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An Anthropological Reconnaissance of Andros Island, Bahamas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

John M. Goggin
John M. Goggin*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico
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Extract

This is a report of archaeological and ethnological work done on Andros Island, Bahamas. No habitation sites of the Lucayans were found and evidence seems to show that the island was sparsely populated in prehistoric times. The famous “Indians” of whom so many tales have been written, turned out to be descendants of Negro-Seminole crosses instead of Lucayans. This work was done through five weeks during the months of July and August, 1937. Visits were made at all the mail boat stops and two weeks spent at both Mastic Point and Mangrove Cay.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , July 1939 , pp. 21 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1939

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References

37 The author wishes to acknowledge the aid of his father, Dr. John W. Goggin of Miami, Florida, who made the trip financially possible. To Mr. Charles Bethel, Acting Colonial Secretary, and the Bahamas Government go thanks for permission to explore Crown Lands, and to Father Daniel Bangart of Mangrove Cay and Captain Jack Tkach of Nassau for living quarters and other help.

38 From a superficial examination of the long bones, Dr. Clyde Kluckhohn of Harvard, is of the opinion that they may not be Indian remains.

39 They are still of the typical Greater Antillean form. See Fewkes, J. W., A Prehistoric Island Culture of America. Annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology No. 34, Washington 1922. Krieger, H. W. Archaeological and Historical Investigations in Samana, Dominican Republic. U.S. National Museum Bull. 147, Washington, 1929.

40 This is the same test as used on the Mosquito Coast. Conzemius, E., Ethnographical Survey of the Moskito and Sumu Indians of Honduras and Nicaragua. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 106, Washington, 1932, page 135.

41 Since this paper was submitted for publication the author has received from Felix MacNeil of Mastic Point a bow and two fish arrows. The bow is of the self type, 3 feet, 8 inches long, and an inch and three eighths wide in the middle with a slight taper at the ends. The inside is flat and the back is rounded. It is remarkably like the bows of the present Florida Seminoles. The arrows are four feet long, unfeathered, with a whittled point at one end and a nock at the other. The maker was unable to get the proper kind of wood so he made these as an exact model.

42 Gower, Charlotte, D. Northern and Southern Affiliations of Antillean Culture, Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association, No. 35, Menasha, 1927, pages 26–27.

43 Swanton, John R. Early History of The Creek Indians and Their Neighbors. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 73, Washington, 1922.

44 The only sailing canoe now left among the Seminoles is a badly rotted one at John Willys’ camp in the Everglades. Bartram say that the Seminoles of Talahasochte Town on the Suwanee River traded all the way to the Bahama Islands in large dugouts. Travels … p, 225.

45 According to Mr. Forsyth, who is interested in the aborigines and has made a collection of all the artifacts that he could get.

46 The author has since been informed by Mr. Godfrey Olsen, of the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, that he has seen aboriginal shell deposits that have been covered by storms.

47 Mosely, Mary, The Bahamas Handbook, Nassau, Bahamas, 1926, p. 67.