July 18, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



97 



lumbus, on his second voyage, Sr. Luis 

 Llorens Torres gives the honor to another 

 and, in a well-Avritten pamphlet on 

 'America,' has shown in a convincing way 

 that when Martin Alonzo Pinzon separated 

 from the great Admiral, on his first voy- 

 age, he visited Porto Eico, and probably 

 landed on its shores. 



Dr. D. Isaac Gonzales Mestizes, as quoted 

 by Sr. Torres, states very clearly the argu- 

 ments for the unity of the prehistoric 

 people of the West Indies, and shows that 

 the insular Oaribs and Boriqueiios were 

 practically of the same stock, although they 

 differed somewhat in their mode of life, 

 due to climatic influences, their religion, 

 customs and languages. 



The former although confined to the 

 Smaller Antilles made frequent predatory 

 expeditions upon the more peaceable in- 

 habitants of Cuba, Hayti and Porto Rico, 

 especially the latter, carrying away the 

 women as slaves. Thus we have in the in- 

 sular Carib communities men and women 

 speaking different dialects, showing idio- 

 matic differences in the Carib and Boriquen 

 speech and implying amalgamation of the 

 two stocks. The incursions of the Caribs 

 on the eastern coast of Porto Rico con- 

 tinued after the Spanish had made settle- 

 ments there and they raided and destroyed 

 the town Naguabo on the river of the same 

 name. 



Unfortunately we have no authentic 

 cranium of a typical prehistoric Porto 

 Rican to compare with that of the Caribs, 

 although it is probable that skulls of this 

 race could be found in a systematic sci- 

 entific exploration of the island, especially 

 in eaves in the neighborhood of Utuardo 

 Ciales and the more inaccessible parts of 

 the island. The name of a cave, Cuea del 

 Muertos, not far from Utuado indicates 

 that it was used for burial or deposition of 

 the dead. These caves contain many re- 



ligious symbols, as rock etchings of gods 

 and grotesque forms of idols cut out of 

 stalactites, showing that they were used 

 by the Indians as places of worship, refuge, 

 or possibly for burial of the dead. 



Allien Columbus landed on the island of 

 Guanahani the first native words he heard 

 belonged to a language which was one of 

 the most widely distributed of those of the 

 new world, a tongue which, with dialectic 

 variations, was the speech from central 

 South America to the coast of Florida. 

 These dialectic differences in the speech 

 of the Antilles aborigines were small, the 

 Caribs of the Lesser West Indies and the 

 Lucayans of the Bahamas being linguis- 

 tically of the same stock, as has been re- 

 peatedly pointed out by several writers, 

 ancient and modern. This same stock had 

 left traces of its language and peculiar 

 culture on the Spanish main along the 

 coast of Mexico, which facts are significant 

 but have led to erroneous views of the re- 

 lationship of the aborigines of Central 

 America, Cuba, Hayti and Porto Rico. 



The accounts of the houses of the pre- 

 historic Porto Ricans by Oviedo, liiigo 

 and others are amply sufficient to lead us 

 to conclude that they did not greatly dif- 

 fer from those of the country people to- 

 day. Stone or adobe buildings were not 

 constructed, but a fragile cabin the 

 frame of which was tied together with 

 maguey fiber and covered with bark of the 

 royal palm or yucca and thatched with 

 straw furnished a home for the prehistoric 

 Portoriqueilos. These houses, like their 

 modern representatives, were raised on 

 posts to avoid dampness and insects, sug- 

 gesting pile-dwellings — a feature of house- 

 construction with which the Caribs were 

 familiar. 



In many of the smaller towns of Porto 

 Rico we still find a street lined with these 

 houses built in the same primitive way, 



