no hesitation in assigning a large portion
of Cuba and Haiti to the Mayas. It is true the first explorers heard in
Cuba and Jamaica, vague rumors of the Yucatecan peninsula, and found wax
and other products brought from there.[30] This shows that there was
some communication between the two races, but all authorities agree that
there was but one language over the whole of Cuba. The expressions which
would lead to a different opinion are found in Peter Martyr. He relates
that in one place on the southern shore of Cuba, the interpreter whom
Columbus had with him, a native of San Salvador, was at fault. But the
account of the occurrence given by Las Casas, indicates that the native
with whom the interpreter tried to converse simply refused to talk at
all.[31] Again, in Martyr's account of Grijalva's voyage to Yucatan in
1517, he relates that this captain took with him a native to serve as an
interpreter; and to explain how this could be, he adds that this
interpreter was one of the Cuban natives "quorum idioma, si non idem,
consanguineum tamen," to that of Yucatan. This is a mere fabrication, as
the chaplain of Grijalva on this expedition states explicitly in the
narrative of it which he wrote, that the interpreter was a native of
Yucatan, who had been captured a year before.[32]

Not only is there a very great dissimilarity in sound, words, and
structure, between the Arawack and Maya, but the nations were also far
asunder in culture. The Mayas were the most civilized on the continent,
while the Arawacks possessed little besides the most primitive arts, and
precisely that tribe which lived on the extremity of Cuba nearest
Yucatan, the Guanataneyes, were the most barbarous on the island.[33]

The natives of the greater Antilles and Bahamas differed little in
culture. They cultivated maize, manioc, yams, potatoes, corn, and
cotton. The latter they wove into what scanty apparel they required.
Their arms were bows with reed arrows, pointed with fish teeth or
stones, stone axes, spears, and a war club armed with sharp stones
called a _macana_. They were a simple hearted, peaceful, contented race,
"all of one language and all friends," says Columbus; "not given to
wandering, naked, and satisfied with little," says Peter Martyr; "a
people very poor in all things," says Las Casas.

Yet they had some arts. Statues and masks in wood and stone were found,
some of them in the opinion of Bishop Las Casas, "very skilfully
carved." Th