Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1902-08-01
LAST OF THE cARi5S
Two Thousand Perished In the Vol
cano Blast on st, Vincent.

Two Thousand Perished In the Vol
cano Blast on ST. Vincent.
Ethnologists are interested in the
report that the eruption of Mount
Soufriere, on ST. Vincent, destroyed
Virtually all of the Carib Indians who
resided on that islaDd, the largest
group of these aborigines to be found
in the West Indies. Two thousand of
them, it is declared by the relief par
ties, persisted with the first blast from
the volcano. They were worshipers of
the fire god and in consequence OF
this faith huddled in their villages
around the base of the mountain,
which had been inactive for about
ninety years. Now they have been de-
stroyed by their fetch and thus there
is a certain romance in their tragic
fate. There are now but few pure
speclments of the old Carib stock to
be found in the West Indies, probably
a mere handful on the Islands of st.
Lucia and Dominica constituting the
sole remnant of that branch of the
human family.
The Caribs were tho native inhabi-
tants of the islands discovered by
Columbus. They were q peaceful peo-
pie, easily governed and until mixed
with the blacks from Africa and the
lower classes of whites from Europe,
we're decent in their lives. The ex-
tent to which they degenerated when
touched thus by both the higher and
relatively the lower races is shown
in the Island of San Domingo. where
the voodoo rites of the mixed race,
mainly black. are of a most revolving
nature and shocking cruelties are prac-
ticed in the name OF religion.
The Caribs had many OF the traits
of the Indians of the continent and
none of the civilization of the Aztecs.
They seem to have been more closely
related to the former. They have
gradually disappeared as pure race
until now nature has almost complet-
ed the process of elimination by
single convulsion, supplementing the
corrupting and destructive work of
the whites and the blacks. The wor-
ship of the fire god which led to the
close association of the unfortunate
ST. Vincent Caribs with Mount Sou
friere is a relic of the old pagan rites
which at one time evidently prevailed
throughout the tropical regions OF the
Western Hemisphere. Suggestions of
the same faith are strong in the Ha-
waiian mythology, and indeed 1t would
seem that wherever nature has pro-
vided an earth-vent which man calls
a volcano the uncivilized people within
its influence have accepted it as type
of the diety.
Investigators into the religions of
mankind have discovered that savages
and barbarians worship the element
which displays the greatest power TO
them. The sun and the storm are re-
garded by the Africans as gods to be
propitiated, ruling agents In their af-
fairs. The sea becomes a god to the
people who draw from 1t their means
of sustenance when 1t is complacent
and which destroys them when 1t Is
angry. Had there been VOLCANOES in
North America during The era marked
by the development of the Indians as
the first white settlers found them,
doubtless the mythology of this con-
tinent would have been strongly i'm
pregnated with the fire worship which
dominated the religion OF the Caribs
and other denizens of the central and
southern sections of the western
land.