The narratives of the French, English, and Dutch conquerors of the Guianas and the lesser Antilles accord with the observations of Humboldt in describing the Caribs as an ambitious and intelligent race, among whom there still existed traces of a superior social organization, such as the hereditary power of chiefs, respect for the priestly caste, and attachment to ancient customs. Employed only in fishing and hunting, the Carib was accustomed to the use of arms from childhood; war was the principal object of his existence, and the proofs through which the young warrior had to pass before being admitted to the ranks of the braves, remind us of the customs of certain North American Indians.

They were of a light yellow color with a sooty tint, small, black eyes, white and well-formed teeth, straight, shining, black hair, without a beard or hair on any other part of their bodies. The expression of their face was sad, like that of all savage tribes in tropical regions. They were of middle size, but strong and vigorous.

To protect their bodies from the stings of insects they anointed them with the juice or oil of certain plants. They were polygamous. From their women they exacted the most absolute submission. The females did all the domestic labor, and were not permitted to eat in the presence of the men. In case of infidelity the husband had the right to kill his wife. Each family formed a village by itself (carbet) where the oldest member ruled.

Their industry, besides the manufacture of their arms and canoes, was limited to the spinning and dyeing of cotton goods, notably their hammocks, and the making of pottery for domestic uses. Though possessing no temples, nor religious observances, they recognized two principles or spirits, the spirit of good (boyee) and the spirit of evil (maboya). The priests invoked the first or drove out the second as occasion required. Each individual had his good spirit.

Their language resembled in sound the Italian, the words being sonorous, terminating in vowels. By the end of the eighteenth century the missionaries had made vocabularies of 50 Carib dialects, and the Bible had been translated into one of them, the Arawak. A remarkable custom was the use of two distinct languages, one by the males, another by the females. Tradition says that when the Caribs first invaded the Antilles they put to death all the males but spared the females. The women continued speaking their own tongue and taught it to their daughters, but the sons learned their fathers' language. In time, both males and females learned both languages.

"It is true," says the Jesuit Father Rochefort, in his Histoire des Antilles, "that the Caribs have degenerated from the virtues of their ancestors, but it is also true that the Europeans, by their pernicious examples, their ill-treatment of them, their villainous deceit, their dastardly breaking of every promise, their pitiless plundering and burning of their villages, their beastly violation of their girls and women, have taught them, to the eternal infamy of the name of Christian, to lie, to betray, to be licentious, and other vices which they knew not before they came in contact with us."

Father Dutertre declares that at the time of the arrival of the Europeans the Caribs were contented, happy, and sociable. Physically they were the best made and healthiest people of America. Theft was unknown to them, nothing was hidden; their huts had neither doors nor windows, and when, after the advent of the French, a Carib missed anything in his hut, he used to say: "A Christian has been here!"

Dutertre says that in thirty-five years all the French missionaries together, by taking the greatest pains, had not been able to convert 20 adults. Those who were thought to have embraced Christianity returned to their practises as soon as they rejoined their fellows.

"The reason for this want of success," says the father, "is the bad impression produced on the minds of these intelligent natives by the cruelties and immoralities of the Christians, which are more barbarous than those of the islanders themselves. They have inspired the Caribs with such a horror of Christianity that the greatest reproach they can think of for an enemy is to call him a Christian."

The reason the Spaniards never attempted the conquest of the Caribs is clear. There was no gold in their islands. They defended their homes foot by foot, and if, by chance, they were taken prisoners, they preferred suicide to slavery. Toward the end of the eighteenth century there still existed a few hundred of the race in the island of St.

Vincent. They were known as the black Caribs, because they were largely mixed with fugitive negro slaves from other islands and with the people of a slave-ship wrecked on their coast in 1685. They lived there tranquil and isolated till 1795, when the island was settled by French colonists, and they were finally absorbed by them. They were the last representatives in the Antilles of a race which, during five centuries, had ruled both on land and sea. On the continent, along the Esequibo and its affluents, they are numerous still; but in their contact with the European settlers in those regions they have lost the strength and the virtues of their former state without acquiring those of the higher civilization. Like all aboriginals under similar conditions, they are slowly disappearing.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 89: Revista Puertoriquena, Tomo I, Ano I, 1887.]

[Footnote 90: The word "cannibal" is but a corruption of guaribo, is, "brave or strong," changed into Caribo, Cariba, and finally that Carib. The name Galibi, also applied to the Caribs, means equally strong or brave.]

[Footnote 91: The author visited this region and sketched some of the ruins of these Jesuit-Guarani missions, of which scarcely one stone has remained on the other. They were destroyed by the Brazilians after the suppression of the Society of Jesus by Pope Clement XIV in 1773; the defenseless Indians were cruelly butchered or carried off as slaves. The sculptured remains of temples, of gardens and orchards grown into jungles still attest the high degree of development attained by these missions under the guidance of the Jesuit fathers.]

[Footnote 92: Voyage aux Regions Equinoctiales du Nouveau Continent, Paris, 1826.]

[Footnote 93: "Kleyn pleysterhuisye," small plaster house.]

[Footnote 94: As an example of the credulity of the people of the period, see Theodore Bry's work in the library of Congress in Washington, in which there is a map of Guiana, published in Frankfort in 1599. On it are depicted with short descriptions the lake of Parmie and the city of Manao, which represent El Dorado, in search of which hundreds of Spaniards and thousands of Indians lost their lives. There is a picture of one of the Amazons, with a short notice of their habits and customs, and there is the portrait of one of the inhabitants of the country Twai-Panoma, who were born without heads, but had eyes, nose, and mouth conveniently located in their breast.]

BIBLIOGRAPHY The history of Puerto Rico has long since been a subject of study and research by native writers and others, to whose works we owe many of the data contained in this book. Their names, in alphabetical order, are:

ABBAD, FRAY InIGO.--Historia geografica, civil y natural de San Juan Bautista de Puerto Rico. Madrid, 1788.

AGOSTA, D. JOSe JULIaN.--New edition of Abbad's history, with notes and commentaries. Puerto Rico, 1866.

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CEDo, D. SANTIAGO.--Compendio de geografia para instruccion de la juventud portoriquena. Mayaguez, 1855.

COELLO, D. FRANCISCO.--Mapa de la isla de Puerto Rico, ilustrado con notas historicas y estadisticas escritas por Don Pascual Madoz.

Madrid, 1851.

COLL Y TOSTE, D. CAYETANO.--Colon en Puerto Rico. (Disquisiciones historico-filologicas.) Puerto Rico, 1894. Repertorio historico de Puerto Rico. A monthly publication.

CoRDOVA, D. PEDRO TOMaS.--Memorias geograficas, historicas, economicas y estadisticas de la isla de Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico, 1830. Memoria sobre todos los ramos de la administracion de la isla de Puerto Rico.

Madrid, 1838.

CORToN, D. ANTONIO.--La separacion de mandos en Puerto Rico. Discurso escrito y comenzado a leer ante la Comision del Congreso de los Diputados. Habana, 1890.

FLINTER, COLONEL.--An Account of the Present State of the Island of Puerto Rico. London, 1834.

JIMENO AGIUS, J.--Puerto Rico. Madrid, 1890. LEDRU, ANDRe PIERRE.--Voyage aux iles Teneriffe, la Trinite, St. Thomas, Ste. Croix et Porto Rico, avec des notes et des additions par Sonnini, Paris, 1810. (A work full of fantastic and imaginary data, without any historical value.)

MELENDEZ Y BRUNA, D. SALVADOR.--Puerto Rico. Representation of the Governor of the Island to the King. Cadiz, 1811.

NAZARIO, D. JOSe MARiA.--Guayanilla y la historia de Puerto Rico.

Ponce, 1893.

PeREZ MORIS, D. JOSe, Y CUETO, D. LUIS.--Historia de la insurreccion de Lares.

SAMA, D. MANUEL MARiA.--El desembarco de Colon en Puerto Rico y el Monumento de Culebrinas, Mayaguez, 1895.

STAHL, D. AGUSTIN.--Los Indios Borinquenos. Puerto Rico, 1887.

TAPIA, D. ALEJANDRO.--Biblioteca historica de Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico, 1854.

TORRES, D. LUIS LLORENS.--America. Estudios historicos y filologicos.

Madrid y Barcelona, 1897.

UBEDA Y DELGADO, D. MANUEL.--Isla de Puerto Rico, Estudio historico-geografico. Puerto Rico, 1878.

VIZCARRONDO, D. JULIO.--Elementos de historia y geografia de la isla de Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico, 1863.

There are other writings on subjects connected with the island's history by native authors, some published in book or pamphlet form, others, like those of Zeno Gandia, Neumann, Dr. Dominguez, and Navarrete, have appeared in the columns of periodicals at different times before the American occupation of the island.