Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 215, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 September 1917 — New Discoveries In The Vingin Islands [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

New Discoveries In The Vingin Islands

THE three little Islands of the West Indian archipelago which the United States has just purchased from Denmark have atiained in the last few months a prominence in the public eye such as they have not known since Columbus discovered them. ActUts, writers and scientists have journeyed into the Caribbean. The surprised natives have been interviewed, the scenery described, the hills and beaches dug up for relics. Theodore de Booy, an ethnologist attached to the Museum of the American Indian, Heye foundation, has returned from the Islands after completing what is probably the first thorough scientific search of them for relics of their primitive inhabitants, writes Frederic J. Haskin in the Chicago Daily News. He brings In the interesting information that our three little Islands of-SL Thomas, g|t. Croix and St. John were never inhabited by either the Arawaks or the Caribs, popularly supposed to have been the preColumbian peoples of all the West Indies; but were the home of a distinct race. He also discovered that these islands were once the home of a wingless bird, which was exterminated by the Indians, and he interestingly describes the probable condition of the Virgin island in pre-Columbian days, when they were heavily forested and had a fauna quite different from the present one. Ancient Villages Found. Mr. de Booy found the sites of two villages upon the island of St. Thomas, where the Danish capital of Charlotte Amalie is now located. On St. Croix he found evidence of a large population for primitive times; he estimates that about 10,000 Indians were supported by this rich little island, which is pow largely planted in sugar cane and tropical fruits. The island of St. John, which is the best watered and most beautiful of the three, he believes never to have been occupied by the Indians as a home, but to have been set aside by them for ceremonial purposes. Mr. de Booy unearthed many skeletons of the primitive people of the islands, many of their stone implements, and found numerous shell heaps where they had made their fishing camps ; but the relics which convinced him that he had come upon the traces of a separate tribe were the bits of oottery that he found about the village & tes. On the strength of this pottery nlone he asserts positively that the Virgin Island Indians were neither Car!bs nor Arawaks, but of a different tribe, for the making of pottery is an art, and it is in art which gives play to personality and Imagination that any people, primitive or civilized, is distinctive. Thus a penknife made In Germany is not in any essential or characteristic way different from penknife made in the United States. You could not distinguish the two products in a store window, This is .because there is only one way to make a penknife so that it will best serve its purpose. But German painting and sculpture are absolutely distinctive from these arts in the United States as are German philosophy and fiction. So among primitive races stone axes, arrow heads and knives made by widely separated tribes in about the same stage of development are much alike, but the pottery of these tribes, In form and design, is different. Theory of Their Origin. Mr. de Booy’s theory is that the people of the Virgin islands belonged to some South American tribe which was driven from its mainland home, found all of the more rich and important islands occupied by the warlike Caribs and the powerful Arawaks, and so were forced to settle on the two minor islands of St. Thomas and St. Croix, which are about the smallest in the, Indies that have a dependable water supply. It is interesting to riotice that this weak primitive tribe got the islands for the same reason that the small and helpless civilized nation of Denmark got them later—because no one else wanted them. These first inhabitants of our new islands were similar in habits and pursuits to the other West Indian natives. They were farmers and raised varions tropical crops. Beyond a doubt they were expert fishermen and were able

to travel from island to Island In their great seagoing canoes. These are described by early explorers and are known to have been large enough to seat 80 or 90 men. The Indians used them not only for fishing, but for war and piracy; among the distinctive remains are some that indicate the presence of a few Caribs —these were undoubtedly brought to the islands as prisoners. *

Flightless Bird’s Bones Found. Next to his discovery that a hitherto unknown tribe opce inhabited these islands, Mr. de Booy’s most Interesting find was the bones of a flightless bird. Such a bird belonging to the rail family and having useless rudimentary wings inhabits New Zealand at the present day, but that a similar creature lived on this hemisphere was a tremendous surprise to the scientists of the Smithsonian institution in Washington, who' identified the Bbnes sent them by Mr. de Booy. The bird is not prehistoric, but undoubtedly was hunted and eaten by the Indians three or four hundred years ago.

Apother creature which existed upon the islands in pre-Columbian days and is now extinct was the isolobodan, a large rodent, which also furnished the islanders with food.

It is well known that these three islands, which are now covered for the most part with brush and grass, where they are not cultivated, once supported heavy forests. The trees were probably burned by the Spaniards ip order to make room for crops.

Mr. de Booy’s discoveries Indicate that the Islands not only have been deforested, but that the whole character of their fauna has been changed by man. Not only the flightless bird and the isolobodan have been exterminated, but he also found bones of a species ofcrow which is now extinct find Is known to have inhabited only dense forests. For these animals which have been destroyed, the European fallow deer, the partridge and the wild goat have been substituted. Thus the character of both flora and fauna have been radically altered by man and If one of the aborigines could return he would probably hpd the islands hard to recognize.

Scene In Charlotte Amalie.