Proceedings of the Canadian institute. 8i 



Indian Ghosts and Conch Feasts. By R. G. Haliburton, F.R.G.S., Etc. 



(Read April lo, 1897). 



Had the natives of Jamaica any connection with the races of North or South 

 America ? This is a question which we cannot discuss in the Hmited state of 

 our knowledge of West Indian natives. This arises partly from the fact that the 

 cruel power that is now deluging Cuba with blood, succeeded in little more than 

 a century in exterminating the friendly and peaceable natives of the West Indies. 



No page in the history of our race presents such a blank as that which refers 

 to those people. The Spaniards said that the natives reminded them of the people 

 of Majorca ; but tha,t race was a small one, and no doubt an ofifshoot of the dwarf 

 stock that, according to Professor Sergi, migrated from North Africa to the islands, 

 and to the Northern shores of the Mediterranean. The Spaniards probably referred 

 to the little Caribs. In the Atlas region of Morocco the dwarfs and their large off- 

 shoots are called " the little Haritin " and " the large Haritin." When I first, in 

 1890, saw one of the latter, I said " that man must be a Carib." The dwarfs range 

 from 4 feet to 4 feet 10. Their larger kinsmen are from 4 feet 10 to 5 feet 4 inches, 

 and both have that peculiar, bright-reddish complexion, that so generally charac- 

 terizes dwarfs. My Berber servant (thanks to whom I became their discoverer) 

 said, " they have a red complexion, quite different from that of other races in 

 Morocco. It is like that of the red Indians of America." A recent color chart by a 

 German anthropologist makes the Tupi Guarani and most other races of South 

 America have the same tint as the Berbers. The fact that their names for spirits, 

 or ghosts, Cemis, and Toiia, are to be met with in Central America, and as far 

 north as the Pueblos, leads us to suspect that the people of the islands, and of 

 Central America must have sprung frorh the same stock. 



Brasseur de Bourbourg's idea that the Popul Vuh was historical, even though 

 he was backed up in it by Max Muller, he had to abandon in his old age. It was 

 a mythical work, containing astronomical legends that are as wide-spread as the 

 wanderings of our race. Within the past two years cave deposits and inscriptions 

 have been found in Yucatan, that lead to the idea, that the Mayas, when they arrived 

 there, were already a semi-civilized people. 



We must be patient, and must collect in properly managed museums all that 

 can be gathered together as to the aborigines of the West Indies. In time this 

 great blank in anthropology will be filled up, but we now have tantalizing glimpses 

 of afBnities, that serve only to stimulate and baffle our curiosity. 



Bishop Hanna was right in his conjecture, that aboriginal remains would proba- 

 bly be found, if sought for, in Pedro, Jamaica. The contents of the caves there are 

 well-known, although it is possible that treasure-seekers, or even antiquaries, may 

 a century or two ago have carried away or destroyed much in them that would have 

 been of interest. On the top of a hill at Malvern Chase, it was said, when I was 

 there eleven years ago, that there was an Indian burial place. I employed a couple 

 of men for one or two days in opening some places that seemed promising, but 

 the results were on the whole disappointing. On digging down in some places 

 there, we found an almost solid mass of little shells, about two inches thick, in a 

 regular layer. But we found noi skeletons or human bones, although we came across 

 a large quantity of broken pottery, which seemed to have been an offering to the 



