The modern jibaro builds his "bohio," or hut, in any place without
regard to hygienic conditions, and in its construction follows the
same plan and uses the same materials employed in their day by the
aboriginal inhabitants. This "bohio" is square or oblong in form,
raised on posts two or three feet from the ground, and the materials
are cane, the trunks of the coco-palm, entire or cut into boards, and
the bark of another species of palm, the "yaguas," which serves for
roofing and walls. The interior of these huts is sometimes divided by
a partition of reeds into two apartments, in one of which the family
sit by day. The other is the sleeping room, where the father, mother,
and children, male and female, of all ages, sleep, promiscuously
huddled together on a platform of boards or bar bacao.
The majority of the jibaros are whites. Mestizoes, mulattos, and
negroes are numerous also. But we are here concerned with the jibaro
of European descent only, whose redemption from a degraded condition
of existence it is to the country's interest should be specially
attended to.
Mr. Francisco del Valle Atiles, one of Puerto Rico's distinguished
literary men, has left us a circumstantial description of the
character and conditions of these rustics.[62] He divides them into
three groups: those living in the neighborhood of the large sugar and
coffee estates, who earn their living working as peons; the second
group comprises the small proprietors who cultivate their own patch of
land, and the third, the comparatively well-to-do individuals or
small proprietors who usually prefer to live as far as possible from
the centers of population.
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