FEWKES] ARCHEOLOGICAI. OBJECTS 131 



improbable that they represent Olio o'reat supernatural being or creator 

 ("principio creador"). 



The comparison of the head of a three-pointed stone with a 

 "creator" and of the feet with "matter," the conical projection rep- 

 resenting- '"chaos," has no historical evidence to support it, while the 

 recognition of the arch of the universe in the curved base is equally 

 unsupported. The second and third types of three-pointed idols show 

 the absurdity of the entire theory of tlic nature of the three-pointed 

 stones as expounded by Navarette. In the last tyjie mentioned "chaos" 

 has evidently been replaced by a huge monster whose mouth occupies 

 the place of the conoid projection. 



This likeness of the three- pointed stone to a god or genius of Porto 

 Rico buried under a superimposed mountain represented bj' the conoid 

 projection is marked in the lirst type, less evident in the second, and 

 wholl}' absent from the third and the fourth. All theories which 

 compare the conoid prominence to a mountain, to chaos, or the like, 

 fail to account for the heads found in the first tyjje. 



The three-pointed stones represent supernatural beings of diii'erent 

 kinds, anthropomorphic and zoomorphic. The Borinqueiio Indians, 

 like those of Haiti, recognized one great supreme god, but he was not 

 a creator. Ramon Pane distinctly states tliat this god had a niothei', 

 whose five names he has mentioned. 



The author regards the three-pointed stones as clan idols or images of 

 tutelary totems — true zeiiiU in the sense in which the term is employed 

 by most of the early writers. The difference in their forms denotes 

 different conceptions of the semi in different clans. Each cacique, no 

 doubt, had one or more of these images, representing his clan zemi and 

 such others as he had inherited or otherwise obtained. The writer 

 regards them as the idols of which Pane wrote: ''Each one (Indian) 

 worships the idols of special forms called zrmis, which he keeps in his 

 own house." He refers to three-pointed idols when he speaks of stone 

 £('////.? with "'three points, which the natives believe cause the ga-ica 

 (yucca?) to thrive." 



In a discussion of the many interpretations of the three-pointed 

 stones which are suggested, we must not lose sight of the fact that 

 several bear well-marked signs that they were lashed to some foreign 

 bod}', and that in one or two specimens this evidence of lashing is so 

 plain that it can not be disregarded. There are specimens where the 

 cord used in tying the object to another has worn grooves in the stone 

 itself; a feature that has been noticed by several writers and is too 

 prominent to be overlooked. 



It will be seen in the discussion of the use and meaning of the other 

 great enigma in Porto Rican archeology that one of the theories of these 

 objects is that the three-pointed stones were once attached to one of the 

 panels of the stone collars, but a comparative study of the various 



