The Indians of Barbados. 55 



(Figure II), page 7. It is evidently a representation of the face of the 

 Moon : and I have also a beautifully polished miniature axe made of a 

 dark green stone (not the whitish-green axe photographed by Mr. 

 Parkinson), which specimen the Rev. Father C. Cooksey, S.J., stated 

 was a valuable one, and which he referred to in his paper on " The First 

 Barbadians, published in " Timehri " of July, 1912. Father Cooksey was 

 of opinion that the first Barbadians were Indians, but few in number, 

 and "consisted of waifs who drifted "into the Atlantic from elsewhere " 

 (perhaps Tobago). Although 1 do not concur in his conclusions, his 

 essay is bright and interesting. 



Fur my part I believe that the natives of Barbados were Indians (not 

 Caribs who were cannibals) : that thoy were comple'ely exterminated by 

 the Spaniards : and that is why the English settlers only found 

 six at " Six Men's Bay." And whatever may be the derivation 

 of the name " Barbados " I do not believe the name was derived 

 from fig-trees. Schomburgk states that in the British Museum 

 there is a map of the world executed before 1536, and that the island on 

 this chart appears under the name of " Bemados." He also, states that 

 in a map of the world by Juan de la Cosa, executed in 1500, which ex- 

 hibits the " Islas Canibales," Barbados isomitted. This tends to prove it 

 was inhabited by Indians, and was the island alluded to by Charles the 

 Fifth in his instructions to the Licentiate Bodrigo de Figueroa. 



>"ote— In " Translantio Sketches by the Rev. Greville John Chester. B. A. (published l 8l >9) 

 the author writing- of Fontabelle, Barbados, states : 



" It is bounded by a small stream, called " Indian Hirer " by the first settlers ; an 

 indication that the aborigines were not then extinct. In this neighbourhood the 

 ancient Carib shell implements are particularly abundant, and testify, there as else- 

 where, to a long runt i lined, and not, as is commonly supposed, to an only occasional 

 residence on the part of those who used them. . . . These Indian remains are 

 found so universally and in such large numbers as to put the existence of a large 

 stationary population beyond a doubt. The shell implements are not found in any of 

 the other Islands .... I have given a large series to the Christy Collection of the 

 British Museum- 



