FEWKES] RELIGION 59 



what gods these paintings represent, although the ohservors constantly 

 mention the hideous character of the figures depicted. 



From one point of view it appears that this custom, like that of 

 wearing masks and other ceremonial paraphernalia, had for its object 

 the identification of the man with his tutelary gods or Bemis^ especially 

 when used on ceremonial occasions. It was one of those methods, of 

 which many parallels might be mentioned among other primitive peo- 

 ples, where in symbolic ways man tries to lose his identity in the god 

 he personates or woi'ships. From the exoteric point of view these 

 paintings" were simply body marks indicating totems of those who 

 were thus decorated. 



When Anacaona ("flower of gold"), wife of the cacique Caonabo, 

 received the Spaniards and entertained them with an areito. desci'ibed 

 by oJder writers, her body was painted with figures and red and blue 

 flowers, evidently zemeistic or totemistic. Almost all authorities con- 

 cur in the statement that when the Antilleans went to war they painted 

 their bodies with horrible figui'es, and one author mentions the fact 

 that these figures represent zemis. This accords with the theory that 

 the totem used by North American tribes was primarily a man's name 

 and mark, and that ethnologically the word refers to the pigment 

 or earth used in painting a distinctive ?iiark on the body or its 

 adornments. 



A strict abhorrence of incest, and the necessity of body marks to 

 distinguish members of the same clan, naturally led to designs on the 

 body, which took the form of animals and plants or other natural 

 objects. This method of designating members of the same clan by the 

 same body markings, so that a man could recognize his relatives, was 

 the simplest form of totemism. 



The zein! which the Antillean cacique painted on his body corre- 

 sponds primarily with the totem of the North American, and the figures 

 on the bodies of the caciques probably represented their tutelary 

 beings, each dift'erent and characteristic, as the clans difl'ered. There 

 is little doubt that when a cacique was thus painted with the figure of 

 his tutelary god, he became in his own conception, as well as in that of 

 his clan, to all intents and purposes the supernatural being represented, 

 just as when a Pueblo Indian puts on a mask with certain .symbols 

 he is transformed into the being which the sjmbolism of that mask 

 represents. 



Priesthood 



The prehistoric Porto Ricans had a well-developed priesthood, called 

 hoii (serpents), viahouya, and hii/iUi, which are apparently dialectic or 

 other forms of the same word. The priests, called also caciques Ijy 



n Among other pigments used was the xatfua, ro«cou, and bixa {Bixa orellana), the last named being 

 a favorite paint for adornment in the dances. 



