FEWKEsJ CULTURE AREAS IN THE WEST INDIES 181 



America — a fact which, so far as it goes, points to ethnic kinship 

 with the latter rather than with the former area. It can also be 

 shown that the stone axes of the Lesser Antilles, like the ceremonial 

 petaloids above described, bear incised decorations on one side, al- 

 though so far as known these incised figures represent geometrical 

 designs and not human faces or bodies. 



In connection with these ceremonial celts should be mentioned 

 another type reported from Cuba by Seiior Andres Poey, who in 

 1855 read before the American Ethnological Society a paper entitled 

 "Cuban Antiquities; a Brief Description of Some Relics found in 

 the Island of Cuba." According to Dr. Brinton this paper was not 

 published in English, but Seiior J. L. Garcia printed a Spanish trans- 

 lation of it in Volume IV of his " Revista de la Habana." This appar- 

 ent contradiction is explained when we know that the edition of the 

 publication in which Poey's article appeared was burned, but was 

 subsequently' reprinted in facsimile in 1909 by the American Eth- 

 nological Society.^^ 



This object (pi. 93, ^1), according to Poey, was found by "D. 

 Miguel Rodriguez-'T'errcr in the eastern department of Cuba at a 

 place called the Junco, in the jurisdiction of Baracoa, in the interior 

 of a wood, at a depth of 3 feet below the surface of the ground." 



The original account as represented is as follows :^^ " [Fig. 2] is 

 a correct representation of the second relic and is one-fourth of the 

 size of the original. xVU the figures seen on one side are exactly 

 reproduced on the other. These are so admirably executed that I 

 am inclined to think they must have been done with a mold; the 

 particular reasons for which conclusion are: 1st, That the measure- 

 ments in both sides are so exactly alike that it seems almost impossible 

 to have regulated the work merely by the eye or even by a compass ; 

 2d, all the figures are executed on both sides in alto-relievo; 3d, the 

 outlines of the figures are i^erfectly smooth. The stone, which is very 

 hard and of a brownish red color, had originally a thick coat of 

 varnish and was neatly polished, as is easily seen in those parts where 

 the varnish luis not been destroyed by friction. A, B is a vein of 

 quartz which passes through the stone at an equal distance from the 

 circumference. There is a slight groove cut all around it. The stone 

 gradually diminishes in thickness from the center to the circum- 

 ference. It is difficult to conceive what operations can have been 

 performed with this implement unless we suppose it to be an ax. 

 Were we to look for any animal representation that of a fish would 

 most probably be the true one." ^' 



••TranB. Amer. Ethn. Soc, vol. in. pt. 1, pp. 183-202. 

 "Ibid., pp. 187-188. 



'•■' This object is also nii'ntioned without figure in my woric " Prehistoric Culture of 



Cuba," Amer. Anthrop., n. s., vol. vi, p. 589. 



