24 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I48 



Is the "tea" 35 they drink their Fountain of Youth? His grandfather 

 had long straight black hair, which he would never cut. ( Hive Nairn, 

 whose grandfather and grandmother were both pure Indians, her 

 father being the first to break the line, claimed that her father and 

 grandfather wore their straight hair in the same manner, and their 

 color was "bright," confirmed by others on the island. Those who 

 have Indian background, the Arnotts, Williamses, and others, all 

 have strains of this "bright color" that is seen in some of the children 

 as well as in themselves. These are the people who remembered stories 

 about Indians who lived at the south of the island, in a "hole," i.e., 

 a cave. There must be 40 to 50 caves on San Salvador, in which na- 

 tives hide with vessels of water and food during hurricanes. 



Traces of red, ground into the concavities of old stone mortars 

 that were uncovered archeologically, and the same red on the tips 

 of small hand axes and stone pestles, associated with extremely dark 

 red stones, suggest that these stones were broken and then hammered 

 into powder for pigment. The occurrence of sites in overgrown wild 

 pricklvpear or Indian cactus areas suggests that the red dye 36 from 

 these fruits also could have been used for the Indians' paint. 



Columbus continued : 



Saturday, 13 October 



At the time of daybreak there came to the beach many of these men, all 

 young men, as I have said, and all of good stature, very handsome people. Their 

 hair is not kinky but straight and coarse like horsehair ; the whole forehead and 

 head is very broad, more so than [in] any other race that I have seen, and the 

 eyes very handsome and not small. They themselves are not at all black, but 

 of the color of the Canary Islanders ; nor should anything else be expected, 

 because this is on the same latitude as the island of Ferro in the Canaries. The 

 legs of all, without exception, are very straight, and they have no paunch, but 

 are very well proportioned. They came to the ship in dugouts which are 

 fashioned like a long boat from the trunk of a tree, and all in one piece, and 

 wonderfully made (considering the country), and so big that in some came 40 

 or 45 men, and others smaller, down to some in which a single man came. They 

 row with a thing like a baker's peel and go wonderfully, and if they capsize 

 all begin to swim and right it and bail it out with calabashes that they carry. 

 They brought skeins of spun cotton, and parrots and darts, and other trifles that 

 would be tedious to describe, and gave all for whatever was given to them. 



Columbus asked these people where gold could be found, and by 

 signs he was told that from where he was "going to the S, or doubling 



35 A special "tea" is drunk every morning by some natives, and when they 

 visit another island they take it with them. It consists of the blending of five or 

 seven leaves or bark (it must be an uneven number) of lignum vitae, gumelemi, 

 old woman, old man, strong bark, three fingers, and guava vine. 



3G Pricklvpear is used today for red dye. 



