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FEWKES] MENTAL AND MORAL CHA.RA.CTERISTICS 31 and the hair on other parts of the body. the skulls of the new-born infants, roucou, which makes them red all over."a They compressed. dyeing their bodies with MENTAL AND MORAL CHARACTERISTICS Natives of the different islands, and even those of different parts of the same island, differed somewhat in disposition and character. Some were peaceful and guileless and received the Spaniards with feelings of reverence, believing they had descended from heaven. In other islands they fled, and in some they contested the landing of Columbus. In certain parts of Haiti, as in the province of Ciguex, the whole territory was devastated and the people were almost exterminated before they were subjugated. In the Cihao and Higuez provinces likewise the natives resisted with desperation. Henriquillo, the" last cacique" of Santo Domingo, was never subdued, but was given the pueblo Boya, north of the capital, where the descendants of the early natives still live. The aboriginal Porto Ricans also fought bravely for the possession of their island until overpowered by their foes. Of the mental and moral traits of the ancient Bol'inqueiios we may form a good judgment from early records. A sense of justice .and traits of heroism, admirable in any race, were strong among these people and widely spread. No one who reads the Spanish records, which can hardly be called prejudiced in favor of the aborigines, can deny that these Indians were both hospitable and generous. Regarding the Europeans as a race of supernatural beings, they received them with kindness, until forced to do otherwise in order to defend their own lives and those of their families. Several accounts tell how theft was regarded as a crime and severely punished. If we find their lives sometimes spoken of as bestial we must bear in mind that these statements come from people who enslaved them. They were certainly not more cruel than those who oppressed them, nor less truthful than those who, under false promises, transported them from their homeR into slavery. Benzoni states that some of the natives were called great thieves by the Spaniards, but he regarded the Indians in the main as honest. Columbus says that they stole idols (zemis) from one another; Oviedo declares that thieves were spitted on trees and left to die. The girls were not regarded as chaste by the Europeans, some of whom could hardly be called chaste themselves if judged by their treatment of Indian women. Incest was unknown, but men were sometimes used to gratify lust, in which case they were dressed as women. Many of the natives exhibited fine traits of character, no on& more aJohn Davies, History of the Caribby Islands, pp. 1-36, London, 1666. For the character of this work see Buckingham Smith, Winsor, Field, and Mooney (Myths of the Cherokee, 19th Report of Bureau of American EthnoloD1l, p. 2(2). According to Field (Indian Vocabulary, p. 95), "It is a nearly faithful translation of H. Rochefort's Histoire Naturel\e et Morale des Ilea Antll\e de I'Amerique , Rotterdam, 1658." Field says of this work that It Is "fictitious In every part which was not purloined from authors whose knowledge furnished him with al\ In his treatise which was true." 32 THE ABORIGINES OF PORTO RICO [IIITH. ANN. 21> 80 than Aguebana the elder, the cacique of the western end of the island. This chief was a friend of Ponce and apparently a fine type of Indian. His animosity against the Spaniards was not so great as that of his brother, who a year or two after the first landing instigated the uprising which destroyed the Spanish settlement. No one can read the story of the Haitian chief Caonabo, of his perfidious capture, and later of his bearing before Columbus, without admiration, for such a man was cast in the same mold as those who are accounted heroes among all races. :B'rancisco Thamara, who probably never visited America, and whose clerical office would ll;lad us to expect milder language, says of the West Indian: ,. The race is vicious, hateful, lazy, cowardly, vile, of bad inclinations, liars, ungrateful, of short memories, no firmness, idolatrous, and given to abominable customs." This terrible indictment of a whole race, published in 1554, after admitting that there are good Indians, was not shared by some other writers. A brighter picture is shown in the exalted sentiments which Peter Martyra ascribes to the aged Cuban councilor in his...

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