242 ISLAND CULTURE AREA OE AMERICA [eth. AXN. 34 



Prehistoric Culture of Cuba "' 



Although the early Spanish writers ascribed to Cuba a large abo- 

 riginal population, thej'^ recorded very little regarding racial differ- 

 ences of natives in different parts of tlie island. The majority, con- 

 sidering the inhabitants as homogeneous in culture, paid little atten- 

 tion to variations in language or to diversity in mode of life, while 

 later authors, who are few in number, have added little to earlier ac- 

 counts. Archeological investigations, to whicli we must now look for 

 more light on this subject, have thus far been limited, and our 

 museums are very poor in jirehistoric Cuban objects. Few speci- 

 mens are known to have been found in the province of Pinar del Rio, 

 or the western end of the island, and local collectors are unanimous 

 in saying that all the aboriginal objects the}' possess came from the 

 eastern extremity. This limitation is significant, especially when we 

 consider that Yucatan, where the natives attained high culture, is 

 such a short distance from the western end of Cuba, and that it was 

 from the Cubans that the Spaniards first heard of tlie highly de- 

 veloped Indians of Mexico. The present paper, based on studies and 

 collections made during a brief visit to Cuba in 1904, suggests an 

 explanation for this paucity of prehistoric objects and the limitation 

 of the localities from which those known have been obtained. 



A study of the available evidence, both documentary and arche- 

 ological, shows that the aboriginal culture of Cuba differed in differ- 

 ent parts of the island. Some of the inhabitants reached a compara- 

 tively high degree of culture development, others were rude savages. 



The former had polished stone implements and knew how to make 

 the fertile soil yield their food supply, but the latter were naked 

 cave dwellers, who gathered for food roots or tropical fruits that 

 grow spontaneously in the rich soil of the island. There were also 

 fishermen, who subsisted on a natural sui>ph' of tlie products of the 

 sea when their hal)itat made it possible. Contact with people of 

 high culture had raised them somewhat above tlie dwellers in the 

 mountains to whom they were related. 



Columbus commented on the resemblance of the aborigines of Cuba 

 to those of the Bahamas, regarding them the same in language and 

 customs ; but this supposed identification was true only in a very gen- 

 eral way. The diary. of the first voyage of the discoverer, as found 

 in the writings of Las Casas, affords no direct evidence of a more 

 primitive race in Cuba, although it suggests the theory that such a 

 people existed. 



Historians do not agree as to the first landfall of Columbus in Cuba, 

 but no one doubts that it was somewhere on the northern shore of 

 what is now Santiago Province. At whatever point he landed he 



•2 Reprinted from Amer. Anthrop., n. s., vol. 0. pp. 5S5-59.S, 1904. 



