58 ISLAND CULTURE AKEA OF AMERICA [eth. axx. si 



such complete development that Porto Kico and Haiti are said 

 to have been practically covered with farms of this plant. In 

 fact, when sorely pressed by the Spaniards to furnish them 

 gold for tribute, one of the caciques offered to cultivate for 

 the conquerors a yuca farm extending across the island of Haiti. 

 Both Porto Kico and Haiti appear to have been densely populated, 

 and the failure of the population to advance into a higher stage of 

 development was due to the perishable character of the root or 

 food plant cultivated. Corn and other cereals^ were not extensively 

 used and there was no domesticated animal. It is evident that this 

 culture was built on a root food supply which was clearly a product 

 of environment, and on account of this dependence merits careful 

 study by the culture historian and anthropo-geographer. 



The development of this culture varies on different islands or 

 groups of islands, forming cultural centers of which the following 

 can be recognized by the character of the pottery: (1) Porto Rico, 

 (2) Jamaica, (3) eastern Cuba and Bahamas, (i) St. Kitts, (5) 

 St. Vincent, (6) Barbados, (7) Trinidad. The differences in arti- 

 facts characteristic of these culture centers of the Antilles are some- 

 times small ; tiuis, the Porto Rico area, which includes also Haiti. 

 Santo Domingo, Mona, and some smaller islands, is clearly allied to 

 the eastern Cuba and Bahama area. In the former we have the three 

 types of stone implements — stone collars, elbow stones, and three- 

 pointed idols — none of which has yet been described from Cuba, the 

 Bahamas, or Jamaica. Pottery from these islands bears rectilinear 

 or curved lines ending in enlargements,^" a decorative feature which 

 is absent in Jamaica. This feature does not occur in the Lesser 

 Antilles from St. Thomas to Trinidad, where four different regions 

 of decorated pottery can be differentiated. 



A search for a stone technique equal to that of the Greater An- 

 tilles on the North or South American contiguous areas is not re- 

 warded with much success. The stone collars, elbow stones and 

 triangular stones of these islands are of superior workmanship 

 and find their parallel on the gulf coast of Central America and 

 Mexico, especially among the Totonac and Huaxtec. Here, also, 

 we find enigmatic stone objects, like stone yokes and stone rings, as 

 finely made as the Antillean collars and elbow stones. Their rela- 

 tionship has been suggested by several students, but their connection 

 has not been made out with any satisfaction nor has it been demon- 



^ Corn (Zca mnys) was introflucpd into the Wpst Indios as a food plant shortly bpfore 

 the advent of the Spaniards. If sufiBcient time had elapsed its cultivation would have 

 changed the form of cultural development based on root agriculture, unless as in the Lesser 

 Antilles it had been destroyed by Caril> who were pressing in upon it with such force 

 that it eould not survive. 



'"This characteristic feature of Porto Rican pottery decoration appears on pottery 

 lonud liy Mr. Clarence Moore in mounds of northern Florida. 



