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The Aborigines of Puerto Rico and neighboring islands / Jesse Walter Fewkes.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Fewkes, Jesse Walter, 1850-1930
- Series:
- Caribbean archaeology and ethnohistory
- Standardized Title:
- Aborigines of Porto Rico and neighboring islands
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Indians of the West Indies--Puerto Rico.
- Indians of the West Indies.
- Puerto Rico.
- Physical Description:
- 234 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.
- Place of Publication:
- Tuscaloosa : University of Alabama Press, [2009]
- Summary:
- A valuable recounting of the first formal archaeological-excavations in Puerto Rico.
- Originally published as the Twenty-Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian institution in 1907, this book was praised in an article in American Anthropologist as doing "more than any other to give a comprehensive idea of the archaeology f the West Indies."
- Until that time, for mainly political reasons, little scientific research had been conducted by Americans on any of the Caribbean islands. Dr. Fewkes unique skills of observation and experience served him well in the quest to understand Caribbean prehistory and culture. Being particularly interested in the prehistoric peoples of the island he excavated several sites in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Haiti. Somewhat later after additional work in the lower Antilles, he sought to prove Antillean connections to North America conducting reconnaissance along the lower Florida Gulf coast and excavations at Weed on Island near Tampa.
- This volume, the result of the careful fieldwork in Puerto Rico in 1902-04 is magnificently illustrated by 93 plates and 43 line drawings of specimens from both public and private collections of the islands. A 1907 article in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland described the volume as "a most valuable contribution to ethnographical science."
- Contents:
- Physical features of Porto Rico 21
- Precolumbian population 23
- Present descendants of the Porto Rican Indians 24
- Race and kinship 26
- Bodily characteristics 28
- Mental and moral characteristics 31
- Government 33
- Political divisions 35
- Houses 41
- Thatched with grasses 43
- Thatched with palm leaves 44
- With palm leaves on walls, and straw-thatched roofs 45
- With slabs of palm wood on walls 45
- Secular customs 47
- Naming children; marriage customs 47
- Hunting and fishing 48
- Agriculture 50
- Religion 53
- Zemiism 54
- Zemis of wood 57
- Zemis of stone 58
- Zemis of cotton cloth inclosing bones 58
- Zemis painted on their bodies and faces 58
- Priesthood 59
- Divination 60
- Medicine practices 61
- Narcotics 63
- Rites and ceremonies 64
- Ceremony to bring crops 66
- Survival of ceremony in modern dances 68
- Burial ceremonies 69
- Myths 72
- Traditions of origin 74
- A modern legend 75
- The name Borinquen 76
- Archeological sites 78
- Dance plazas 79
- Shell heaps 85
- Caves 87
- Archeological objects 89
- Celts 92
- Enigmatical stones 97
- Pestles 99
- Mortars 105
- Beads and pendants 108
- Stone balls 110
- Three-pointed stones 111
- Type with head on anterior and legs on posterior projection 111
- Type with face between anterior and conoid projection 121
- Type with conoid projection modified into a head 125
- Smooth stones 127
- Interpretation 128
- Semicircular stones 132
- Stone heads 133
- Disks with human faces 135
- Stone amulets 138
- Pictographs 148
- River pictographs 150
- Cave pictographs 155
- Stone collars 159
- Massive collars 162
- Slender collars 163
- Theories of the use of stone collars 167
- Elbow stones 172
- Knobbed heads 174
- Pillar stones 175
- Large stone idols 178
- Pottery 179
- Shell and bone carvings 192
- Wooden objects 194
- Cassava graters 194
- Dance object 194
- Swallowing-sticks 195
- Ceremonial baton 195
- Idols 196
- Stools 202
- Canoes 207
- Other objects 209
- Gold objects 211
- Basketry and textiles 212.
- Notes:
- Originally published in 1907 as one of two papers accompanying the 25th annual report of the U.S. Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Local Notes:
- Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.
- ISBN:
- 9780817355746
- 081735574X
- 9780817382490
- 0817382496
- OCLC:
- 298541471
- Publisher Number:
- 99934838225
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