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"The Spaniards," says Peter Martyr,¹⁷ "lived for some time in Hispaniola without suspecting that the islanders worshipped anything else than the stars, or that they had any kind of religion,... but after mingling with them for some years ... many of the Spaniards began to notice among them divers ceremonies and rites." These ceremonies are called areitos, or areytos, by the Spanish writers; and from the early descriptions it is obvious that they were rites of the typical American kind, dramatic dances or mysteries performed in the great crises of national and personal life, or in the changes and climaxes of that course of the seasons, which is the life of Nature. As in the case of myths, so in the case of rites, it is chiefly those of Haiti which are described for us; but there is little reason to doubt that these are typical of all the Greater Antilles.

Birth, marriage, death, going to war, curing the sick, initiation, and puberty rites all seem to have had their appropriate ceremonies. Songs played an important part in these ceremonies; indeed, the word areito is frequently restricted to funeral chants, or elegies in praise of heroes. But the chief rite known to us, and, we may feel assured, the chief rite of the whole Taïno culture, was the ceremony in honour of the Earth Goddess. This ceremony, as celebrated by the Haitians, is described by both Benzoni and Gómara with some detail. Gómara's account is as follows:¹⁸

"When the cacique celebrated the festival in honour of his principal idol, all the people attended the function. They decorated the idol very elaborately; the priests arranged themselves like a choir about the king, and the cacique sat at the entrance of the temple with a drum at his side. The men came painted black, red, blue, and other colours or covered with branches and garlands of flowers, or feathers and shells, wearing shell bracelets and little shells on their arms and rattles on their feet. The women also came with similar rattles, but naked, if they were maids, and not painted; if married, wearing only breechcloths. They approached dancing, and singing to the sound of the shells, and as they approached the cacique he saluted them with a drum. Having entered the temple, they vomited, putting a small stick into their throat, in order to show the idol that they had nothing evil in their stomach. They seated themselves like tailors and prayed with a low voice. Then there approached many women bearing baskets and cakes on their heads and many roses, flowers, and fragrant herbs. They formed a circle as they prayed and began to chant something like an old ballad in praise of the god. All rose to respond at the close of the ballad; they changed their tone and sang another song in praise of the cacique, after which they offered the bread to the idol, kneeling. The priests took the gift, blessed, and divided it; and so the feast ended, but the recipients of the bread preserved it all the year and held that house unfortunate and liable to many dangers which was without it."

In this rite it is easy to recognize a festival in honour of a divinity of fertility, probably a corn deity, or perhaps a goddess who is the mother of corn spirits. Benzoni says of the Haitians that "they worshipped two wooden figures as the gods of abundance, and at some periods of the year many Indians went on a pilgrimage to them." These may be the two zemis of the painted grotto of the Sun and the Moon, mentioned by Ramon Pane and Peter Martyr, for the latter says that "they go on pilgrimages to that cavern just as we go to Rome"; but it is certain that they were associated with agriculture, since it was to them that prayers were made for rain and fruitfulness. In an interesting old picture, printed in Picart, the rite of the Earth Goddess is represented, much as described by Gómara and Benzoni. The goddess herself is shown with several heads, each that of a different animal, and near her are two lesser idols of grotesque form. It is possible that the Earth was conceived as the mother of all life, animal as well as vegetable, and that her two attendants represented yucca and maize, the two principal food plants of the Antilleans. Some authorities regard the chief of the Taïno gods, the son of the great First-in-Being, as a yucca spirit; and, indeed, the name of the plant appears to enter into such forms as Iocauna, Jocakuvague, Yocahuguama. Yet it is little likely that we shall ever have certainty on this point, for of the poems which, Peter Martyr tells us, the sons of chiefs sang to the people on feast days, in the form of sacred chants, none are preserved to us.

PLATE IV.

Dance, or Areito, of the Haitian Indians in honor of the Earth Goddess. The ceremony is described by both Benzoni and Gómara, the latter's description being quoted in this volume, pages 33-34. After the drawing in Picart, The Religious Ceremonies and Customs of the Several Nations of the known World, London, 1731-37, Plate No. 78.

That the Taïno had, besides these great public festivals, rites for the individual also is abundantly witnessed in the old books. Like all American Indians, they were mystics and vision-seekers. Benzoni says that when the doctors wished to cure a man who was ill, he was lulled into unconsciousness by tobacco smoke, and "on returning to his senses he told a thousand stories of his having been at the council of the gods and other high visions"—a description which recalls im Thurn's account of his own experiences in the hands of an Arawak peaiman.¹⁹ Something analogous to the individual totem, or "medicine," of other Indians was certainly known to them. "The islanders," says Peter Martyr, "pay homage to numerous zemes, each person having his own. Some are made of wood, because it is amongst the trees and in the darkness of night they have received the message of the gods. Others, who have heard the voice among the rocks, make their zemes of stone; while others, who heard their revelation while they were cultivating their ages—the kind of cereal I have already mentioned [sweet potato, or yam],—make theirs of roots." Martyr goes on to describe trances, induced, he thinks, by tobacco, in which the chiefs seek prophetic revelations, stammered out in incoherent words. One of the most interesting of the early stories tells of such a prophecy received from Yocahuguama, the yucca spirit. Doubtless the earliest version of the tale is that of Ramon Pane:²⁰

"That great lord who, they say, is in heaven ... is this Cazziva [cassava], who kept a sort of abstinence here, which all of them generally perform; for they shut themselves up six or seven days, without taking any sustenance but the juice of herbs, with which they also wash themselves. After this time they begin to eat something that is nourishing. During the time they have been without eating, weakness makes them say they have seen something they earnestly desired, for they all perform that abstinence in honour of the cemies to know whether they shall obtain victory over their enemies, or to acquire wealth or any other thing they desire. They say this cacique affirmed he spoke with Giocauvaghama, who told him that whosoever survived him would not long enjoy his power, because they should see a people clad, in their country, who would rule over and kill them, and they should die for hunger. They thought at first these should be the cannibals, but afterwards considering that they only plundered and fled, they believed it was some other people the cemi spoke of; and now they believe it is the admiral and those that came with him." This is the first of those stories of clothed and bearded strangers (the beard is added in some versions), coming to overthrow the gods and kingdoms of the Indians, which were encountered in various portions of the New World. So much importance was attached to it, says Gómara, that a song was formed commemorating it, sung as an areito in a ceremonial dance.