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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVI. No. 394. 



tions unknown to science, and a personal 

 study of the island on a short reeonnois- 

 sance in April and May of the present 

 year. 



Ethnology affords us but scanty data for 

 the study of the subject, as the aborigines 

 have been so changed by intermarriage 

 with other races that little can be identified 

 as belonging to the precolumbian life of 

 the island. Still in the more isolated re- 

 gions the Indian features can be recognized 

 and certain customs peculiar to the island 

 can be traced to Indian parentage. 



There are many Boriquen words in the 

 patois of the mountainous region, and the 

 rugged valleys of Loquillo, the Sierras on 

 the eastern end of the island, called Tunque 

 and Cacique mountains; still have a wealth 

 of folklore, part Spanish, part Indian, with 

 a mixture of African, which will reveal 

 to the folklorist many instructive phases 

 of this subject. ■ Mr. Spinosa has already 

 published some of these tales in a short 

 popular account, but much in this line yet 

 remains to be done in this isolated, per- 

 haps the most inaccessible region of the 

 island. Many of the mountains in this 

 locality are regarded as enchanted and 

 about them cluster stories of St. John, 

 the patron of the island, mixed with legends 

 of old Indian caciques and their families. 



In his note on the name of the moun- 

 tain Tunque, Acosta, quoting from a docu- 

 mentary account of Porto Rico by Pres- 

 biter Ponce de Leon and Baehillar Antonio 

 de Santa Clara, written in 1582 by order 

 of the King, derives the word Loquillo 

 from the name of a cacique who lived in 

 this high Sierra but was never conquered. 

 According to Acosta this tradition of the 

 last surviving cacique of the island has 

 furnished a subject to Sr. Tapia y Rivera 

 for his novel entitled 'El Ultimo Bor- 

 encano. ' 



All the available evidence supports the 



conclusion that we must look in the inac- 

 cessible region of Porto Rico called Loquillo 

 for the purest Indian blood among the 

 present mountaineers of the island. In 

 the isolated valleys of this region we 

 still find the old Carib canoe surviving 

 in the hollowed-out log of wood by which 

 produce is drawn down the slippery moun- 

 tain sides. Here are also the old forms of 

 hammocks different from those now gener- 

 ally used. Maize is a staple article of food 

 and the primitive mills with which it is 

 ground date back to a remote past. 



The prehistoric inhabitants of the An- 

 tilles from the Bahamas to the coast of 

 South America belonged to one and the 

 same composite stock differing in minor 

 characteristics which are not racial.. The 

 people of the Bahamas, Cuba, Hayti and 

 Porto Rico are a mild agricultural race 

 which had lost in vigor what they had 

 gained by their sedentary life. The Caribs 

 confined to the Lesser Antilles were more 

 warlike and their ferocity was known every- 

 where in the West Indes. Columbus heard 

 of them on his first voyage when he landed 

 on the Bahamas, and on his second voyage 

 his first landfall was on one of the islands 

 where they lived. Although he saw little 

 of the Caribs on this voyage, he learned of 

 Boriquen or modern Porto Rico from some 

 of the captive women, and taking these 

 slaves on board his ship, he coasted along 

 its southern shore, at last landing on the 

 western end, near Aguadilla, filling his 

 water casks at the famous spring at that 

 place. 



Although a well-known local historian 

 has questioned this as the landing 

 place of Columbus in Boricivien, the evi- 

 dence supports tradition and a beautiful 

 monument very properly marks the place 

 where the great Admiral landed in 1493. 

 But while the majority of writers as- 

 cribes the discovery of Boriquen to Co- 



