Columbus describes them as simple, generous,
peaceful creatures, whose only weapon was a pointed stick or cane.
They were of a light copper color, well-proportioned but slender,
rather good-looking, with aquiline noses, salient cheek-bones,
medium-sized mouths, long coarse hair. They had, perhaps, formerly
occupied the eastern part of the archipelago, whence they had
gradually disappeared, driven or exterminated by the Caribs, Caribos,
or Guaribos, a savage, warlike, and cruel race, which had invaded the
West Indies from the continent by way of the Orinoco, along the
tributaries of which river tribes of the same race are still to be
found. The larger Antilles, Cuba, Santo Domingo, and Puerto Rico, were
occupied by a race which probably originated from some part of the
southern division of the northern continent. The chroniclers mention
the Guaycures and others as their possible ancestors, and Stahl traces
their origin to a mixture of the Phoenicians with the aborigines of
remote antiquity.
The information which we possess with regard to the habits and customs
of the inhabitants of Boriquen at the time of discovery is too scanty
and too unreliable to permit us to form more than a speculative
opinion of the degree of culture attained by them.
Friar Abbad, in the fourth chapter of his history, gives us a
description of the character and customs of the people of Boriquen
taken wholly from the works of Oviedo, Herrera, Robertson, Raynal, and
others.
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