January 26, 1894. 
SCIENCE. 
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THE KARIFS AND INSULAR CARIBS. 
BY JOHN GIFFORD, SWARTHMORE COLLEGE. 
Tue word ‘‘Carib” is very elastic in meaning. It is 
applied in Spanish America to any wild and savage tribe. 
Originally it referred only to the natives of the Lesser 
Antilles and the South American mainland. The words 
“Carib” and ‘‘cannibal” are probably mispronuncia- 
tions of their proper name Karina. ‘The pure Caribs are 
represented to-day by several tribes in South America 
and a remnant in the Caribbee Islands. Throughout the 
American tropics there are Carib mixtures. In Spanish 
and British Honduras there are many black Caribs. The 
early Spaniards applied the term grzfos to the crosses 
between Negro and Carib, probably because of the 
frizzled nature of their hair. This word has been french- 
ified into grzffe and is now applied also to mulattoes in 
Louisiana. 
In Froude’s ‘‘ English in the West Indies” there are 
many reckless statements, examples of which are that 
Pere Labat discovered from the language of the Caribs 
that they were North American Indians, that they 
called themselves Banari, which means ‘‘come from 
over sea,’ and that their dialect was almost identical 
with what he had heard in Florida. There seems to be 
little foundation for this statement. There are reasons 
for believing that the Caribs of the Lesser Antilles 
migrated from northern Venezuela and that they spoke a 
dialect of the language of the mainland Caribs. 
According to the Spaniards the Caribs of old were ex- 
ceedingly fierce and corrupt, but these statements, as well 
as others concerning their language, are controverted. 
Dr. Wilson calls them the ‘‘historic race” of the 
Antilles, and Peschel speaks of them as an “‘ extraordi- 
narily gifted race, both physically and intellectually, 
whom we must not condemn too severely for their com- 
plete nudity, their inclination to piracy, their craving 
after human flesh and the poisoning of their arrows.” 
Some of the highest and some of the lowest specimens of 
South American Indians are Caribs. 
The mainland and probably also the insular Caribs 
poisoned their arrows with curare, the juice of Strychnos 
toxifera, aclimbing plant of Equatorial America. The 
arrows were light and were blown through a tube in a 
manner similar to the Dyaks of Borneo. This tube was 
made from the stems of Arundinaria Schomburghit, a plant 
of the grass family resembling bamboo. This plant was 
SC IUSIN Cle. 
We do not hold ourselves - 
45 
named in honor of Schomburgk, a famous German 
traveller, sent in 1835 to explore Guiana by the Geograph- 
ical Society of London. Among his many interesting 
finds was the Victoria regia. He had opportunity to 
witness the effect of their poisoned arrows and is charged 
with the statement that a deer at the top of its speed 
when hit with such a dart drops dead at the end of forty 
yards. 
In what follows the writer only refers to the insular 
Caribs and the Karifs or black Caribs on the coast of the 
Bay of Honduras. 
St. Vincent and Dominica were the principal rendezvous 
of the insular Caribs, although they occupied all the 
islands of that beautiful chain extending from Puerto 
Rico to the mouths of the Orinoco and raided at times 
Jamaica and San Domingo. 
Many and bloody were the wars which the Caribs fought 
with the early colonists. In spite of their endurance they 
were unable to withstand the superior force and diseases 
of the Europeans, and all that is left in the Lesser 
Antilles is a little colony on the Island of St. Vincent. 
In an old book on the ‘‘ Caribby” Islands, the aborig- 
ines are described as good-looking, well-proportioned 
people of medium size, with mouths not overly large; 
teeth, close and white; complexion, orange; beards, 
scanty; hair long and black, and eyes black, piercing and 
somewhat Mongolian. This description fairly applies to 
the yellow Caribs still living on the Island of St. Vincent. 
The original Carib looked very fierce because he wore 
no clothing, and dyed his body with arnotto (Azxa 
Orellana). It was called roucou, and in French Guiana 
there is a low tribe of Caribs called the Roucouyennes. 
The Caribs of to-day are very able watermen. The 
boys even while very young are of an amphibious nature. 
They can catch a three-pence before it strikes the bottom 
of the bay, and think nothing of putting to sea on a 
fishing expedition on two logs nailed together. Even the 
women of the Black Caribs of Honduras bring bananas in 
small piroques to the ships in rough weather. They 
inherit this from their forefathers. The word ‘‘canoe,” 
it is said, is of Carib origin. They were probably the 
first Indians to invent the sail. When the wind was fair 
they spread a cotton cloth; at other times it is said they 
rowed their canoes with oars, and even sang a song in 
time to the stroke, as sailors do to-day. Their piroques- 
of-war were often forty feet in length by six in width. 
Boats of almost this size, hewn from a single log, may be 
seen to-day in British Honduras. The trunks of the 
Giant Ceiba (Bornbax Ceiba) were used for this purpose. 
It is said that the word ‘‘ceiba” is a Spanish corruption 
of an Indian word for boat. The tree is of enormous 
size, but the wood is soft and not durable. It is also the 
Sacred God Tree of the Negroes. 
Carib relics are often found. A collection was on 
exhibition at the Fair in Jamaica. They deftly fashioned 
implements and utensils from stone, bone and shell. 
There are two rocks in Grenada on which quaint hiero- 
glyphics are cut. There too is the ‘“‘hill of the leapers,”’ 
where a hard-pressed, ill-fated band of Indians plunged 
into the sea. Many interesting remains were found on 
the Island of Amba, and these were of such superior work- 
manship that they reminded the discoverers of Greek 
patterns. 
At the Jamaica Exhibition in 1891 there were six 
Caribs sent by the Government of St. Vincent. Three of 
these were types of ‘‘yellow” and three of ‘‘black” 
Caribs. They were engaged in basket making in the 
Industrial Village. At this work they are very skilful, 
the baskets they weave being water-tight. Be 
The yellow Caribs form the purest remnant™ of the 
aborigines of the Lesser Antilles. The black Caribs 
