FEWKES] CULTURE AKEAS IK THE WEST INDIES 77 



tribal form in Guiana as the so-called Caribisi, or, as I have called 

 them, true Caribs." *" 



Attention has been called at the beginning of this paper to the 

 fact that the Trinidad aborigines are not spoken of as Carib, and 

 the archeological objects show no likeness to the work of this people, 

 ))ut rather to that of the Arawak, who were the great potters of 

 the Orinoco. 



The well-made pottery of Erin Bay suggests an agricultural popu- 

 lation rather than the nomadic Carib peojDle, and the form of cer- 

 tain flat clay platters, or griddles, is not unlike those used by the 

 Arawak in the preparation of meal for cassava cakes. The aborigi- 

 nes who made these objects were in a stage of culture similar to 

 that of a people of the West Indies before the coming of the Carib 

 in prehistoric times. Pottery making is more strictly a character- 

 istic of meal eaters, and as the South American Arawak were well- 

 known potters, we can not go far afield if we ascribe the pottery 

 from Trinidad to a kindred people. The nearest South American 

 people to whom we would look for their kindred are the Guaranos, 

 or Warrau, some of whom still inhabit the delta of the Orinoco, 

 only a few miles across the Gulf of Paria, an inland sheet of water 

 which separates Trinidad from the continent. 



Although Im Thurn identifies the builders of the Pomeroon shell- 

 mounds as insular Carib, he gives some weight to the theory that 

 they were Warrau, which theory, however, he does not discuss and 

 apparently does not accept. It seems to the author that the pottery 

 found in the Chip-chip mounds indicates a culture higher than that 

 of the Carib, and more advanced as art products than an}' thus 

 far collected from the Warrau. He regards it as a localized or 

 autochthonous development originally of South American origin, 

 but belonging to the same great prehistoric insular culture found 

 in the Antilles from South America to the Bahamas and Cuba. This 

 culture iiad been submerged by the Carib in some of the smaller 

 islands, but persisted into the historic epoch in the larger islands 

 wliich Carib could not conquer. 



The conclusion reached from, a comparison of the objects from 

 the Erin Bay midden is that while there is a general likeness in 

 pottery from all the islands of the West Indies, there are special 

 ceramic culture areas in different islands. It is also believed that 

 the Carib had no extensive settlement in Trinidad, and that they 

 came to the other islands long after agricultural people had de- 

 veloped on them, or were renegades from some of the islands where 

 the uncertainty of crops drove them to become marauders on others. 

 They are not believed to have made permanent settlements or, as in 



" Im Thurn, Among the Indians of Uulana, p. 416. See also Rev. W, H. Brett, The 

 Indian Tribes of Guiana, Their Customs and Habits, London, 1868. 



