their captives.

The aborigines of Porto Rico probably differed little, if at all, from
the Haytiens in their faith in an all-powerful, deathless god, who
had a mother but no father, who lived in the sky and was represented
on earth by zemes or messengers. Every chief had his zemi, carved
in stone or wood, as a tutelary genius, to whom he addressed his
prayers and who had a temple of his own. Zemes directed the wind,
waves, rains, rivers, floods, and crops, gave success or failure in
the hunt, and gave visions to or spoke with priests who had worked
themselves into a rhapsodic state by the use of a drug (it may have
been tobacco), in order to receive the message, which often concerned
the health of a person or of a whole village. The Spaniards regarded
these manitous as images of the devil, and in order to keep them the
natives hid the little effigies from the friars and the troops. In
the festivals of these gods there were dances, music, and an offering
of flower-decorated cakes.

Hayti was the first created, the sun and moon came from the cave near
Cape Haytien known as _la voute a Minguet_, through a round hole in
the roof. Men came from another cave, the big ones through a large
door, the little men from a smaller one. They were without women for
a long time, because the latter lived in trees and were slippery;
but some men with rough hands finally pulled four of them down from
the branches, and the world was peopled. At first, the men dared to
leave their cave only at night, for the sun was so strong it turned
them to stone, though one man who was caught at his fishing by the
sun became a bird that still sings at night, lamenting his fate. When
a chief was dying in pain he was mercifully strangled,--though the
common people were allowed to linger to their end,--and his deeds were
rehearsed in ballads sung to the drum. There was a belief in ghosts,
albeit they could not be seen in the light, unless in a lonely place,
nor by many persons. When they did mingle with the people it was
easy to distinguish them from the living, as they had no navel. What
became of the wicked after death we do not know, but the good went
to a happy place where they met those whom they loved, and lived
among women, flowers, and fruits. During the day the departed souls
hid among the mountains, but peopled the fairest valleys at night,
and in order that they should not suffer from hunger the living were
careful to leave fruit on the trees