The Caribs
The origin of the Caribs, their supposed cannibalism and other customs
have occasioned much controversy among West Indian chroniclers. The
first question is undecided, and probably will remain so forever. With
regard to cannibalism, in spite of the confirmative assurances of the
early Spanish chroniclers, we have the testimony of eminent
authorities to the contrary; and the writings of Jesuit missionaries
who have live
idea of their character and social institutions.
The first European who became intimately acquainted with the people of
the West Indian Islands, on the return from his first voyage, wrote to
the Spanish princes: " ... In all these islands I did not observe much
difference in the faces and figures of the inhabitants, nor in their
customs, nor in their language, seeing that they all understand each
other, which is very singular." On the other hand the readiness with
which the inhabitants of Aye-Aye and the other Carib islands gave
asylum to the fugitive Boriquen Indians and joined them in their
retaliatory expeditions, also points to the existence of some bond of
kinship between them, so that there is ground for the opinion
entertained by some writers that all the inhabitants of all the
Antilles were of the race designated under the generic name of Caribs.
The theory generally accepted at first was, that at the time of the
discovery two races of different origin occupied the West Indian
Archipelago. The larger Antilles with the groups of small islands to
the north of them were supposed to be inhabited by a race named
Guaycures, driven from the peninsula of Florida by the warlike
Seminoles; the Guaycures, it is said, could easily have reached the
Bahamas and traversed the short distance that separated them from Cuba
in their canoes, some of which could contain 100 men, and once there
they would naturally spread over the neighboring islands. It is
surmised that they occupied them at the time of the advent of the
Phoenicians in this hemisphere, and Dr. Calixto Romero, in an
interesting article on Lucuo, the god of the Boriquens, mentions a
tradition referring to the arrival of these ancient navigators, and
traces some of the Boriquen religious customs to them. The Guaycures
were a peacefully disposed race, hospitable, indolent, fond of dancing
and singing, by means of which they transmitted their legends from
generation to generation. They fell an easy prey to the Spaniards.
Velasquez conquered Cuba without the loss of a man. Juan Esquivel made
himself master of Jamaica with scarcely any sacrifice, and if the
aborigines of the Espanola and Boriquen resisted, it was only after
patiently enduring insupportable oppression for several years.
The other race which inhabited the Antilles were said to have come
from the south. They were supposed to have descended the Orinoco,
spreading along the shore of the continent to the west of the river's
mouths and thence to have invaded one after the other all the lesser
Antilles. They were in a fair way of occupying the larger Antilles
also when the discoveries of Columbus checked their career.
In support of the theory of the south-continental origin of the Caribs
we have, in the first place, the work of Mr. Aristides Rojas on
Venezuelan hieroglyphics, wherein he treats of numerous Carib
characters on the rocks along the plains and rivers of that republic,
marking their itinerary from east to west. He states that the
Achaguas, the aboriginals of Columbia, gave to these wanderers, on
account of their ferocity, the name of Chabi-Nabi, that is, tiger-men
or descendants of tigers.
In the classification of native tribes in Codazzi's geography of
Venezuela, he includes the Caribs, and describes them as "a very
numerous race, enterprising and warlike, which in former times
exercised great influence over the whole territory extending from
Ecuador to the Antilles. They were the tallest and most robust Indians
known on the continent; they traded in slaves, and though they were
cruel and ferocious in their incursions, they were not cannibals like
their kinsmen of the lesser Antilles, who were so addicted to the
custom of eating their prisoners that the names of cannibal and Carib
had become synonymous."
Another theory of the origin of the Caribs is that advanced by M.
d'Orbigny, who, after eight years of travel over the South American
continent, published the result of his researches in Paris in 1834. He
considers them to be a branch of the great Guarani family. And the
Jesuit missionaries, Fathers Raymond and Dutertre, who lived many
years among the Antillean Caribs, concluded from their traditions that
they were descended from a people on the continent named Galibis, who,
according to M. d'Orbigny, were a branch of the Guaranis.
But the Guaranis, though a very wide-spread family of South American
aborigines, were neither a conquering nor a wandering race. They
occupied that part of the continent situated between the rivers
Paraguay and Parana, from where these two rivers join the river Plate,
northward, to about latitude 22 deg. south. This region was the home of
the Guaranis, a people indolent, sensual, and peaceful, among whom the
Jesuits, in the eighteenth century founded a religious republic, which
toward the end of that period counted 33 towns with a total population
of over one hundred thousand souls. A glance at the map will show the
improbability of any Indian tribe, no matter how warlike, making its
way from the heart of the continent to the Orinoco through 30 deg. of
primitive forests, mountains, and rivers, inhabited by hostile
tribes.
The French missionaries who lived many years with the Caribs of
Guadeloupe and the other French possessions, do not agree on the
subject of their origin. Fathers Dutertre and Raymond believe them to
be the descendants of the Galibis, a people inhabiting Guiana. Fathers
Rochefort, Labat, and Bristol maintain that they are descended from
the Apalaches who inhabited the northern part of Florida. Humboldt is
of the same opinion, and suggests that the name Carib may be derived
from Calina or Caripuna through transformation of the letters l and
p into r and b, forming Caribi or Galibi. Pedro Martyr
strongly opposes this opinion, the principal objection to which is
that a tribe from the North American continent invading the West
Indies by way of Florida would naturally occupy the larger Antilles
before traveling east and southward. Under this hypothesis, as we have
said, all the inhabitants of the Antilles would be Caribs, but in that
case the difference in the character of the inhabitants of the two
divisions of the archipelago would have to be accounted for.
Most of the evidence we have been able to collect on this subject
points to a south-continental origin of the Caribs. On the maps of
America, published in 1587 by Abraham Ortellus, of Antwerp, in 1626 by
John Speed, of London, and in 1656 by Sanson d'Abbeville in Paris, the
whole region to the north of the Orinoco is marked Caribana. In the
history of the Dutch occupation of Guiana we read that hostile Caribs
occupied a shelter constructed in 1684 by the governor on the
borders of the Barima, which shows that the vast region along the
Orinoco and its tributaries, as well as the lesser Antilles, was
inhabited by an ethnologically identical race.
* * * * *
Were the Caribs cannibals? This question has been controverted as much
as that of their origin, and with the same doubtful result.
The only testimony upon which the assumption that the Caribs were
cannibals is founded is that of the companions of Columbus on his
second voyage, when, landing at Guadeloupe, they found human bones and
skulls in the deserted huts. No other evidence of cannibalism of a
positive character was ever after obtained, so that the belief in it
rests exclusively upon Chanca's narrative of what the Spaniards saw
and learned during the few days of their stay among the islands. Their
imagination could not but be much excited by the sight of what the
doctor describes as "infinite quantities" of bones of human
creatures, who, they took for granted, had been devoured, and of
skulls hanging on the walls by way of receptacles for curios. It was
the age of universal credulity, and for more than a century after the
most absurd tales with regard to the people and things of the
mysterious new continent found ready credence even among men of
science. Columbus, in his letter to Santangel (February, 1493),
describing the different islands and people, wrote: "I have not yet
seen any of the human monsters that are supposed to exist here." The
descriptions of the customs of the natives of the newly discovered
islands which Dr. Chanca sent to the town council of Seville were
unquestioned by them, and afterward by the Spanish chroniclers; but
there is reason to believe with Mr. Ignacio Armas, an erudite Cuban
author, who published a paper in 1884 entitled the Fable of the
Caribs, that the belief in their cannibalism originated in an error of
judgment, was an illusion afterward, and ended by being a
calumny. Father Bartolome de las Casas was the first to contradict
this belief. "They [the Spaniards] saw skulls," he says, "and human
bones. These must have been of chiefs or other persons whom they held
in esteem, because, to say that they were the remains of people who
had been eaten, if the natives devoured as many as was supposed, the
houses could not contain the bones, and there is no reason why, after
eating them, they should preserve the relics. All this is but
guesswork." Washington Irving agrees with the reverend historian, and
describes the general belief in the cannibalism of the Caribs to the
Spaniards' fear of them. Two eminent authorities positively deny it.
Humboldt, in his before-cited work, in the chapter on Carib missions,
says: "All the missionaries of the Carony, of the lower Orinoco, and
of the plains of Cari, whom we have had occasion to consult, have
assured us that the Caribs were perhaps the least anthropophagous of
any tribes on the new continent, ..." and Sir Robert Schomburgh, who
was charged by the Royal Geographical Society with the survey of
Guiana in 1835, reported that among the Caribs he found peace and
contentment, simple family affections, and frank gratitude for
kindness shown.
* * * * *
The narratives of the French, English, and Dutch conquerors of the
Guianas and the lesser Antilles accord with the observations of
Humboldt in describing the Caribs as an ambitious and intelligent
race, among whom there still existed traces of a superior social
organization, such as the hereditary power of chiefs, respect for the
priestly caste, and attachment to ancient customs. Employed only in
fishing and hunting, the Carib was accustomed to the use of arms from
childhood; war was the principal object of his existence, and the
proofs through which the young warrior had to pass before being
admitted to the ranks of the braves, remind us of the customs of
certain North American Indians.
They were of a light yellow color with a sooty tint, small, black
eyes, white and well-formed teeth, straight, shining, black hair,
without a beard or hair on any other part of their bodies. The
expression of their face was sad, like that of all savage tribes in
tropical regions. They were of middle size, but strong and vigorous.
To protect their bodies from the stings of insects they anointed them
with the juice or oil of certain plants. They were polygamous. From
their women they exacted the most absolute submission. The females did
all the domestic labor, and were not permitted to eat in the presence
of the men. In case of infidelity the husband had the right to kill
his wife. Each family formed a village by itself (carbet) where the
oldest member ruled.
Their industry, besides the manufacture of their arms and canoes, was
limited to the spinning and dyeing of cotton goods, notably their
hammocks, and the making of pottery for domestic uses. Though
possessing no temples, nor religious observances, they recognized two
principles or spirits, the spirit of good (boyee) and the spirit of
evil (maboya). The priests invoked the first or drove out the second
as occasion required. Each individual had his good spirit.
Their language resembled in sound the Italian, the words being
sonorous, terminating in vowels. By the end of the eighteenth century
the missionaries had made vocabularies of 50 Carib dialects, and the
Bible had been translated into one of them, the Arawak. A remarkable
custom was the use of two distinct languages, one by the males,
another by the females. Tradition says that when the Caribs first
invaded the Antilles they put to death all the males but spared the
females. The women continued speaking their own tongue and taught it
to their daughters, but the sons learned their fathers' language. In
time, both males and females learned both languages.
"It is true," says the Jesuit Father Rochefort, in his Histoire des
Antilles, "that the Caribs have degenerated from the virtues of their
ancestors, but it is also true that the Europeans, by their pernicious
examples, their ill-treatment of them, their villainous deceit, their
dastardly breaking of every promise, their pitiless plundering and
burning of their villages, their beastly violation of their girls and
women, have taught them, to the eternal infamy of the name of
Christian, to lie, to betray, to be licentious, and other vices which
they knew not before they came in contact with us."
Father Dutertre declares that at the time of the arrival of the
Europeans the Caribs were contented, happy, and sociable. Physically
they were the best made and healthiest people of America. Theft was
unknown to them, nothing was hidden; their huts had neither doors nor
windows, and when, after the advent of the French, a Carib missed
anything in his hut, he used to say: "A Christian has been here!"
Dutertre says that in thirty-five years all the French missionaries
together, by taking the greatest pains, had not been able to convert
20 adults. Those who were thought to have embraced Christianity
returned to their practises as soon as they rejoined their fellows.
"The reason for this want of success," says the father, "is the bad
impression produced on the minds of these intelligent natives by the
cruelties and immoralities of the Christians, which are more barbarous
than those of the islanders themselves. They have inspired the Caribs
with such a horror of Christianity that the greatest reproach they can
think of for an enemy is to call him a Christian."
The reason the Spaniards never attempted the conquest of the Caribs is
clear. There was no gold in their islands. They defended their homes
foot by foot, and if, by chance, they were taken prisoners, they
preferred suicide to slavery. Toward the end of the eighteenth century
there still existed a few hundred of the race in the island of St.
Vincent. They were known as the black Caribs, because they were
largely mixed with fugitive negro slaves from other islands and with
the people of a slave-ship wrecked on their coast in 1685. They lived
there tranquil and isolated till 1795, when the island was settled by
French colonists, and they were finally absorbed by them. They were
the last representatives in the Antilles of a race which, during five
centuries, had ruled both on land and sea. On the continent, along the
Esequibo and its affluents, they are numerous still; but in their
contact with the European settlers in those regions they have lost
the strength and the virtues of their former state without acquiring
those of the higher civilization. Like all aboriginals under similar
conditions, they are slowly disappearing.
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