50 THK ABORIGINES OF PORTO RICO [eth. axx. 25 



li.sh .sufficed for dailj- food." The ■"diimh dogs" used in hunting were 

 themselves apparently articles of food in Haiti. Charlevoix says: 

 "The goschix were little dogs, which are duml), and served for the 

 amusement of the ladies, who carried them in their arms. They were 

 also used in hunting in starting up otiier animals, were good to eat, 

 and were a great resource to the Spaniards in the period of their first 

 famine." 



The islanders captured and owned birds of bright plumage, using 

 the feathers for the headdresses and for the decoration of their idols. 

 They were skilled in weaving feathered garments and made caps in 

 which bright-colored feathers were woven in the cloth, described by 

 several authors. 



The manner of capturing parrots is thus described V)y Charlevoix: 



The artifice they used in accomplishing this was quite singular. They made a 

 chilli, ten or twelve years old, with a tame parrot on his head, climb a tree. The 

 hunters, entirely covered with leaves, approached quietly and made the bird cry ovit, 

 which cry attracted all the parrots in hearing, which trooped to it crying with all 

 their strength. Then the child passed around the neck of the first bird within reach 

 of his hand a running noose and, drawing it to himself, choked it and threw it to the 

 grouixl. 



Pigeons were taken in nets, being attracted by imitations of their 

 cries. Ducks were apparently domesticated in Cuba. 



The que.stion whether or not the Carib ate human flesh is answered 

 in both the affirmative and the negative bj' different writers. It would 

 take the author too far atield to review at this time the discussion of 

 this subject, ])ut there is evidence that the Carib have been maligned 

 in this particular." 



Doctor Clianca, in his famous letter on the second voyage of Colum- 

 bus, states that the Carib ate human flesh, Init Oviedo declares that 

 the inhabitants of Porto Rico, unlike those of the Lesser Antilles, are 

 not cannibals. 



AoRICULTURE 



The prehistoric inhabitants of Porto Rico were primarily agricul- 

 turists, having developed a method of farming which was character- 

 istic. Andreas Moralis says* that in the lake region of the Haitian 

 province of Xaragua, Yaquino, Bainoa, Hazua, and Caiabo, when the 

 rains were scanty, they practised a system of irrigation. He adds 

 that '"in all these regions are fosses or trenches, made of old time, 

 wherebj' they convey' the water in order to water, their fields, with no 

 less art than do the inhabitants of New Carthage and of the Kingdom 

 of Murcia." 



«See Armas. La Fabula de los Caribes, Irving, Humboldt, and otluT authors In some in.stances 

 the early writers may have conlounded the preparation oi human skeletons lorancestor worship with 

 the cooking of human flesh for food. 



fcHakluyfs Collection, v, 301. 



