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SCIENCE. 



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



wondrous workmanship. So also the early 

 accounts say that on several occasions the 

 Indians of the Antilles, as symbols of 

 friendship or fealty, sent masks to Cokim- 

 bus. One of these, given by the Cacique 

 Guacanagaei to Columbus on his visit to 

 liayti, is said to have been made of wood 

 with tongue, eyes and nose of massive gold. 

 This object no doubt resembled those of 

 stone in the Latimer collection of the 

 Smithsonian. Columbus saw many of 

 these masks in Cuba on his first voyage, 

 and on his return to the ill-starred col- 

 ony of Navidad, on his second voyage, was 

 met by an embassy of the same cacique 

 bearing two masks with gold ornaments as 

 regalia. These masks no doubt in both 

 cases were symbolic of the supernatural 

 power of the tutelary god of the cacique. 

 The act of sending them was one of homage 

 and respect of himself, his clan and the 

 being worshiped. It is also instructive to 

 note, as an evidence of a widespread cus- 

 tom among American aborigines, that with 

 one of these symbolic masks Columbus also 

 received as a present a belt ornamented 

 with shells, stones and bones recalling, as 

 Dr. Cronan has pointed out, the wampum 

 of North American Indians. 



The worship of ancestors which comes 

 out so plainly in all proper interpretations 

 of zemeism, appears likewise in the care 

 of the dead and the whole nature of mor- 

 tuary customs of both insular Caribs and 

 Oronoco Guaraunos. From the existence 

 of many skulls in the houses of the former 

 it has been supposed that these people were 

 anthropophagous, but it is probable, as has 

 been shown above, that many of these 

 skulls, carefully wrapped in basket ware or 

 woven cotton coverings, were the crania of 

 their own ancestors, preserved with pious 

 care and used in the rites and ceremonies of 

 ancestor worship. These skulls, artificially 

 covered with cotton fabrics and attached to 



bodies of the same material, were seated on 

 stone god chairs or duhos, and deposited in 

 caves, but they were also kept in houses as 

 the early records state. 



We find in the descriptions of the Antil- 

 leans accounts of exercises called areitos 

 which I have interpreted as ceremonial 

 dances in which ancestors were personated. 

 The short descriptions which have come 

 down to us indicate, as a rule, that these 

 dances had a religious motive in which the 

 praise of the ancestors was only one, al- 

 though a most important part. Great 

 stress is laid by most writers on the fact 

 that in these dances songs commemorating 

 deeds of valor or personal worth of the 

 dead were sung, and all agree that they oc- 

 curred on all ceremonial occasions. The 

 areito was undoubtedly a ceremonial 

 drama, composed of rites public and secret, 

 and accompanied semi-religious games, 

 dances and various other elements. In 

 these areitos the priests personated their 

 ancestors, as do the Pueblos in their Kat- 

 cinas, but with far different paraphernalia. 



Although there is material available in 

 documentary history for that purpose it 

 would take me too long to describe the 

 ceremonies of the prehistoric Antilleans, 

 one of typical character which may be 

 identified, a ceremony to the goddess of 

 growth, which was one of the best known 

 ceremonies of the prehistoric Antilleans, 

 having been described by Gomara, Her- 

 rera, Haklyt, Tejada, Charlevoix and 

 others. The latter gives a picture, some- 

 what fanciful, of the dance accompanying 

 this ceremony, which is copied by Picard on 

 his great work on the rites and ceremonies 

 of all people. 



The occiirrenee of this ceremony was 

 announced publicly by a town crier di- 

 rected by the cacique and consisted of 

 a procession to the temple or house in 

 which the image of the Earth Mother was 



