CARIB RELICS

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 March 1934, Page 3

CARIB RELICS

ABORIGINAL SKELETONS Commissioner of Industry Harry E. Taylor has discovered many graves of the aboriginal inhabitants of the Virgin Islands on the Island of St. Croix. The original find was made when Mr. Taylor, who is in charge of homesteading, was on a surveying trip through rough country that had been recently cleared and drained. He saw a row of conch shells protruding from a knoll above a depression over which a bridge had been thrown. The regularity of the formation gave him the idea that more than accident had arranged them there, so he investigated with no result at first. A little later on, after many square yards of dirt had been removed, and a large area dug up, a burial plot was uncovered.

This interesting discovery within a mile of a busy sugdlr factor stimulated Mi' Taylor to search carefully, and to date he has many stone implements of various periods. His collection includes a nearly complete terra-cotta bowl about 30 inches across, jars and vases of different sizes, scrapers, strung shells like wdmpum and delicately carved little idols. Incised pottery of a later date has been found on other estates, but the discoveries near the Bethlehem holdings are of great interest because of the group of skeletons. Twenty-one excavations have yielded a considerable amount of tools and pottery. Most of the skeletons found were buried/ in the primitive folded position, and in one case a group, presumed to be that of a chief and his wives, was found on a cart wheel or radiating position. Although no mammals larger than the agouti are known to have existed on the islands before their discovery, large tusks, apparently of boars, have been found. The kitchen middens are rich in material. The Commissioner of Industry has written to the Heye Foundation giving all details of his discoveries. He is also in touch with officials of Amherst College. The last important discoveries of Carib remains were made by Dr. Theodore De Booy, who in 1916 and 1917 did archeological work in the Virgin Islands for the museum of the American Indians, Heye Foundation. At Magens Bay, in St. Thomas, he made excavations which furnished him with considerable material in the way of pottery, stone implements and preColumbian vessels and tools. He discovered that the Caribs had a religion similar to that of the Egyptians and American Indians. It included reverence for the dead and a materialistic concept of the after life, for the bodies of departed warriors and chieftains were always provided with food and weapons for the long journey toward the setting sun.