i'hotu lii II. Tittier 



CHIEF DON Carlos' lady, who, notwithstanding her age, has preserved 



HER GOOD looks 



sources of wealth of these natives, among 

 whom money is never scarce and poverty 

 an unknown thing. The staple crops for 

 local consumption are raised in small 

 clearings scattered through the forests of 

 the interior and reached by water from 

 the coast ; besides most of the usual 

 fruits of tropical America, these include 

 plantains, corn, rice, cassava, yams, and 

 some cacao. 



The land belongs undivided to the 

 community, so that any encroachment is 

 considered as a public damage. Annual 

 crops are seldom produced several years 

 in succession on the same piece of 

 ground, but once this is cleared and 

 tilled it belongs to the individual or 

 family who have done the work, until it 

 returns to the public domain through 

 voluntary abandonment. 



Any cacao, orange, or other fruit-tree 

 planted by hand becomes an hereditary 



possession, transmitted through the fe- 

 male line. I was unable to ascertain the 

 traditional laws regulating the owner- 

 ship of the cocoanut-palm plantations, 

 b:it was led to understand that it is the 

 same that obtains for any kind of fruit- 

 tree as well as for plantain groves. 



They do not seem to have any re- 

 ligious system, but there are indications 

 of their holding to the notion of a su- 

 perior being, the author of all things 

 and the embodiment of goodness, and 

 also of a bad spirit, governing all evil, 

 whom they fear and revere more than 

 the former. Their lelc, or sorcerers, are 

 at the same time the medicine men and 

 the representatives of that genius of 

 evil — a sensible combination — since they 

 are supposed to have the power to check 

 the harm caused by the latter. 



At the time of the blossoming of the 

 fruit-trees, and when the yearly seeds 



652 



