Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo14amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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KITCHEN MIDDENS OF JAMAICA 297 consequence the news spread after a while that I was paying real money for Indian stones, and I was rewarded by having many hatchets, stone pendants, and pestles brought in to me. My work at Greenhill was the most extensive, and from the middens there — although they are similar to the St. Acre and other middens — I obtained the best specimens. The extinction of the xVrawak was so complete that there are but few simi- lar cases in history. People like this race, living in a tropical climate, quite unused to work of a laborious nature, would speedily feel the effects of forced labor. After the Spaniards came, they needed workers for the gold mines in Haiti, for the making of roads and the cultivation of crops in Jamaica. They forced the Indians to labor for them, and with the cruelty characteristic of the age, killed off the natives with almost incredible swiftness. It is only natural that the Arawak came to have a different view of people whom they at first fondly imagined were sent from heaven, and it was not long before they took to their mountain re- treats, in order to escape forced labor and a painful death. But what could a peaceful race, with practically no weap- ons of defence, do against the superior weapons and the bloodhounds of the Spaniards? The Jamaican Arawak were exterminated by 1558, only sixty-four years after the discovery of the island, and none were left to tell a later genera- tion of their tribal customs. The meager accounts given by Columbus and his contemporaries have to be supplemented by such conclusions as we can draw from a study of the relics left in their kitchen middens. Columbus, in his description of the natives of Jamaica, lays special stress upon their proficiency in the art of work-
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Two of a considerable series of spindle-shaped celts found in Jamaica by Mr. IjOngley. They were probably used as chisels. The specimens flg- lu-ed are of black and green stone respectively j ing stone, and mentions having seen some good stone ornaments worn by the heads of tribes. Two notable objects in the collection are the two idols or zemes of brown sand- stone, about five and one-half inches in height. They crudely represent the human form, and undoubtedly were con-

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