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Home > Catholic Encyclopedia > C > Caribs


CARIBS

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Next to the Arawaks, probably the most numerous Indian stock, of more or less
nomadic habits, in South America. They cannot, however, compare in numbers with
the sedentary aborigines of Peru and Bolivia. The Caribs were the second group
of Indians met by Columbus on the Antilles, and even at that time the name was a
synonym for "cannibals". At the time of Columbus they held the whole of the
Lesser Antilles, whence they made constant and cruel inroads upon the Arawaks of
the larger northern islands, killing the men and capturing the women, whom they
carried to their homes on Guadalupe, Martinique, etc. as slaves. The Arawaks
were in great dread of them and of their weapons, which were superior to the
primitive fire-hardened javelins and wooden war-clubs in use on the Greater
Antilles, although some of the natives had also acquired the bow and arrows,
probably from contact with their hereditary foes, the Caribs. The latter were
also hardy and daring sailors, paddling fearlessly from island to island
comparatively long distances. In costume, mode of living, dwellings, etc., the
Caribs differed but little from the Arawaks. Their language is totally
different. The distinctive feature in dress consisted in this, that the Arawaks
wore the hair short, while the Caribs allowed it to flow at full length.



The proper name of the Caribs is given as "Karina". How far the word may have
been applied to designate the stock in general is not certain. Of their
pre-Columbian history only so much seems ascertained, that they originally
occupied Northern Venezuela and parts of Guiana, and from the northern shores of
South America gradually extended to the Lesser Antilles, driving northward the
Arawaks. Had the landing of Columbus not interfered, they in all probability
would have exterminated the Arawaks and spread over the Greater Antilles also.
The enmity between the Caribs and the Arawaks is hereditary. But the former were
not always successful. On the Orinoco, for instance, the Arawaks held their own.
There was and is, on the South American mainland, less disparity in warlike
features between the stocks than between the Caribs and Arawaks of the Antilles,
especially those of the Bahamas. In general culture and social organization the
two stocks are much alike. The Caribs build excellent boats which they equip
with sails, and some groups make rather fair pottery. Their religious creed is
the animism and fetichism characteristic of all Indians, witchcraft forming the
leading part of their rites and ceremonials. Of the numerous groups into which
the Caribs are divided, the Bakairis, on the upper Shingu River in Brazil, are
the most southerly, so that the stock is scattered from the fourteenth degree of
latitude south to near the coast of Venezuela, and from the Galibis in Guiana as
far west, at least, as the eastern confines of Colombia.

The almost complete extermination of the Antillean Caribs was brought about by
their indomitable ferocity and particularly by their addiction to cannibalism.
Every effort on the part of the Spaniards and French to abolish it proved
fruitless. In central South America the Catholic missionaries, chiefly the
Jesuits, worked with considerable success among Carib tribes along the Amazon,
devoting special attention to the Motolones and establishing missions among
them. During the seventeenth century Father Samuel Fritz laboured among them, as
well as among tribes of Arawak stock. These efforts, which had already been very
much hampered by the aggressions of the Portuguese from Brazil, came to naught,
owing to the expulsion of the Jesuits. The Franciscans continued to the missions
on a limited scale after 1767, but the blow had been too severe to allow more
than a feeble recovery. A few missions still subsist wanting, however, the
strength of their early organization.

The Caribs have been considered the cannibals par excellence of Northern South
America. This is true of those formerly located on the Antilles; but on the
mainland, where not under strict control, all the forest tribes of Indians are
more or less anthropophagous. There is, in this respect, no difference between
the Caribs, Arawaks, Tapuyas, and other natives of the Amazonian basin. It is
surmised, from results of linguistic investigations, that the original home of
the Caribs was where the branch known as the Bakairis is located today namely,
on the upper Shingu in north-eastern Matto Grosso (Brazil), and that from there
they spread to the north and northeast, driving the Arawaks before them.




ABOUT THIS PAGE

APA citation. Bandelier, A.F. (1908). Caribs. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New
York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03348a.htm

MLA citation. Bandelier, Adolph Francis. "Caribs." The Catholic Encyclopedia.
Vol. 3. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908.
<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03348a.htm>.

Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by Gerald M. Knight.

Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. November 1, 1908. Remy Lafort, S.T.D.,
Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.

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