232 



ISLAND OITLTURE AREA OF AMERICA 



[ETH. ANN. 34 



ever, contains no specimen of a gold ornament ; but pendants made 

 of shell carved into amulets have been described by one or t'vro 

 authors. Beads made of bone, shell, and stone are Icnown from pic- 

 tures of Porto Rican Indians in early writings. T^one of the gold 

 beads of prehistoric times escaj^ed the cupidity of Europeans, and 

 those given them bj' the natives found their way into the melting 

 pot. Beads made of stone, however, exist in several collections. 

 Their form is cylindrical rather than globular, perforated, and often 

 having a second hole at right angles for insertion of feathers. A 

 necklace made of these beads had the ai:>pearance of a feather col- 

 lar, as described by early authors. These stone beads are sometimes 

 cut in the forms of animals or human beings. They were strung on 

 a string side by side for a collar, similar to the necklaces figured by 



Fig. 00. — Various forms of stone beads, plain and decorated. 



Giglioli,^' Andree,^* and other ethnologists. These ornaments must, 

 however, be distinguished from amulets or zemis, worn on the fore- 

 heads when they went into battle. 



In the Berlin Museum there are 40 shell sticks of brown and white 

 color of a similar form. 



In several of the earlj' accounts it is stated that every medicine 

 man among the Carib carried a zemi. by which he was known. In 

 some cases this was worn on a necklace, in other instances attached 

 to his forehead, and still other forms wei-e painted or tattooed on the 

 body. These and other facts lead me to believe that in a way we 

 maj' regiird the zemi as a tot.eniic symbol, representing the divinized 

 ancestor in much the same way as the Katcina among the Hojji. 



STONE PENDANT 



There is in the Heye collection a unique stone object, plate 116, .1, 

 of unknown use, from Santo Domingo, which is provisionally called 

 a pendant and supposed to have been worn as an ornament. It is 

 made of black stone and has the form of a cone pointed at one end 

 and flattened at the opposite, or base, recalling a grinding stone. 

 The conical end is, however, perforated and the hole beveled on 



"Rept. XVIth Int. Cong, of Amer., pt. 2, p. .31G. 



" Baessler-Archiv, Band IV, pp. 31-32, Leipzig, 1914. 



