The Aborigines of Puerto Rico and Neighboring Islands /
by Jesse Walter Fewkes ; preface by L. Antonio Curet
- First edition
- 1 online resource (330 pages)
- Caribbean Archaeology and Ethnohistory Ser. .
- Caribbean Archaeology and Ethnohistory Ser. .
Introduction -- Physical features of Porto Rico -- Precolumbian population -- Present descendants of the Porto Rican Indians -- Race and kinship -- Bodily characteristics -- Mental and moral characteristics -- Government -- Political divisions -- Houses -- Thatched with grasses -- Thatched with palm leaves -- With palm leaves on walls, and straw-thatched roofs -- With slabs of palm wood on walls -- Secular customs -- Naming children -- marriage customs -- Hunting and fishing -- Agriculture -- Religion -- Zemiism -- Zemis of wood -- Zemis of stone -- Zemis of cotton cloth inclosing bones -- Zemis painted on their bodies and faces -- Priesthood -- Divination -- Medicine practices -- Narcotics -- Rites and ceremonies -- Ceremony to bring crops -- Survival of ceremony in modern dances -- Burial ceremonies -- Myths -- Traditions of origin -- A modern legend -- The name Borinquen -- Archeological sites -- Dance plazas -- Shell heaps -- Caves -- Archeological objects -- Celts -- Enigmatical stones -- Pestles -- Mortars -- Beads and pendants -- Stone balls -- Three-pointed stones -- Type with head on anterior and legs on posterior projection -- Type with face between anterior and conoid projection -- Type with conoid projection modified into a head -- Smooth stones -- Interpretation -- Semicircular stones -- Stone heads -- Disks with human faces -- Stone amulets -- Pictographs -- River pictographs -- Cave pictographs -- Stone collars -- Massive collars -- Slender collars -- Theories of the use of stone collars -- Elbow stones -- Knobbed heads -- Pillar stones -- Large stone idols -- Pottery -- Shell and bone carvings -- Wooden objects -- Cassava graters -- Dance object -- Swallowing-sticks -- Ceremonial baton -- Idols -- Stools -- Canoes -- Other objects -- Gold objects -- Basketry and textiles -- Conclusions.
A valuable recounting of the first formal archaeological excavations in Puerto Rico. Originally published as the Twenty-Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in 1907, this book was praised in an article in American Anthropologist as doing "more than any other to give a comprehensive idea of the archaeology of the West Indies." Until that time, for mainly political reasons, little scientific research had been conducted by Americans on any of the Caribbean islands. Dr. Fewkes' unique skills of observation and experience served him well in the quest to understand Caribbean prehistory and culture. This volume, the result of his careful fieldwork in Puerto Rico in 1902-04, is magnificently illustrated by 93 plates and 43 line drawings of specimens from both public and private collections of the islands. A 1907 article in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland described the volume as "a most valuable contribution to ethnographical science.".