246 ISLAXn CULTURE AREA OF AMERICA [ETH. ANN". 31 



x^ccording to Brinton,'* Seiior Garcia gives in "one of the num- 

 bers of the Eevista de la Habana an illustration of what is called 

 a duch/, which is the common term in Cuba for the figures of stone 

 or clay attributed to the aborigines. This particular duchl was a 

 stone ring, with eyes and ears of gold, and was supposed to have 

 been the seat or throne of a chief, but probably was a stone collar." 

 The author has not been able to find this illustration in the Kevista 

 de la Habana, although he has examined and copied Garcia's two 

 articles which he claims to be translations of Poey's paper read before 

 the American Ethnological Society, which have not been seen. 



Brinton's suggestion that this duchi was a stone collar does not 

 appeal strongly to me, for the term duchi, duho, or dujo was given 

 by the West Indians to native seats or stools in the form of ani- 

 mals with eyes and ears of gold." 



According to Bachiller y ^lorales,' D. Tomas Pio Betancourt, in 

 his Historia de Puerto Principe, says that D. Pedro de Parrado y 

 Pardo, in a book on the genealogy of families of Bayamo, written 

 in 1775, gave the name didio to one of these seats, in possession of 

 Doiia Concepcion (iuerra, that foi-merly belonged to the Cacique of 

 Bayamo. 



I am unaware that the following statement by Brinton * has ever 

 been verified: " I have also learned," he writes, " of a locality, which 

 T will not now further specify, in central Cuba, a river valley, along 

 which, from time to time, one meets grim faces carved from the 

 natural rock, and sometimes monolithic statues, the work of the 

 aborigines and believed to represent the guardian spirits of the 

 river. This locality I hope to have visited Ijy a competent person 

 this winter." A verification of these statements and a de.scription 

 of these supposed " monolithic statues," with figures of the same. 

 would be an important contribution to Cuban archeologj'. It 

 would also be interesting to know whether the river valley where 

 they are reputed to have been found was in the eastern or the west- 

 ern provinces of the island. 



At the Madrid session of the International Congress of Ameri- 

 canists, in 1881," Sehor Eodriguez-Ferrer read a paper in support of 

 the theory that there was evidence of the existence, in prehistoric 

 times, of Cuban aborigines different from those discovered by 

 Columbus. The thesis is defended mainly by facts drawn from 

 crania found in caves, but the two archeological specimens which 



"Op. cit., p. 253. 



" So far as known, stone collars and three-pointed idols, wliich characterize Porto Rican 

 aboriginal culture, have not lieen found in Cuba. 



' Cuba Primitiva, p. 2(i8. 



" .\rch:eoloj;y of Cuba, p. 2.55. 



** Congreso Internacional de .\mericanistas : Actas dc la Cuarta Reunion, Madrid, 1881, 

 vol. I, pp. 224-267. 



