflect the environment of the tropical geographical 

 localities in which they occur as truly as do the adobe dwellings of the 

 pueblos of the southwestern parts of the United States that arid habi- 

 tat. Like these latter dwellings, the}' are exact copies of aboriginal 

 structures or are little changed survivals of a prehistoric style of 

 architecture which material at hand and climate have shown to be the 

 best. 



In order to obtain information regarding variations from the types 

 described in the other parts of the West Indies the author examined 

 cabins of Indians, blacks, and whites of the poorer classes in several 

 islands, as Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and the Lesser Antilles. 

 In the latter he found cabins st' . inhabited by Indians constructed in 

 the same way and of like or identical materials. Many of these were 

 reputed to Vje very old and to have been continuously inhabited by 

 many generations of aborigines. At the settlement of Ariina. in 

 Trinidad, several families, survivors of the Indian p()])ulation of that 



