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SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 143
HANDBOOK OF SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS
Juuian H. Stewarp, Editor
Volume 4
THE CIRCUM-CARIBBEAN TRIBES
Prepared in Cooperation With the United States Department of State as a Project of the Interdepartmental Committee for Scientific and Cultural Cooperation
UNITED STATES
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON : 1948
a
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington 25, D. C.
LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY, Washington, D. C., June 18, 1945.
Sir: I have the honor to transmit herewith a manuscript entitled “Handbook of South American Indians. Volume 4. The Circum- Caribbean Tribes,” edited by Julian H. Steward, and to recommend that it be published as a bulletin of the Bureau of American Ethnology.
Very respectfully yours, M. W. Strruine, Chief.
Dr. ALEXANDER WETMORE,
Secretary, Smithsonian Institution
III
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BINT yllnitios S a1
4 t VITAL
‘ 4)
CONTENTS
PAGE ME EACE Ey JMU MEd SL CWAEG. ys «as vos ov oe sm cicapyews oa wae ce uG souk | tow XV Se CRN FC TIAN RNP BEME f-sata to ta fore tore ufo" % are se fy nara nde Piglets Te a es bovis 'o da ewe taka XVI LEITH 3Sph co 7°05 Ves i ae ne a en x The Circum-Caribbean tribes: An introduction, by Julian H. Steward...... l Wine basic Circtim=-Garibbean Colture. wo. os cscs an sem maces epee ss 2 BCI etaPPeligtS DAUETIS. po..05p cma s cin s.0 ye «.c/e pic u es wings ee 2
PPE ter Ace eaMERE SNe PREY, ot. fale setae ntrat situs sks mak nee sapee eS: 4 Origins or the Carenm-Caribbéan! culture ty oc. 02020 ca. whee eel cle 6 Distribution of the Circum-Caribbean culture......... 00. cece eee eee ees 11 The Sub-Andean tribes of western Colombia. ...............ceeeceeees 15 OCs aMMULE Motos Aten... yc. ssp~josacume coniesnk couse ee tne 16 RCO OPM EIE UE ers eaiss ain ks Gives eam al ar SAR tan ey RAGE E RRR S 17
The northeastern subeAndean tribes’. J... . sue ne» 0 ew ees 2 tp 18 The Cordillera Oriental and Venezuelan Andes.................00- 19
Eripesi westior eae Maracaibo’. oo 's'. cos. «sees ss aurgg mie ara pres 0% 20
firpes Of nottawestetn Venezuela. so. cca eee s Gaeen sca wasps cess oes 21 Pibeties Ot eminem CHEZIEIA 4, «1s ois sis dace © a ein de sci sie'eya'e wee ayniays 0 oe ale 22 SOCIAL GM pReNteAOUIS PALLCIRIS® Victs/a's'< <b Biers cd eavale apices: musta eevesa.c' ele bce fe 22
PONTE AME CAL LCUIKS, eth aT tae e+.» 5:0) days bite eases be lam gaye ae Si 23
MRR ATE TEES Pera terehewe valee> wn'utlets pe se) & ce, wn 'o.nsy quik fiw rapa eeavinc ght ws wade ease aA 23 PRR RARE aes acai peo cee te lasdine ss kee iss nie Sacdacie in a. s nivivinegn ain Rs swe 23 SGetaAMOLGeNOOlUS DALLEENS. ..c% aw ais sick <iaare pes waa emmys sales hiss 23
RE rerit eCtrRGat raphe stoi a avs cloth 8 ste DEAT Ge sete S aiehlege se Dan ee 24
PRR euebet EIEN enters sg Usb oid he no eo 8 Sd ase no oe ma asl oie maieiain wie weit 25
WTO Tage! Wn.0 TTCTRT SS May 2 Aileen a er oe ll oe i ey eae all fe Pe 26 Distribution and antiquity of the Circum-Caribbean culture......... 26
Social mam ueeliotaus Patterns, | bic nese aes otic me cp man 2 = eee pany sins 28 RPaPeCia VEHLCUMECUL cisg.ce ageredi- Sake states Maseietacls cise ates oMaags wists lire 31
Sete VeSO—NIMETIGAT ETIDES sc iniacie © rakes auc ie vegene <a feaaue toopeib go re uense pe reverolnye leans 33 Socal meneelteAGHS PALLETS, + is .a,clseie ois © aie cinynin soles oe ja wleipicw om epee es 33 Matentalmeultume mere teciiicrs er circte ciereisieiei ierac a reielnie eneisiclous eleigapeipe ciel 34
Phe ol Topica HOLeSHINCOINES. «aos gee c ove poy caiccime eo cleo tgs = male sip sain cia 34 THe Pataneoror- and eheit MELSHDOLS . ace 2c aise seve ocelaieie easier mie nisl apne 34
Sie GasANNA BS ESAS Spa as crisis winsialx m2 i win re olor 6 np nce tage a jeimgsinin 35
The Befoi and their Neighbors, ... 2.0.2.2 2 eee oes oiee mn sieges pane cee 35
Pie MOImaIAe ANGTGHARIO, co oiecbie. «asks score cee 06 monger npn es 36
Me. Pichia la AVG) SALIVA. oy .s. sss abies 9 sageqyysip og s 008 0L0 nam ines min gae'e'o'e 37
Aes IPactite (Cong? iablesereneseare soseee aanbbic rn tenoeeesa te coor 38
SIREN SIE OPES ate ciershiie tag «eres RISES G Oy creas b Snaegme gs noe 38
The Gayapaland Colorado.” soap ais eect teres r ecg seer nes 39
The hunting and gathering tribes... 0.2.0... 00sec sees ee eee eee eee ee eens 40 SEPIDES OF PNGMORENOCO ASIN. oss oes so oe > die oe ecules on sige m aaee B:0%e 40
The (iouey.of the Antilles. cece. cece as cee es ep seg sas 41
Pat 1. Central American Cultures... .0....0.. 00.2 e sects cere nnnaercs 43 Central American Cultures: An introduction, by Frederick Johnson.... 43 GeeOR RAMAN As fence gaa dehes visio ed ose see + Oo eRTOBIRS Devimielge «ie 43 REGED, Mat aals nS nen als MEd an See MO alaes Gieiornde clog itoMa HoT 44
VI
CONTENTS
ALG s SOME LO EIN Et LATE Si ciynai'ave/<!s.5 0 B.0icie 0010.8 mam caersepartion amormes Sere Le ieabaeia SAMANOS Se os cece cee o:ciein,5 8 cis\cininis Bereieiwi ie piw'e vn ai EG, Pa teases ME aS OP RNIN ciao cis < aie ao Aaa, Sou we dr ereld interes oe ‘The: eastern) Coastalee tailor s1eis,3.x x's.o.00s wace'ain'e an bia serenade niekineeam The Warthern Coastal Play, oi i's6 ois. vic oboe 00 diss epapnia een ae *Tsibal AtvISIGHS AIG MISEOUV sc aici suo 61s oe atrew wee ola Wika malls ean The (Curia-Choco visio as «> or. nist s< ccc aes aaucv ten eee WE A alamatiCa - LVISION S65 a:aicia sitn'a snes tmaisera oa cece aieioie . (he Caribbean’ Division: East Coast. oo: mn. «c.<-eecie eterna ‘the Wariobean Division: INonth: COaSt..cs > sere ear ine Northern; Higiiand Division... «.. » 03)! .02,. sevens Bas ele Phe Meso=American! D1viSion\ oc. + apsiees slates cciaiee arses eer ace eee 137 |0) | (oy 960414 | Gan SIR AIDE RS ee SE :
whe arcneglory of Central Americas 0. o> «see. .00 as «0,5; ciate an hayes amas
The archeology of Central America: An introduction, by Wm. Dun- CAG UG OM oan aiais vib’ ers lenaera, vist ine ao ee bree = jeaiaiags (eam Seca The archeology of Honduras, by Wm. Duncan Strong............. MMtTOGUCtON Hs. o:o0ieiccars es 8610/0 .076 0 dite. 0 6 aye" ae omte nmol ieee TURE MOSIMEASE COASE: TERION. ain seis sseis wasssia et a's clprudeye eee
BI VAROUIIENE? va che cu.es ooo oe 0:8 «10 2 Sukte cece ee oe eee
SItES ANG. FEMIAUISS < ciscis's ais cis sis aeitenn casein eee RSETAMIIES) 5 fossacn.ccoais ie Sid biota sis aiksa wo semen xcs Gaiden a INGHCETAMIC ATUEACES: . 6 s,600.0.6 04s 0 scales sou bivie ree
NE IMA Y OFO8 . TERION 2% a3vje.sre sisiacisin o:clvinsaiie olarr aedetaere Summary. ‘OL. .FeSCareh. oh sc.06 cons a sera ead eee eee
SSitEs Atal LELMAITS,», ajx wincels 0 oars! miss 5 oie avin eae ee ee
IRE EAMMICS.. ciave oycie 6 x oire sa ihicc oes Ga cis oe ere ee ea PNONCELAMMIC APUIEACES! is ccicsciee-daas nine o'dieewer cna eanieae
Central and southwestern Honduras. . 5.3. ooiessas ees enieee SUMMMALY OF FESCALCW ss <0 cei acces cass cae clea oe mie Ethniercorrela tions ine blongunas. cease seiner cieeerniieiae The -sottery ‘tule CRArt..... <i ss a sinimpasshn g's Sam cena nce
AC consideration of cetamic Styles. ....-.-.<-m sce oe eek General ‘COnSICeratiOns: 1.6.06. raccaswcemses <nigucegue meet ESB GOLATNY cares evci0 e'te eve wla'e 9.008) 2/assile; 0/4 acgmrso eins ons & tame ieee ae The archeology of Costa Rica and Nicaragua, by Wm. Duncan SEDI: fo cciaie-cl she ls, o ino = ie biahe- caw -c tialeseipiw eta eters" area, can hal aie Rein ae ees TEAeTOHCRCENGIN os <0 o-o 0 hv Swe ac sai ¢.0-0 000 mass ng sie ole arssele eae te eta Bite: PACihe: TERI s «2555-0005 ois were euke vase asl gah a ea "THG FAI@ MABE TORION:. oe os< cite 6 6h were ae x we gas, sk The Bastern’ Coastal Plain: ctr» sca'sie« caispiew iajeis aches pa ae eee Ethnic correlations in Costa Rica and Nicaragua............... BDI STAD NY osay 5 sic ars neh weiarainve rachis Inteis wa /Seeral and aisle. claire The archeology of Panama, by Samuel K. Lothrop................ PRETOAGCEIOR 5 o's, 6 de eae u sls:s-0'e » 00:4 clam bleele en acs age ola ae re
TO ATIOI Fs, doce ieteoe aoe Srna iho Siaitte A eS uRnEh nays She 60 Qae ea ee CAGE erases ha Vian OURA RUSS ee acme uate: Gach Gee
AY OS a ca isan bpm Adie nis ‘sien dhe wah ois'g oie 5 a etal ete AGTSPENIRED ge og. cette ohiesace b numinvd, wale sia eye wie eretord a. watohss «oon ee PADIOSTADIY! © esoversia's Fare walk orasoctet tere Waveroracsrevene avert iarchete meres The basic cultures of Central America, by Doris Stone............ PREFQU CEN: | sili siaie oe ate awison wwe wale rh wink ote wae eee te
CONTENTS
The basic Central American cultures and the Q-complex....... SOE CUGNG ee ces cr actte ht sip ite sat acai se ees a'c0e ae versus BEAST OAR RR eo ce tate sree ee OS beter ka ibe carte swate Douek ROME IRIS EM OT: Seen hee See a en PER RE hclabedin oS. bee ope ape
Eriisiiatty A ISCTISSIOM: «os caiccs es <'ce oa tute cea ecg g anes pe ees See NTIS MOP ttl clo aici wists feo ia se Wits ee aaieg w.eia tuc'a.s gue Gusve'e eacé Biblioesnap liye ice ecisse sist oiec oversee 6 wip eters, wie siervelaie wieipjerans elevoreie/e, overs The post-Conquest ethnology of Central America............0..eeeees The post-Conquest ethnology of Central America: An introduction, DysPEderiCKMONHSOMNe. «20k ows nwr eae sesges sabes accnes p06 sie en's The Meso-American Division, by Frederick Johnson.............. TITEROC CEI ONIp err Peet te lovescte ciece ciclc @ sacsicoase) seis (ots: aisl stars Sioneye 0.0 euelens siete PUREE MR cnr eyakocee cies eee lale cia iia a a Se oe we Sudo oi nop Sla es eaes § ERDDOMEAD Ic eiciniicesdikacneacst sod siebeiedesosenase coe eee The Northern Highland tribes: The Lenca, by Doris Stone........ TEPER OME TOTO one cterese savate¥nis Giais whewsie mwisia eeig oislsaya pumcale WIA ARO oe oa MEE TMNT BV tesee ave rch vies ke vekoicnnue serayorcte taunesesichsheiajecsyenhance mien Suidas BaF TO Tee NU abe eevee rota voral cto teow ars vaiei8is eusunioustoume’ osiomiaarnaaissapieia The Caribbean Lowland tribes: The Mosquito, Sumo, Paya, and Oe cae me NID leek AI ER AMG ERERG ED: 35 lenge tna fee cosmic Sungei sallow wwinllalsoveiei a cue raigs eauGCUC Clete Pores meeIe erecta te oie \iaiar aie a intepriiayeie dua cecaus snes G > iegicpbe (Gal ture a parsvetencr More neweme rep ophaNe trove ote te)isioususkekereve loyn,aoueysysyolewelessisasjalsie.e
BS EER ISC TAPING be tarrctenct be atetatie ta tabe vais i seonsinleseies-caasevcjo'erere eve eiavekesyncemsyauaag.® The Caribbean Lowland tribes: The Talamanca Division, by Fred- ChIGKeMOMMSOIM tere whole eae rare ee Cheyer oye cleeacetalecahaje ‘ake. stavaiere sictieie eve apis ra brreOc tic bi Ompu sp atotevc\estel crs eheaeyoteveve¥erenels eferein @usis¥eileseie elexe]eiegsissiiyscele sire
Gal trite vine tort oh eehctalotrante volte ta iarorsfaravake teraeretebeisijeis cis vcversisioiswheverelesexoqaic
ESS HCE RN sc ea OEM aor igi ore erate laressieioiars @air cee ines a aise The tribes west and south of the Panama Canal, by Samuel K. ME CHEEAEUS TDS a ees NeteI eA tc bee ered ot aber Finke lala raceraiavovehernvo.aie wsa\@heisiagiunis aysigie ris GOMEHOMG cca ce. kar. See as sem palam seine < oie ue aslo arene ROSE E UT Mees, <Pabutte fave televars ta /ole too RCI Mane Gee tanya eG reine Waconia eeu ae
IES AE GMD te te: or cretatohataraictay wictatchaiaheub Pore giaioswanelovn syncoseia rein 3pssieouais Ts He rina Wy avid Be Stites, aialeverare@!srcavarerevsvexaresasncalers, oimternsoveceiay aang ROLES Ws eech shor kobe ranch, dak xaybvoinie i ovaisieusyeyaketeaenawinley oie) aleve ease Forty epee cL [OR bette ttc cease sig eh eye eie atc ou cones otahgtibslcleaaalovelansinimsahace/shals MHEACNGCOM DY MIAVIG Bic StOUt .toccrerereeevsiay overshcraravetaponentralesain,ortiastie\ers aysyai8 Gaal ue Pee ste onctaToneY Set ovayedtrobayicveyavahaiavchehoroyoneyemietelelaVersKsnonelepoKe=ne\s
UD ERSeeh VAR Von ef otatay ah shohanan shavsretohaveni wrshatot.ase'sharsrsKafai siniaiias S\srhMnsusko, aisha The Cayapa and Colorado, by John Murra.............ceeeeeeeeee Tia tari CEI OE a Mtete Shot ehevev avai ctakonelexel orebetovers) ol areVoverovssolinrevKonetokoKelekebapsroceyes= eR tS YADA ¥ Hated afer ctekavel tore) aiarcvatarcnetvononay ocastiars¥el aeons <faishaze) oka ejeeeiaroue a
ROTA ECaS SEIN fate ox sts epee tater vest chet ayn rancaey sy spare slenthoiniionavovmueyacave. <4. oighe
Wihie MSGlOraclentts SET eal saya s vats VEST ES atcha atetsletaly eivtngricl omiags,
RE TEESICE MOLES ANA Seis rels hake ah hsb anlar a orchal assay nisnelapayeisrcraergneain aaa. EAMONN wend akc. Sacare.s Heed ectevaltn ac cease. chert mist Sat Seaham sr abaaagn aie Anthropological needs and possibilities in Central America, by Wm. Dun- can Strong and Frederick Johnson............csceeseeeeeerevenvees EI RADUING Ose wists evelers ¢. 6 scsv ais 'slw Cigibls ORs) wie w'sA/Nae esis slay Ow BS
268 269 269 276 277 277 277 278 284 285 291
296 293
VIII CONTENTS
Part 2. The cultures of northwest South America.............0.eeeeeees Sub-Andean tribes of the Cauca Valley, by Gregorio Hernandez de Alba TOEFORUCHOEG HC: RAS g casas cies Winkle.b: a, sre vi aise 0a > peuaeapAR MRE le SENG DISC Ory sae £2 oy RN Aa iis onc, 5's hue tole Snare te iia iota sto Ee ER ees "LTIDES GLE UPPED AMC ACMIVED 6 ccc vo vs woe se 6 oan aus bah apm eee
MT TDATSLOCALIOIIS Moet ar i ares c.o.s'' ds ve walkie wie gap pate ote
APPLE CIE Mat AE sc SEER css os eek aon ayrtsups od see Tribes'ot the North Colombia Highlands... ....<..<ccsitsaSjeaentene'e © Mnibes:eastiotsthie Cauca Riviers. «clei <isl<)> 1 sa terelelaretnei paella rete
PD riDalwlOCAtOnSe oc « uccaph cts (epehchsiave teveusibinad selautiasiaMinaatenatoe
(Gis tiege tel copra A aes cesta sane Sa. Vasa anan 1a:as es ciisal arena Renee Tribes-oc-the ‘Cauca-Atrato Tegion. . « .s.aso5.0ps nai secude «sien
MG ale OCAtIONIS a am: sicsys exc serevecepeushs aettuia,cio{s¥ecieus shelled dalainieearnee
VEU COUUELING Pies ccois «v0 sw dod wees. So's apenas ete
cHE REN GANS TOL ISRO Wek sok = aichals Bisltele chile eles, cake che eee ieee
Be AUthy CONLUTY GAMO. a: <. «ain ainie <4 ial nisin aa, opine ao alel aban aias
CE NALEUSRO ae 55 SP esi, Heke scope hack ieacast tpl taess Balas cane
Trmpesol tne Province of, ADULA... «6 sacs +s aan tps en ADPUPAISOC ANTONIS] TE Soieic.c- i's. 6 isis « «cx 4 ied 0 atc ee sine eras
WO tates ac tiaviola nae wavtenw » a Migeiace wie warner SH] Lote AOL NGS LAN hese ey een ee aR eee een reesei pee RSA" Tribes of the North Colombia Lowlands, by Gregorio Hernandez de Alba LSIEF OGG EL OM Bist air OEE thos eveiane si bie Gis ayaie SS TORhd Gumereaae Roreeer eT
ELISTORY: | Sriheehctel ah Sica TRS Mlortiart. aca nadens, dia leit ine 0. 0/bape bree epee mena
RO ASEAN | Mere eee PETRI AUG a iss oqokibsvs spats, 218, oreicglt 3 oY ayy can cae ale EOP TANYGE aCe oaih a's a) vce ia aiel> no rm Rhee bie Sa oo 16 ee auld a anaes The Patangorovand Amani) by: Paul Kirchhoff...) 5... sso ses eps see Tntrodmctiorim vs. cite te eeatee al, cistete Said ve vel a a-s)avals.(oyersianerehs ey easter ae SUUIERIFE) ASE Sits nis Utes REIN iaia ae v0 ale 6 60a: mm orbs cn lage sient aaa ibn tee The northeastern extension of Andean culture, by Alfred Métraux and Parl” Kearrchih oitieseterece ne erseer® ost 0s foros Shes Sucve Tous os8s a [Giatevee veleneletelohares PaeMetareye Umtrocdtretromtucis terete store hc elacteve she: taal atenein nia c po eis nena letekolateiatntnctane ELISEO Taye Shae cis heer aie gn ase clave a oreiwrts eiatals ol ae aletolelone oe peeMtere terete Ui ARCEMIS HORSIE 4 55:5 <n S's s ans io oe alt 40 Savoie ghia eee Physical “appearance St tecis, «ccc 'ard.c.crttares ketteret epeeeioia © pip ats Ete hoteso aera CUIEOREAE «5 sc dewe ancien PRL OW cla Ge ar cme Eckl e.3 See a ele a er BIDUGSTADAY Ae ia oe ware dv ks Osaehw we hacks en open eee The Goajiro, by John M. Armstrong and Alfred Métraux.............. The TeetOtie stows hieetes<h von cad envied eN6ick areata Locatroniandehistoryes ccricctiitenc care sie-aie.e rg helesie.e, aaarepnve ol Seenree eee Physical:appearance we i. taoga aque Mate. geieteta stg sec <n < afew mamas eel LANSUASOM EOE cl sach cae cen as GbE NR CR NaN ns gto ae Culture hes BRS PRANAB Pl SRO cies 5 aaa ote Bible ra pinyn is 6 eiec ga sae aw wad Sp ae ane gona ng 3,8 Gere ate ene The Guayupeand Sae; by’ Paul’ Kirchhotie: oto) 525< bugis speed eee TritrOGtaetiertis sco cides wontsidea tia aetevero) bra ievele lave eave oe aeta, raved teas Ske a ee Calta eericiaic isis. orssre Fe ie EE Castie Pe Ea eon ate EV ae rate ee oe BUNT ae cunt xtns pair auc stan’ oly agate hres cals eatlgne tea es The Betoi and their neighbors, by Gregorio Hernandez de Alba......... PENDAIMIGEALLIOHS sh vcs. cen ves a Oe eee anon ae ov ee se eee tana Serena
PAGE 297
297 299 302 302 303 307 308 308 309 313 313 314 320 321 322 326 326 326 327 329 329 329 330 332 338 339 339 339
349 349 351 352 355 355 368 369 369 369 370 370 370 383 385 385 386 391 393 393
CONTENTS IX
The Betoi and their neighbors, by Gregorio Hernandez de Alba (contd.) rab PEAMARE Soc anmmsich Cob Oh hee RANGA ALES h eae hs vay MOL BELLE 393 EMIStGMCAlISQUEEGES, Cun cnt cme heW Nuch eek ere betes se beeeb ihe toes 394 CURES er EEaR Reon con Ornaments ANKE ERAGON Tbe ba oe, 394
The Achagua and their neighbors, by Gregorio Hernandez de Alba...... 399 PSA Peal WOE RE AAS) Piven elaha rat rn oat bare tea “arate tate'etolaalo'e i's Weehitact ewe e en eeets 399 EAISIOLY Pate Acie MELA CRC NGeS ASKS Ee Sil la' eles actoe eee. 400 AC HELE RIT op ees tae Urvatcte tors te aha Foley fa otavrar's ote tatetatatalatata alee deies Sete a ees 402
The archeology of Venezuela, by Alfred Kidder II................0000. 413 ADAEPOMUCHIONS cilhea is kW 6% 6 Kava wG 0% loteh tela mrroutre Bee La ie UE eee 413 Sourcesyand: histony of unvestigation.:..++.26%% seen otters see. 414 Regional presentation Of Cultures in cues wie c s eee one ee ae ee eels 415
Wowenr OrinocowRivers oa< 2 cose seas aoc POOR, Sees ce 415 Middley@ninocorRaverccacwencee eh ches iis ate ce iciete bioleles oittetee orate 417 Waper Orinoco River... cakes 60 ces cin eee sean eases eee ee’ 419 The TelaniGs) \RRAGN. ISIS OIE, I I te JO, SROs 419 alka WV alemiciann.tSkiarentnitews emteetccaerhee ite eeh ne Pomeeee eet 420 Northeast) Coast) ....0cinten~s iia lee lets 6% Slate CRMs OOM RE tre 424 BREDINOrERWESEH o's heise ee SRL AR ve Ce BERTIE NE DUET 6 425 AEA GENRINSS. AHA e nen nhs 66 eeRG OR Geeeh SO eu Tt 429 Sihrinary sand /COrcluSiongs i wncnnn cues sores nse eet sees ected bet 434 Pinttre.field worlkc-and: problems. «swiss 2s, teolwe sere Gand bes « Aric 437 BRO aay Wadec tse Meietd fase where ts rare tavere tee -orore s omiterole tormereeratets a cla Gaeta 438
TheiwOtomac bys Pauli Kirchhoiis 455. 40 ids wien nneinansnean see ae, 439 MNtFOAUCHON UR each Cea che eahventerbw ain wedmnwean e MAR Meee iets 439 Giltineenan ee ee ASG ISS. Ts RENEE RS TA AE 440 Bibliograpliyss LNs ks oT RN Bod fi TA ALTE. ADE SEARING Ae 444
Food-gathering tribes of the Venezuelan Llanos, by Paul Kirchhoff.... 445 iehuayatbtcri(oyal 99 Nn 5's eae aU EPR ora o 4 a HA Re Reo cto he acca 445 Pipnitinorouliihesi® 4.G5 ck cer ch des ackeauenuee 6 6ckee sa > Bak Sst 446
TheiGuahibos andii@hinicoa\. \.cei.n eee ch ame eretele we elan 446 Intro die tion se oes wi ers & ave eis hi ob hme nS SRA ER Oe Bie 446 History,csources; and demography: ssssnecase cbtealliser sc ss 447 Wane Tage foes oes Got widc ce RRR HO RT Reete ee ote e © 447 GaltAte, ccc cee sess oo ORME BAe ko eae ioasteat o: 447 Bibliography, | cic seitepe ras stee eee «Sele slob ofereceie piatereiel ets siete 455
The tGavons Luc sais kc welt tmeansh dsl be euionsmonsiie ter ls 455 BibWORTADLN, oviceor ests ve cele OO. be tam eee. 455
BiShineMCulitiness steps urbe tr oe bi re etiteerde seaerslla eye iets» 456
he MNarinoOles ccubosocceecemecr seer etc oreesss tee meroremrt 456 Introduction iene ceg coroner ec beeen be aes setemeiiet te 456 Gilt eee incc cde sece eee ebeebebeas sce treed 456
The Guamontey, Guamo, Taparita, and Atature..............- 463 IntroductOnsyentensecesevceb rs mecmorskini teehee: 463 (CoH) Poa en re ec aciaiortridcrttcmicats coc ng cdccou AG 465 Bibiostaahy..chaswens nee see decease oes sane oe welts e's oageeee 468
The tribes of northwestern Venezuela, by Gregorio Hernandez de Alba.. 469 MIG TCR ALICIS Ree Aa coe ace oe eb ehis ceteeamaee eben ewemesieee'sl 469 BATU BOT IA et eins as oss cine ea etc ci eeu nesses esieinacinem cies Shiai 469 EANStOMWM niece act ieee chains se ese ence ct sacs ccbs vans voacisine cess nes 469
Girlie cee ER ERE SUE oe see SIE DAUD oie bitrelbisieie. eleieie, cleats 470
x CONTENTS
PAGE
The tribes of north central Venezuela, by Gregorio Hernandez de Alba. . 475 ASDA AOCAUONS oa ele tactics sb.nee'hs ¢ ceed won es sue eeneeentioee 475 BLISHORY: “a since cis tsa Calie/steg tes «pele bonis aba e cis aan Rien eee. 476 CHIBI. cc ccweap Cee meena bo bas dads sbeocened ounces <aeee 476 The tribes north of the Orinoco River, by Paul Kirchhoff.............. 481 FetFOdCttOnoo5. oo 0,55 pas ein olus.o 0 holes a Sinus esa eosia o COREE eee 481 SUT gsc cicce le ia his PPL ee nie ae bod & Daenine mens one e a ae 481 PapT Se WVESE: IRGIES. <... s.0 5 sia oso 66 sual aaa pene sii wemnunen > See 495 The West Indies: An introduction, by Irving Rouse............eeeeeee 495 The Ciboney, by Irving Rouse.......... taba semble bu dae 2 Bee eee 497 EMETOGUCHON. . 0. oie. opie soe s = nla@lhaicabaleiitte dam’ selgvne setae Meeeieeer 497 ALCheOlo gy: oo0.535 since ceo ses aus alisidpieed das Sea RRCRRD eee : 497 Guliire: SEUteHCOS cos ais. e's.cca.4c in SOU ORR CURok a cee 499 THIStOny: cise avlepocsar ieee eur pe ona so's po ewes caintstantt Si emaets cre Ps 501 SOUTCES) i wlp.bincccins np eig # pbipa dp 608m pn ole oR ARIST w CONIC cee cr 503 The ethnology of the Ciboney, by Pedro Garcia Valdés..........eeeeee 503 AYN ow cx ue ose cous eure oyeatusie ce > wuss once Je nie ce sacw of otalabale Reet or eae erent 503 EEE he ois ola oo ae aie p wenn anes oaipre us wine sin ehtd.s «Seite nee eet 503 The Arawak, by Irvine ROUSt: so oc) s0 1000060000 2.sbtitiat Sa hee te clan 507 TritrOdiuctiOtn. ccc seis, o siete eis s Wises esis ook © aie wine vaho 00 9 RE erie tee 507
PAT CHEOIO OVE siastsiiaisiep iris oleminee erie ao olelttahebald wiawchs Retake stteredsatetevac 507 Culture Sequences, 5... 00505 sence ems bens eaes SHE eeekees 510
Te eral etepeepie arhee ah wired daasvawblesoscta ss HERROIee. 517 SOUNCES <6. 5.0,5.¢.0:6.5 0.0 6.0 1978 cojoe ie anos ww iale wie tohplohatelete claiciome che seiner oteae 520 TGRHOSTAONY, « oo penne ce pvcad seb siawes Assis sss yao onan teens 521 dhe, ethnography of Hispaniola: Taino............s0sanssewententhis 5 522 The ethnography of Hispaniola: Ciguayo............06. Lit tient 539 The ethnography of Puerto Rico, by Adolfo de Hostos............ 540 ERIMUAMON . sinc isenves nae eerie be eniek Me er 540
CCUTPUIEE: . ood < <.c-0 idee aiais uns a0 « v e:anininle Sumter aise rena odieekl 540 The,ethnography. Of Cuba. «a:<.c:. «sclnattinaiel telae « Sta eMee et Shaves 542 POpulation. +. oi6cww vis aban ss 0 0 cies neue es RiGee een ene cieretierstar 542
CITE. «-o.0'0 0.00 de We RAEN Oo oelAeie allt laaidareh ee ita ae ae eee 542 Theethnography. Of Jamaicaca.esvrcvvesy cues o contieneeaeneln wal 543 The. ethnography. of. the- Bahamas... svi 0u0 0t00.0 oct uiniuistewese sle 544 The ethnography. of the Virgin Islands. .«... (05:9 seetidales vee ee ne 544 The ethnography of the Lesser Antilles..............ceeeescecceee 545 Theethnoeraphy: of. Trinidad... is vs s-cts <oniceie cme ens as ealeaie 545 The. Garib,-by Irving Rouse... 2.00000 tees scuwa sive. ce eiaeets ante as 547 Introduction: Vin se series eon eeu seen enwnee vy er eh latl ee oteraenierletetetste 547 ATCheOlopy: <tisisine nev es.s 0-6 vives scat cere obiuleia hie wankers Siahs 547 PRIStOEY id cs akin sees Sonat vAWwe sewn nee bee 4 ans co Cnet emer se 547 SOMES wu aps é vin sMRERT SS RHE St RG Le Pe Mae eels alo eee heel eennteteres ‘ 548 EPRUGSTADIN | swicine ows w svn mrswibinn iw sninrsiae eva sinelelotent te eer ennEe saute 549 Bibliography, pe viece vines ceived ovis asic sleie ¢ anidedee eee eames 565
PMBUORTAPDI: «.s)v:ei0 s cie.e sive osieieeundoain osiaise einen sia'e oss SURO aoe ee 567
ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATES
1. Ceremonial cache and urn and skull burials, Honduras.............e005
2. North Coast Appliqué style vessels, northeastern Honduras.............
mm Nottmerst Coast Honduras pottery typeS.........- «000 000saseebiocecke
4. Stone and metal work, Bay Islands, Honduras..............cccecccecce
RuliGnMuras Ceramic and MarDle Vessels... ...s0 ccc cawsaess coaakBiceedae
Gritionduras pottery Styles ANG TYPES... 0.0. ccveec anes cine occ oa gieieclasi® ales
Maubrore Geomelttc Style? POUL y’. «.'< <o.sis's «cs s.c..0'o's.0 womieayetd ne fielensvearacesahejersie
8. Ulua Polychrome vessels, Mayoid style, Santa Rita type, Santa Rita, Hon-
CE ASMPN Ce er ectals, crate nccie stove ie a.v.s\o! ras Sam Ads emai ak mabe aeae
9. Yojoa Polychrome vessels, Lake Yojoa, Honduras............ecceceess
10. Yojoa Polychrome and other vessels, Lake Yojoa, Honduras............ fee aviv ceramic ty Pess ELONGULAS. osc. ¢ o c.c.c.cvssc.c,s:cicl eine oo equate dlaisiewe,¢ ose 12. Playa de los Muertos style sherds and figurines, Honduras.............. jiomotone state ald seats, Centrale Nmenicac. sacl alal-cs c+ cicjorersicicle elevesouevsiess fey stone artifacts from ‘Costa Rica and Nicaragua... ...,. aeeeiaee obineiansitie PE SOME ICAT VISES (COOSEATINICH © c.cth cei 't 5 «+, o/c.o:s cts .c,0 0 s.0,0 6 oxssemmuntony o fomerhante 16; Nicoya Polychrome, Costa’ Rica and Nicaragutas .)2) « ...\< .:c selels's Secjeed aie by, Central Americantaoldworks and (pottery... ¢2<f0e's< vices aerinalelele ojersiee sie me ential Americanmpottery CY Pes. cat as vie fe) <<, sisie) a cw Steve) o apspsiefO yale! eisywind ous Io wATiiacts fron Darien, Ub atlaina sis sqcmieb. lane ted stetets sciste sucrorepetellole Sareyssoiciets Pe ATttAacts it Oni OGLE wie anialiale Aare, sisysrsfoyert ofererd anoles) apr aterenanchetels: Stan) ops fisie ai Pripod styles from: Costa Rica and Honduras. «os... ..0,00,0+ 6 aarpeitinele sndie 22. Some basic Central American ceramic typeS......escccesccsecnccovsene 23. Efizy. vessels from (Central (AmMeriea).jin cs. .joatrssiecarealle najyeawiecieepyste oyeye.s 24. Central American pot legs, lugs, stands, figurines........scesesceceecces oe Centrale American Combat Coty CSiye e o-e1s) fe) rss) slcMoye)esols lotnta'el =) t1etattiars|s)«\syeveislexaks 26. Stone seats or metates from Central America.........cseeceesereeeeers 27. Stone peg figures from Costa Rica and Guatemala..........sseeeeeeees 28. Stone peg figures from Costa Rica and Guatemala.........eseeeeeeseees 29. Stone sukia and animal figures from Costa Rica and Honduras.......... ay Stone ballsim. the Verraba Platten. oo. .0.0.00.0.0.0 0000 peers te ad's ols sipisleein ea.d'e 31. Petroglyphs, Honduras and Costa Rica.......-.e+ee0- Ea Fan Ue Ce 32. Stone grave markers from Honduras.........eseessceceersseeecsoence EPIC OTe THAR LACEUTES, 5; 5,010, yo/eveie. ayaiota yop eueyeysisayse 0,6 opty pro +mparseies exdhagel Gi ejajane arajiys Ree enry oa Mad 1171S), mene IE ta Wes chaxe, jms opeadlaveyaa.0 a) sicbeteuetol® oyacan's ousiejexd Somniinpavas 35. Sumo and Mosquito Indians, Nicaragua.........eeeseeeseeeesvoeeeee Be Summamianeactiieesy a smi sisters: coeur as eee teal faible apts spesrreyths nape stains sap sie 37. Guaymi farming and foodstuffs...........ceeeecereeeeeeserccerersene 38; Guaymil fish traps... 20. vec nec snc se onde cece conc cccccscevieesecisevioes 39. Hip-roofed house of the Guaymi...........ceceerer ener enone ee renneee 40. Guaymi shelter and loom weaving. ........eeseeecceeee ee neeeeeeeeneees 41, Valienti (Guaymi) bags, Panama..........ceseeeeee rene et see eeeeeeees 42. Guaymi pottery making...........ccscecccceccecccsnmececccarenreecees RN (Eda DMMEEASTIS 10 ic sis acc <isje nose cea see seain ocniees ees anemamicmnns om 44, Southern Guaymi burial......... ccc cee e ee cee cere ence scence enrereess 45. Guaymi men in ceremonial costumes........seeceeeeeseceesceeeeseeees 46. Guaymi ceremonies and ceremonial dress........sssseeseereerereeeeecs 47. Guaymi balseria cereMmony.......sseeeecerrecer cece cceeereeercssenes AB, Guaymi man ....ccccseccecscsccccccccsscccesccccoscescasscccesesece PON tira Athi PAEtS: cca sciinitie cewuins cs cle onde oise cise seaceweceneas caecuse®
XII ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE BO; (Cuna- ceremonial Objects: ac. vive Pe bees Gee cens bt REY 0c 268 Bae. Cima WOOUEHE IEEISHES renee ts cokes cei es ccc eerea aan te Seca cee eee cat 268 ae. Cunatinnemonic pretire-writilt... sss sales ccs vests etetee een aeaks oa 268 ney \CHOCOMarEaCtSc i) eae eae hh te celak ee eee cen cane Ore tre ote 276 Be. CHGEO Artifacts enon See eee eee eee ee eee Feuer 276 ay Chocorartigacts satis sloee cen ioe roe tine te eee mene 276 BO: (CHOCGPIAGIATIS Nreetes tN POLE Ie le os Ot ie Soe ee eee eee 276 AMC AVE NAaMOUSES ANd VILA BE”. .."st'sltititta scteleutelsalelu re toe toes Pee eee 284 ae. Colorade houses; ‘early 20th century... 2. cette See eA eee 284 50 “Colprade and? Cayapa’ Trad range ss" '3viets is'e's sissies ss o's o's se Pele Oe eee 284 wu, Colorado and *Gayapa “Indians rt. Pete 4. Fk EEO, Pee 284 ol. “Motiones” (Macoalie,Chakée) village irfes 27 02'2 PPS. PPT ae 364 fe, Motitones!) Ini raivish ho 7 fetes eats 'sh staal ee oe ee ee ee 364 63. “Motilones” (Macoa, i.e... Chaké) carrying devices...............00005 364 a4 Motionese (GMliacoa, t.e"Chake)) Indians+..2..es02.21 ese eee 364 Gr. Motilones” costames tate Ue OS Ps PRY, UE Re 364 mo, “Motilones” weaving taconite corer tt AI Ae 364 G7.. “Motilonmes® (Macoa,i:e:;Ghake)} crafts: 222220) Abi SOV ee 364 68. “Motilones” (Macoa, i.e., Chaké) musical instruments and fire making. . 364 Oo! ““Motilones\?shidians: 1s tects etre ce rere ees ee oe ee Pe ee 364 76. “Motilones”(Macoa; 1:e.; Chaké). Indians. Jf. tPA 364 71. “Motilones” (Macoa, i.e., Chaké) Indians of the Sierra de Perija........ 364 72, Goajirot indians *strsee cette SO RAS BB eee 380 73. Earky’and late Ronquin pottery, Venezudla io) 520 e ey SPE tT 428 74. Pottery from various Venezuelan regionS............ccdecccccccsssces 428 75. Pottery and stoneware of the Andean region, Venezuela................ 428 70, Venezuelan’ archeological’sitesz a). ieee one ee ee 428 77. Guahibo" Indians ‘nec. (eet EO, SRR EL TK, HO 468 76, Guahibo* Indians» Sikuant tribe? Ay). tes, Bae. SP eae 468 73. landscapes “of? Hispaniola ® Pest ste, UES Sa SOE A OT 500 st. Cuban‘ landscapes 6) Ae Pie ee), SOT, Wee OE ee 500 81, The Manrabon ‘hills ‘Cubavcr:.): ccc PR, OP SE 500 S2. Cuban landscapes’ .*.e.etcstectce seers es Sea ee 500 aa. Antillean ‘landscapes! 4.1.10 vant ite os PRA A, BUDE OE ae 500 Sf Cibonéyrartifacts: from “Cubaieee ss sche teter is ieretaratetetarater tesco Rie 500 25. Ciboney artifacts from Elaity.-) ut ota atiatone vate eater eee uae 500 Bo; Arawak'sites in'the West Indies 2 esis. BIO. POI RRe 532 a7, Arawak pottery from the West Indies: o..223.04553<245.09 ee 532 88. Arawak stone and bone work from the West Indies.................... 532 89. Arawak shell and woodwork from the West Indies.................... 532 90. Arawak history and ethnography in Hispaniola..............0+seeeees 532 91. Arawak ethnology and plants in Hispaniola...) ...0..00...0.0.b 0. cee dbs 532 92 Arawals ‘darice to the earth coddess. +1045. Sees oe ae ee 532 03, Carib Indians and artifacts... 6.1.1 sie vie stele alate sts te ey wae 564 Oa” ‘Carib Gianataceires 5's‘. aie'e'vse's a e's tar elete pleteratotnts etn/tctets tots Telefe lerae eee mee 564 ObwCarib’ wak’ dance i.e ee als aloo tote wis Telote lates hw (st the 6 Gate etna a ne 564 OG, Cubafi descendants of the Arawale....:.5 oe ees see ee ee 564 D7, Cuban descendants 'of the’ Arawak. 227. YUP 2 2 A eee ee 564
OS Carib descendants *.'.°.12055 ciate ee ne leteletotene Tees tote alelote ate een tote aie Oe ere 564
ILLUSTRATIONS
FIGURES
. Sketch map of the Plan Grande site, Bonacca, Bay Islands, Honduras. . . Incised design on erect stone at ceremonial site on Claura River, north-
CASTEEIN EN OIIGEITASH CH iat tela clic eke ao toieep aol eisiavapbis 6 Sisieqa Guapalie cia sie
. North Coast Appliqué style vessel forms, Bay Islands, Honduras....... . Bold Geometric style, San Marcos type pottery, Bay Islands, Honduras.. . Bay Island Polychrome vessel forms and carved steatite image, Bay
PSS mRPOMMUTAS Re ere Aetcemtecias © seuss si? P cage ee eee Sie oe erage yc eye eee
. Bay Island Polychrome pottery, Bay Islands, Honduras................ . Sketch map of the lower Ulua and Chamelecén Rivers, Honduras....... . Sketch map showing archeological sites around north end of Lake Yojoa,
Tian claiecnte ere eat Sir Co Torcici ch srol/@ oketc ns Sicie wick pievereserehsv overs ne Agen are iad
. Stratification at Playa de los Muertos, Honduras.............0.. 20000 ee _ Vessel forms of the Playa de los Muertos style, Ulua River, Honduras. .
. Vessel forms of the Playa de los Muertos style, Ulua River, Honduras... \ JETTA) Sone Gel bie Me aco siccnice uadou Godan. Savane wcooor me Anigo Cambenannp law eT ONGiunaSan qctphaeicts © -e)1< 1 o1’siaiclals aleshetneueasephec si Hottery vessel.from, Denammpiia, Honduras: oi... «o.0.0.0i6 00 <a.» opayata wale Paden = . Temporal relationship of ceramic styles and types, Northeast Coast and
Pilia-v O1Od TEPLONS , PLONGULAS . 6.5.5 craic wots eicieisin a se sae weave © arm hoeyss
mevigunds on Zapatero (sland, Nicaragtia. fo.) ve. ctae «css oss’ clebeydg ehipaie = “Stone sculptures from Costa Rica and Nicaragua. . 0... . ne iilede Sinan MBtinialsgathleasy Guacast@ostay Gd tarps cys titel isielale <iotetisiey< fois erable ors . Costa Rican and Nicaraguan pottery of the Pacific area..............+4. , (Comey STEEN irony werden pol conodbauUEbOosSogeDoD ooo OHO aT OC auoe og onc Jade pendants Nicoya, Peninsula, Costa! Rica.cns s0s:«.)h <j. weableyep aceaseslen 6 wWosta Rica stone Spear-thrower Pegs. marae. aoteiswlie - -forelevateets «me eieeie ae most hican carved stone Slabsi). .l02.44 Lb. byes tua he Real eee e- . Costa Rica and Nicaraguan pottery of the Highland area.............. , MIGENES ier (Czineixa, (Gocuel hlelagus pobeoueae moods Docenc \Gb5 Soonddas . Burial mound and general map of Las Mercedes, Costa Rica............ WEOOCIE SLAVE WAI. oe aaers.y 455914414) OEE D ale «SR RAs TERRY dell 20. BED . RTE es SD ach 23 Shee Ghia IOS ODOUR OC OC pC eratinn be chic tec a-c Color *key, for Cocke Potlery, gi, eas s doves <lovelavouchesesesslcverelelt devak leletoteoietoleiare oN mbative PolychrontemGocle jac. patie, oaegiete sla ad aeris bow MERU Gots aI . An Early Polychrome spouted effigy vessel, Coclé.....:......eeee seers PASM GhYCHLOME MCOCIEs acl «paoac: sa Soe 04.6 Soares €otas Mee waciaalee tae Mpls ya Oly Chromed GOGLEt sais o disis widens! ake 4 olin ceinhebels) tole cceveusbopte see ree MEAL CM Oly Chinomert COLE sss atic. by oeinOoo sis cisinanc ial eieteseisiere% hous anita emeistors Mubate a olyennoimes \(GOClEs tes. at sss: do code cintn Sia incor se ale Madama MMASCEL ANECOUSMLOCIE POLERYSTYDES). .b 5 20de = « ofeisip a)o, sis oie, distobefeumhas, dd alae) soe BMUOCLE FVOLY Ali OLA WOTK «(5 sree 0ia{o:6,0,01aiso ww sla, alee Cla wisrs ai So Saseaia-clenge MLE] CAN RMAATTICTIEN ATA asa te techs crave a cis ual Sete nyalecnbe Beas 45 indie ofa we BVA <ieists PROCS UGA ENGINES i aiaieic oij00s 6 ae sors gsi & neie Sete ase ae Rina eae eee ie, Percrelldeanigd eMMmerald PEHUAMESS chs css aa <'a:0.ac,z4soaceke « aba \o Sass sudoyaye on vaeantts POP rapt. CMiriguitCOUNthy oss sss i 1s oes s sagoe’s Sa vp oe oh ame tug hated PRUNES REEVE TAVDOSEM Tis sel. Sees tions ala sea ea eoieto Whee OLA pie ile aad had SMOIITIGH Se SlORE IMELALCSulainry s Wak «iets ate Ys dS Mam ee: Aolaghch Sk qh ease elie PAC HIT UIES LONE MMCTALES Of) SLODIS a.4).10 cee eeisiain.ayassia-ataie's 2aek Cebd oie-w « Bayete
XIII
PAGE 73
75
77 78
80 82 84
86 94 95 97 105 109 110
113 122 123 125 126 129 130 130 133 134 137 139 148 149 149 150 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 156 157 158 161 163 163 162
xIV ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Any MG HIEIGUS SLONE SCALIEGH. oA iacsiloc biases din siaro vr. aisiwie, 6, eeciethsa'e.ed auel aigyeracam ene meen 164 46. Chiriqui pottery types......... Biche. sgue'n sh; vaste miosieua Mate cass pare ana abnsa oi SuaLa Oo 165 ate oTTAACAANE 1 H00 ETETRU hoa teas wash etal elated ekcse leit e =.) 0 ms his om SiRe yal sons Shaw aiigerm legal 166 AS raeenCa! HHOUSE te esissc-s,crn crsteteie eienerer erate Paitis 6 0 nis eis /avssttovevescleys selatecelavsieeistenetele ciere 207 40) enca swoiian SiOress:; Sarita Mena soc. «4 4, sini 0,5 a5 dispeseiamisis, suai iey sh eisca pein ¢ 209 50. Fundamental framework of Southern Guaymi hip-roofed house....... 235 51. Framework of Southern Guaymi hip-roofed house with rafters added... 235 Se wsUAVINEGNOUSEMOIG , TUTINSHINGS 2, 6.4/9. vid iew oa 5:d/alcvesiounieislass vie aie elaespaalo gis 237 So Gilaye applique clothine GESISTS: 6... ore, ss. 5.0 0:2 5 gece eve) e000) 0 9: Sgafoigen jain 239 Eee aN eda CB ETAT ESSERE IO be eo osc tebs va cs tetel dil oases 0. sia) aie catopaia segs: ale;ceneger scare; siege 's/okalonaiohaleianaisl' 242 Boye Gitawil SOM GEG EACCO TIDES foe bigs a/aln:cis 7a\s aiefs, 5 0.0 .ellss/e/9,01 5) /ainiotp 5 dpalaneeinsans 243 56. Guaymi technique in making beadwork collars...........eceeseeceveees 244 Ae ties aaa PAE tea ne, Reet ci es ileta le ti SEN is Sales Eustace laa Pele ls sais 6:<uegens oreraondie alae 248 SUE Teh Seek jhhe Ghani! 1c onl Mee gee ae Cn enae Aape e- RE Pee boy P 257 BGs Granen waited “tea ISAM LAPCS els. 4\+ siatess ois ca, o)8iaep yes pavalovigia cha. ¥ shegss<sym.eqrvelave aielemts 262 GUM tana atisi call simsbiiimentsieycyepscetcccreveo cielo seis si0icuesosobvs sai crevei csp el sie ereperekeleleerses 265 Glen Chocoswoodenl seatsrand sheaGnrestsmeren cieirs.s ac: cies cicvsrsielevejevereletercverntetslclelelets 269 G2 Chocoybodysormamentatlon cis sei eeielsveleiatele cleiel cle isidicte siale wiclevalsiaie) elerclalereyet 270 Sig \GLNe Selatan tSoi) 71) (ol ean aM aie eae ale hed Pe tea eM h tt pee recicas 4 271 Oa SIME OREOLLELY Barta re eo rece as esta Sie OMe lt nM tateieladeraie Revetia etatetete caiman 272 Gor VeHOCOMPOnErY: ati lda Soles td termes Te a a IPR ee toateiete Zfe Gir CHOOSE CES No nc ciaie cis stanetate tetera eae eee trot eine Pa OR temo 274 Gye Moaticnes: axchute: seis. PRR ee Ue Oe, Bre, SR ta 366 68 incised:pottery; eos Barrancos; Venezuelan 7c Mise e allele aes cele ote & 416 69. Pottery adornos, Los Barrancos, Venezuela... . 0.00. sc ec cece cesceceees 416 Fume otteryiirom: Malne WValencia-siitcsic.icc tats ta'ahitetatetutn talets ate et lale ae Mate titeels Mite 416 71. Lake Valencia pottery adornos and shell objects, Lake Valencia Phase... 416 72ALake Valencia. figurine, Valencia Phase. ..22% [0/222 2. See 416 75. arly: Ronqiin painted! pottery sc. oc eces do0 0c SCOR SUE TOTS BES. 418 7#ulake Valencia. ficurine) *"Valenciat Phase? ot Seen, Oe Bee, 423 Jee Carache painted “potter yecrers craisitsscrsrerovetereterorctar te Meta Poe ohare Mele aenaaae 427 76; Pottery of the northwest’ Venezuela repion. .59 A. ee oe eee 428 7#e Artifacts.of the Andean, region,. Veneztaela....:.:c.c:eceersieievsisieters adele sind alee 431 FGM ASIAH IDO HGUSENC DOO) hshevey tela iasct ater arorspciaietatetatarenerataralarcterarctanstetatehotatletel ene eat 449 ZIM Gurahthoc House CSOrmetO,) We iiicoiessiese ey sherereheraverctaner ote otdelone Me obietoe eee eatate 450
MAPS
PAGE
IeCulture areas treated. 1m VW Oltumiercpacsctenicicie esis silos erereisersiorieieleiereicol eae eiale XX 2. Phe native tribes OL CemtFal AMeLiCa. .s cad cv scp ies Agecau © oaks eae eee 50 She archeology Of Central (Americas «osc vis sisis scajele seis «06 site's mp cists ale 72 4. The archeological cultures of Panama in the 16th century............4.. 144 5." he contemporary tribes or Ceritral Americas obo o 0c. e we ndese cemeigens 196 6. The native tribes of Venezuela and lowland Colombia...............08: 350 PAE ATCHEOIORY OL VEHEZUCIA wc cicdicss co pete e'e ¢ 7005 is wie cajyeistgnte ete iieree 416 Seer he tribes and: cultiires:or the Antilles oo. vhiccc ais ciecisias siesianeieneiine 498 OT he apoticinal provinces (Of Cuba... cesic ms sg eles oe sis ec eaelasiinian wenie 502 10" The aboriginal proyinces"of Hispaniola oo soe cu ne wanes vcs es ams 529 11. The principal villages of Puerto Rico and their chiefs............++0.05 541
PREFACE
By Jutian H. STEwarp
It has always been supposed that the cultures of the Antilles and northern Venezuela should be classed with those of the Tropical Forests. Northern Colombia and Central America have been puzzling, however, for, though archeology reveals the presence in these areas of many elements of Mexican and Andean civilizations, the modern tribes are definitely Tropical Forest in character. The difficulty has been that the ethnology is known mainly from fairly recent studies of the few extremely deculturated tribes who remain and that the archeology has not been linked to the historic peoples except in a few instances.
Lothrop’s summary (1937) of the ethnography found in early docu- ments of the Conquest period of Panama and his archeological work at the late pre-Conquest site of Coclé furnished cultural evidence of peoples who can scarcely be recognized as the precursors of the modern Cuna. More recently, Kirchhoff has undertaken a thorough perusal of all the available early chronicles bearing on the peoples around the Caribbean Sea, and he points out that, far from having a primitive culture such as that observed among their descendants of the past century, these tribes were actually highly developed. He finds also that the general pattern and content of these cultures were strikingly similar in most of the Circum-Caribbean area. It was mainly at his suggestion that the editor segregated the articles on the tribes of this area from those of volume 3 of the Handbook and grouped them in the present volume.
As the cultural relationships of tribes and groups of tribes cannot always be known-until all the articles are assembled and viewed as a whole there are several instances, as seen in retrospect, in which tribes are placed in the wrong volume or in the wrong part of a volume. The Circum-Caribbean culture, or, as it is called in Colombia, the Sub-Andean culture, certainly includes the tribes of the South Colombia Highlands and of the Sierra de Santa Marta who are described in Volume 2 on the Andean civilizations. In fact, the Chibcha of Colombia are not properly classifiable as true Andean. Had it been possible to divide the volumes on a consistent cultural basis, the Chocé, Cayapa, and Colorado of western, lowland Colom- bia and Ecuador, the peoples west of Lake Maracaibo, and those of the lowlands of eastern Colombia should have been included with the Tropical Forest tribes who are described in Volume 3, and the hunting and gather- ing tribes of the Orinoco Basin and the Ciboney of the West Indies might
XV
XVI PREFACE—STEWARD
have accompanied the Marginal peoples who are treated in the same volume.
The archeology is also somewhat divided between volumes. Special articles on the archeology of Central America, Venezuela, and the Antilles are presented in the present volume along with the ethnography. The archeology of Colombia, however, has been presented as a whole in Volume 2, although some of the prehistoric remains are undoubtedly attributable to the tribes encountered by the conquistadors.
One of the greatest difficulties in preparing the present volume was the direct result of the paucity of information on both the archeology and ethnography. As few of the aboriginal tribes survive today, ethnologists have largely ignored the area. Archeologists have done little but make surveys, except in the West Indies. It was consequently extremely dif- ficult to find contributors who had a sufficient background of information to prepare articles without an enormous amount of original research, especially in the chronicles of the Conquest. Some groups of tribes were nearly omitted for want of someone who could do the necessary research. On the whole, the early sources have been used considerably less than was hoped, but the coverage of the area has been completed. The editor is especially grateful to Dr. Hernandez de Alba for preparing last-minute summaries of the tribes of western Colombia and of the Caquetio, Achaqua, and others in Venezuela. Hernandez de Alba’s articles are not exhaustive studies; they are merely preliminary essays hurriedly written to fill in gaps in the Handbook coverage in order to account for the more important tribes and to give the general features of their culture.
The Circum-Caribbean area is not only the least known of all South America, but it is perhaps the most important to problems of native American culture history. The editor and contributors feel with con- siderable satisfaction that the articles have succeeded in bringing a great deal of order to the previously confused anthropological picture of this area and that a basis is provided for future research on many fundamental problems that the Handbook helps point out.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The editor wishes to express his gratitude to the Handbook staff and the Smithsonian editorial staff which have performed the enormous task of preparing the manuscripts, illustrations, and bibliography of this volume.
For permission to publish the illustrations used in this volume we are grateful to the Museo Nacional, San José, Costa Rica; the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology of Harvard University ; the Museo Nacional of Tegucigalpa, Honduras; the American Museum of Natural History, New York City; the Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian
PREFACE—STEWARD XVII
Institution, Washington, D. C.; and the American Geographical Society, New York City. We acknowledge also the kindness of the following individuals who furnished photographs for illustrations to the articles of this volume: Mrs. Doris Stone, Monseigneur Federico Lunardi, Dr. Frederick Johnson, Mr. Gerard Reichel-Dolmatoff, Dr. Alexander Wet- more, Llewelyn Williams, Batista Venturello, and the late John Verrill and Theodoor De Booy.
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CONTRIBUTORS TO VOLUME 4 OF THE HANDBOOK OF SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS
ARMSTRONG, JOHN M., Washington, D. C.
GREGORIO HERNANDEZ DE ALBA,! Bogota, Colombia.
ADOLFO DE Hostos, Official Historian of Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico.
FREDERICK JOHNSON, The Robert S. Peabody Foundation for Archaeology, Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass.
ALFRED KippER II, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
Pau KircHHorr, Escuela Nacional de Antropologia, Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, México, D. F.
SAMUEL K,. Loturop, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
ALFRED METRAUX,? Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C.
Joun Morra, Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.
IrvING Rouse, Department of Anthropology, Peabody Museum of Nat- ural History, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
Jutian H. Stewarp,? Institute of Social Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D, C.
Doris STONE, San José, Costa Rica.
Davin B. Stout,* United States Naval Reserve.
Wan. Duncan Stronc, Department of Anthropology, Columbia Um- versity, New York, N.Y.
PEDRO Garcia VALDES, Pinar del Rio, Cuba.
948
1 1 Present address: Director, Instituto Etnolédgico de Popayan, Universidad del Cauca, Popaydn, Colombia.
2 Present address: Department of Social Affairs, United Nations. 8 Present address: Department of Anthropology, Columbia University, New York, N. Y.
4 Present address: Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NemY..
XIX
1 - CENTRAL AMERICA 2- COLOMBIA - VENEZUELA 3-7HE ANTILLES
5 xe 2 aac an ea So eae 22 ee
Map 1,—Culture areas treated in Volume 4. (Stippled, the Tropical Forest Tribes, Volume 3; hachure down-slanted to left, the Andean Civilizations, Volume 2; and hachure down-slanted to right, the Marginal Tribes, Volume 1.)
THE CIRCUM-CARIBBEAN TRIBES: AN INTRODUCTION
By Jutian H. STewarp
The tribes described in the present volume are on the whole perhaps the least known ethnographically of any in the areas covered by the Handbook. Whether insular or on the mainland, they were readily accessible from the coast and were quickly overrun by the Spanish con- querors. The great majority of them have long been extinct culturally if not racially. Practically all that survive today were dislocated from their aboriginal habitats to new and often drastically different regions, and for 400 years they have been subject to influence not only from the Spaniards but from the descendants of Negro slaves who penetrated most of the Caribbean islands and coast.
In the Colombian Highland and North Coast Lowland the tribes have entirely vanished as cultural entities, and the only peoples now classed as Indians are a few refugee groups in the low rain forests of the Atrato River and the Pacific coast regions, the much acculturated, cattle-raising Goajiro on the Goajira Peninsula, some scattered primitive groups in the llanos and jungle on the western tributaries of the upper Orinoco River in eastern Colombia, and various culturally modified tribes around Lake Maracaibo. In Venezuela the descendants of the aborigines north of the Orinoco River are much mixed racially and have lost most of their native culture, the main exception being a considerable number of Warrau in the swamps of the Orinoco Delta. The Antillean tribes may be said to be extinct. In Central America the principal surviving Indians are the Cuna of Panama, a few remnant groups in Costa Rica, the Mosquito and their neighbors of the lowlands of eastern Nicaragua, and strongly Hispanicized Indians of Honduras, especially the Lenca.
The chroniclers of the Conquest left relatively few and very fragmentary accounts of these tribes, though it is probable that more systematic utiliza- tion of their writings, both published and archival, will supply fuller pictures of aboriginal ethnology. Few of the surviving tribes have been visited by ethnologists. Professional studies have been made, though not all of them have been published, only of the Lenca, Guaymi, Cuna, Chocé, Cayapa, Cégaba, Ica, Goajiro, Macoa (Chaké or “Motilones’), Yaruro, and Warrau.
2 SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS [B.A.E. Bull. 148
The Circum-Caribbean area has many archeological remains including mounds, burials, stone sculpture, ceramics, metallurgy, and other evidences of a rich culture. South of the Maya frontier in Honduras, however, these have received little more than superficial surveys. Coclé in Panama and Tairona and San Agustin in Colombia (the last two described in vol. 2 of the Handbook) are exceptions. Only the Antilles have been worked with any thoroughness. Elsewhere the remains have not been dated sequentially in relationship to one another, and few have been identified with tribes occupying the regions at the Conquest. These materials, therefore, must be used with great caution in rounding out the ethnographic picture, for many of them may have great antiquity.
A comparison of data from the modern tribes with those from the earlier chroniclers and from archeology shows that all but the very back- ward and isolated tribes have suffered drastic changes. Gone are the intensive horticulture, the dense population, the large villages, the class- structured society, the mounds, temples, idols, and priests, the warfare, cannibalism and human trophies, the elaborate death rites, and even the technological and esthetic refinements evidenced in the early metallurgy, weaving, ceramics, and stone sculpture. The modern tribes who retain a predominantly aboriginal culture have come to resemble the Tropical Forest tribes (Handbook, vol. 3) rather than their own ancestors. They carry on small-scale slash-and-burn farming, and many of them now hunt and fish more than they till the soil. They live in small villages, weave simple cloth, and make only plain pots. Their society is unstratified, their religious cults are scarcely remembered, and the principal survival of former days is the shaman.
THE BASIC CIRCUM-CARIBBEAN CULTURE’
SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS PATTERNS
The tribes carried on intensive farming, which outranked hunting, gathering, and fishing in its productiveness and which supported a dense population and large villages. The typical community was a large, com- pact, planned village of several hundred to several thousand persons. It consisted of pole-and-thatch houses arranged in streets and around plazas, and it was surrounded by a palisade. In the village were temples, special residences for chiefs, and storehouses.
1 Dr. Paul Kirchhoff, who has been engaged in a thorough study of early accounts of the tribes around the Caribbean Sea, called attention to the fact that at the time of the Conquest there was great similarity between most of the tribes, attesting close historical connection. Unfortunately, his study could not be completed in time to utilize the results in the Handbook, but it is hoped that he may soon publish his detailed comparative survey of these peoples. The present summary is essentially a synthesis of the data in this volume and in the second volume of the Handbook, and it should be considered in connection with the comparable summary of the cultures of the Tropical Forest tribes given in volume 3 of the Handbook,
Vol. 4] THE CIRCUM-CARIBBEAN TRIBES—STEWARD 3
Society was characteristically stratified into three or four classes. The village chief stood at the social pinnacle, and in some areas he ruled over federations of villages or tribes. Characteristically, he lived in a large house, received tribute, had many wives and retainers (in Colombia he married his full sister, as among the Juca), wore special insignia and orna- ments, was carried by his subjects in a litter, and at death his body was either mummified or desiccated and placed in a special house or temple, or it was buried, accompanied by wives and servants who were stupefied and interred alive (fig. 27), and often the chief’s image was placed on the grave. There was rarely an organized priesthood, for in most of these tribes the shaman, and in some the chief, functioned as intermediary be- tween the people and their gods. Similarly, the noble class tended to merge with that of the chiefs, except where extreme stratification occurred.
The basic social arrangement would have been one of chiefs and common people except for extreme development of warfare, which served the social hierarchy in several ways. Captive men were usually put to death for cannibalistic feasts and for human trophies, both of which enhanced their captor’s prestige. Women were usually annexed to their captor’s house- hold, either as wives or servants, and their number was a measure of their master’s social standing. Wealth was a major factor in the status of chiefs and nobles, and it was produced by these large households, together with some tribute from commoners and even from other tribes. It would seem, however, that male captives were seldom kept as permanent slaves except among the Antillean Avawak, Their ultimate fate and even that of the children they might breed in their captor’s tribe was to be killed and eaten or sacrificed. Human sacrifice, therefore, made warfare also an important adjunct to religion in the Central American and Colombian tribes.
Social status was thus not entirely hereditary but depended partly upon individual achievement in warfare. Some Central American chiefs were elected. In many tribes shamans had great power. So far as status was hereditary in Colombia and Central America, titles and property tended to pass in the matrilineal line, from a man to his nephew, and in some cases matrilineal clans were interwoven with social classes. Sexual in- version of men, probably connected with shortage of women caused by polygyny, was common.
Religion centered around the temple cult. The temple was a special structure (it is uncertain how frequently it was set on a mound), which sheltered idols (pl. 89, k) to which offerings were made. Instead of a special organized priesthood, which was more common in Central America and may have come from the Meso-American tribes, the shaman seems usually to have been mediator with the deities; particularly he served as oracle and made sacrifices. In the Antilles, however, the Arawakan chief performed this function. The gods which were supplicated by the
+ SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS [B.A.E. Bull. 143
Circum-Caribbean peoples are not clearly described, but those mentioned in myths and occasionally in ritual are usually celestial, the sun and moon being especially prominent and the stars frequently named. There is occasional evidence of a jaguar cult both in religious practices and in art motifs.
Considerable preoccupation with the dead is manifest in burial prac- tices, and ancestors or ghosts are commonly named among supernatural spirits involved in religious beliefs. Urn burial (pl. 1, bottom) is Circum- Caribbean, and burial mounds occur everywhere but in the Antilles. Where archeological sequences are known these two methods seem to belong to fairly recent periods. Virtually all tribes disposed of a de- ceased chief with considerable ceremony, either desiccating the body (Antillean Arawak, where he became a god and temple idol; also, the Cauca-Atrato region of Colombia and Darién and Coclé in Panama) or embalming it. When the chief was buried some of his retainers and wives were stupefied and interred with him, a practice found in all three areas.
MATERIAL CULTURE
Several facts indicate the importance of farming among these tribes as compared with that of the Tropical Forest. Fields seem to have been much larger and more permanent, resembling plantations rather than the frequently shifting, slash-and-burn plots. Hunting and fishing were secondary, and, although the cultures rim the Caribbean Sea, few settle- ments were actually on the coast; by contrast, the Tropical Forest vil- lages were characteristically riparian and coastal. Circum-Caribbean men seem to have devoted proportionately much more effort to farming than to hunting and fishing, and in many tribes they performed tasks of cul- tivation that elsewhere fall to women. By inference, the much larger and more permanent Circum-Caribbean villages must have required a more assured food supply.
Domesticated plants varied somewhat, and the greatest number of species was found in northern Colombia, where, in addition to maize, sweet manioc or yuca, beans, sweetpotatoes, and peppers, which were the usual staples, the tribes grew many fruits and cacao. Bitter manioc had a very limited distribution, its spread in this area evidently having been post-Colombian.
Hunting and fishing were practiced, and fish nets, fishhooks, fish drugs, harpoons (pl. 56, right), spears, stone axes, and bows and arrows (unfeathered among several tribes) were general in the area. As in parts of the Amazon Basin, the bow and arrow had evidently spread at the expense of the spear and spear thrower; these weapons have a strong negative correlation. Arrow poison was Circum-Caribbean with a few gaps, and the poison was generally of animal-derived, putrified ingredi- ents in contrast to the vegetable poisons used elsewhere in South America.
Vol. 4] THE CIRCUM-CARIBBEAN TRIBES—STEWARD 5
The more important technological traits were: loom-weaving (pl. 40) of domesticated cotton, but ornamentation of cloth often by painting rather than by woven-in patterns; twilled and woven basketry (pl. 54, e, f); developed ceramics, especially with plastic, applied, and incised decoration, and in zoomorphic, anthropomorphic, and tripod forms; dug- out canoes and water travel (most developed on the South American, Panamanian, and Antillean coasts; somewhat less so in the Sub-Andean areas and the remainder of Central America, where overland travel by roads was more characteristic) ; and stone axes, slings, and the weapons mentioned above. Metallurgy was best developed in Colombia and Panama (pl. 20; figs. 37-40), where gold and copper were smelted and alloyed, but gold was probably worked in a few other parts of Central America, and in the Antilles gold was taken from placer mines. Gold objects, however, reached all tribes by trade.
Some technologies which characterize the Marginal tribes in various parts of South America survive with a restricted distribution among Circum-Caribbean tribes. The use of wild basts and a netting technique for making hammocks and carrying-bags is found among the Lenca and Talamanca, in northern Venezuela, in the region west of Lake Maracaibo, and probably among the Antillean Arawak. Coiled basketry is reported nowhere except among the Choco (fig. 63). Bark cloth (pl. 53, d, e) extends from the western Amazon through the Toro and Chanco of the Cauca River and the tribes of the North Colombian Lowland to the Talamanca Division and Caribbean Lowland tribes in Central America, and stone bark-beaters are found archeologically (pl. 14, d, e) somewhat beyond this distribution in Nicaragua and northeastern Honduras, but they are comparatively late in the Maya sequence. There was also extensive use of decorated calabash containers (pl. 54, c), a Tropical Forest trait which tends to have a somewhat negative correlation with elaborated ceramics.
Garments were made of woven cotton, the most common being the woman’s apron and the man’s breechclout, but various mantles or cloaks were also worn. The skull was artificially deformed, usually frontally or fronto-occipitally, and the nose and ears, but not the lips, were pierced for ornaments. Ornaments were made of gold, even where gold was not worked, and of stone (precious and semiprecious stones in Central America), shell, and other materials.
In food preparation, the most common utensils used were stone metates, mortars, pottery jars and griddles, and babracots.
Among items of household furniture, carved wooden and stone stools (pls. 26, 49, a, b; 88,1; figs. 43, 44) were characteristic, the latter taking elaborate animal forms in the archeological sites of coastal Ecuador and Central America. The platform bed occurred throughout the area, but,
6 SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS [B.A.E. Bull. 143
as in the Montafia east of the Andes, it seemingly was being replaced by the hammock in lowland areas; in most tribes both were found.
Among esthetic and recreational elements were chicha and chicha troughs (pl. 62), tobacco, coca, some form of game with a rubber ball which was probably played on special courts, hollow-log drums, skin drums (pl. 54, a), rattles, shell trumpets, panpipes, and flutes (pl. 68, top, left).
ORIGINS OF THE CIRCUM-CARIBBEAN CULTURE
To understand the origins of the Circum-Caribbean culture it is neces- sary first to classify its general structure and content with reference to other South American cultures. Considered in general terms, South American cultures may be classed roughly in four types: (1) the hunting and gathering, or Marginal; (2) the Tropical Forest; (3) the Circum- Caribbean and Sub-Andean; and (4) the Andean.
The Marginal tribes had a sociopolitical structure, which lacked classes and was based essentially on kinship ties, and a material culture, which lacked certain key technologies found among the other three groups. They carried on no farming and, if ceramics, basketry, and weaving were present, their pots were crude, their baskets twined or coiled, and their fabrics twined or netted. The other three groups had farming, ceramics, twilled basketry, and loom weaving, and they differed from one another in the variety and esthetic patterning of their products rather than in the essential processes.
In addition, the Circum-Caribbean and Andean peoples resembled each other and differed from those of the Tropical Forest in their sociopolitical and religious patterns. Highly productive farming in the Andes and around the Caribbean Sea made possible a dense population and large villages which formed the basis of a class-structured society with chiefs, nobles, commoners, and slaves. In parts of Guiana and among the coastal and river Tupi, where resources of the sea and rivers supplemented farming, and in certain tribes of the Mojos-Chiquitos area of eastern Bolivia, a tendency to a similar class-structured society is evident. Characteristically, however, the Tropical Forest peoples, like the Marginal tribes, had small villages and an unstratified society, each community con- sisting of an extended lineage or being organized on other kinship lines. The Andean and Circum-Caribbean tribes also had a developed temple- priest-idol cult, whereas Tropical Forest religion, more like that of the Marginal peoples, centered around shamanistic practices, with only a few group ceremonies conducted by the shaman.
The Circum-Caribbean tribes differed from the civilized peoples of the Andes and México in the elaboration of the basic sociopolitical and reli- gious patterns. Among the latter, social classes were more complicated, more fixed by heredity, and more strongly endogamous. In the Circum-
Vol. 4] THE CIRCUM-CARIBBEAN TRIBES—STEWARD 7
Caribbean area status was somewhat mobile and, though hereditary rank was not absent, status often could be attained through warfare. The civilized peoples had achieved political states, with rulers of dominions and even empires, and their warfare was directed toward conquest and tribute. The Circum-Caribbean tribes had only incipient states, and war- fare furthered personal ambition rather than political ends. Its purpose was cannibalism, display of human trophies, capture of female slaves, and, in some cases, taking of sacrificial victims. In religion, México and the Andes had succeeded in separating shamanism from temple worship, and they had a special class of priests dedicated to community worship in temples. The Circum-Caribbean peoples also had temples, but their shamans performed not only as priests but also as medicine men.
In their material arts the civilized peoples of México and Pert excelled mainly in the elaboration of the processes which they shared with the Circum-Caribbean tribes. The greater variety of crops and better methods of cultivation made their farming more productive. Their pottery was better made and esthetically far superior, especially in painted decoration ; their weaving involved many special techniques; and their handling of stones, whether in construction or in sculpture, outranked that of the Circum-Caribbean peoples. The Andes also had metallurgy, which became part of the Circum-Caribbean culture, and domesticated animals, which did not. The Circum-Caribbean cultures are distinguished from the civilized peoples not only by their lack of the latter’s elaborations but also by their possession of certain material items probably derived from the Tropical Forest.
Other embellishments that distinguish the civilized peoples from those of the Circum-Caribbean are certain intellectual accomplishments, such as quipus and scales in Pert and writing and astronomy in México. Some Andean elaborations reached all the Circum-Caribbean peoples, and others reached those of Colombia and Venezuela, who are called sub- Andean to distinguish them from the peoples of Central America and the Antilles. Certain Mexican elaborations similarly reached Central America.
The classification of South American cultures into four general types has developmental implications. Hypotheses concerning the origin and spread of the traits and complexes, however, must take into account the ecological adaptations of human societies through exploitative techniques to a variety of natural environments.
That the Andean and Mexican civilizations differ from the Circum- Caribbean culture more in elaboration than in essential form or content means that they grew out of something generally similar to it and that each acquired its own emphasis. It must be postulated, therefore, that a Formative Period culture once extended from México to the Andes, and perhaps farther. This culture appears to have been an essentially High-
8 SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS [B.A.E. Bull. 143
land one, though in certain localities it probably incorporated elements, particularly material ones, that were more especially adapted to the tropi- cal rain forests.
To judge from the Circum-Caribbean culture, the Formative Period culture had the following general characteristics: There were fairly large and permanent communities that rested upon adequate subsistence, prin- cipally farming. Society was characteristically class-structured , and there may have been incipient states, though the Circum-Caribbean level of organization would suggest that warfare was directed more toward trophy taking (mainly head and bone trophies) and cannibalism, both being means of gaining social prestige, than toward conquest and tribute, features that go with a class system that is fixed by heredity. That chief- tainship was well developed is implied in the complex early burial types found archeologically in many regions; elaborate burial for the chief is a feature of the Circum-Caribbean culture. In religion there was a temple- priest complex, but the shaman probably performed the priestly functions. The gods may have been represented by idols. A very wide inter- American distribution suggests that the principal deities were celestial ones, that place and animal spirits were important, that human sacrifice may have been practiced, and that offertories and shrines were used.
A fairly adequate subsistence based particularly on maize farming in the Formative Period is implied not only by the known antiquity and wide distribution of maize but by the evident size and stability of many early archeological sites. Agriculture was becoming man’s task, and hunting and fishing were diminishing in relative importance. The latter, however, were practiced locally, and, to judge by their wide distribution in the hemisphere, devices available for hunting included traps, nets, snares, deadfalls, pitfalls, spears, and spear throwers, and for fishing in- cluded drugs, hooks, and nets. Hunting and fishing, however, affected the general patterning of these cultures. only insofar as local abundance of certain species augmented or took the place of farming as the basis for a dense population and stable communities.
There is archeological evidence that construction of mounds, elaborate graves, and possibly of temples and roads were carried on in the Forma- tive Period. Such features in turn presuppose fairly organized, stable populations.
Inter-American distributions, both archeological and _ ethnological, show that the essential technologies of the Formative Period included ceramics, especially with plastic and incised treatment, loom weaving, domesticated cotton, netting, stone metates, stone grinding and polishing, and coiled basketry.
On the basis also of archeological and ethnological distributions other material items available to the Formative Period culture, though not necessarily part of it in all localities, were: breechclouts, aprons or wrap-
Vol. 4] THE CIRCUM-CARIBBEAN TRIBES—STEWARD 9
around skirts, cloaks and mantles, sandals, ear and nose ornaments, neck- laces, head deformation, body paint, tattoo, featherwork, mirrors, stone axes, wooden and stone-head clubs, panpipes, single-head skin drums, flutes, and rattles.
As the New World civilizations developed from the Formative Period culture, each acquired specialized features and styles; México became readily distinguishable from the Andes, and subareas of each became dis- tinguishable from one another. It is at present difficult to ascertain to what extend localities differed in the occurrence of the essential Formative Period features and in the stylistic handling of them. Archeology has so emphasized style as a criterion of prehistoric cultural differences that localities may well appear much more unlike than they really were.
The Circum-Caribbean culture corresponds to the postulated Formative Period culture in the presence of the essential ecological adaptations, the socioreligious patterns, and the technologies and traits of material culture. Tt also has special traits and specialized handling of traits that are peculiar to the Mexican and Andean civilizations. In addition, it has several material items that are more particularly associated with a tropical rain forest environment. The following chart shows the interareal linkage of Circum-Caribbean traits with México, the Andes, and the Tropical Forest ; also, differences.
LINKAGES OF ELEMENTS IN THE CIRCUM-CARIBBEAN AREA ’
Culiure Andean South American Mexican | Tropical Forest
Tropical fruits Manioc Domesticated
(plus maize, po- | Coca* turkey Subsistence tatoes, quinoa, Domesticated duck etc.) Meat smoked on the babracot
Pole -and- thatch con- struction Pile house
Houses and furni- Gonubtuhalihouse
cure Palisaded village Platform bed Hammock | Stone stool Wooden stool Wooden stool Clothing and or- Penis cover Leather sandal* naments Labretst ; | Bark cloth* iss Bark cloth* Technologies Metallurgy Decorated calabashes Vegetable arrow Animal arrow Weapons Sling poison} poison* Mace-head club* | Pellet gun or blowgun | Sling : : DAR Captives for canni- Ritual canna- Social traits Chief’s litter} balism balism
1 Elements marked with an asterisk are limited to South and Central America; those marked with a dagger to South America and the Antilles. (See also Kidder II, 1940; Nordenskidld, 1930; Kroeber, 1939; Lothrop, 1940.)
10
SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS
[B.A.E. Bull. 143
LINKAGES OF ELEMENTS IN THE CIRCUM-CARIBBEAN AREA *—Continued
Culture Andean South American Mexican Tropical Forest
Idols Idols
Stone-cist grave* Stone-cist grave
Deep-shaft Mound burial* grave*
Religious traits Mummification Ritual incense*
or desiccation Flayed-skin of body deities
Burial of retain- ers with chief
Flayed-skin trophies
Human § sacrifice for
Flayed-skin cannibalism*
Warfare trophies
Alter-ego mono- lith*
Chontales mono- lith*
Jaguar stool
Manabi-type stone slab*
Pottery ocarina*
Ball game with court Chicha (pulque)
Ball game with court Coca
Chicha
Wooden chicha trough Hollow-log drum
Esthetic and rec-
reational traits Hollow-log drum
1 Elements marked with an asterisk are limited to South and Central America; those marked with a dagger tou South America and the Antilles. (See also Kidder II, 1940; Nordenskidld, 1930; Kroeber, 1939; Lothrop, 1940.)
This list shows that the preponderant linkage of Central America is with South America and inferentially that at least after the Formative Period the cultural flow in Central America was predominantly from south to north. The occurrence of Chibchan languages through Panama and Costa Rica north to the Ulua-Sumo-Mosquito group seems clear evidence of tribal migrations from South America, and the failure of a number of Central and South American ethnographic traits, such as coca, manioc, palisaded villages, hammocks, bark cloth, blowguns, developed metallurgy, mummification, burial of a chief with his retainers, and many art styles, to extend to or at least to take hold in México points to the origin of the particular elaborations of the Central American-Circum-Caribbean culture in South America. Some of the Central American-Andean ele- ments, however, such as alter-ego statutes, Manabi-type carved stone slabs, deep-shaft graves, and others seem to have considerable antiquity in Ecuador (Handbook, vol. 2, p. 781), suggesting that the flow has been from south to north since the Formative Period traits began to assume specialized regional characteristics.
Méxican influence in Central America is not wanting, but most of it seems to have come fairly recently with the migrations of the Nahuatlan tribes from México, and its elements, such as tongue piercing, jade working, an organized priesthood, steam bath, ritual incense, Chacmool statues, Nicoya Polychrome pottery, and the game of voladores, have a limited distribution in Central America and did not reach South America.
Vol. 4] THE CIRCUM-CARIBBEAN TRIBES—STEWARD 1}
The many traits assumed to have come from the Tropical Forest involve perishable materials, and, though some of them might have been preserved in sites on the arid coast of Peru, archeology elsewhere can throw no light on their antiquity or origin. It is likely that those that require forest materials, are adapted to a hot climate, and have an ethnographic dis- tribution predominantly in the rain forest areas came from such regions. For some items, however, such an origin must be accepted with caution. The blowgun, for example, now has a Tropical Forest distribution, but it also has been found archeologically in the Early Periods of Pert.
The general inference of these considerations is that the Circum- Caribbean developed out of an early culture with characteristics that are thought of as Andean. Its class-structured society may represent a response to intensive farming and a fairly dense population coupled with pressures of warfare rather than a specific complex derived from some single center of origin. Many of its special elaborations, however, both in element content and in stylistic handling, are derived from the © Andean and Méxican civilizations, especially the former. It even appears that its specific resemblances to the Andes may have been greater at some early prehistoric period than at the Conquest. Meanwhile, its distribution in tropical and semitropical regions made it receptive to many material items which the Tropical Forest added at some undatable period.
DISTRIBUTION OF THE CIRCUM-CARIBBEAN CULTURE
The Circum-Caribbean culture is found in areas that are largely high- land but that have neither the great altitude nor the continuous mountain masses of the Andes or the Plateau of México. To a great extent, the environment is tropical or subtropical.
The portions of Colombia where the Andean Cordillera breaks down into a series of smaller mountain blocks with comparatively low valleys between them are more or less coincidental with the distribution of Sub- Andean cultures. The tribes of the Southern Colombian Highland (Handbook, vol. 2, p. 911) really belong to this class. To the north of them tribes of the upper Cauca River were essentially Sub-Andean, though lacking a few characteristic features. The peoples of the Cordillera Central between the Cauca and Magdalena Rivers and of the Cordillera Occidental west of the Cauca also belong in this group. Farther west, the Chocé of the Pacific Coast lowlands are definitely Tropical Forest in culture. The North Colombia lowlands on the Atlantic coast are Sub- Andean, and a very similar culture continues through Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Honduras to the Maya frontier in northwestern Honduras. The greater part of Central America is mountainous, but there are no great continuous mountain masses. It is possible that some less-developed peoples had survived in certain parts of Central America, ror example, the Sumo, Jicaque, and Paya of the East Coast Lowlands
19 SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS [B.A.E. Bull. 143
of Nicaragua, but the Conquest Period culture is not sufficiently well known to clarify this point.
Where the Cordillera Oriental branches off from the Cordillera Central in southern Colombia, the Sub-Andean culture continues north through the Pijao and Panche to the Chibcha (Muisca), whose culture is Andean primarily in having achieved political states (Handbook, vol. 2, p. 887), and its distribution continues to the north of the Chibcha toward Lake Maracaibo. Approaching Venezuela the mountain chain forks again south- west of Lake Maracaibo, and, as Kirchhoff points out in “The Northeastern Extension of Andean Culture” (this volume, p. 349), one branch runs west of Lake Maracaibo to the Sierra de Perija and onward toward the Sierra de Santa Marta, and the other runs northeast skirting Lake Maracaibo on its southeast side and becoming the Cordillera de los Andes in Venezuela. The tribes of the Cordillera Oriental north of the Muisca (Chibcha) are little known except for a few data on the Lache, who adjoined the Muisca on the north, and on the Chitarera, somewhat farther north. These peoples were definitely Sub-Andean or Circum-Caribbean in their gen- eral culture elements and patterns. East of the Andes, the Betoi, Achagua, and other tribes of eastern Colombia are Tropical Forest.
The group of tribes extending northward to the Sierra de Santa Marta and the Goajira Peninsula, west of Maracaibo, seem to have lacked most of the essential features and should probably be considered Tropical Forest peoples. The Timotean peoples of the Venezuela Andes, however, were definitely Sub-Andean, and, despite breaks in its continuity, marked even by hunting and gathering tribes of northern Venezuela, the Circum- Caribbean culture is somewhat resumed among the Carib tribes who were spread along the north coast of Venezuela to the Delta of the Orinoco. A break is again encountered in the Lesser Antilles, which had been in- vaded by the Carib, probably in the last century before the Conquest, but the Circum-Caribbean culture is found again among the Arawak of the Greater Antilles, and it extended as far as Cuba and Haiti, where the primitive hunting and gathering Ciboney still survived.
A general hypothesis is offered to explain this distribution. In the first place, it is probable that the fundamentals of this culture were spread from a single source. The occurrence of such specific items as gold- embellished litters among the Antillean Arawak as well as in the Andes and of definitely Colombian art motifs in Central America cannot be explained by independent invention. They imply intertribal contact so strong that it must have facilitated the diffusion of many other traits. At the same time, the social and political patterns required a basis of intensive farming that supported large permanent villages. If diffusion of the Circum-Caribbean culture from a single source is postulated, therefore, it must have involved the essential technologies and subsistence as well as the sociopolitical and religious features.
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Theories of the origins of American civilizations have always tended to push the ultimate origin to the area that is least known scientifically. The basis of Mexican culture was sought first in México and then in the Andes, and when developmental stages were not found in Pert, ultimate origins were again pushed to the least-known areas, the jungles east of the Andes. That many individual Highland traits were ultimately derived from the jungle is quite probable. That the essential sociopolitical patterns and esthetic elaborations of the basic technologies came from an area that still can support only slash-and-burn farming and small com- munities organized on a simple kinship or unstratified basis is highly improbable.
The alternative hypothesis is that the patterns characteristic of the Circum-Caribbean cultures were Highland-derived and that at one time they formed a substratum which extended from the Andes to the Mexican Highlands. This substratum probably included the elements listed for the Formative Period culture. Out of it grew the Mexican culture, which emphasized the temple cult and war achievements, and the Peruvian civilization, which elaborated sociopolitical structure and material arts. A corollary hypothesis is that at a fairly early period, perhaps when the culture was less environmentally specialized than later or when it had greater vigor and adaptability, it thrust widely into regions where it later ceased to exist sometime before the Conquest. It failed particularly in savanna and tropical rain forest areas. This hypothesis not only helps explain such breaks in the distribution of high cultures as that between the Central Andes and the Chibcha of Colombia or that between South America and México, but it accounts for gaps in the occurrence of the Circum-Caribbean culture, such as those west of Lake Maracaibo, in northern Venezuela, and between the north coast of Venezuela and the Antillean Arawak, and it also explains certain archeological remains. In the llanos of eastern subtropical Bolivia are mounds and causeways that antedate the historic people. In the same area the social classes and the temple-priest complex found among the Mojos-Chiquitos tribes and even as far east as the Xaray on the upper Paraguay River (Handbock, vol. 3) may represent survivals of an early Sub-Andean complex. Stirling (per- sonal communication) reports large mounds on the lower Marafon River of eastern Pert where only primitive tribes were found in the his- toric period. In Colombia, east of the Cordillera Oriental, are ancient stone structures, and great causeways are found in the llanos of eastern Colombia nearly to the Orinoco River. Ethnologically, the occurrence of mummification among the Piaroa, east of the upper Orinoco, and idols among the Sdliva suggests earlier Highland influence. Stone-faced ter- races and stairways of large monolithic stones in the Sierra de Santa Marta, neither built by the historic Cadgaba, are evidence of a thrust northward, west of Lake Maracaibo. If the stone structures of the Tai-
653334483
14 SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS [B.A.E. Bull. 143
rona area along the coast north of the Sierra de Santa Marta can be attributed to the Tairona themselves, they may represent a local survival in strength of the earlier culture. In the southern Colombia Highlands, the elaborate stone sculpture and architecture of San Agustin is apparent- ly fairly old, and surpasses anything attributable to the peoples found at the Conquest. The general style and the alter-ego motif of this sculpture is found widely on stone statues in Central America north to Nicaragua.
These threads of evidence are at present very tenuous and await archeological verification in the rain-forest areas. It is purely speculative to maintain that all these thrusts were contemporary. On the other hand, there would seem to be some causal connection between the thrusts of a Highland culture into the lowlands or forests at many different places and their consistent failure. If cultures of an Andean or Sub-Andean type were carried by actual movements of peoples into sparsely populated lowlands or tropical forests, they would at first find little opposition. The culture, however, seems to depend upon dense populations clustered in large stable villages. This is difficult to maintain in tropical rain forests, where slash-and-burn farming is carried on, and it is perhaps significant that the Maya, who were unique in maintaining a high civilization outside a Highland area, had settlements dispersed around religious centers. As the lowland became more densely settled owing to better farming, intensi- fied warfare would not only be a factor requiring more highly nucleated settlements but it would add to the precariousness of their tenure.
Present data, therefore, could be interpreted to mean that the Circum- Caribbean culture originated from an early Sub-Andean stratum that may have been carried in part by migrations of peoples into thinly popu- lated areas. Population pressure and the necessity of adapting to non- Highland environments eliminated some of the more typical Andean traits, but the basic patterns and many specific elements survived in sim- pler but unmistakable form.
In historical terms, this hypothesis may be extended to account for the origin of the Tropical Forest culture. In Volume 3 it has been sug- gested that the Tropical Forest complex has the technologies which characterize the Circum-Caribbean peoples and that these technologies appear to have spread down the Guiana coast and by water up the Ama- zon. The Circum-Caribbean cultures near the mouth of the Orinoco would supply a source for these traits; indeed, archeology of the lower Amazon yields pottery that in many respects is surprisingly like the Circum-Caribbean.
This thesis suggests that subsequent to the early expansion of the High- land cultures there may have been some deculturation which was checked at a Circum-Caribbean level. The Circum-Caribbean culture retained the general form of the Highland culture, and even added material items from the Tropical Forest, but it was not able to maintain the sociopolitical,
Vol. 4] THE CIRCUM-CARIBBEAN TRIBES—STEWARD 15
religious, and material elaborations of the civilized peoples. The Con- quest initiated another period of drastic deculturation which eliminated all but the bare technological processes, and, though the cultures may still be regarded as essentially aboriginal, the modern peoples resemble those of the Tropical Forests rather than their own ancestors. Loss of lands, wars of the Conquest, and European diseases contributed to a reduction of the population, and influence from both Spaniards and Negroes modi- fied the cultures. In a more fundamental sense, however, it would seem that the class-structured society, the temple-idol complex, and the wars for slaves and for victims for sacrificial rites and human trophies formed strongly interrelated patterns which were destroyed by European religion and by laws which prohibited many of the key practices. With the loss of these patterns, the artistic refinements that were expressions of them also perished. What was left was simple technologies—farming in un- favorable areas, weaving plain cloth, manufacture of unadorned ceramics, canoe making, and the like—and unstratified social groups with weak chiefs, with warfare reduced to mere defensive fighting, and with religion reduced to shamanistic practices without temples or idols. In short, the culture stepped down to the Tropical Forest level.
THE SUB-ANDEAN TRIBES OF WESTERN COLOMBIA
The peoples described in Hernandez de Alba’s articles in this volume on the “Tribes of the North Colombia Lowlands,” “Tribes East of the Cauca River,” “Tribes of the Cauca-Atrato Region,” and “Tribes of the Upper Cauca River” conform to the general Circum-Caribbean pattern, but were Sub-Andean in the possession of certain specific Andean items, such as liana bridges, salt working, copper smelting and alloying with gold, construction of roads and hilltop forts, war banners, marriage of a chief to his sister, and other features not found elsewhere around the Caribbean Sea. Archeology reveals traits not reported for the Conquest Period tribes. Some of these traits, such as the carved stone statues of San Agustin and Tierradentro, evidently belong exclusively to a very early period. Other archeological traits, such as shaft-and-chamber burials, stone-cist burials, and negative-painted and monochrome-incised ceramics, have specific stylistic resemblances to Early Period remains of the North Highlands of Pert, but in generalized form they may well have survived to the Conquest among some Colombian tribes.
Although the great ethnographic diversity in Western Colombia un- doubtedly reflects to some degree the fragmentary information of our sources, archeology suggests a comparable local difference, and there seems little doubt that Colombia’s extreme local geographic diversity has been an important factor in splitting the area into cultural provinces.
16 SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS [B.A.E. Bull. 143
SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS PATTERNS
All tribes of Western Colombia, except the Chocé, a Tropical Forest people, were sedentary, intensive farmers who lived in large planned and probably palisaded villages. The village, and in some instances the tribe or dominion, was controlled by a chief of exalted status and great power. Under the chief were nobles, commoners, and slaves. Among the Car- rapa, Picara, and Paucura, the chief married his sister, a system which the Inca used to preserve the purity of the emperor’s divine descent. The chiefs seem usually to have been succeeded by their sons, but a matrilineal tendency is evident in the frequent marriage of a chief to his sister’s daughter. The Fincent even had female chiefs. Evidences of the chief’s high position are his very large number of wives and retainers, his special insignia and ornaments, the gold-adorned litter in which he was carried, the special obeisance and etiquette accorded him, and the burial of a num- ber of his wives and retainers with him. Development of states through federation or imperialism, though less advanced than among the Chibcha, is recognizable among the Quimbaya, Tolu, Cent, and Mompox of the North Colombia Lowlands, the Lile of the upper Cauca River, and the Ancerma, Catio, and other tribes of the Cauca-Atrato region. In several cases, the chief received tribute from federated or subjugated tribes.
Subchiefs and nobles evidently comprised a distinct and somewhat endogamous class, and below them were the commoners and finally the slaves. Warfare was essential to this class system, for cannibalism and the display of human trophies were means of gaining prestige, and captives constituted a slave group. The extent to which the upper strata were really warrior classes is not clear, but the existence of regular armies and the frequent reports of female warriors, who acquired military fame no less than the men, show the great importance of warfare. Human trophies consisted of flayed skins and even arms and legs stuffed with ashes (Lile, Gorron, Ancerma, and some tribes east of the Cauca) and skulls that were either painted (Ancerma) or had their features restored with modeled wax. These trophies were displayed on poles. Cannibalism is reported among all tribes except possibly those of the North Colombia Lowlands. East of the Cauca River, prisoners were fattened before they were killed and eaten, and in the Cauca-Atrato region, the Caramanta ate not only captives they had taken but slaves bought from other tribes for the sole purpose of eating them. East of the Cauca River and in the Cauca-Atrato region, captives were also used as sacrificial victims in religious rites.
Temples and idols probably occurred everywhere except on the upper Cauca River. In the North Colombia Lowlands, the “great temple” of the Fincent accommodated 1,000 people, and in the Cauca-Atrato region, the Ancerma temple was on a large hill ascended by bamboo stairs. In both cases, the temple was entered only by priests and chiefs. Idols of
Vol. 4] THE CIRCUM-CARIBBEAN TRIBES—STEWARD 17
painted or gold-sheathed wood were kept in these sanctuaries, but among some tribes, such as the Caramanta, Pozo, and Arma, who built no temples, people kept idols in their own dwellings (as among the Antillean Arawak) and made offerings to them on special altars.
There seems to have been no special priesthood. On the upper Cauca and among the Evégico, shamans communicated with the deities, who were not represented by idols. “Priests” are mentioned among the An- cerma, but it is possible that they were shamans, as seems to have been the case among the North Colombia Lowland tribes. In any case they served as oracles and made offerings to the idols.
The nature of the deities and the purposes of the temple or idol worship seems to have varied considerably. The Fincent apparently had animal idols, including the jaguar. The Carrapa lacked idols but made offerings to the Sun. The Ancerma principal deity, Xixarama, was the parent of the sun and moon. The Nutibara god, Guaca, was represented as a jaguar, and the Catio had celestial deities.
Human sacrifice is recorded for the Pozo, Arma, Quimbaya. Picara, Paucura, and Caramanta, but its nature and purpose are seldom revealed. The Arma and Quimbaya performed the rite on a special platform. The Caramanta cut out the victim’s heart to control the weather, and the Pozo made sacrifices before going to war.
The shaman served as doctor as well as priest. In the North Colombia Lowlands, he seems to have treated patients in the temple with the help of the gods, using tobacco for purification. The Ancerma shaman mas- saged and sucked his patient and blew the sickness into the air.
MATERIAL CULTURE
Western Colombia had the essential Circum-Caribbean traits of mater- ial culture: pole-and-thatched houses, often on piles (Cauca-Atrato) ; planned, compact, palisaded villages ; wooden stools (upper Cauca) ; stone metates; hammocks (North Colombia Lowlands, Quimbaya) ; platform beds (Ancerma) ; dugout canoes; gold mining and goldworking ; calabash containers; pottery, often with negative-painted designs; woven cotton textiles; breechclouts, aprons, and cloaks or mantles; featherwork; ear and nose ornaments, especially of gold; skull deformation (Pozo, Quim- baya) ; matting; probably basketry but techniques not known; the chief’s litter; spear and spear thrower (east of Cauca, Cauca-Atrato, Province of Aburra) ; the bow and poisoned arrow (more northern: Province of Aburra, east of Cauca(?), North Colombia Lowlands); darts; slings (North Colombia Lowlands, east of Cauca, Province of Aburra) ; clubs, harpoons; flutes; drums; shell trumpets; coca; and chicha.
Specifically Andean traits found here but rarely encountered elsewhere around the Caribbean Sea are: manufacture and trade of salt; copper smelting and alloying with gold (upper Cauca and east of Cauca) and
18 SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS [B.A.E. Bull. 143
many specialized metallurgical processes; road construction (Arma, Catio, Abibe, Nutabe, Urezo, Aburrd); liana or vine suspension bridges; aqueducts (Aburrd); rain gutters and storage vessels (Catio); gold pincers (Quimbaya) ; war banners (east of the Cauca) ; maces (Province of Aburra); balsa canoes (Cent); markets; wrapped funeral bundles (Gorrén) ; and a system of weights and measures.
The Tropical Forests may be the origin of the following Western Colombian traits that had a limited distribution in the Circum-Caribbean area: cultivation of the pixiuva palm; bark cloth (Chanco, Arma); labrets (Pozo, Arma) ; ligatures around the arms and legs; and the use of deadfall traps, boiling water, and pitfalls with sharp stakes in house defense (Antiochia).
Special features of more restricted distribution were: wells (North Colombia Lowlands) ; artificial fish ponds (Gorrén); the rearing and fattening of young pecarries (Urabd, Yamici) ; mute dogs (?) (Aburra; cf. Antillean Arawak); pottery ocarinas (east of the Cauca) ; and gold armor(?) (Arma).
The only information about crisis rites concerns burial, the more com- plicated forms of which were reserved for chiefs. The Cenié and Yapel of the North Colombia Lowlands and the Nore, Gauca, and probably the Catio and Guaguzu of the Cauca-Atrato region buried a chief in a mound- enclosed vault but gave commoners ordinary earth burial. The Ancerma and Caramanta of the Cauca-Atrato region and the tribes east of the Cauca and of the upper Cauca buried chiefs in a deep pit. The Ancerme first desiccated the body, but the Quimbaya cremated it and buried the ashes. It is not certain whether these pits correspond to the shaft-and- chamber burials found archeologically in the Quimbaya, upper Cauca, Tierradentro, and Narifio zones. Many of the latter may belong to a very early period.
THE NORTHEASTERN SUB-ANDEAN TRIBES
The Highland tribes in the Cordillera Oriental north of the Chibcha and in the Andes which stretch toward the coast on both sides of Lake Maracaibo not only seem to represent a marked break-down of Sub- Andean culture but fail to supply many essential links with the north coast of Venezuela to the east and with the Antillean Arawak. One has the feeling that the data are too fragmentary to give a coherent picture. It is possible, of course, that tribal movements, for example, of the Cari- ban Motilones and their neighbors, may have broken the continuity. Even the Timote of the Venezuelan Andes, who have the strongest Sub- Andean complex, do not wholly fill the bill, for they seemingly lacked such an essential trait as metallurgy. Archeology has not yet corrected the difficulty, for metallurgy has not been found in Venezuela. Arche-
Vol. 4] THE CIRCUM-CARIBBEAN TRIBES—STEWARD 19
ology does, however, provide evidence of Andean influence in the stone terraces and rock-lined tombs of the Andes south of Lake Maracaibo and in the mounds and causeways in the llanos of Colombia west of the Orinoco River. It also suggests that the culture of the northeast coast of Venezuela was formerly more like that of the Orinoco and West Indies.
THE CORDILLERA ORIENTAL AND VENEZUELAN ANDES
The Lache and Chitarera, immediately north of the Chibcha, and the Timote of the Venezuelan Andes seem to have had the most complete Sub-Andean culture. Some of the tribes between them, such as the Zorca, were perhaps more typically Tropical Forest.
These tribes cultivated the essential food plants, including a consider- able number of fruits. The Timoteans had permanent, often terraced fields, and used water-storage tanks and irrigation ditches. Large, planned, permanent, and perhaps palisaded villages were also character- istic of the Timoteans, Corbago, and Lache; one Lache town had 800 stone houses. Chitarera and Zorca villages, however, were small. The large communities would seem to have afforded a basis for developed chieftainship and a class structure on the Circum-Caribbean pattern. The only evidence of this is a reference to noblemen and the statement that some Timotean chiefs ruled whole valleys. There is no reference to special burial for chiefs, or to litters. Evidence of a temple cult comes from the Lache, who built a “House of the Sun,” like the Chibcha temple, and from the Timoteans, who had a temple in the center of every town. These latter temples held idols made of pottery, wood, stone, or cotton thread, and they were entered only by the priests, who made offerings of manufactured objects, foods, beads, and deer parts to the gods. More specifically Andean was the Timotean belief in gods of mountain peaks and lakes, and their rituals performed on mountain- tops and in caves. But human sacrifice was missing.
Virtually nothing is known of the war complex, though warfare seems to have been of some importance. There is evidence of somewhat regi- mented military operations in the Cordillera Oriental and of taking pris- oners among the Timoteans. Cannibalism is not mentioned, and the straw-stuffed human heads, arms, and legs found among the Corbago, though suggesting the war trophies of Western Colombia, may have been the tribe’s own dead.
These Sub-Andean tribes lacked metallurgy but had some of the other essential Circum-Caribbean material traits: loom-woven textiles of culti- vated cotton; ceramics; cotton tunics and mantles (Timote women pinned theirs at the left shoulder with a wooden or gold pin) : necklaces and breastplates, especially of bone; liana suspension bridges; clubs; spears; apparently either the bow and unpoisoned arrow (the Chinato
20 SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS [B.A.E. Bull. 143
poisoned theirs) or else the spear thrower, but not both; shields; shell trumpets; drums; rattles; chicha; coca; tobacco taken in jellylike form; and metates. Hammocks are not mentioned.
TRIBES WEST OF LAKE MARACAIBO
In the area west of Lake Maracaibo there seems to have been great local cultural variation. Traces of Sub-Andean culture are not wanting, but most information comes from the modern Chaké, Cagaba, and Goajiro. These tribes are definitely not Sub-Andean and conform more nearly to the Tropical Forest patterns, but the Chaké and Cagaba may have changed during the historic period. Some use of stone construction in the Tairona area suggests a limited survival of Sub-Andean culture.
The modern Chaké cultivate a considerable number of plants, but their fields are not permanent. As a corollary, their villages are small and their society unstratified. Their religion evidently lacks any trace of the temple cult; a harvest festival with chicha drinking and castigation of one another with bow staves is reported. In the Sierra de Santa Marta, archeology suggests the earlier presence of more advanced agricul- ture, but the modern people make only rough stone terraces and practice elementary irrigation. Modern Cdgaba villages are small and lack social strata and chiefs. They are governed by priests, who wear spirit masks and conduct seasonal ceremonies in the village temple, which also serves as the men’s house, but there are no idols. Supernatural beings include various spirits and human ancestors. The Goajiro have been so com- pletely modified by their early adoption of cattle that little trace of aborig- inal culture remains. They are intensive nomadic herders, with farming secondary. Wealth, represented by cattle, gives social status, but the basic social structure is matrilineal sibs. So far as is known, the Goajtro had no trace of a temple cult, and their religion is limited to beliefs in a culture hero, bush spirits, and a god or gods of thunder, lightning, and drought. They have shamans who function solely as medicine men, performing with the aid of a spirit-helper. The Goajiro had some war- fare, and possibly slaves were taken, but cannibalism, human sacrifice, and human trophies are not recorded from any of these tribes.
Burial customs give no hint of the elaborate Circum-Caribbean methods used in disposing of deceased chiefs. The Chaké expose the body and later bundle up the bones and place them in a cave, perhaps a reflection of Andean procedures. The Cdgaba and Goajiro practice primary earth burial, and the Goajiro rebury in an urn.
~ Weaving is done on the true loom by the Chaké, Cdgaba, and Goajiro, the first two with agave fibers and domesticated cotton, the Goajiro with wild cotton. The Cdgaba, Chaké, Arhuaco, and Goajiro also make netted carrying bags. The Chaké make a variety of twilled and woven baskets,
Vol. 4] THE CIRCUM-CARIBBEAN TRIBES—STEWARD 21
but the Cdgaba make only a few mats and boxes, the Goajiro no baskets. Crude pottery is made throughout the area. Metallurgy is not reported. Other elements present are: bows and arrows (unfeathered among the Chaké; poisoned with animal-derived ingredients, Goajiro) ; fish drugs (Chaké) ; fish nets (Cagaba) ; babracot (Chaké); and metate (Chaké, Cagaba). The pre-Columbian presence of dogs is doubtful. The Chaké are un-Andean in shunning salt. The platform bed is absent, but the Cagaba and Goajiro use the hammock, and the Cdgaba have wooden stools. The long cotton tunics of the Chaké, the cotton blankets worn by Goajiro women and by the Coanoa, and the Cagaba gowns are Andean traits, and so are Coanoa nose and ear ornaments made sometimes of trade gold. Goajiro men wear breechclouts. The Chaké and Cdgaba use carrying baskets; canoes are not ascribed any of these tribes. The Cdgaba make complicated log bridges. Coca, chicha, tobacco, drums, hollow-log drums (Goajiro), flutes, trumpets, and rattles are found.
TRIBES OF NORTHWESTERN VENEZUELA
The tribes of the northwestern portion of Venezuela between Lake Maracaibo and Cabo Codera (p. 469) seem to have formed a somewhat tenuous link in the Circum-Caribbean culture between the Timoteans and the tribes north of the Orinoco River. In religion and political organiza- tion the Arawakan Jirajara and Caquetio have certain specific resem- blances to the Arawakan Taino of the Antilles.
The political unit was the village, which had its own chief, but the Jirajara had a tribal war chief and the Caquetio had a tribal chief of general power and prestige. The Caquetio chief was accredited with super- natural power to control natural phenomena and plant growth, he was carried in a hammock, and he received special treatment at death. Under the chief were nobles, warriors, and rich men, each forming a special class. At death, leading men were burned and their ashes drunk, but the head chief’s body was desiccated, placed in his house in his hammock with a wooden image below him, and later cremated and his ashes drunk.
These tribes were extremely warlike, but the functional role of warfare in sociopolitical life is not known.
There was some kind of community temple (adoratorio) where offer- ings were made by shamans to the sun and moon and where shamans practiced divination with tobacco ash and communed with spirits while taking tobacco and a narcotic herb. Each house was also a place of wor- ship in that it had its own idols. Human sacrifice was practiced: young girls were beheaded and their blood offered to the sun in order to obtain rain. Shamans not only served as priests but they also cured illness by sucking out the disease-causing object.
Agriculture was best developed among the Caquetio and J irajara. Near Barquisimeto, irrigation was carried on. Salt was manufactured and
99 SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS [B.A.E. Bull. 148
traded. Items of material culture reported include: pile dwellings ; clubs; bows and arrows (poisoned among the Jirajara) ; fish drugs; hammocks; women’s front apron, skirt (Jivajara), or a string passed between the legs ; men’s calabash penis cover or string to tie up the penis; body paint; chief’s feather, gold, and pearl ornaments ; dugout canoes; carrying bags; ceramics; woven cotton bags, garments, and hammocks (the weaving technique unknown) ; trumpets; tobacco; masato, which may have been fermented, i.e., chicha; and a maguey drink, perhaps similar to pulque.
TRIBES OF NORTHERN VENEZUELA
Connections between the Andes and the Antilles, though somewhat broken in the Cordillera Oriental and the Cordillera de Mérida, are partly resumed among some of the Cariban tribes of the area between the Ori- noco River and the north coast of Venezuela (p. 481). The linkage, however, is mainly in material and social features; the temple cult is lacking. As archeology suggests that resemblances of this area and the Antilles were somewhat greater at an earlier period, the historic inhabitants may not have transmitted the Circum-Caribbean culture to the Antilles ; possibly they merely acquired it by contact with those who did transmit them.
SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS PATTERNS
Intense farming is indicated not only by a considerable list of plants, including bitter manioc and rows of fruit trees, but by irrigation (Cu- managoto) and in some tribes the performance of the main labor by men. Villages were very large (as many as 200 houses among the Aruacay), carefully laid out, and surrounded by one to three palisades. (Piritu villages may have been smaller, for they were abandoned at a death.) Social classes were well developed, with a powerful chief and frequently various subchiefs; and there were some federations. The chief was car- ried in a gold-adorned litter, and on the Unare River he had a harem of 200 wives (attended by eunuchs, according to the chroniclers!). His decrees were promulgated from an artificial mound, and he had power of life and death over his subjects. Often these chiefs had magical power and were also shamans. The Caracas had graded military classes with distinctive insignia. Traces of Sub-Andean death practices are found here, though it is not clear whether they were restricted to chiefs: desic- cation of nobles and hanging the body in the house (Chiribicht) ; roasting and burial, with subsequent reburial or cremation (Piritw); burial in a clay and log tomb with an image on top (Aruacay). The Cumand dried the body and drank the bone powder and fat. Little is known of com- moners or slaves, except that the latter, who probably were war captives, were objects of trade. There was considerable warfare, carried on with fairly well organized armies which included female warriors. The prin- cipal weapons were bows, arrows with animal-derived poison, spears,
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shields, clubs, and, on Trinidad, spear throwers; these were kept in arsenals. The Cumanagoto, Marcapana, and Palenque were cannibalistic, and the Piritt drank powdered enemy hearts in chicha. The only record of human trophies is Pirité flutes of human bone. Human sacrifice is not reported.
Religion lacked the temple cult. The sun and moon were supreme beings. Ceremonies had some connection with deer and fish, and offer- ings of first fruits and of various valuable objects were made to the earth and ocean. The Palenque had hunting and fishing magic. The shaman, who had great power and social prestige and frequently was also the chief, came nearest to performing priestly functions when he served as oracle, communicating with spirits in caves so as to learn the future. He cured sickness by sucking out or causing the patient to vomit the disease-causing evil spirit. Witchcraft and divination with “yopa,’ a narcotic snuff, are reported. The Pirité used flagellation in battle magic and the ant ordeal in girls’ puberty rites.
MATERIAL CULTURE
Material culture includes the following elements: textiles of woven wild cotton; pottery; basketry; salt making; dugout canoes; hammocks; excellently carved wooden stools; the calabash penis cover, penis thread, or breechclout for men; the apron, breechclout, or drawers for women; head deformation; profuse ornaments of many materials including trade gold and pearls (the Guaiqueri had pearl fishing) ; tattooing ; domesticated turkey, Muscovy duck, and bees; fish harpoons, nets, traps, and hooks; bird snares and bird lime; the babracot; chicha; tobacco; hollow-log drums(?) ; flutes; shell trumpets; and rattles (used by shamans).
THE ANTILLES
Three waves of cultural influence had swept the Antilles: first, the primitive hunting and gathering Ciboney coming probably from Florida ; second, the Arawak, who were typically Circum-Caribbean and came from South America; third, the Carib, who were Tropical Forest rather than Circum-Caribbean, and also came from South America. At the Conquest the Ciboney occupied part of Cuba and Haiti. The Arawak held the remainder of the Greater Antilles, but they had been driven from most of the Lesser Antilles by the Carib, probably in a very recent pre- historic period.
THE ARAWAK
SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS PATTERNS
The Arawak lacked some of the more important Circum-Caribbean cultivated plants but nonetheless depended more upon farming than on fishing, and they tended to live away from the seacoast. Their villages,
24 SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS [B.A.E. Bull. 143
which consisted of as many as 3,000 persons, were carefully planned, and each enclosed a ball court. Commoners occupied communal houses, but the chief, who had great prominence, lived in a special house of his own. In the hierarchy of chiefs, the head chief ruled a province, which was divided into as many as 30 districts, each under a subchief, and a district consisted of 70 to 80 villages, each with a headman. A chief had power of life and death, and he controlled civil, military, and religious affairs, there being no separate priesthood. He bore titles, was treated with special etiquette, and, to complete the parallel with Colombia, he was carried in a gold-decorated litter and upon his death he was either disemboweled, dessicated, and kept as an idol (zemi), or he was buried, accompanied by several of his wives. Ranking below the chief were the nobles who formed a council, the commoners, and the slaves. The society had matrilineal inheritance but lacked clans.
It is probable that the slave class came from war captives, but the Arawak evidently departed from the Circum-Caribbean pattern in lacking cannibalism and human sacrifice. There was some warfare, however, and on St. Croix Island, female warriors are reported.
Arawakan religion had the functional equivalent of the priest-temple- idol complex, but the elements and organization were somewhat distinc- tive. Evidently combining the guardian spirit concept with fetish worship, there was a large number of idols called zemis. These were made of different materials, and they represented plant, animal, and human spirits, often those seen.in dreams. A common type found archeologically is a three-cornered stone. Each zemi served a special purpose, and every person had one or more in his house. The zemis were offered food, and people fasted and took emetics and snuff while invoking their help. Because the chief’s zemis were the most powerful in a community, he conducted group celebrations in their honor.
A more specific Circum-Caribbean trait is the public séance which shamans held in caves to communicate with zemis and other spirits. In addition to zemis there was belief in nature spirits and in human ghosts, which were feared. Celestial deities are mentioned, and the sun and moon were connected with the myth of human emergence from a cave. Shamans conformed to the ritual pattern in taking snuff and emetic before singing, shaking a rattle, and sucking the cause of disease from a patient.
The dead were usually buried in the ground or placed in a cave, but the head was always kept in a basket in the house. Children sometimes received urn burial.
MATERIAL CULTURE
The Arawak material and technological culture seems to have included most if not all the Circum-Caribbean elements. With the aid of irriga-
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tion, they grew potatoes, peanuts, beans, and arrowroot, but they evi- dently either lacked hard-kernel maize or ate their maize before it matured. This may explain why they used the mortar but not the metate. They also had bitter manioc and squeezed the poison out of it with the tipiti, but these traits may have been acquired in the historic period. The pepper pot was a characteristic dish. The Arawak hunted with clubs, dogs, bird decoys, drives, and corrals, and they used calabash masks for taking ducks. The absence of the bow, except among the Ciguayo (who used featherless arrows that were sometimes poisoned), and the presence of the spear thrower suggest that the spread of the former at the ex- pense of the latter elsewhere may have been comparatively recent. In warfare, clubs and stones (on Trinidad, the sling) were also weapons. Fishing devices included the usual items: nets, weirs, hooks, harpoons, and baskets. The domesticated parrot is of local interest, and the some- what puzzling mute dog may be related to a similar animal (“perro mudo” ) of the Aburrd of Colombia.
Other typical Circum-Caribbean traits found among the Island Arawak are the woman’s apron, frontal head deformation, ear and nose piercing, the platform bed for chiefs and hammocks for commoners, carved stools of both stone and wood, dugout canoes, carrying baskets, twilled basketry, pottery with plastic forms and with one-, two-, and three-color positive and negative designs, and wooden bowls. Metallurgy was restricted to gold, which was taken from placer mines and worked by hammering, but objects of gold-copper alloy were obtained by trade. The presence of true weaving is uncertain; hammocks, bags, and aprons may have been netted of cotton. The rubber-ball game, cigars, hollow-log drums, gourd rattles, shell trumpets, chicha, and coca (?) are all Circum-Carib- bean. but the use of emetics and of snuff taken through a Y-tube is ex- ceptional.
THE CARIB
The Island Carib were very similar to the Arawak in material culture, but their social and religious patterns were more like those of the Tropical Forests, and their ferocity and cruelty in warfare were very reminiscent of the Tupi. They made continual raids and took female captives as wives, but tortured, killed, and ate male captives and made trophies of their bones. Socially they were extreme individualists and attached little importance to rank or to chieftainship. Prestige was acquired by achievement, and a boy’s powers were tested in his puberty rites. Although captive wives were kept in a slave status and occasionally a slave was buried with his or her master, the children of captive women were freemen. Lacking social classes, kinship relations were of great importance, and the village tended to consist of an extended matrilineal family.
26 SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS [B.A.E. Bull. 143
A reflection of Arawakan religion is seen in offerings made to guardian spirits, which were not, however, represented by idols. The importance attached to the dead people is shown not only in the great fear of ghosts but also in the shaman’s practice of keeping his ancestors’ bones as a source of power and the belief that his ancestor’s spirit assisted him in obtaining a spirit helper. Shamans cured by means of sucking. They also held public séances. Ritual elements included fasting, scarifying—both were present in boys’ and girls’ puberty rites—and feasts with much use of chicha. Among mythological supernatural beings were an unnamed power in Heaven, various astral beings, especially the sun and moon, and a culture hero from heaven.
The Carib usually practiced earth burial, but sometimes they cremated a chief and drank his ashes with chicha.
In material traits the Carib differed from the Arawak in making great use of bitter manioc, which they prepared with the manioc grater and the tipiti, in their failure to use salt, in the certainty that they wove cotton, and in their expert navigation in large, planked, dugout canoes. Their weapons included bows and poisoned arrows, javelins, and clubs. The Carib lacked the ball game and had other athletic contests instead, but they used cigars, single-head skin drums, gourd rattles, conch-shell trumpets, and one-string gourd instruments.
CENTRAL AMERICA DISTRIBUTION AND ANTIQUITY OF THE CIRCUM-CARIBBEAN CULTURE
In instances when early documents and the archeology of the protohis- toric period give a reliable picture of the aboriginal peoples, the cultures are so strikingly different from those of the modern tribes that it is difficult to recognize that the latter are descendants of the former. In the absence of Conquest period data, this drastic deculturation makes it extremely difficult to ascertain the native distribution of the Circum-Caribbean culture.
The Cuna who live between the Panama Canal and Colombia must once have had a Circum-Caribbean culture, for, though their modern sociopoliti- cal organization is of a Tropical Forest type, archeological remains of the late prehistoric period and documents of the early post-Conquest period supply many of the missing traits. The tribes southwest of the Canal, who probably belonged to the Guaymi group, had a culture very similar to the aboriginal Cuna. The chroniclers describe these people as cultivating many large cleared areas where today there is jungle and as having a stratified society.
The Talamanca Division is also undoubtedly classifiable as Circum- Caribbean, though they have a few traits, such as netted bags, bark cloth, clans, boys’ puberty ceremonies, and communal houses, that are usually associated with less-developed cultures. It is possible that in some instances these features occurred in isolated, culturally retarded tribes, but on the
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whole they appear to have persisted in true Circum-Caribbean contexts. Archeology of the general Talamanca area, however, reveals unexpectedly developed features: house and burial mounds, courtyards, and monoliths in the Pacific region and grouped burial and habitation mounds in the High- land. Associated with these are carved stone statues, many of them with the alter-ego motif or other features linked with South America. There is also archeological evidence of metallurgy in gold and of three-legged or four-legged stone zoomorphic metates or stools. These archeological ma- terials have not been interrelated sequentially, and none but a few ceramic types have been identified with modern tribes. Though animal-form metates were used by the historic tribes, there is no certainty that they were not taken from old sites. At least one mound group appears to have been occupied at the Conquest. Perhaps it is assignable to the Meso- American tribes, for it does, not fit the ethnographic picture of the Talamancan peoples. Many of the other mounds and stone carvings could well antedate the historic tribes.
Among the tribes of the Caribbean Lowlands of Nicaragua and Hon- duras, ethnological data show the Circum-Caribbean complex in greatest strength among the Mosquito of the Eastern Coastal Plain and among the Sumo. This impression may merely reflect insufficient information about other tribes, though the Jicaque and Paya appear to have been on a distinctly lower level. Archeology discloses definite Maya influence in the Ulua-Yojoa region, but this influence is not manifest in the culture of the Jicaque who occupied this region at the Conquest. On the northeast coast of Honduras and the Eastern Coastal Plain of Nicaragua the arche- ology has a non-Mexican character, and the monoliths and stone statues are of South American types. In Jicaque and Paya territory there are a great many indications of a high culture, such as mound groups, paved roads, canals, monoliths, stone statues, and offertories, but their age and relationship to the Conquest Period tribes are uncertain. If certain stone- faced mounds can be assigned to the Sula-Jicaque and the Paya, the post-Conquest deculturation of these tribes must have been very great. On the Eastern Coastal Plain the mounds, monoliths, goldwerk, and stone animal-form metates seem congruent with the cultural level of the Mosquito, but here too the archeological materials are undated and many of them may represent a much earlier period. The same holds for the High- land area with its burial and habitation mounds, its alter-ego, chacmool, and various small stone statues, its stone-cist and mound burials, its carved stone slabs, and its stone metates and stools. The region of the Caribbean Lowland tribes has the modeled and tripod ceramic complex of Stone’s Central American “Basic Culture” (p. 169), which apparently persisted from a fairly early period to the Conquest, but the only correla- tion with historic tribes is that Luna polychrome and incised Zapatero monochrome, both associated with urn burial, were made by the Ulva,
28 SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS [B.A.E. Bull. 143
and that the Bold Geometric polychrome and North Coast Appliqué styles probably pertain to the Lenca, Jicaque, and Paya. These wares, though distinctly non-Mayan, extended to the Maya frontier in the Ulua-Yojoa district, where they blended with Mayan styles.
In the Northern Highlands the modern Lenca have lost most traces of a Circum-Caribbean culture, but if the site of Tenampua in Central Hon- duras really belonged to them, they had a very high culture at the Con- quest. This hilltop site is fortified with stone walls and has a ball court and numerous terraces and mounds, some of them stone-paved. This and other hilltop sites may be connected with the supposed Lenca pilgrim- ages in the last century to their aboriginal village sites and with their modern custom of visiting hilltop shrines to commune with the spirits. But the ceramics of these sites have not yet been identified with the Bold Geometric and Bold Animalistic polychrome and North Coast Appiliqué pottery styles that were probably made by the Conquest period Lenca. If the structural complex represented at Tenampua is actually Conquest Period Lenca, the Circum-Caribbean culture must have existed in some strength in Highland Honduras, and it may have considerable antiquity, for the ceramic traditions of the Lenca are fairly old in the area.
SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS PATTERNS
Panama.—Aboriginal villages of the Cuna are not described, but communities southwest of the Canal had as many as 1,500 people, were palisaded with living fences, and each had a large, many-roomed, and well-provisioned house for the chief. Modern Cuna villages are seemingly much less impressive. The Conquest Period Cuna had four social classes, though today they have merely extended matrilineal households. South- west of the Canal the aboriginal classes were: (1) The head chief, who controlled several villages; (2) the nobles, who captured their retainers in war or inherited them; (3) commoners, who might marry nobles; and (4) slaves, who were war prisoners. Ceremony attending the chief is not fully described, except that he was carried in a litter and had many wives and slaves. A chief or noble was either buried with wives and re- tainers who had been stupefied, or his body was desiccated and seated in a room or placed in a hammock. Similar burial is indicated in the Coclé area, and Sitio Conte had archeological evidence of burial of a headman with many wives and quantities of gold and other valuable objects. Secondary urn burial is reported archeologically on the Atlantic Coast and deep-grave burial on the Pacific.
Warfare was well developed and there were standing armies. Captives were taken, and the early Cuna killed male enemies so that the sun might drink their blood; a man accredited with 20 such victims received a title. Southwest of the Canal acquisition of territory as well as prestige were war objectives.
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There are no records of a temple cult, except what human sacrifice and the shaman’s fetishes (see below) suggest. There was formerly sun worship. The modern Cuna are Christians. They have a considerable ceremony for girls a year after their puberty confinement. The priest or shaman burns cacao in a brazier, smokes cigars, and chants with the aid of a mnemonic board. These elements enter other shamanistic activities, and the shaman also uses wooden fetishes, perhaps survivals of or derived from an idol cult. With their aid he prognosticates, finds lost objects, and cures disease, sending his fetish’s soul to bring back that of the patient.
The mnemonic boards bear a kind of conventionalized system of pictures and symbols, but they are not true writing in any sense inasmuch as the symbols are peculiar to the individual and cannot be interpreted by other shamans.
The Talamanca Division.—Farming in the Talamanca Division was more important at the time of the Conquest than today, and it supported palisaded villages which consisted of a large house or a group of houses, possibly some of them communal, to judge from modern dwellings. Early documents report feudal states among the Guaymi, the Talamanca Division, and the Guetar. The Bribri even conquered the Terraba in the early 19th century, and they exercised political control over the Cabecar. Bribri chieftaincy rests in a single family and must be a survival of an older class system, though the main Bribri, Cabecar, and Terraba head- men were said to be elective war chiefs. Chiefs wore gold ornaments and special insignia. The Guetar had nobles, commoners, and slaves, the last being captive women and children; captive men were sacrificed.
Social stratification among the Circum-Caribbean tribes seems gen- erally to have been at the expense of clan systems, and this was certainly true of the Mexican and Andean civilizations. The Bribri, however, had exogamous matrilineal clans and moieties, and the modern Guaymi evi- dently have exogamous clans. Evidence of avuncular marriage and matrilineal descent appears among some of the West Colombian Sub- Andean tribes. Though usually superseded by classes, a clan system is not incompatible with them, as shown by the Northwest Coast culture of British Columbia and Alaska, which combined a strong class system with matrilineal clans and moieties. Perhaps in Central America we have traces of an old Chibchan clan organization.
Warfare was an important feature of social life, for its purpose was to obtain women and children as slaves and men as sacrificial victims. Bribri, Cabecar, and Terraba warriors formed a special class and received special burial.
Kinds of burial accorded chiefs and nobles are not reported, but some of the usual practices were present: embalmed bodies placed in mortuary buildings (Guetar), inhumation, and various kinds of secondary burial
653334—48—_4
30 SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS [B.A.E. Bull. 143
Whether archeological deep-shaft graves in Veraguas and stone-cist graves in Chiriqui were connected with the historic tribes is not known; the latter are thought to be late prehistoric.
The temple cult is not mentioned, and concepts of supernatural beings are not known, but the Bribri and Guetar are accredited with a formal priesthood. The Guwetar sacrificed human beings at every moon and at burial feasts.
An unusual Guaymi feature, reminiscent of more primitive tribes, is a secret ceremony in which boys are instructed, their faces painted, and their teeth chipped (Negro influence ?), after which they may marry.
The Caribbean Lowlands.—The modern Caribbean Lowland tribes have a considerable list of cultivated plants (p. 220), but their farming is slash-and-burn. Their early villages consisted of 100 to 500 people living in one or more communal houses. Sociopolitical features are little known. The chief, though elected by the elders, had supreme power. A hereditary, matrilineal tendency is evident among the Mosquito, but no clans are mentioned. A Mosquito chief was sewed up in a mat, and slaves, servants, and sometimes a shaman were buried with him. That mummification was practiced is uncertain. The Sumo may have made gold and clay masks of deceased chiefs.
Warfare was well developed among the Mosquito, Sumo, and perhaps the Paya. The first two tribes accorded military rank and insignia to all men, and they subjected boys to tests as part of their puberty training. The Mosquito fought wars to take captives and the Sumo to kill their enemies, make trophies of their teeth and fingernails, and reputedly to eat them.
There is no record of a temple cult, and only the shaman is reported in recent times. His main function is to cure sickness, which he does by means of trances, dancing, singing, using painted sticks and carved figures, and driving the disease-causing spirit out of the patient. He also placates evil spirits. Among supernatural beings are the sun, moon, various astral gods, and a remote sky deity called “Our Father.”
At death, the corpse is left in the hut, which is abandoned. A Mosquito wife exhumes and carries her husband’s bones, and there is an anniversary mourning ceremony.
An unusual ritual element is the steam bath for pubescent girls and mothers of newborn infants, a North American trait, and circumcision among the Sumo.
The North Highlands.—Little information on the Conquest Period ethnology of this area has been assembled, and the modern Lenca reveal scant traces of the Circum-Caribbean socioreligious culture. They now seem more Honduran than Indian. Their villages and houses are of the modern Honduran type, but if hilltop forts and mound groups such as Tenampua (above), belonged to the Lenca, a very developed
Vol. 4] THE CIRCUM-CARIBBEAN TRIBES—STEWARD 31
Circum-Caribbean community type with characteristic social and political features must have been present. Some towns still have hereditary chiefs, and the modern two-class system may be a modified vestige of native social stratification.
Warfare in recent times usually has involved boundary disputes, but at one time a warrior ate the heart of his slain enemy to obtain his valor.
There is no evidence as yet that associates any complicated methods of burial with the Lenca,
A few native religious elements are recognizable today: pilgrimages to sacred hills to commune with spirits; great veneration of the sun; agricultural ceremonies with drinking of chicha and offerings of burned copal; shamanistic curing through offerings of white chickens and copal to crosses on sacred hills; divination by shamans, who throw colored beans from a calabash; ritual chicha drinking; copal burning as an offer- ing; and fumigation of persons. Some of the archeological hilltop sites may be old Lenca religious centers, evidencing a very rich native religious complex.
MATERIAL CULTURE
The material culture of the modern tribes of Central America has lost the intensity and esthetic refinements of the Conquest Period, but the essential technologies are present.
The principal crops are maize, sweet manioc, sweetpotatoes, peppers, kidney beans, lima beans, gourds, calabashes, and several fruits. Bitter manioc was not pre-Columbian. It reached the Cuna and the Caribbean Lowlands in the 17th century; the latter probably obtained it from the Carib. Whether irrigation was practiced must be ascertained archeo- logically. Two Talamanca subsistence traits that are found also in north- ern Colombia are the cultivation of the pejibaye palm (Guilielma utilis) and the raising of wild peccaries. The Muscovy duck may have been kept by the Caribbean Lowland people and by the Lenca. Domesticated turkeys are kept by the Lenca, but their pre-Columbian distribution is not known. Apiculture in the Caribbean Lowlands is an exceptional feature. The aboriginal presence of the dog is uncertain.
Central American hunting techniques include bows and arrows, blow- guns, spears, slings, traps, snares, game drives with nets (Cuna), and pitfalls. The spear thrower was used in the Darién region and occurred archeologically at Coclé, but it seems to have been superseded since by the bow and arrow. Cuna arrows are unpoisoned, but poisoned arrows were used southwest of the Canal and occasionally by the Talamanca Division. The Caribbean Lowland tribes used animal-derived poison, and their arrows were unfeathered. The blowgun was probably used everywhere to shoot clay pellets, but the Cuna adopted the blowgun with a poisoned dart in the historic period. Various chipped blades found
32 SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS [B.A.E. Bull. 143 archeologically may have been knives. There were also axes and celts. The principal fishing devices were arrows, hooks, nets, traps, spears, drugs (Caribbean Lowlands, Lenca), and harpoons (Carribbean Low- lands). The production and trade of salt was of some importance.
The metate and mortar for grinding food and the babracot for smoking meat were used in food preparation. Pottery griddles occur in the Carib- bean Lowlands. Three-legged and four-legged stone metates (or seats) occur throughout Central America, but whether they were made by the historic tribes is a problem for archeology.
Basketry was made by all tribes, but weaves are not described, except that the Cuna used twilling, wickerwork, and coiling, and the Talamanca a hexagonal weave. Bark cloth is reported for all areas except the North Highlands (Lenca), but archeological stone bark-beaters show that it was probably general. Loom weaving of domesticated cotton formerly occurred in all tribes, except perhaps the Talamanca Division, which now uses wild cotton. A wild bast and a netting technique were used for hammocks (Talamanca Division) and carrying bags (Talamanca Divi- sion, Caribbean Lowlands, Lenca). Ceramics, though now plain, were once predominantly of the plastic, incised traditions. There were, how- ever, a few polychromes (e. g., at Coclé and the Bold Geometric ware of the Lenca, Jicaque, and Paya and the Luna polychrome of the Ulva). Negative-painted ware from Chiriqui and from Honduras may be ascrib- able to some of the Talamanca Division peoples. The negative-painted and the plastic-incised wares are probably part of the old Circum- Caribbean culture. Some authors attribute the polychromes to Meso- American influence.
In Panama, metallurgy in gold and gold-copper alloys was highly de- veloped as far as Veraguas, but it faded out in Costa Rica. Some gold is found archeologically in the Caribbean Lowlands, but it may represent trade objects. Approaching the Maya frontier, copper bells occur archeologically, perhaps originating from the secondary and comparatively late center of metallurgy in México. In the central part of Central America there is an apparent and unexplained gap in the distribution of metallurgy and negative-painted pottery.
Central American clothing includes: the penis cover (Cuna) ; men’s breechclout (Talamanca Division, Caribbean Lowlands); the woman’s wrap-around skirt; various mantles of bark cloth with painted designs (Talamanca Division) or of textiles with woven-in designs (Caribbean Lowlands) ; some skin garments (Lenca) ; sandals (Lenca) ; skin sandals (Paya) ; skin, moccasinlike footgear (Mosquito) ; ear, nose, and other ornaments of gold, precious stones, and feathers ; head deformation (Carib- bean Lowlands) ; scarification (Talamanca Division) ; tattoo as insignia of rank (Cuna); and chipped teeth (Caribbean Lowlands—Negro in- fluence?). Mirrors were found at Coclé.
vou. 4] THE CIRCUM-CARIBBEAN TRIBES—STEWARD 33
Household furniture consists of platform beds, hammocks (all but the Lenca), wooden stools, stone stools (?), and gourd and calabash con- tainers. Dugout canoes in the Darién region were described as huge and pearl-inlaid ; southwest of the Canal they had cotton sails. Dugouts also occurred in the Caribbean Lowlands. For carrying objects on land, the Panamanian tribes used carrying baskets and the balance pole, but the other tribes used netted bags. Paved roads, a conspicuous feature in the Honduran Highlands, may have been made by the historic tribes.
The aboriginal musical instruments were shell trumpets, panpipes, calabash rattles, flutes, musical bows (Caribbean Lowlands), skin drums, goblet-shaped drums (Caribbean Lowland), hollow-log signal drums (Cuna), whistles, and pottery ocarinas. Chicha and tobacco are general. Tobacco or coca was chewed in the Cuna and the Talamanca Division. Pottery pipes were used by the Talamanca Division, and cigars by the Cuna.
A ball game was played in a special court by the Cuna and, if Tenam- pua is a Lenca site, by the Lenca also.
THE MESO-AMERICAN TRIBES
The more important Meso-American tribes are a number of Nahuatlan- and Chorotegan-speaking peoples distributed principally along the Pacific coast of Nicaragua and Costa Rica. They are thought to have migrated to this region from México comparatively recently, some within two to four centuries before the Conquest and others even later. They are accredited with introducing certain polychrome ceramic wares to Central America, and some of their traits, such as the game of voladores, the custom of tongue piercing, and certain religious practices, are definitely Mexican, not Circum-Caribbean. On the whole, however, they seem to have adopted the Circum-Caribbean culture and to have contributed very little to it.
SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS PATTERNS
Meso-American communities consisted of houses arranged in streets around a plaza where temples and chiefs’ “palaces” were built, often on low mounds. Society was stratified into three hereditary classes: (1) Chiefs, priests, and nobles; (2) commoners; and (3) war prisoners, who performed menial labor but were ultimately sacrificed and eaten. Acquisition of wealth, however, improved social status. Politically, a council had great power, and among the Chorotega it selected the chief. Nicarao chieftaincy was probably hereditary, though the council also had considerable power.
Warfare was highly developed, and there were trained armies. War was waged to settle boundary disputes and to obtain slaves for sacrifices
34 SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS [B.A.E. Bull. 143
and for cannibalism. The taste for human flesh was so great that slaves were bred in order that they might be slaughtered.
The temple cult was served by a special priesthood, which performed ceremonies to the various gods on holy days, at the cacao harvest, and on such occasions as birth and death.
MATERIAL CULTURE
Many crops were cultivated, the most important being maize, cacao, and tobacco.
Weaving techniques are not mentioned; the fibers of cotton, agave, and palm were used. Ceramics were well developed and included poly- chromes of Mexican origin. The presence of metallurgy is uncertain. Dugout canoes and rafts were made. Clothing and ornaments included the men’s breechclout and sleeveless tunic of woven cotton (Nicarao), women’s skirts (Nicarao), the woman’s decorated breechclout (Orontiia), gold beads, identifying tattoo marks, head deformation, and men’s tongue and ear piercing.
Chicha was made, and coca was chewed with lime. The Mexican game of voladores was played, but the ball game is not reported.
THE TROPICAL FOREST PEOPLES THE PATANGORO AND THEIR NEIGHBORS
In general, these tribes lacked the intensive farming, especially of fruits, and the salt making of northern Colombia. Their technology is little known. They made pottery but lacked metallurgy and apparently used no canoes. Villages were palisaded and were of fair size, consisting of 80 to 90 houses each, with a ceremonial building in the center. High- land traits present are the platform bed, head deformation, and liana bridges. Men went naked and women wore aprons. Unlike most Sub- Andean tribes, the Patdngoro were organized in exogamous matrilineal clans rather than social classes. Warfare was strongly developed; weapons included the bow and poisoned arrow, lances, boiling water, dead fall doors, and sharpened stakes placed in pits. Captives were taken not for ritual purposes but for cannibalism, which was so strongly de- veloped that human flesh constituted an essential food. All captives were killed at once, either being cooked or else cremated, ground, and mixed with chicha, an Amazonian trait. There is no evidence of a temple-priest complex, though the Amani shaman concealed himself be- hind a wall to answer questions, which is reminiscent of the oracular functions of the Sub-Andean priest. Deities were celestial, including one which sent thunder and lightning. These tribes practiced earth burial and believed in an afterworld that was so pleasant that people sometimes committed suicide. Shamans apparently had both human and animal tutelary spirits, and they cured disease by sucking.
Vol. 4] THE CIRCUM-CARIBBEAN TRIBES—STEWARD 35
THE GUAYUPE AND SAE
These tribes, occupying the llanos and forests on the eastern slope of the Andes south of the Chibcha, had a general Tropical Forest culture with perhaps a few Sub-Andean traits. They were farmers and lived in palisaded villages of multifamily houses arranged around a plaza that had a ceremonial building. They had no class system, but old men ap- parently had superior status and formed a council. Chiefs were elected, and their prestige is indicated only in their use of stools and feather blankets and their claim to half the bride price paid at each marriage. A deceased chief was cremated, and his ashes were ceremonially drunk in chicha by his successor.
There was much warfare, but slave taking, cannibalism (except Sae funerary cannibalism), and human trophies are not reported. At their initiation boys were whipped and pricked with lances to make them good warriors.
The special religious house was perhaps comparable to that of the Tropical Forests rather than to the Andean temple. The sun and moon, who were man and wife, were the gods, and the jaguar and other animals were evil beings. No ceremonialism is mentioned except shamanistic curing, which was accomplished by sucking out the disease-causing object.
Subsistence was based on farming, bitter manioc probably being one of the crops. The technology is not well known, but cotton was grown and must have been woven, though feather instead of cotton blankets are mentioned as articles of clothing. Except for these blankets and some gold, shell, and feather ornaments, people went naked. These tribes used hammocks, wooden stools, dugout canoes, spears, lances, clubs, bows and arrows, slings, and shields. They took coca and tobacco to obtain visions.
THE BETOI AND THEIR NEIGHBORS
The Betoi and their neighbors may be classed as Tropical Forest in culture, although in some respects they were little more developed than the hunting and gathering tribes to their east in the llanos of eastern Colombia. They were farmers but carried on much hunting and fishing. Their villages were small and were frequently moved. Each consisted of one or more communal houses sheltering an extended family. In some cases the village apparently was limited to a single extended family, and local exogamy was therefore practiced. The village head man was the oldest person or one of the older persons of the community. An anomalous feature found among the Airico was hired laborers, paid with shell disk money.
Religion was limited to belief in a sun god (Betoi) and other mytho- logical beings, but there were no priests or idols. The shaman performed as medicine man and used snuff of “yopa” powder. There were no
36 SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS [B.A.E. Bull. 143
temples or group religious ceremonies, but each village had a festival house in which men assembled to drink chicha.
These tribes carried on warfare, using clubs, bows and arrows (poisoned among the Lucalia), axes, and lances, but the purpose and nature their fights are not known.
Female infanticide is reported. The dead always received direct earth burial.
Manufactures were limited to ceramics, bark cloth, mats (Anabali), calabashes, and dugout canoes. Betoi chiefs wore bark-cloth garments; Jirara and Airico women wore genital covers made of leaves. Bodily adornment consisted only of paint and feather crowns. Musical instru- ments mentioned are flutes, fifes, and wooden signal drums.
THE OTOMAC AND GUAMO
These tribes contrast sharply with their primitive hunting and gather- ing neighbors, and their presence in the area is unexplained. It is of interest that archeology in the llanos of Venezuela shows an early ex- tension of an Andean culture nearly to the Orinoco River. Kirchhoff (p. 439), however, likens these people to Central American tribes.
The villages were reputedly large, but chiefs seem to have controlled groups of houses, not whole villages. Though life was regimented with respect to warfare, there is no evidence of a class system. Warfare was mainly against Carib raiders, and women participated in battles, helping the men.
There was no temple cult. The moon, probably a supernatural being, had a special connection with women. The Otomac believed they were descended from stones. The shaman performed as medicine man and cured by sucking out stones. Curing was also accomplished by smearing blood on the patient; a child’s tongue was pierced and his own blood smeared on his body. Circumcision was practiced at puberty. No Andean burial forms are reported; a body was given earth burial and later reburied in a cave.
Subsistence was based on fairly intensive farming which was done by men on flood plains, but food plants were limited to one kind of maize, sweet manioc, pineapples, and several roots. People slept on the ground under palm-leaf mosquito nets. Industries included the manufacture of finely woven cotton, ceramics, calabash containers, palm-fiber baskets and bags, and dugout canoes. Clubs, bows, and unpoisoned arrows were among the weapons. Feathers and other ornaments were worn in pro- fusion, but there was no gold, and the only garment mentioned is men’s wide cotton belts. In their festivities people drank chicha, took coca, played the trumpet, and bled themselves. They also played the rubber- ball game.
Vol. 4] THE CIRCUM-CARIBBEAN TRIBES—STEWARD 37
THE ACHAGUA AND SALIVA
The Achagua, Saliva, and probably some of the adjoining tribes, such as the Puinave, were well advanced above the Guahibo and their other hunting and gathering neighbors, but they had few Andean or Sub- Andean features. Their probable possession of patrilinear, totemic, exogamous sibs and an ancestor cult links them mainly with the Tucanoan tribes of the Northwest Amazon (Handbook, vol. 3).
These tribes were farmers, and they had fairly large, palisaded villages, many of which evidently consisted of a single communal dwelling and a separate men’s clubhouse. The villages were probably impermanent, however, for they were moved at the death of an occupant. There is strong evidence that the Achagua had patrilinear, exogamous, totemic sibs, each perhaps localized. The village had a chief but accorded him few privileges except that of access to vestal virgins of some kind. A Saliva chief had to endure a pepper and ant ordeal before taking office. There were no social classes. The main grouping outside the family was sexual: men foregathered and held drinking bouts in their clubhouse, from which women were barred.
Trophy taking, cannibalism, and capture of slaves and sacrificial vic- tims are not reported, and there was no warrior class. The Achagua and Sdliva fought mainly defensively against predatory tribes, such as the Carib, Caberre, and others, which sought to enslave them.
Presence of the temple cult is suggested only by the Sdliva sculptured “demons,” which were consulted as oracles. The Saliva held ceremonies in honor of the Creator, and they also worshiped the sun and moon. Achagua masked men represented deities in a ceremony from which women were excluded. (Cf. the Tucanoan ancestor cult, Handbook, vol. 3, p. 889). The Achagua also had a first fish ceremony. Among their gods were a supreme being and special gods of cultivated fields, riches, fire, fate, and madness, and one that holds the earth. Witchcraft and divination were strongly developed in this area.
The Sdliva shaman sucked, blew on, and anointed his patient in order to cure him and purified people and objects with smoke from a cigar containing copal.
The Achagua practiced female infanticide. At a Sdliva funeral special paraphernalia and trumpets were used and later thrown into the river. The body was buried and subsequently disinterred, cremated, and the ashes drunk with chicha. The Achagua buried in a sealed grave.
The main items of Achagua material culture were: Bitter manioc and the tipiti; bows and poisoned arrows (the Caberre were the principal producers of poison) ; fish nets; fish drug (barbasco) ; basketry shields ; well-developed basketry; netted hammocks and women’s skirts, probably both of hemp or other wild bast, but no true weaving ; men’s breechclouts ; ceramics in some variety of forms; calabash vessels; wooden stools; dug-
38 SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS [B.A.E. Bull. 143
out canoes and pole rafts; body paint; shell bead necklaces (used also as money) ; necklaces and ear and nose ornaments of pearls; silver pins (post-Columbian?), but no goldwork; tattoo, but not as an insignia of status ; hollow-log drums ; trumpets ; and “yopa” snuff used for divination.
THE PACIFIC COAST TRIBES
The low, densely forested and now unhealthy regions of the Pacific coast stretching from Ecuador to the junction of Panama with South America was occupied by peoples with backward cultures. On the Colombia coast were the Chocé. On the Ecuadorian coast Andean in- fluence from the Highlands and from the Peruvian coast had implanted advanced cultures (see Handbook, vol. 2, p. 780), which surrounded a primitive enclave, the Cayapa and Colorado, who adjoined each other on the western slope of the Cordillera.
THE CHOCO
The Chocoé were slash-and-burn horticulturists, but they grew only food plants and lacked domesticated cotton and tobacco. They relied considerably on fishing, using nets, spears, arrows, and a drug, but no hooks, and on hunting with the blowgun and dart and the bow and un- feathered arrow. They made bark cloth, twilled and woven basketry, calabash containers, pottery, dugout canoes, one-piece wooden stools, men’s loincloths, women’s wrap-around skirts, ear and nose ornaments, and round pole-and-thatched houses, often on piles. They had coiled basketry, one of the few modern survivals of this technique which North and South American peripheral distributions and archeological evidence show to have been very old and once probably very widespread. They lacked metallurgy. Textile weaving was introduced only recently. Like the Andean tribes, they slept on the platform bed, but they had the hammock as a cradle.
Choc6 society was not stratified; instead there were exogamous, patri- lineal lineages that were probably clans. Chieftainship was weakly de- veloped, there is no evidence of a war complex with trophies and can- nibalism, and shamanism takes the place of the temple cult. Some High- land influence has crept into the local context, however, for the shaman’s fetish staff, which is believed to contain his spirit helper, and the infant’s doll, which is alleged to embody its guardian spirit, may well reflect the idol complex of neighboring tribes. Shamanistic curing through exorcis- ing malignant spirits is a somewhat distinctive practice, and the wooden models of boats with spirit images used in training shamans are unique. Supernatural beings, besides guardian spirits and spirits’ helpers, include the culture hero, good and evil spirits, and ghosts. A girl’s puberty ob- servance involved her isolation, as usual, but the use of the scratching stick is another old, widespread element that usually has survived only
Vol. 4] THE CIRCUM-CARIBBEAN TRIBES—STEWARD 39
in peripheral areas. The main musical instruments are the panpipes, flutes, skin drums, and hollow wooden drums. The ceramic art is anthropomorphic and zoomorphic.
THE CAYAPA AND COLORADO
The Cayapa and Colorado differ from the Choco in specific elements rather than in the general organization of their culture. According to tradition, they descended from the Highland and thus may once have had a more developed culture. Information about them is comparatively recent, but there is little to suggest Andean patterns. Their culture, like that of the Chocd, is Tropical Forest in many specific elements. A trans-Andean spread of some of these appears very possible in view of the fact that the Colorado actually traveled across the Andes to the Canelo on the eastern slopes to obtain fish poison.
The Cayapa and Colorado cultivate not only food plants but cotton and coca (Cayapa), and they keep guinea pigs. The Colorado take fish with nets, traps, hooks, and drugs. Houses of both tribes are frame and thatch, those of the Cayapa being on piles. The Cayapa sleep in ham- mocks, the Colorado on platform beds. The bow and arrow and the dugout canoe were used by the Colorado but not by the Cayapa. Both have blowguns, but the former shoot darts from them, the latter clay pellets. Cotton weaving, twilled basketry, metates, and crude pottery are probably common to both tribes, but metallurgy is not reported for either. Calabashes somewhat replaced pottery among the Cayapa. Dress of earlier periods showed Highland influence, even the poncho being re- ported. Fronto-occipital head deformation was recently found among the Colorado.
Villages are small, those of the Colorado consisting of one house, those of the Cayapa of three or four pile dwellings, each sheltering several families. Perhaps the social unit inhabiting the Cayapa house is a patrilineal lineage, for there is some tendency to patrilocality. Chie/tain- ship is not well developed, nor are there social classes, a temple cult, or a war complex. At the time of the Conquest, however, the Colorade were described as warlike and “‘idolatrous,” but as lacking chiefs.
There are few data on puberty observances, except the Colorado nose- piercing and cayapi-drinking rite for boys. The games which the Color- ado played as part of mourning wakes are a Highland trait. Both tribes bury their dead.
Musical instruments of probable aboriginal origin are panpipes, flutes, drums, and rattles.
Religion involves good and bad spirits; the latter cause lightning, thunder, and other evils. Among the Colorado and probably the Cayapa, shamans deal with these spirits. To cure disease the Cayapa shaman exorcises an evil spirit, and he also sucks. Two ritual elements link the
40 SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS [B.A.E. Bull. 143
Colorado with the Montafia: the belief that disease is caused by the intrusion into the body of sharp spines, which the shaman “sucks” out, and the use of cayapi (Banisteriopsis caapi).
THE HUNTING AND GATHERING TRIBES
The principal distribution of the hunting and gathering, or Marginal, tribes is in the Gran Chaco, Patagonia, and Tierra del Fuego (Hand- book, vol. 1) and around the perimeter of the Amazon Basin (Handbook, vol. 2). The second group includes the Shiriana, Waica, Guaharibo, Auaké, Caliana, and Maracana of the Amazon-Orinoco watershed. Other primitive hunting and gathering tribes, who are described in the present volume, occupied the Ilanos or plains of the Orinoco Basin and a portion of the Antilles. The Guaiqueri and Guamontey were scattered along the lower Orinoco River; the Guahibo, Chiricoa, Yaruro, and others lived west of the upper Orinoco in western Venezuela and eastern Colombia ; sev- eral groups lived in the plains around Barquisimeto near the Sub-Andean Timoteans in the Venezuelan Andes; and the Ciboney were a Marginal peoples of the Antilles.
These tribes unquestionably represent retarded groups, peoples who re- mained in dry plains, where farming was not suitable, or in isolated places, where the Circum-Caribbean and Tropical Forest cultures did not reach them. They have in common the absence of the technological and socio- religious features of the more advanced peoples rather than the presence of any characteristic complexes.
TRIBES OF THE ORINOCO BASIN
All these tribes were hunters, fishers, and gatherers. The Yaruro formerly cultivated a little maize but have now given it up. There were no permanent villages; the Guaiquert and Guamontey lived in movable grass-covered houses; the Guahibo simply sleep under trees or portable mats or in hollow trees, and the Yaruro in temporary palm-covered shelters. The Guahibo sociopolitical unit is the band of about 30 persons, who hunt and make war under the leadership of a headman. They are described as nomads, leading a gypsylike life. The Yaruro social unit is the extended matrilocal family, but there are also exogamous moieties. In warfare it is possible that the pre-Conquest Guahibo took slaves to use in trade, but there was no cannibalism. Religion is virtually unknown. Yaruro mythology holds that the moon goddess, who is the sun’s wife, is the creator, and there is a story of a culture hero. Yaruro shamans seem to get their power from the moon, which helps them cure sickness. In their performances they smoke cigars, drink chicha, and take a narcotic root.
Hunting devices include bows and arrows (which the Guahibo some- times poisoned). The Yaruro use disguises, harpoon arrows, fish arrows,
Vol. 4] THE CIRCUM-CARIBBEAN TRIBES—STEWARD 41
and fishhooks. The Guaiqueri, Guamontey, and the tribes around Bar- quisimeto used to cook in skin-lined earth ovens, and the Guahibo and Yaruro over a fire. The last two tribes use wooden mortars. The Yaruro have pots but rarely boil food in them. None of these tribes uses salt.
Few of the Circum-Caribbean and Tropical Forest technologies are present. The Guahibo and Yaruro make woven baskets, but there is no loom weaving. The only recorded textile manufacture is hammocks, and these are netted of palm fibers. Pottery is made by the Guahibo and Yaruro, that of the former being “beautifully” decorated. The Guahibo make decorated calabash contaimers.
The Guahibo use carrying baskets and dugout canoes, the Yaruro the carrying net and rafts.
Clothing is limited to the Guahibo men’s penis cover and the Yaruro men’s breechclout and women’s girdles. The Guahibo have body paint but no ornaments; the Yaruro, labrets, arm and leg bands, and necklaces.
The Guahibo, Yaruro, and the tribes of Barquisimeto have the ham- mock; the Guaiqueri and Guamontey used to sleep on skins on the ground.
The Guahibo use rattles, flutes, and panpipes, and they take parica snuff for magical purposes and when going to war.
THE CIBONEY OF THE ANTILLES
The little-known and now extinct Ciboney occupied the Guaicayarima Peninsula of Haiti and at one time the greater part of Cuba. They are thought to have come to the Antilles from Florida. They represented a marginal survival of very primitive hunters and gatherers, and they are known mainly through archeology.
These people depended primarily upon sea foods, lived in caves or tem- porary shelters, and practiced primary and secondary earth burial and cremation. They used clubs, various shell artifacts, chipped-flint daggers, clubs, stones (thrown with slings?), breechclouts, and shell ornaments. There is no record of their basketry and weaving, but they lacked farm- ing, houses, pottery, metallurgy, metates, zemis, and other traits character- istic of the Arawak and did only a little work in ground or polished stone, which was manifest especially in stone mortars, axes, and balls. The bow is reported but may be post-Conquest.
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Part 1. CENTRAL AMERICAN CULTURES
CENTRAL AMERICAN CULTURES: AN INTRODUCTION! By FREDERICK JOHNSON
Central America may be defined culturally as the region extending from the Atrato and San Juan River Valleys in Colombia nearly to the western boundary of Honduras (map 1). It has a fundamental unity in what may be a basic cultural tradition or cultural substructure. This basic culture has a distinctly South American cast, and the region marks the northern limit of culture complexes which were probably derived from South Amer- ica. The region has, however, been exposed to influences from the north- ern, that is, the Meso-American cultures. The continuing stream of cultural diffusion from both the north and south has produced a strong overlay of foreign elements which gives many local cultures a superficial similarity to those of neighboring regions. These tend to obscure the basic cultures.
GEOGRAPHY
The culture area of Central America is not coterminous with a geo- graphical province.2 Central America includes several portions of a larger geographic region which extends north to the “Great Scarp” of Oaxaca, México, and south to the northern terminus of the Andes, the eastern slopes of the Atrato River Valley. This region is part of the Antillean Mountain System and is distinct from the great Cordilleras of North and South America. The Antillean System comprises a series of east-west trending crustal folds, which have given rise to the present river valleys and ridges of northern Honduras and central Nicaragua. A major vulcan- ism of Pleistocene and Recent date has modified the topography, particu- larly of the western termini of these earlier mountains, and a series of volcanoes welded into a number of gigantic pedestals are distributed in a great arc between Tehuantepec and Costa Rica.. A smaller, sigmoid-shaped arc of volcanoes, of lower altitude, begins with the Cordillera de Tala-
1 This introduction incorporates data furnished by Stone, Kirchhoff, Strong, Stout, and Lothrop.
2 The archeological and ethnological subdivisions do not always coincide with geographical divisions, although they are designated by geographical names. Cultural and geographical terminology has been correlated so far as possible, but discrepancies remain.
43
44 SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS [B.A.E. Bull. 143
manca in Costa Rica and continues eastward, following the Cordillera de San Blas and the Serrania del Darién in Panama. The vulcanism closed a portal connecting the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific, now the area in- cluded in the Nicaraguan Lowland. Other changes in level and the deposi- tion of volcanic materials formed the Isthmus of Rivas, cutting off from the sea the basins of Lake Managua and Lake Nicaragua. The consequent rise of the levels of the lakes turned the drainage into the San Juan River Valley, leading to the Caribbean Sea. (Cf. esp. Ricketson, 1940; Schuchert, 1935.)
Along the Caribbean coast, Lowlands of varying width have been formed. These are flood plains, alluvial fans or areas of little or no slope, which have been built up by the deposition of materials eroded from the Uplands. The Lowlands bordering the Pacific—the Pacific Borderlands —are less extensive, being composed largely of deposits of volcanic ma- terial and recent alluvium.
The orogeny of the region has been one of the principal factors in the development of a number of areas which can be classified according to their topography and other general features. The mountain masses divide areas affected by the warm moist winds of the Caribbean from those de- pendent upon the winter winds and summer monsoons characteristic of the Pacific Ocean in these latitudes. This general condition is partially obscured by a complication of factors which have not yet been thoroughly studied. The climate of different areas and even of restricted localities is influenced by the topography, particularly the orientation of the mountains with respect to prevailing winds. Even this characteristic is subject to exceptions, the nature of which varies in the different areas. |
The Caribbean coast and the Uplands of Central America which drain into the Caribbean Sea differ greatly from other areas because of the highly specialized environment. This area is covered with a dense tropical forest. The moist winds from the Caribbean bring a rainfall of 100 to 200 inches a year. Some areas have even more precipitation. The so-called dry season is really a period of less rain. Depending upon circumstances, especially upon the orientation of the slopes toward the prevailing winds, the rainfall varies slightly in different areas but has a negligible effect on the significant features of the environment.
PANAMA
Darién.—Darién is the area between the Atrato River Valley and the gap in the backbone of the Isthmus of Panama, the site of the Panama Canal. The two ranges that comprise the central structure of Darién lie close to the Caribbean coast and the western shore of the Golfo de Uraba. The southeasterly extremity turns inland to form the western side of the lower reaches of the Atrato River. The southern end of the Serrania del
Vol. 4] CENTRAL AMERICAN CULTURES—JOHNSON 45
Darién becomes lost in a plain. West of this, paralleling the Pacific coast of Colombia, lie the hills which are the northern extremity of the Cordillera de Choco.
The southern and western slopes of the two ranges are drained by the westerly flowing Rio Chepo, also called Rio Bayano, and the Rio Chucuna- que-Tuira, which empty into the Golfo de San Miguel. The watersheds of these two relatively large systems comprise the major part of the area of the region. The valleys are of low relief ;,they have been described as plains. The Atrato River Valley, draining into the Golfo de Uraba, is wide and also of low relief. Toward the south, above the headwaters of the Atrato, the character of the relief continues, but the gradient dips to the south and the San Juan River runs southward to enter the Pacific at Punta Charambira in Colombia.
Darién is covered, for the most part, by several types of tropical forest. Onshore winds bring moisture from the warm Caribbean resulting in a rainfall varying between 100 and 200 inches a year. The northern slopes of the mountains and most of the interior valleys are covered with a dense tropical forest. Dry and wet seasons follow in regular succession over the entire area, but they are much more marked in the drier area bordering the Pacific coast, where offshore winds blow part of the year. In the lat- ter area the distribution of the tropical forest is irregular, but the vegeta- tion is lush, owing to large quantities of water caught in the poor drainage.
Western Panama.—West of Darién an expanse of savanna borders the Pacific and extends as far as the mountains of Chiriqui, Panama. The environment of this area is similar to all lands occupying the Pacific side of Central America. The climate is largely determined by accidents of location with respect to winter winds and summer monsoons, which bring out clearly marked dry and wet seasons. With the exception of local areas where the topography and other features affect the rainfall, these savannas and the Pacific coast in general support areas of semideciduous or scrub forest, between which grasslands flourish. The climate, though hot, is favorable, and the inhabitants could live above bare subsistence levels.
Between the Lowlands of the coast and the higher parts of the Uplands lies an area of hills and low ridges which topographically are part of the mountain systems. The environment of this little-known zone is very complex, but it appears to be analogous to that of the savannas. The cool nights, the occasional rains during the dry season, and possibly the special- ized fauna and flora make it hospitable to human occupancy ; at least some sections have, in the past, supported a relatively large population.
The Isthmian Tropical Forest.—This area extends westward from the Panama Canal, a very arbitrary boundary, to the Nicaraguan Lowland. It includes the Caribbean watershed which, in Panama, is clearly bounded by the divide separating it from the Pacific slopes. The inland boundary
653334485
46 SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS [B.A.E. Bull. 143
in Costa Rica is very irregular and hard to fix. It follows the limits of the Caribbean drainage, excepting some areas on the upper reaches of some of the larger rivers.
The area is divisible into a Coastal Lowland zone and an Upland zone. The Coastal Lowland is largely a poorly drained alluvial plain, much of it swampland, especially along the shore, behind the barrier beaches and along the meandering and irregularly flooding rivers. Except for occasional in- trepid travelers, the Panamanian Lowland has not been explored since the Spaniards lost interest in the area. A section of the Lowland, west of the Laguna de Chiriqui, sometimes called the Talamanca Plain, has been re- claimed. Strong onshore winds cause heavy surf to beat against the bar- rier beaches and to form sand bars blocking the river mouths. Navigation by canoe is hazardous if not impossible on the sea, but water travel is possible in the Laguna de Chiriqui and in the lower reaches of the rivers.
With the exception of sections of Costa Rica, very little is known of the Upland zone. This area is marked by steep slopes and deep valleys in which swift rivers flow through rocky channels. In general, the climate of the Uplands is healthier than that of the Lowlands.
Discussion and interpretation of the significance of the population pat- tern of the Isthmian Tropical Forest began in the 16th century, but the characteristics and necessities of life are still poorly understood. At the time of the Spanish conquest, when the aborigines did not have steel tools, it seems almost certain that very large areas of it had been cleared, and it appears to have been inhabited by a relatively large population. As a rule the headquarters of the several divisions of the population were located in the Uplands. Furthermore, there are vague suggestions of seasonal migrations of at least a portion of the population between the coastal Low- lands and the Uplands. After the Conquest, the characteristics of the oc- cupancy of this area changed. The population became smaller and more sedentary, and much of the cleared land reverted to impenetrable jungle. For several reasons, not the least of which was the forbidding environ- ment, the Spaniards concentrated their attention only upon the ports of entry and the lines of communication to the Pacific watershed, where, from their point of view, life was easier. From the time of its abandonment until a very few years ago, the Tropical Forest had been neglected by Euro- peans and remained an area in which refugee tribes could exist unmolested by their erstwhile conquerors.
THE SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS
The mountains between the Province of Chiriqui and the Nicaraguan Lowlands may be divided into a number of subareas.
Southern Costa Rica.—This subarea includes the Cordillera de Tala- manca and its eastward extension into the Province of Chiriqui, the Cordil- lera Brunquena, and the various basins and lowlands which lie within the
Vol. 4] CENTRAL AMERICAN CULTURES—JOHNSON 47
mountain system and which border the Pacific coast. The most important basin is a structural depression drained by the Rio Diquis. The northern portion of this basin, called the Valle General, is drained by the Rio Gen- eral and the Rio Cabagua, tributaries of the Rio Diquis. The Terraba Plain occupies the southern and eastern portion of this depression border- ing the Cordillera Brunquena, through which the Rio Diquis has cut a narrow canyon. To the south lies the Peninsula of Osa, a hilly region running in a southeasterly direction to form the Golfo Dulce. The penin- sula is nearly cut off from the mainland by a low swampy area.
The north shore of the Golfo Dulce is hilly and the slopes rise abruptly from the coast. To the east, however, lies an area of Lowland savanna and swampland, which extends eastward along the Pacific coast of Panama. The short valley of the Rio Coto and its tributaries opens onto these Low- lands and meanders across them to its mouth on the Golfo Dulce. The Lowland is interrupted by the hills surrounding the Pico Burica and the low ridge running south to Punta Burica.
Central Costa Rica.—This is an area of relatively high altitude. North- east of Cartago and San José, four great volcanic cones, varying in altitude from 9,120 to 11,220 feet (2,779 to 3,409 m.), stand in a row, their bases merged into a massive volcanic pedestal. Between these and the mountains to the south lies the intermontane basin known as the Meseta Central. This basin, lying at an altitude between”2,000 and 4,000 feet (about 650 to 1,300 m.), is complex in structure and its surface is distinctly hilly. The southeastern part of the Meseta is drained by the Rio Raventazon, which empties into the Caribbean north of Puerto Limon. The northwestern part of the Meseta Central is drained by the Rio Grande, which enters the Golfo de Nicoya a little southeast of Puntarenas. The Cordillera Volcan- ica, extending in a northeasterly direction from the Meseta Central, gradu- ally decreases in altitude until, in Nicaragua, it forms only a hilly belt between Lake Nicaragua and the Pacific.
The Nicoya Area.—This area lies to the south of the Cordillera Vol- canica, from which it is separated by the relatively wide and low valley of the Rio Tempisque, which empties into the head of the Golfo de Nicoya. The Peninsula de Nicoya is a range of hills to the south of this valley, ‘running in a southeasterly direction to form the Golfo de Nicoya. The western margin of the area, fronting the Pacific, is composed of a low range of hills.
The climate of all the southern or Costa Rica Highland area is exceed- ingly complex. Over most of the region the influences of the Pacific Ocean cause a dry and a wet season, but the differences between these seasons are not always extreme. Certain regions, particularly along the northern and eastern boundaries, are affected by trade winds from the Caribbean. Climate also varies with altitude and with the orientation of slopes in relation to prevailing winds and the sun. One slope of a valley
48 SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS [B.A.E. Bull. 143
may receive abundant rains, while a nearby slope is infertile because little or no rain falls upon it. The General Valley, the Terraba Plain, and the Meseta Central are well-watered, fertile areas. The Lowland areas border- ing the coast are very wet, having meandering rivers and most of them being poorly drained. Some of them are covered with mangrove swamps. The semideciduous and scrub forests of the Uplands give way to areas of lush vegetation in the wetter sections of the Lowlands.3
THE NICARAGUAN HIGHLANDS
This region lies north of the Nicaraguan Lowland. It is closely related, geologically, to the Guatemalan Highlands, though not so high, and is composed of a volcanic plateau with the highest elevations in the south. The steep escarpment of the plateau faces toward the Lempa River Valley of El Salvador and continues southward bordering the Golfo de Fonseca and the northeastern side of the Nicaraguan Lowland. The east-west pat- tern of the folded and faulted structure of the mountains is obscured by volcanic deposits in the south, but the older structure is revealed in the north. The easterly pointing spurs dip beneath the sea along the north coast of Honduras. The Bay Islands are, presumably, peaks of these submerged ranges. The Highlands are characterized by steep-sided mountains rising above high intermontane basins and plateaus.
The climate and vegetation patterns of the Northern Highlands are complex chiefly because extreme ranges of altitude are combined with a wide variation in the orientation of the slopes in relation to the prevailing winds and the sun. “In valleys and basins or on mountain slopes which are protected from the rain-bearing winds, the oak-pine forests, character- istic of the tierra templada and the tierra fria, may descend as low as 2,000 feet (about 650 m.). No parts of the country are high enough to be above tree line; but there are extensive savannas in relatively high places, such as those east of Tegucigalpa” (James, 1942, p. 689). In the eastern sections of the Nicaraguan Highlands, where the warm, moist winds from the Caribbean are forced to rise over the eastern slopes, the rainfall is very heavy and the forests are exceptionally thick. On the lower slopes of the mountains there is a drier belt, but the rainfall is sufficient to support a tropical rain forest. At high altitudes in Nicaragua the rainfall is more moderate and the temperature lower, permitting the growth of the oak and pine forests. These highlands mark the southernmost distribution of North American species of pines.
THE NICARAGUAN LOWLAND
This is a structural depression which runs in a northeasterly direction from the Caribbean Sea. The Tropical Forest extends up it nearly to San Carlos, where Lake Nicaragua empties into the Rio San Juan. The forest
8 For a brief description of the environment, cf. James, 1942.
Vol. 4] CENTRAL AMERICAN CULTURES—JOHNSON 49
also covers sections of the valleys of tributaries of the San Juan, particular- ly those which drain the southern watershed of the Lowland. The north- ern side of the Lowland has a drier climate, perhaps because the orientation of the adjoining slopes produces local ‘‘rain shadows.”
THE EASTERN COASTAL PLAIN
This area in Nicaragua is the largest lowland plain in Central America. It is an alluvial plain, poorly drained by the meandering rivers which cross it. Huge portions of it are swampland unfit for human habitation. The people build their villages on natural levees bordering the rivers or upon the low rises near the coastal lagoons. The coast has a complicated series of sand bars and barrier beaches, behind which there are extensive lagoons. The latter fostered the development of a partially maritime existence among the coast dwellers. The Upland slopes, facing the Caribbean, support the heaviest tropical forest in Central America. This did not, however, prevent the people from inhabiting the river valleys in great numbers.
THE NORTHERN COASTAL PLAIN
This is a fringe of Lowland in Honduras which skirts the spurs of the mountains and extends for varying distances up the river valleys. It re- ceives great quantities of moisture from the Caribbean and supports a tropical forest. It is probable, however, that less rain falls here than else- where on the Caribbean coast. These Lowlands are composed of alluvial deposits washed off the slopes or deposited at the mouths of the rivers. Though of limited extent, they are usually poorly drained and dotted with swamps. The adjacent Uplands also support a tropical forest, which ex- tends inland to a very irregular line where the “Caribbean” and “Northern Highland” environments meet. For reasons not yet well known, the tropical forest occurs also in some of the northerly and higher sections of the Honduran Plateau.
TRIBAL DIVISIONS AND HISTORY ‘
THE CUNA-CHOCO DIVISIONS
At the time of the Conquest the Darién region was inhabited by tribes speaking dialects belonging to two languages which the Spaniards named Coiba and Cueva. The meaning of these names in terms of existing dialects or tribes is not clear ; perhaps Coiba was a larger linguistic category. Cueva may now be extinct, having been spoken by a tribe which is no longer ex- tant. On the other hand, elements of Cueva may be present in the dialect spoken by the modern San Blas Cuna.
The Chocé Group.—The designation Chocéd, as a tribal name, does not occur in the early literature, though Oviedo y Valdés (1851-55, vol. 4,
4 The locations of the Central American tribes are shown on map 2. 5 The data on the Cuna and Chocé are briefed from a manuscript submitted by D. B. Stout.
50 SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS [B.A.E. Bull. 143
p. 121) mentions a chief named Coquo, and the name Chocé was applied to a province in 1575 (Wassén, 1935, p. 42).
Beginning with Balboa in 1511, the Conquistadors made a series of explorations through various parts of the Chocé area. In most cases they were driven back by the Chocé, who were to be feared because of their poisonous weapons and perhaps also for their cannibalism. Successful entry of the country was not accomplished by Europeans until 1654, when missionaries established themselves there. They remained until 1687, and their work was carried on for a time by neophytes. Latterly, the Chocé have been a peaceful people; in fact, during the 19th century they were described as more docile and less jealous of their independence than the neighboring Cuna.
The Choco have remained aloof from the influences of the Europeans. They have never been employed away from their homeland in large num- bers, nor have they engaged in trade of commercial proportions. Negroes were introduced into the area very early and they have mixed with some of the Chocd. These Negroes have replaced the Indians along the lower courses of the rivers.
The Choco of modern times are composed of three groups: (1) The Northern or true Choc6é, (2) the Southern Choc6, and (3) the Catio. The Northern Choco appear to be the most populous of the three. They dwell on the lower courses of the rivers flowing into the Golfo de San Miguel and along the rivers of the Pacific coast of Colombia. There is a concen- tration of this group on the Rio Baudo and on the Rio Saija. The Southern Choco are concentrated about the Rio San Juan, particularly on the Rio Docordé and on the Rio Micay. The Catio dwell in the eastern parts of the Atrato River valley.
The Cuna Group.—The Cuna are divided into two sections. The main- land Cuna inhabit the headwaters of the rivers on the Pacific slope of eastern Panama, several small settlements in the lower Atrato Valley, and the eastern shore of the Golfo de Uraba. The San Blas Cuna inhabit the small islands along the Caribbean coast between the Golfo de San Blas and Cabo Tiburén. Throughout the historic period the area occupied by the Cuna has been steadily shrinking. The land vacated in the south and about the Golfo de Uraba has been taken up by Negroes and Choco.
European and Negro contact began to affect the Cuna culture in 1540, and many Indians were enslaved. To escape this some of the Cuna retreated up the river valleys. Meanwhile bands of escaped Negro slaves settled on the borders of Cuna territory, where their descendents may still be found.
Contact with Europeans was continued during the 17th and 18th cet: turies, when English and French pirates were based on the Cuna islands. Of significance also is the Scotch Darién Colony and the French Colony which existed between 1690 and 1757 at Concepcion. After the treaty
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Vol. 4] CENTRAL AMERICAN CULTURES—JOHNSON 51
of 1790 the Cuna lived at peace with the Spaniards. Subsequent to 1821 the government of New Granada accepted in principle their independence.
About the middle of the 19th century an extensive trade in tortoise shell, ipecac, vegetable ivory, and rubber developed. At the present time trade flourishes though it is largely restricted to coconuts. Formerly, Cuna men shipped aboard the English and American ships, which came at irregular intervals. Now, however, a regular trade is maintained by companies established at Colon, and the Cuna men have gradually given up the sea to work on the mainland.
No missions were established among the mainland Cuna between the 17th and 19th centuries. In 1907 Catholic and Protestant missionaries were finally established among the San Blas Cuna. They opened schools, which were later augmented by government-supported schools. Some of the pupils have continued their schooling in Panama City and Colon. This educational activity was interrupted in 1925 when one faction of the San Blas Cuna, encouraged and guided by an American, staged a revolution and attempted to form an independent government. Since then the reservation boundaries and laws, first established in 1915, have been clarified. The Panamanian Government has reservation offices at two islands, but the San Blas Cuna have title to the island and a strip of the coast. They possess the power to withhold from outsiders permission to buy, settle, or establish businesses on their island.
THE TALAMANCA DIVISION §
The Guaymi Group.—The term Guaymi was first loosely applied to the people living in the vicinity of the Laguna de Chiriqui. By 1578 the people inhabiting the Miranda Valley on the Rio Cricamola were identified as the Guaymi tribe, and soon after it was noted that they also inhabited the area to the east as far as the Rio Calovebora. The Indians on the southern, or Pacific, slopes of the Cordillera were not identified as Guaymt until 1631, when this term was applied to Indians living in Guabala and San Felix. A more definite record of Guaymi living in the environs of the village of Chiriqui was made in 1638.
During the 16th century small groups of Guaymi broke off from the main tribe and moved westward to various locations along the Caribbean slopes of the mountains. These groups were allied for varying lengths of time with other tribes, e. g., the Terraba. During the first part of the 17th century the Spaniards moved as many groups of Guaymi as they could conquer to southwestern Panama. Later, other tribes were moved from the Tropical Forest area to the Pacific coast, and the Guaymi moved
6 The information about the Guaymi was obtained by Frederick Johnson during 1932 and 1933. The two expeditions to Panama and much of the subsequent research were carried on under the auspices of the Peabody Museum, Harvard University. The information presented here is briefed from an unfinished manuscript and is published by courtesy of the Museum.
52 SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS [B.A.E. Bull. 143
eastward into the central part of the coastal Lowlands of Chiriqui. Since this time the Guaymi have been, in fact still are, withdrawing into regions as remote as possible from European settlements.
Recent studies have tended to emphasize the opinion of former students that the Guaymi inhabited the savanna area at the time of the Conquest. There is no proof of this, because the tribes inhabiting the savannas can- not to be classified in such detail. Several different languages were spoken in the savannas, but there is no proof that any one of these was Guaymi. The distribution of Guaymi on the savannas, based on vocabularies ob- tained since the beginning of the 19th century, may well represent only the location of descendants of Guaymi who were moved to the many mission towns during the 16th and 17th centuries. It is probable that some of the people indigenous to the savannas spoke languages related to Guaymit, just as they possessed a number of culture traits common to the whole region.
The present-day Guaymi are composed of the Guaymi proper and a mix- ture of numerous groups who have fled from European domination. The people occupy most of the northern and sections of the southern slopes of the Cordillera, particularly of the Serrania de Tabasara. In general the Guaymi do not frequent the coastal regions in large numbers or, if they do, they do not occupy them for long periods of time.
The modern boundaries of the Guaymi are indefinite, for this group is surrounded by peoples of mixed blood who are under more direct control of the Panamanian Government. In general the Guaymi are found be- tween the Panama—Costa Rica boundary and the longitude of Santa Fé, Province of Veraguas. Mixed but unclassifiable groups, some of whom acknowledge their aboriginal descent, are found scattered about Chiriqui and Veraguas, particularly on the Asuero Peninsula.
Pinart’s (1885, p. 438) identification of subtribes of the Guaymi is sub- stantially correct. It is likely that these subtribes are the remnants of aboriginal sociopolitical divisions.
The Mové have their headquarters in the Miranda Valley and on the Rio Cricamola. They also live on the Caribbean slopes of the mountains between the Laguna de Chiriqui and the Rio Belén. Scattered members of this group may be found in the Highlands of Chiriqui and on the Pacific slopes of the Serrania de Tabasara.
The Murire live in the eastern sections of the Serrania de Tabasara and are said to inhabit sections of the Caribbean coast and Upland as far east as the Rio Coclé del Norte. Strongly Hispanicized remnants live in the eastern sections of the Pacific watershed. In the west, the Murire and Mové either occupy neighboring localities or else representatives of one group live among the others.
The Muoi have practically disappeared as a unit if present information can be trusted. At one time they lived about Chorcha and along the Rio
Vol. 4] CENTRAL AMERICAN CULTURES—JOHNSON Be
Fonseca in the Province of Chiriqui, a location to which they may have migrated after 1600.
The Talamanca group.—The Dorasque.—In contrast to some lin- guistic classifications this tribe, politically and socially, was apparently closely allied to the Changuena at the time of the Conquest. This relation- ship may be followed through the incomplete records into the latter part of the 19th century. In the 16th century the Dorasque were living be- tween the Changuena and the Guaymi. Boundaries mentioned are the Rio Guarano and the Rio Cricamola. Following the conquest the Dorasque joined the Changuena in order to combat the Spaniards and to protect themselves from the raids of the Mosquito and the English buccaneers. The attacks of the latter are said to have resulted in a retreat into Terraba territory and an amalgamation or at least a federation with them. Finally, the combined Terraba and Dorasque-Changuena retreated to the former home of the Changuena. After this the movements of the Dorasque are obscure until the very last records of them. The Dorasque, allied with some Changuena, were to be found south of Cerro Horqueta, on the Rio Chiriqui and in the environs of Caldera, Potrero de Vargas, Dolega, and possibly Guabala. Dolega was an ancient mission of the Dorasque. It is doubtful if any true Dorasque are alive today.
The Changuena.—This tribe was said by the early Spaniards to be located in the mountainous region southwest of Almirante Bay, along the Rio Robalo, and about the headwaters of the Rios Changuena, Bun, and Puan. Andrade (1709) says that they numbered about 5,000. A few Changuena were reported living in their native region by Gabb (1875, p. 486). In 1900, a few families, said to be “Chelibas” and closely related to the Changuena, were living to the north of the Volcan de Chiriqui on the headwaters of the Changuinola River. Other Changuena moved to the Pacific coast with the Terraba and Dorasque. They are said to have settled in regions northeast of Burica and the Golfo Dulce. They are now extinct or inextricably mixed with the Bribri, Terraba, and Guaymi,
The Terraba.—The Terraba lived in the Lowlands and lower Uplands between the Rios Sixaola and Changuinola. They also occupied some of the islands at the mouth of the Laguna de Chiriqui. The Tojar, either a subtribe or a name synonymous with the Terraba, lived on the island of Tojar as late as 1763. The Terraba, particularly a subgroup called the Quequexque, were said to occupy lands adjacent to Guaymi territory. Some of the Terraba were removed to a mission in southeastern Costa Rica, now the village of Terraba. Other groups migrated in company with the Dorasque and Changuena.
“The Boruca.—Doris Stone (1943) correctly notes that the modern Boruca ate probably composed of a mixture of tribes indigenous to the
54 SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS [B.A.E. Bull. 143
Terraba Plain and neighboring regions. Probably, also, the tribe includes increments from tribes moved into the region in the 16th and 17th cen- turies. The early information is equivocal, The Boruca may be the descendants of the Coto, who were enemies of the Quepo. On the other hand, the Boruca, first identified as a tribe living in the environs of Pico Burica, may have counted the Quepo and Coto as subtribes. This latter alignment is used here because the earliest information which has come to hand implies some such political organization. The language of the Boruca has been classified with that of the Dorasque and Changuena. That of the Quepo has been linked, at least by implication, with the Guetar language. The data prevent the construction of any satisfactory conclu- sion. (Peralta, 1901, p. 130; Lehmann, 1920, vol. 1, p. 201; Stone, 1943.)
The Bribri.—The origin of the name Bribri is obscure. It first appears in the literature of the 19th century, and it may have been derived from Viceita or some equivalent form. In 1709 it was suggested that the 7,000 Viceitas could be removed to Boruca, but nothing concerning the outcome of 1 11s proposal has come to light. Nothing is known of their early home. Gal b (1875, p. 486) places the Bribri on the east side of the Rio Coen, wh: re they occupied all the Lari, Uren, and Zhorquin River Valleys. The same author says that the term Biceita was not known as a tribal name in 1875. Peralta (1890, p. 70) says that the Rio Sixaola flows, from its sources to the sea, through the territories of Cabecares and Vicettas.
The Cabecar.—lt is impossible to identify this tribe in the earlier docu- ments. It is probable that, like the Bribri, they were closely related to the Guetar, although some authors claim that their language was dis- tinctive (Pinart, 1900; Lehmann, 1920). The first definite record of their location was made by Gabb (1875, p. 486), who says that the Cabecar lived between the frontiers of civilization and the western banks of the Rio Coen.
The Central Costa Rica group.—The Guetar—The Guetar were named for a chief, Huetar, who lived to the north and east of Punta de Herradura. In addition to Huetar himself, the records mention four other chiefs who controlled political divisions of varying sizes and impor- tance. These chiefs were named Garabito, Guarco, Pacaca, and Asseri. The actual political system and its divisions are obscure and puzzling. It is possible, though believed by some to be doubtful, that there was a strong intertribal organization even before the Conquest. The territory ruled over by the chiefs mentioned above extended from the eastern shore of the southern section of the Golfo de Nicoya across Costa Rica to the Caribbean. On the Caribbean coast the Guetar inhabited the area extend- ing from the vicinity of Port Limon northward to the region about the mouth of the Pacuare River.
Vol. 4] CENTRAL AMERICAN CULTURES—JOHNSON 55
The Northern Costa Rica group.—The Voto.—‘These Indians oc- cupied the valleys of the San Carlos, Pocosal and Saraqui Rivers. To the south they extended to the Cordillera Central, and probably across these mountains into the Province of Alajuela” (Lothrop, 1926 b, p. 16). The Voto were a separate tribe, but they were tributary to the Guetar chieftain Garabito. Doris Stone (correspondence), following Gabb (1875), says that the Voto “continue today as the Rama in Nicaragua.” Remnant groups may have been absorbed by the Rama. At the present writing, however, the only way to distinguish the two tribes is through detailed linguistic analysis, and until this has been accomplished Gabb’s statement must remain tentative.
The Suerre—The Suerre lived on the Atlantic coast of Costa Rica behind the Laguna de Tortuguero and around the mouths of the Rios Raventazon and Pacuare. Four chieftains were said to be members of this tribe, but nothing is known concerning them. They were named Suerre, Chiuppa, Camachire, and Cocori.
The Guetar, Voto, and Suerre tribes were conquered very early, and members of other tribes, particularly from southern Costa Rica, were moved into their villages. The languages of the three tribes were closely related to those spoken in southern and eastern Costa Rica. The known characteristics of their culture indicate the same close relationship with the tribes to the south. These three tribes had, however, little if any formal relationship with their neighbors. The existing records have been summarized by Lothrop (1926 b), the principal source of the preceding notes.
The Corobici—The Corobici take their name from a chieftain en- countered by Gil Gonzalez Davila. In early Spanish times the Corobict lived along the southern shores of Lake Nicaragua between the Rio Frio and the Cordillera Volcanica. Some claim they inhabited the Solentiname Islands in Lake Nicaragua; others say that the people on these islands were a branch of the Rama. Probably the Corobici occupied a tongue of territory extending westward across the Cordillera de Tilleran and through the valley of the Rio Tenorio to the northern shore of the Golfo de Nicoya. As the Spaniards conquered the country the Corobici retreated to the plains about San Carlos. Later, as Guatuso, they occupied the inaccessible region about the headwaters of the Rio Frio and perhaps also the valleys of the Rios Zapote, Guacalito, and Cucaracha to the west (Rivet, 1924, p. 681). Apparently separate enclaves, which may have been either in- digenous or fugitive groups, were to be found in the region between Bagaces and Esparata. About the middle of the 18th century these groups raided and plundered the countryside, but they were driven back to the north across the Cordillera. Between that time and about 1860 the Guatuso lived in comparative seclusion in the upper sections of the Rio Frio Valley. . Recent exploration and conquest of the valley has resulted
56 SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS [B.A.E. Bull. 143
in the decimation of the Guatuso. Some were captured and sold as slaves in Nicaragua. (Lothrop, 1926, b; Conzemius, 1930; Fernandez, 1889, pp. 622-640.) At the present time remnants of the Guatuso live in upper sections of the Rio Frio.
Some students do not agree with the location and implied relationships given above. Lines (1938 a) states that the Guatuso were originally Guetar and that, because they were neighbors of the “Chontal” and “Chorotega,” their “race” has become very mixed. Conzemius (1930, p. 105) implies that the Corobici are different from the Guatuso, and he be- lieves that the latter are descendants of the people who live in Aranjuez and El Garabita. These two towns and the descendants from the original inhabitants are now believed to be Guetar. A note by Conzemius to the effect that some Guatuso on the Rio Frio are actually Rama Indians may well be due either to recent undocumented wanderings of the latter or to variations in the interpretation of linguistic data. The early data cannot be interpreted in this way.
Doris Stone (correspondence) quotes the statement by Oviedo y Valdés to the effect that the Corobici inhabited the Chara and Pocosi Islands in the Golfo de Nicoya, and she is led to suspect that the Nicoya Peninsula was once Corobici territory. This suspicion is not based upon records made during the Conquest or later, for it is recorded that this territory was occupied by the Orotita during and subsequent to the 16th century. In this case, Oviedo’s statement refers only to the islands. The delimitation of the habitat of the prehistoric Corobici depends upon the discovery, on the peninsula and elsewhere, of cultural material which may be identified as the product of Corobici industry.
The Rama.—The records indicate that the Rama probably lived on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua between Bluefields and the Rio San Juan. Some authors believe that their southern border lay at the Rio Punta Gorda. The location of the northern boundary is by no means certain. At the present time the principal settlement of Rama is on Rama Key in the Laguna de Bluefields. A few scattered settlements are found between this island and Punta Gorda. Conzemius (1930, p. 94) says that the language is spoken by about 270 persons.
The former western boundary of the Rama is indeed vague. They appear to have inhabited the San Juan River Valley and probably sections of the hinterland to the north. The Melchora (Squier, 1852, p. 79; 1853 a, p. 94 f), a group of unknown origin, were probably Rama living in the middle reaches of the Rio San Juan. Vague suggestions of the existence of political units justifies the assumption that the Rama were confined to the area east of Lake Nicaragua. There is the possibility that Rama families, or small enclaves of this tribe, have lived among the Guatuso since the middle of the 18th century, if not before. (For arguments identifying Rama groups in northwestern Costa Rica, cf. Conzemius, 1930.)
Vol. 4] CENTRAL AMERICAN CULTURES—JOHNSON sy
THE CARIBBEAN DIVISION: EAST COAST?
The information from the accounts of the first conquerors and the few colonists of this region is exceedingly small in quantity, and it is equivocal. Some references employ the term “Chontal,” but it is impossible to know whether these refer to enclaves of “foreign” origin or whether this term was applied by early writers to the ancestors of the present population. The Lowlands and the lower Uplands of the hinterland were inhabited by peoples now called the Mosquito and Sumo. Unfortunately, the records made previous to the end of the 17th century supply information for but a small section of the Mosquito coast. Early information about the inland peoples is practically nonexistent.
The Mosquito coast was discovered by Columbus on his fourth voyage. Between that time and the middle of the 17th century the country was only occasionally visited by Europeans. The coast became a refuge for the English buccaneers who, after the middle of the 17th century, estab- lished themselves at Cabo Gracias a Dios. The ensuing alliance between the English and Indians resulted in the expansion of the territory of the local tribe at the expense of its aboriginal neighbors. Effective raids, particularly against Spanish settlements, were made along the coast as far south as the Laguna de Chiriqui. As a consequence of this alliance the aboriginal culture was profoundly modified.
By 1688 the buccaneers were masters of the Mosquito coast and they made the Mosquito chief governor general of it under the jurisdiction of the English Government at Jamaica. Before long the English established a protectorate over the coast and even sent troops there in 1744. Spain protested this action, and following the treaty of 1786 England evacuated the territory. Spain was, however, unable to establish effective control in the region.
In 1821 the English protectorate was renewed. The Mosquito Chief was crowned King in 1825, and it was claimed that his territory extended from Cabo Gracias a Dios to the Laguna de Chiriqui. Later the southern boundary was relocated at the Rio San Juan. The Mosquito King ruled until 1860 when, through the intervention of the United States, the English ceded part of their territory to Honduras and the remainder to Nicaragua. A section lying between the Rio Hueso and the Rio Rama, extending in- land to longitude 84° 15’ N., was set aside as a reservation governed by the natives under Nicaraguan sovereignty. The population of this reserva- tion was composed for the most part of English-speaking “Creoles,” the mixed descendants of Jamaican Negroes and Mosquito and some Rama Indians. The majority of the aboriginal groups lived outside the reserve. After a long series of difficulties the Nicaraguan Government, in 1894,
7™The following information is a rearrangement of data submitted by Kirchhoff. Data from manuscripts by Doris Stone and Frederick Johnson have been added.
«658 SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS [B.A.E. Bull. 143
took possession of the reservation incorporating it into the republic as the Department of Zelaya, now the Department of Bluefields.
The Mosquito group.—The account of the fourth voyage of Columbus and the few 17th century descriptions of the Mosquito coast are difficult to evaluate in terms of the more adequate later descriptions. It is probable that Mosquito were living between Cabo Gracias a Dios and the Rio Wawa. Either the inhabitants of much of the coast to the south were unknown or else early descriptions of them have been lost. The first satisfactory record was made by Exquemelin in 1672. He found them divided into two subtribes, one located at Cabo Gracias a Dios and the other at ““Mostique” (Sandy Bay?). Contemporary writers (e. g., Raveneau de Lussan, 1689; “M. W.” in 1699 [1752] ) mention the wreck of a slave ship, in 1641, which freed about 200 Negroes. These took refuge among the Mosquito at Cabo Gracias a Dios, and, as has been emphasized by many writers down to the present day, they were largely responsible for the primary introduction of African traits into the culture of the Mosquito coast.
Some 150 years after Exquemelin’s observations (1672) the Mosquito occupied all important river basins between Cabo Gracias a Dios and the Rio San Juan. They had also disrupted the distribution of the fugitive populations who had attempted to settle in the Lowland regions between the San Juan and the Laguna de Chiriqui. By the beginning of the 19th century bands or subtribes of Mosquito were identifiable. Today 5 of these, with a population of about 15,000, are known. These appear as dis- tinct political units, but their languages may differ only slightly. Attempts to point out differences in their ethnology (cf. esp. Conzemius, 1932) are significant, but further detailed study in the field is necessary before they may be fully accepted.
Inevitably, most of the Mosquito have mixed with Negroes. Latterly, mixtures between the Indian-Negro-European populations and the Mos- quito have been frequent. The strongest mixture of Negro blood has been observed among the Baldam and Cabo. The Baldam were first known about Sandy Bay, but a part of the group has migrated to the Laguna de las Perlas. The Cabo live along the coast between Sandy Bay and the Rio Grande. The Mam moved to the Rio Patuca, absorbing some of the indigenous Paya and driving the remainder to the west. The W anki remained in the valley of the Rio Wanks and, according to Conze- mius, they are moving up the river. By 1932 they had reached the town of Bocay. The Tawira live a short distance from the Coast, between Sandy Bay and the Rio Grande. The Mam and Wanki call the Mosquito living south of Cabo Gracias a Dios “Tawira” (heavy-haired). The Cabo and Baldam call themselves “True Mosquito.”
The Sumo group.—Sumo is a generic name given by the Mosquito to a number of tribes speaking a language closely related to Mosquito. They
Vol. 4] CENTRAL AMERICAN CULTURES—JOHNSON 59
now number between 3,000 and 4,000 people, and they occupy the lower Uplands and upper sections of the river valleys west of the Caribbean coast in Honduras and Nicaragua. Almost nothing in the 16th-centurv documents can be construed as a description of the Sumo, and, as a matter of fact, little was known of them until the very last of the 17th century. Beginning with the 18th century, the increasing amount of information, principally from travelers’ accounts, defines 10 subtribes of which 6 are now either extinct or combined with other groups.
Some Twahka live in five villages located in Honduras along the middle reaches of the Rio Patuca. These are slowly being absorbed by the Mos- quito. Other members of the Twahka have migrated to Nicaragua, where they live in the lower reaches of the Rios Waspuk, Lakus (Lecus?), Wawa, Cuculaya, Hamaco, and even Prinzapolca and Rio Grande. The closest linguistic relatives of the Twahka are the Panamaka, who prefer to call themselves “Twahka’ (= True Sumo).
The Panamaca live along the tributaries of the Wanks River. Relatively pure groups have been found on the Rios Bocay, Pis Pis, and Kwabul (?). Two groups of Panamaca have moved to the upper reaches of the Rio Prinsapolca and the Rio Grande.
The Bawahka were expelled from the Rios Wawa and Cuculaya by the Twahka. They live today on the Rio Banbana.
The Ulva, the southernmost Sumo, live today along the upper reaches of the Rio Grande and the Rio Escondido. It is likely that other unre- corded enclaves are still extant. Early knowledge of this tribe in eastern Nicaragua is scanty. They were probably neighbors of the Rama, occupy- ing a stripe of territory between Lake Nicaragua and the coast. They also occupied sections of southern Jinotega and were distributed to the west along the northern slopes of the Nicaraguan Lowland, extending through Honduras into eastern El Salvador (Ponce, 1873, vol. 1; Squier, 1860 a). They occupied the western parts of their territory in company with Choro- tega, Nahuatlan, and possibly even Lenca, Matagalpa, and other groups.
Owing to continuous wars with the Mosquito, the Kukra have only recently been exterminated as a subtribe, but individuals still live in their native haunts, i. e., about the Laguna de Bluefields and on the Corn Islands. The Yosco® lived on the Rio Tuma in territory which was invaded by the Panamanca and Ulva. Tradition has it that the Yosco were killed off because they were sodomites. The Prinsu lived on the lower Rio Prinsa- polea, a region now inhabited by the Tawira. The Tunla, speaking a dialect resembling Bawahka, were a mixture of Prinsu and Tawira. The Boa formerly lived on the upper Rio Kewaska (?), and the Silam and the Ku inhabited the valley of the Rio Waspuk.
8It is believed by some that the Yosco language differed from other Sumo dialects (cf. Mason, T. A., 1940; Johnson, 1940).
. 60 SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS [B.A.E. Bull. 143
THE CARIBBEAN DIVISION: NORTH COAST
North Coast group.—The Paya.—Stone (1941, etc.) advances the idea that the term “Taia” recorded by Columbus is an early spelling of the modern term Paya. The territory of the Paya, she believes, lay between the Aguan River Valley and the Wanks River and extended southward to the Olancho and Jamastran Valleys. The date of the establishment of these boundaries corresponds with the settlement of the country following the Conquest. It is possible that there was a southward drift of the Paya, who took refuge in the interior from the Spanish attacks on the coast. Possibly the interior boundaries were modified by this movement. More conservative interpretations locate the early Paya along the coast between the Patrum and Wanks Rivers.
Conzemius (1927-28) lists the towns of El Carbon and El Dulce Nombre (Culmi), saying that 250 to 300 Paya Indians may be found in each. Also, 30 Paya live in El Payal, on the Paulaya River, and 40 Indians live in Puskira, located on the Plantain River 15 km. (about 10 miles) from the coast. Stone (1941) accepts Squier’s statement that the Seco on the Tinto River were a band of Paya. If these are the Seco mentioned by Young (1842) they should be located on the Rio Sico (Seco), a tribu- tary of the Rio Negro (also called Tinto) in northeastern Honduras. The descendants of the Seco of the Rio Sico are to be found in the neighbor- hood of El Carbén (Conzemius, 1927-28). Stone (1941) also says that the Towka were probably Paya. Conzemius believes that these people were Sumo, as their name suggests. The identification of the original inhabitants of Catacamas is difficult. Stone believes that they were Paya, and Conzemius says that they may have been Sumo.
In 1921 there were a few more than 600 Paya (Conzemius, 1927-28). At the end of the 18th century Ramon de Anguiano estimated that there were 10,000 to 12,000 Paya. This estimate seems to be greatly exag- gerated. Sapper (1899) estimated 825. Kirchhoff believes that Fray Espino was referring to Paya when he said, in 1674, that he settled 6,000 in 7 villages. It is probable that Espino was referring to Jicaque.
The Jicaque——Stone (cf. esp. 1941) has, through recent interpretations of the documents, thrown new light upon the “Jicaque Area.” She has emphasized the possibility that the term Jicaque is of Nahuatlan origin and that it was used as one of the “terminos provinciales,” as were such terms as Chontal, Pupuluca, and, to a more limited extent perhaps, Lenca and Paya. In her opinion Jicaque was applied to peoples speaking languages and having cultural traditions which differ from the present-day Jicaque. This opinion depends largely upon the interpretation of Vazquez (1714— 16), from whom later writers drew much of their material.
In later times the term Jicaque was used by anthropologists to designate the language spoken by the inhabitants of Yoro, southern Atlantida, and Cortés. Because of difficulties with tribal terminology it is still impos-
Vol. 4] CENTRAL AMERICAN CULTURES—JOHNSON 61
sible to trace the history of the people now called Jicaque back into proto- historic times. However, Von Hagen (1943) has attempted to identify earlier groups. He locates more recently extinct groups and completely Hispanicized remnants in the Sierra de Omoa, the Ulua-Chamelicon Valley, and in the Departments of Yoro and Atlantida. He also accepts 18th- and 19th-century identifications of the Jicaque de Palmar and the Jicaque de Yoro. The Jicaque tribe, which he names Torrupan, left the town of Yoro in 1865 and moved to their present location on the Montafia de la Flor.
THE NORTHERN HIGHLAND DIVISION
The Matagalpa group and tribe.—Information concerning the Mata- galpa is limited. They spoke a language related to Ulva and Sumo. At the present time knowledge of them is confined almost exclusively to their language. The early information indicates that the language was spoken in northwestern Nicaragua and southwestern Honduras. An enclave speaking a language related to Matagalpa, usually called Cacaopera, was identified soon after the Conquest in northeastern F1 Salvador. Remnants, strongly Hispanicized, have been reported near Cacaopera in eastern EF] Salvador. Other groups have been located along the Nicaraguan- Honduran frontier, around the Pantasma Valley, near Esteli in Nicaragua (Stone, correspondence), and at Lislique. Another group has been located near the town of Matagalpa.
The Lenca group.?—The term Lenca first appears in the chronicle of Padre Francisco Vazquez (1714-16), who uses the reports of a Franciscan friar, Padre Espino, to recount the conquest of the Honduran Province of Teguzgalpa (Tegucigalpa). Vazquez designates certain Indians as mem- bers of the Lenca nation, e.g., Paraka, but at the same time includes the Jicague as speaking the Lenca tongue. He makes the following significant statement, however: “. . . the Lenca Indians of confused language, and treacherous character and inconstant” (Vazquez, 1714-16, lib. 5, trat. 1, cap. 7, p. 447). Squier (1858) was the first to apply this term to the Indians in southwestern Honduras, particularly those around Quajiquiro, in the present Department of La Paz, and in Intibuca. The language of these people differs from the idiom of the Paraka and other people who are still found in parts of eastern Honduras. We must, therefore, accept Lenca as a general term to cover a number of different peoples and dialects, both those of definite interrelationship and those which may have only remote if any connection with one another.
Words ending in “‘-ique,” “-quin,” “-guara,’ and “-gua” are Lenca (Squier, 1908; Lehmann, 1920). The former distribution of the Lenca can be traced fairly accurately by the place names on the present-day maps of Honduras and El Salvador. At the present time we designate as Lenca
yy 66
® This section was written by Doris Stone. 653334—48—6
62 SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS [B.A.E. Bull. 143
the Indians inhabiting the mountainous regions of the Departments of La Paz, Intibuca, southern and southeastern Gracias in Honduras, and the northeastern portion of the Republic of El Salvador.1°
Tribal divisions, population, and distribution—The Lenca seek high country and isolated peaks and hillocks, cultivating their cornfields in the small sloping cavities of the hillsides and in the Upland narrow valleys. Each community is formed by a separate tribe, often with a slight difference in dialect (Squier, 1858; also personal observation of the writer). To- day, unfortunately, the language has almost entirely disappeared, surviving