Vertical diameter,
Inter-mastoid arch, .
Inter-mastoid line,
Occipito-frontal arch,
Horizontal periphery,
Facial angle,
. 5.1 inches.
. 14.6 inches.
. 4. inches.
. 14. inches.
. 30.3 inches.
. 70 degrees.
PLATE LXV.
CHARIB OF ST. VINCENT.
That the Charibs of the Antilles were derived from the southern continent,
and not from Florida, is proved by their traditions, their customs and their
language* The original inhabitants of these islands were a docile people called
I gneris, allied no doubt to the Indians who occupied Cuba and the other larger
islands on the arrival of Columbus. The Igneris, however, were exterminated by
the Charibs, who at that period held undisturbed possession.
These Charibs were among the most ferocious and brutal of the American
nations. They were without laws and almost devoid of religious observances.
Suspicious and revengeful to the last degree, they conducted all their enterprises
with singular craftiness. They were morose and even melancholy, and looked
upon the other natives as mere beasts to be slain and devoured. To such an
excess was their cannibalism carried, that it gave rise to a law in 1504, by which
the Spaniards were authorised to make slaves of all the individuals of the Charib
nation who should fall into their hands.f It is even gravely asserted that, having
tasted the flesh of all the nations who visited them, they pronounced the Frenchman
to be most delicate, and the Spaniard the hardest of digestion | To persuade
the Charibs to civilisation, or to reduce them to servitude, seemed alike impracticable.
“ If they did any thing it was only what they chose, how they chose, and
when they chose; and when they were most wanted it often happened that they
* The Red Charibs (of S t Vincent) had a tradition that their forefathers camé from the bants of
the Orinoco, whence coasting Trinidad and Tobago to Grenada, and thence by the Grenadines, they
arrived at St. Vincent, subdued the native inhabitants called Galibeis, (or Igneris,) and possessed
themselves of the Island.”—Sin W. Young, Account o f the Charibs, p. 5.
t Hümboldt, Pers. Narr. V, p. 426.
t British Emp. in America, II, p. 277.—Rochefort, p. 537.