264 ISLAND CULTURE AREA OF AMERICA [eth. anx. 34 



There was no material necessity greater in the life of an u^a-i- 

 cultural peojDle than the fructification and growth of their food sup- 

 ply. The West Indian culture was based on the growth of the yuca 

 plant, from which cassava meal was obtained. It would he in accord- 

 ance with what is known of other primitive religions of agricultural 

 people for the Antilleans to center their religious ideas about their 

 food plant, and naturally the production of yuca was the great need 

 of the Antilleans. One of the two great gods of the Haitians, accord- 

 ing to Pane, bears in its name the element yuca. Yucayu was the 

 great Sky god, whose name is varied, but under various designations 

 controls the rain, the winds, and other phenomena of the sky. This 

 is supposed to be the beneficent Sky god, and there was a stone 

 image in the Sacred Cave of the Haitians called Maroio (Morahu), 

 which from its holy character must have been one of the chief slirines. 

 It is, perhaps, a coincidence that the Yucayu or Yuca god of the 

 sky has for part of its name Guamaonoco, or Maorocon, in which 

 we detect the element maroio of various spellings, as if the name of 

 the idol and the name of the beneficent Yuca god were the same. 

 They were at least similar conceptions, as both were apj^ealed to for 

 rain. There was another stone idol of equal sanctity to Moroio in 

 the Cave of the Sun, the sanctuary of the Haitians. This idol was 

 called by Pane, Bonael, and was also appealed to for rain — a func- 

 tion of the highest deity in the Antillean pantheon. Bonael was 

 supposed to be the idol of a being in the Sun, as Maroio was that of 

 the Moon god. The sun and moon are also sjTnbols of a higher god 

 of the sky, the Yucayu or the god of winds and rain which the An- 

 tillean farmers worshiped. 



Bonael {el signifying son; the son of Bona) was not the chief god, 

 but was the son of another who might have been. Who, then, was 

 Bona, his father ? Ma boya, the great ( ?7Ui) Boya, was the great god to 

 which the Antilleans appealed for rain. He must have been a Sky god, 

 and a great one at that. Boa is the serpent and Maboya is the great 

 serpent. Guabansex was a woman to whom the Antilleans prayed for 

 rain. Her two assistants were her agents in bringing rain, etc. Ma- 

 boya and Guabansex have many points of similarity. In this ap- 

 parently tortuous linguistic method the conclusion is arrived at that 

 the great Sky god to whom the Antilleans prayed for success of their 

 farming was a serpent god ; not a god of evil, as early authors stated 

 in their interpretation of Antillean mythology, but a beneficent god, 

 although at times a ruler of the hurricane. The great serpent might 

 readily have been the god of the j-uca. 



Did the Antillean represent this sei'i^ent in stone, as we are told he 

 did in wood? Mr. Joyce has shown the relation of the collar stones 

 to a bent tree, and the author has interpreted the designs on them as 



