Archaeo-exploration of the Central Cordillera and Sierra de Cayey (exploration of Caguas, Salinas, Coamo, Aibonito, Comerio and Cidra) (Part One)

Victor. Arturo. Cabello. Reyes.

It should be clarified that for many decades we have discovered and explored routes and settlements of the aboriginal societies that inhabited the region, for their proper identification and protection.

However, since the late sixties and early 1972, we undertook the task of beginning to search and search through the Central Cordillera and Sierra de Cayey, among those places of the past that our ancestors left hidden.

Many of them, between high mountains, mountain ranges or near the beds of the main rivers of our island = Toa or La Plata.

And, in fact, by studying chroniclers and friars, we were able to visualize that through a rigorous and comparative study of indigenous etymology, and detailed observation of the forms of Cemíes, and even in the symbolic iconography itself, it was possible to access certain knowledge that is a substantial part of the spiritual legacy of our indigenous ancestors.

Consequently, it is valuable to be able to locate the extension of the archaeological site and the Chiefdoms of the central area = (axis: Caguax-regulus of the region, Bagnanamay, Mabó-Guaynabó, Cayey and Comerio), it was our first mission, framed within the context of exploration, registration and identification, so that in some way, the protection of the settlements was achieved.

The name of rivers = (Toa, Arroyata-Bayamón), and the concept of Cacique, forms and names of mountains or caciques, opened up in us a sea of possibilities, which today come to give us the best fruits of that insular Caribbean alive and culturally fruitful since 6000 B.C.

(Francisco Moscoso, Cacicazgos en el Caribe y Continente Americano, p.p.14,15,16,17)

To this end, the Hills, rivers and the 'matriarchal forms' = (bibí = mother-Toa-mother), of the mountains, are the best and most enduring of the 'reports', to maintain our face and identity as a people. It is what distinguishes and identifies us from others. Our Heritage!

In fact, the region of Caguas-Aguas Buenas-Cayey-Cidra and its 'chiefdoms' is a vast extension of the area rich in settlements and valuable places of substantial historical significance, among which our native peoples lived.

Likewise, the manuscripts, since we can say that they are not the "only direct source that remains on the myths and ceremonies of the primitive inhabitants of the Antilles".

(José Juan Arrom, 1974)

However, Caguax was a cacique, a common name, which he found located in the Hacienda that runs along the Turabo River.

In the Botanical Garden of Caguas, (I discovered the settlements from the late seventies and then the early eighties), I discovered several settlements and ball courts between the banks of the river that descends from the mouth of the Cuevas de Aguas Buenas; sacred place in the Turabó region.

Likewise, the search was to find the Mountain of the Boagame and, I found it, as Mother Birther which can be seen in the distance, coming from San Juan to Caguas, when passing the Toll and looking carefully and sideways towards the Sierra de Guavate (Cabeza-Head = to the East, Cerro La Santa area and Guavate.

The legs are also seen near the second Toll Booth-Caguas-Cayey)

There she is with her two legs spread out, gushing out of the pure waters of the TOA river.

Since we have the expressive and monumental mythological richness between certain mountains, mountain ranges and monoliths, with their significant symbolic and iconographic formations.

(Rouse Irving, The Tainos Rise and Decline of the People who Greeted Columbus, Yale, 1992, p.p.10-46 and Stevens Arroyo, Antonio M, Cave of the Jagua: The Mythological World of the Taínos, 1988, see: Introductory Chapters and Bibliography)

From the beginning of the 30s, the investigation of the most important prehistoric site of Cidra in Toíta (1936), began in Cidra

“… a scientific and pioneering excavation for the study of the aboriginal cultures of the Antillean Caribbean."

It is extremely important to point out the existence of a scientific record of the excavations in Cidra carried out by Dr. Irving Rouse and his team of scientists and archaeologists from Yale University, recording the excavation in their report published in New York.

This report is supposedly "unknown", and its well-documented existence has even been denied by directors and archaeologists of the Museum of the University of Puerto Rico, in the Official Hearing of the Honorable Commission of Education, Art and Culture of the Autonomous Municipality of Cidra: August 18, 2015.

I quote from the Official Report of 8/18/2015: "The systems previously used by professional and amateur archaeologists who carried out excavations in Puerto Rico did not identify the specific sites where the pieces were located.

To this end, museum officials cannot identify whether any of the artifacts in the museum come from Cidra."

Thus, according to the opinion of the directors of the Museum of the University of Puerto Rico, the research of the pioneer of Caribbean archaeology and Yale University scholar Dr. Irving Rouse, would be framed within that conceptual context.

However, the directors of the Museum of Río Piedras forget that in 1986, the press had exposed abundant information about: "disappearance of 365 archaeological pieces from the Museum of the University of Puerto Rico belonging to the Benigno Fernández García Collection.

(part of the collection 'sacred' by Dr. Irving Rouse in Toíta, Cidra)

A substantial part (possibly the entirety) of the Benigno Fernández García Collection was excavated in Cidra in 1930 by the amateur archaeologist Don Benigno Fernández García and loaned to the University of Puerto Rico for its Museum.

Not knowing about this matter after what happened in 1986 at the Museum is something suspicious and worthy of investigation.

(Estrada Resto, Nilka: "They fight in Cidra for an archaeological treasure.")

The Museum of the University of Puerto Rico (MHAA), was the first Museum of Puerto Rico created by a 1951 Law by Don Ricardo Alegría and Bill # 97 where it is intended to become a National Museum created to: "gather, maintain and conserve for the purposes of cultural dissemination everything that constitutes part of our historical treasure, anthropological and artistic."

The question that all of Cidra and Puerto Rico must ask themselves is: Were the archaeology collections stolen from the deposits of the University of Puerto Rico Museum?

And is the Benigno Fernández García collection complete?

Nilka Resto's journalistic information indicates: "It refers to journalistic information attributed to the amateur archaeologist Víctor Cabello, according to which, of the 365 pieces that make up the pre-Columbian collection found on the banks of the Río La Plata, in the Toíta neighborhood, in Cidra, there are currently 27 that have not been located by the employees of the UPR Museum and appear as "disappeared."

We see the consequences and evidence collected in the Stolen Collection of Cidra, which until an Investigation Resolution of the Senate of Puerto Rico, was presented on April 18, 1986, so that the Honorable Commission of Social and Cultural Development of the Senate of Puerto Rico, carried out an investigation of the archaeological disaster of the Museum.

It is interesting to study the Resolution presented by the Senate of Puerto Rico.

It should not be forgotten either that all documentary research of the Heritage of the Town of Cidra, must be preserved and maintained to create Awareness in Our Town of the existence of the prehistoric and historical past prior -by centuries-, to the official Foundation of the Town of Cidra in 1807.

To this day, the town of Cidra does not have a digitized archive of all its documentation and historical records, and even less so archives of the valuable photographic collections lost in dusty boxes and trunks.

But we do not have a National Registry of any of the historical monuments of the town and we lack a single Museum, for the adequate preservation of historical data and records of the town.

(We are informed that there is a new Museum: Firefighter's)

All this with evident ignorance of La Waka of the Bohíque hill, an ancient sacred place that was visited by indigenous people from all over America.

In this millenary and megalithic place there is a large Hollow Stone = (Waka), three differentiated stone sets – all millenary with their menhirs and dolmens – and seven heterogeneous finds with the potential to be even more possible finds.

(Archaeo-consultation Cidra-Cayey Connector Project, by Jaime Vélez, archaeologist pp.10-80)

Ceramic evidence found in survey samples yields approximate dates between 300 and 1200 A.D., in Cidra.

Around the Cerro area and in the Toíta neighborhood: ''The preceding data set... It shows ceramic styles revealing the presence of pre-Columbian agro-pottery aborigines in the region from the late Saladoid phase to the chicoid phase (circa 400-1500).''

(Investigative study by Dr. Roberto Martínez Torres, in his report on the Highway Authority, p. 16.)

There are megalithic formations of millenary stone found in Cidra, Puerto Rico, and that our indigenous people of America associate with old 'Ancestral Legends' of the mythical Island of The Turtle and the Frog = Toa = Toad.

It is in it, that a certain religious magical power known as the Guacán resides for the Native Peoples of America.

It translates into ''something mysterious'', energy, sacred, power, the incomprehensible, since it is related to the power of the Bo-Bohíque.

For the North American Indians – many have visited the Cerro – the Hollow Stone resides in it, the power of the Great Spirit, the Guaraguao and the Owl.

In 1998, indigenous people gathered there for evening ceremonies during the celebration of the First Indigenous Congress of the Americas held at the Botanical Garden of the University of Puerto Rico Río Piedras Campus.

It has the active participation of indigenous leaders from all over the Americas.

In the year 2000 and during the Meeting of the Third Indigenous Congress held in Caguas, Puerto Rico, the place was named by the delegations of the U.S., Peru, Ecuador, California U.S., Chile, Guatemala and Mexico as Cerro del Bohíque.

In subsequent Indigenous Encounters, the Ceremonial Center was used by them, and in 2004, on April 26, the indigenous leader of the Lakotas, David Bald Eagle, officially consecrated it = Cerro del Bohíque.

It is here that Taínos, Lakotas, Mayas, and other tribal groups gather.

(The place is abandoned and in disuse)

From the beginning of 1930-1938 a series of archaeological excavations were carried out in Cidra, these excavations of our wealth in settlements and archaeological corridors unknown to the authorities continue to be carried out in Cidra behind the back of the Municipality and the defense of the Cultural Heritage of Cidra.

As a summary of what has been stated and to speak in propriety and authority of the matter, on February 12, 1986, I informed the Legislative Assembly of Cidra in plenary session of the findings and a detailed and documentary copy of everything was given.

Look at the date: 1986.

To this day... Nothing!

Cidra has several rich corridors in virgin archaeological settlements, and to date, more than 55 archaeological evaluations have been recorded.

(Commissioned for the Office of the Council of Terrestrial Archaeology and State Office of Historic Preservation)

All of them unknown to the Municipality of Cidra, and not counting the ill-fated East-Cidra-PR-172 Connector and its sequel of 174 tastings carried out by the "Puerto Rican archaeology."

The pioneer in Caribbean archaeology, Dr. Irving Rouse.

(Doctoral thesis Yale University-1934), visits Cidra and carries out several excavations there in the Toa basin (La Plata River)

It is part of a vast program and scientific project of archaeological reconnaissance of the Insular Caribbean (1930-40), with the participation of prestigious and educated archaeologists -all of them made reports-; Froelich Rainey, C. Osgood and, of our special interest, the prestigious archaeologist from Yale University Dr. Irving Rouse.

Other report and Record in: Archaeological Sites Reported for the Municipality of Cidra Inventory of Sites Filed with the Council of Terrestrial Archaeology and State Office of Historic Preservation with their Respective Code-(CDI-al CD7).

No one yet knows or recognizes that 365 valuable archaeological pieces are stolen from there, the Museum of Archaeology of the University of Puerto Rico.

(Benigno Fernández García Collection-365 pieces of Cidra)

"In Puerto Rico, the main scholar was Adolfo de Hostos, who had published a series of important studies on art and archaeology. The people of the Museum informed them - at their convenience -; "the systems previously used by professional and amateur archaeologists who conducted excavations in Puerto Rico did not identify the specific sites where the pieces were found."

However, there are reports and abundant evidence about the famous archaeologist Dr. Irving Rouse, who visits Cidra carrying out the excavation, and it is he who reports his work in field archaeology, in his essential work.

(Scientific Survey of Porto Rico p.499-502)

Of that same excavation, Dr. Ricardo Alegría makes clear specific and documentary mention, in his work: Ball Courts and Ceremonial Plazas in the West Indies, 1983, p.p.108-109.

Archaeoexploration of the Sierra de Cayey, Cordillera Central and Cidra, Cayey, Salinas-Coamo, Aibonito, Comerio. (Part One)

Victor. Arturo. Cabello. Reyes.