170 THE ABORKiTXES OF PORTO RICO [eth. ANN. 25 



once employed; and it ma}' al.'^o be urged that tlie heavy, massive collars 

 were untinished, or that the massive and the slender form had different 

 uses. While all these suggestions raaj' have weight, it is remarkal)le 

 that none of the early writers mention having seen the collars on the 

 bodies of Indians. If they were used in the time of Las Casas, Ramon 

 Pane. Benzoni, and other early writers, this must have been done in 

 secret, showing that they were ceremonial objects. It is important to 

 note that we have no early descriptions of the ceremonies of the Porto 

 Rican aborigines from those among whom these collars would have 

 been best known. No devoted Catholic priest observed and specially 

 described the Borinquenos as Ramon Pane, ^Morales, and Benzoni did 

 the Haitians. What we know of the Porto Ricans of the sixteenth 

 and seventeenth centuries is derived from the briefest possible refer- 

 ences of Oviedo, Gomara, and others, who say that in their time they 

 were similar to the inhabitants of Hispaniola. The Porto Ricans may 

 have used these collars in both secret and public exercises, but as no 

 one is known specially to have desci'ibed their ceremonies, there is 

 no record of the purpose or use of these objects. 



All the available facts extant in regard to these collars point to their 

 religious, or, rather, ceremonial nature. We naturally regard objects 

 made with so much care and so highly symbolic in their decoration as 

 idols or as connected with worship. It is therefore rather as such 

 than as secular implements or ornaments that we can hope to decipher 

 their meaning. As their strange form presents enigmatical possibil- 

 ities, we naturally associate them with that other enigma in Porto 

 Rican archeology, the three-pointed stones. 



The most suggestive interpretation yet offered is by Seiior J. J. 

 Acosta in his notes on liiigo's great work, that these stone collars 

 were united with the three-pointed stones, and tiiat both together 

 form a serpent idol. 



The author has reserved consideration of this theory until the end, 

 because it differs radically from all othei's, and because consideration 

 of it demands a knowledge of the forms of the three groups of objects 

 herein dealt with — stone collars, three-])ointed idols, and elbow stones. 

 Seiior Acosta was familiar with the Latimer collection before it came 

 to this country, and also with another, now scattered, which formerly 

 existed in the Museo de Artilleria at San Juan. P. R. He writes thus 

 of the stone rings and three-pointed figures:" 



Todos estos I'dolos, aunque van'an en el tamaiio y en la clase de piedra en que 

 estan labrados, pues una son ouarzosas yotras calizas, ofrecen generalmente la niisina 

 dispoficion y figura. Consta cada uno de dos partes distintas y separadas, pero que 

 se adaptan perfectamente entre si. — 1". Un anillo elipsoidal, en cuyasuperficie externa 

 aparece tallada la oola de una serpiente. — 2". I'na pieza maciza cuya base, por donde 

 se adapta al anillo, es plana y de figura elipsoidal, y cuya parte superior termina en 



"Note in Historia Geogrfifira, Civil y Natural, ile hi Isla de San Juan Bautista de Puerto Riro. by 

 Fray Imt^n Abbad y Lasierra, p. .'SI, Puerto Rico, isti6. 



