The ^Kitchen Middens ' of Santa Helena Bay. i^g 



very similar to the Kitchen Middens of Denmark. The coal cin- 

 ders of ancient hearths are still visible, and one thick cinder de- 

 posit divides the Kitchen Midden in two equal parts. It seems 

 that the original dwellings were destroyed by fire, and new huls 

 built in the same place. It is thus evident that the deposit under 

 the cinder strata is older than the upper one, and that in the low- 

 er one we have to look for more ancient traces of this Neolithic 

 people. 



A certain number of stone implements are buried in those heaps, 

 some of them are rudely fashioned, and resemble those of the 

 diluvium of Europe, others are of better workmanship, and are 

 even polished by grindstone. None of those stones are pierced, 

 they are pointed and look like a rough kind of wedges, what they 

 in all probability were. 



Green obsidian and silex are also found in the Kitchen Middens 

 of Santa Helena. The last species, I presumed, served in all prob- 

 ability as a firestone — a supposition which soon became a well es- 

 tablished fact. Digging in the strata, the writer of those lines 

 found a piece of pyrite, which, of course, was used to procure fire 

 by striking it against the silex. 



The strata of Kitchen Midden contain the remains of pottery, 

 but the utensils are reduced to mere fragments. They are made 

 of clay mixed with sand and carbonate of lime, imperfectly baked 

 with fire or sun dried. The fragments are black, brown or paint- 

 ed with different colors. The first two are of older origin, and are 

 found in the under strata that is under the cinder line, the latter 

 are of more recent fabrication, and are ornamented with painting 

 in form of dots, straight, parallel or zigzag lines, squares, trian- 

 gles, etc. Neither plants nor animals are represented on any of 

 the utensils found in Santa Helena, though there are some rough 

 specimens of sculpture in the form of clay heads. 



The primitive artists who painted the pottery were acquainted 

 with certain coloring matters, it appears that they obtained the red 

 color from oxide of iron, which is found in the vicinity, the yellow 

 was prepared from hydrated iron. 



The rough specimens of sculpture, mentioned above, are a few 

 figures or rather clay heads, representing' men and animals. The 

 human heads have a great resemblance to the small clay heads 

 found in Mexico, near Cholula. The animals represented are the 

 ignana and procyon, both very abundant everywhere in Central 

 America, and both held in high esteem by the nations on account 

 of their sweet meat. 



It is very difficult to come to any conclusion in regard to the 

 people who dwelt on the shores of Santa Helena Bay. A few in- 

 habitants living in the vicinity of these Kitchen Middens, know 

 only that the heaps were abandoned long ago before the Spanish 

 Conquest. 



