FEWKEs] CTJLTXJRE AREAS IN THE WEST INDIES 169 



passag^e to Cuba, called Tainan, is agricultural. Geographically it 

 includes not onh' the large islands, Porto Eico. Santo Domingo, 

 Haiti, and eastern Cuba, but also the Danish Islands,i^ St. Thomas, 

 Santa Cruz, St. John, and a few small islands along the coasts of 

 those above mentioned. The general features of this cultural area — 

 the highest developed in the West Indies— have been outlined liy the 

 author in his "Aborigines of Porto Rico and neighboring Islands." ^'^ 

 It is essentially unlike any of the subgroups of the Lesser Antilles 

 and has marked differences from Jamaica and the Bahamas. 



Here developed in prehistoric times the highest culture of the 

 Indian race in the West Indies, and, although Arawak, it was related 

 to that of the Carib. who had made settlements at certain points on 

 the coast, but had not been able to submerge the preexisting Arawak 

 or overlay the existing culture with their own. 



The Porto Rican cultural center is distinguished by the presence 

 of three-pointed idols made of stone, stone collars of unique form, 

 elbow stones, and wooden and stone seats or duhos. The pottery is 

 among the finest in the West Indies. Effigy forms with raised heads 

 for handles, incised rectangular lines, with enlargements at their 

 extremities, and encircling lines not joined predominate. In Santo 

 Domingo the vessels are generally flask-shaped, often decorated with 

 human figures in relief. 



The majority of the stone implements have a petaloid form, 

 pointed at one end and flattened at the opposite, not grooved, but 

 sometimes with a face engraved on one side. 



The prehistoric inhabitants of the Porto Rican area had cultural 

 relations with Central America, but not close enough to indicate 

 either an identity or intimate relationship. The decoration of 

 stone collars recalls that of the stone yokes of the Totonacs, but the 

 differences are so great that, although these resemblances have been 

 repeatedly pointed out, the variations in details are important. 

 There are also anomalies in the distribution of the stone collars 

 which are difficult to explain on the supposition that they are related 

 to stone yokes. Cuba, especially the western extremity which ap- 

 proaches very near Yucatan, has yielded no stone collars, and they 

 are likewise absent in Jamaica, which lies between tire mainland 

 and Haiti. No stone collars have been found in the Totonac region 

 and no stone yokes in Porto Rico.'^ 



"Mr. Pe Booy. who has lately ni.ide a ronsidorable collection of prehistoric objects 

 from shell heaps in the Virgin Islands, questions the close Telations here suggested, and 

 may have good grounds for his doubts. The objects belonging to the historic epoch are 

 more like Carib ; those of the prehistoric more Tainan or ,\rawal!, like those from Porto nice. 



is» Twenty-fifth Ann. Rrpt. Bur. Amer. Ethn. 



" A stone ring in the Dehesa collection from Vera Cruz is unlike in all but form a 

 Porto Rican stone collar. 



