84 THE ABORIGINES OF PORTO r.ICH5 



that the_y were places for ball o-anies is no doubt sound so far as it goes, 

 l)ut these were only one of many kinds of gatherings held by the pre- 

 historic Indians of Porto Rico. 



The general appearance of these inclosures. with idols and y icto- 

 graphs carved on some of their boundary stones, and the presence of 

 neighboring mounds, some of which were burial places, others the 

 sites of prehistoric pueblos, confirm my belief that they were plazas 

 in which were celebrated the ceremonial dances called an'ifoa, and 

 especially those mortuary rites of ancestor worship which reached so 

 high a development among the prehistoric Porto Kicans. Here were 

 performed dances commemorative of the dead interred near by, and 

 here songs were sung in memory of ancestors, as Oviedo and othei's 

 have stated. 



In addition to ceremonial areifo!^. games also no doubt took place in 

 these inclosures, which correspond in a measure to the plazas of the 

 Pueblos of our Southwest, which are used for all public functions. 



The Indian town must have been near by, for Oviedo says that near 

 each pueblo there was a place for bati'ij. or the ball game." The name 

 locally given to these inclosures has a foundation in tradition, and while 

 they may have been used by the Indians for games, the presence of 

 tlie adjacent cemeteries indicates that they were used also in the per- 

 formance of mortuary dances, of which the Porto Rican aborigines 

 had many kinds. But as games among the Antilleans were probal)ly 

 half secular and half religious, there is no reason why they should not 

 have been performed in plazas sometimes used for the purely ceremonial 

 dances (areitos). 



The discovery of stone balls in these inclosures is often mentioned 

 as an indication that these places were used in ball games, implying 

 that the stones were the balls used. This belief, which is a common 

 one among the country folk of the island, finds little support from 

 examination of the objects themselves. In Oviedo's account of tlie 

 game, the ball used is said to have been made of a resinous gum. so 

 that the stone balls do not fit at all his description of the method of 

 plaving the game. Indeed, some of the larger stone balls, which are 

 more than '2 feet in diameter, could hardly be carried by a single man. 

 ]\Ioreover, many of the balls are not spherical, but are simply water- 

 worn bowlders having the form of oljlate or prolate spheroids. Con- 

 sidering these facts I have serious doubt whether the stones could 

 have been used in the kind of ball game described by Oviedo, although 

 this does not, of course, preclude their use in some other game.* Their 



a The prehistoric Porto Ricans did not build permanent stone or adobe habitations, but only tem- 

 porary .stnistures with wooden frames and palm-leaf covering. These have long ago disappeared, 

 but their sites still remain in the form of mounds just outside the jucr/os de hola. In Munoz's 

 description of an Indian pueblo near the coast no mention is made of a batcy. or dance plaza. 



^The game may. for instance, have been the same as that played in Jlexieo, the courts, tlacMli, 

 for which are found near many ruins. 



