Science: Columbus Vindicated

When Columbus first landed in northern Haiti (Hispaniola) in 1492, he captured a lovely Indian girl who was expensively but sparsely clad—with a golden nose plug and nothing else. Next day he found a town of 1,000 houses, some of whose inhabitants wore golden ear pendants. When he returned to Spain, he reported many of these small treasures.

Archaeologists have long been suspicious of Columbus’ log. After years of digging in graves and townsites of the Indians who then inhabited the Caribbean islands, they found only three tiny scraps of gold. It looked to them as if the “Admiral of the Ocean Sea” had sweetened the record to increase the attractiveness of the lands that he discovered. But last week Anthropologist Paul W. Barker of Maine’s Gorham State Teachers College vindicated Columbus. In northern Haiti, he reported, he dug up two golden pendants just like those described by Columbus. Barker may even have found them in the village where dwelt the lass with the nose plug.

Tense Moments. An anthropologist’s job is especially tough in northern Haiti. Many grown Haitians there have never seen a white man. Afro-Haitian (voodoo) gods sometimes command their worshipers to remove strangers, like Barker, posthaste from the premises. But mustachioed Paul Barker, a former merchant seaman, chemist and Baptist minister, somehow managed to get along. On the northern seacoast near Port Paix, a local landowner and amateur ethnologist—who is also a voodoo potentate—helped Barker excavate the townsite where the gold pendants were found. Tense moments came when it was reported that the god Dambala had ordered Barker’s expulsion. But the local voodoo expert sent off messages to the god, won him around to Barker.

The townsite near the shore looks very much like the place that Columbus described. Its 1,000-odd houses probably sheltered 15,000 inhabitants, and there were many smaller settlements nearby. Dr. Barker and his Haitian helpers found stone tools, fishing sinkers and a probable ball court, as well as the two gold pendants.

Stumped by the Stones. Even more interesting anthropologically is a cave found on the nearby island of Tortuga by Clement Manigat, a Haitian working for Dr. Barker. It must have been either a ceremonial burial cave or a place for cannibal feasts, possibly both. In it Dr. Barker found human bones that had been broken so that their marrow could be eaten. Other bones were engraved with the faces of gods. There were earthen pots that had perhaps been used for religious or cannibalistic rituals. Dr. Barker is especially stumped by 64 human gall and kidney stones. What this odd hoard may signify he does not know.