July 18, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



101 



the Antilleans had images of snakes and 

 these are the only objects of serpentine 

 form kaown to collectors. Although it is 

 probable that these problematical collars 

 were sometimes worn as insignia, there are 

 many others where this use would be im- 



Among the best polished stone images 

 found in collections from Porto Rico are 

 small figures, called amulets, representing 

 frogs, turtles, lizards, birds and other ani- 

 mals. These nicely worked specimens are 

 commonly concave or slightly curved on 

 one side, being tied in position by means of 

 a cord passing through a hole drilled from 

 edge to edge. Some of the writers of the 

 sixteenth century mention the fact that the 

 Antilleans wore stone images on their fore- 

 heads, to indicate the clan. 



As in all primitive society the social 

 organization of the Antilleans was built 

 on a religious foundation, the people being 

 governed by priesthoods which controlled 

 all the public life of the people. Every 

 cacique was a priest in virtue of his stand- 

 ing in the clan, which was the political 

 unit and, as we shall later see, the religious 

 and ceremonial unit as well. The whole 

 social and religious organization was knit 

 together by a form of totemism or tutelary 

 clan ancients worship which I shall call 

 zemeism. 



These priests were called Boii or sorcer- 

 ers, and their idols apparently often had. 

 the same name as the priesthood. In their 

 ceremonies these priests represented ances- 

 tors symbolically, and naturally took the 

 names of that which they represented. 



The functions of these priests were much 

 the same as those of the priesthood in all 

 primitive society. They performed rites 

 and ceremonies connected with the worship 

 of ancestral gods, located diseases and 

 bodily ills by magical methods and prac- 

 tised an elaborate system of divination, 



which is described with more or less detail 

 in the several early accounts. Disguised 

 as a god or hidden behind or near a statue 

 of the same, these priests gave oracular re- 

 sponses to those consulting them, making 

 use of elaborate mechanism to deceive those 

 who consulted the idols as oracles. 



One of the most remarkable of these 

 prophecies mentioned by Gomara in the 

 middle of the sixteenth century has be- 

 come historic. The father of the cacique, 

 Guarionix, who ruled one of the five great 

 Caciquedoms of Hayti, consulted the zemi 

 regarding the fate of his gods and people, 

 having prepared himself by fasting and 

 purifications as the customs of his country 

 required. He received this reply: Before 

 many years there would come to the island 

 bearded men with bodies clothed in mail, 

 who with one stroke of the sword would 

 sever men in twain, would bring fire over 

 the land and drive from the earth the 

 ancestral gods, destroying time-honored 

 rites, and' make blood flow like water. 

 Gomera comments on this prophecy in his 

 quaint way, adding that all these evils 

 have followed in the wake of the advent of 

 the Spaniards. 



In a famous letter in which he describes 

 his first voyage to America Columbus 

 stated that the natives of Hispaiiiola or 

 Hayti were without any religion, but on a 

 later sojourn in their midst he was able to 

 form more accurate ideas of their man- 

 ners and customs and correct his earlier 

 impressions. He found that, instead of 

 being destitute of this universal human 

 attribute, they recognized and worshipped 

 many supernatural beings, which they 

 represented by idols to which they gave 

 the name zemis. Columbus discovered that 

 they had special houses called temples set 

 aside for this purpose in which these rude 

 idols were set up, and that this cult was 

 practiced by fraternities of priests who 



