238 



CRANIA AMERICANA 



Vertical diameter, 

 Inter-mastoid arch, . 

 Inter-mastoid line, 

 Occipito-frontal arch. 

 Horizontal periphery. 

 Facial angle, 



5.1 inches. 

 14.6 inches. 



4. inches. 

 14. inches. 

 20.2 inches. 



70 degrees, 



PLATE LXV. 



CHARIB OF ST. VINCENT. 



That the Charibs of the Antilles were derived from the southern continent, 

 and not from Florida, is proved by their traditions, their customs and their 

 language.^ The original inhabitants of these islands w^ere a docile people called 

 Igneris, allied no doubt to the Indians who occupied Cuba and the other larger 

 islands on the arrival of Columbus. The Igneris, however, were exterminated by 

 the Charibs, who at that period held undisturbed possession. 



These Charibs were among the most ferocious and brutal of the American 

 nations. They were without laws and almost devoid of religious observances. 

 Suspicious and revengeful to the last degree, they conducted all their enterprises 

 with singular craftiness. They were morose and even melancholy, and looked 

 upon the other natives as mere beasts to be slain and devoured. To such an 

 excess was their cannibalism carried, that it gave rise to a law in 1504, by which 

 the Spaniards were authorised to make slaves of all the individuals of the Charib 

 nation who should fall into their hands.f It is even gravely asserted that, having 

 tasted the flesh of all the nations who visited them, they pronounced the French- 

 man to be most delicate, and the Spaniard the hardest of digestion J To persuade 

 the Charibs to civilisation, or to reduce them to servitude, seemed alike impracti- 

 cable. "If they did any thing it was only what they chose, how they chose, and 

 when they chose ; and when they were most wanted it often happened that they 



"" The Red Charibs (of St Vincent) had a tradition that their forefathers came from the banks of 

 the Orinoco, whence coasting Trinidad and Tobago to Grenada, and thence by the Grenadines, they 

 arrived at St. Vincent, subdued the native inhabitants called Gahbeis, (or Igneris,) and possessed 

 themselves of the Island.''— Sir W. Young, Account of the Charibs, p. 5. 



t Humboldt, Pers. Narr. V, p. 426. 



t British Emp. in America, II, p. 277.— Rochefort, p. 537. 



