117 FIG. 3 (above): Iguana effigy jar. Moche, Peru. AD 100–700. From an early publication. FIG. 4: Bird headring. Moche, Peru. AD 100–700. As reproduced in Christopher B. Donnan, Moche Portraits from Ancient Peru, University of Texas Press, 2004. Attributed to the Museo Nacional de Antropología, Arqueología, y Historia, Lima. Photo: Duncan Strong. FIGS. 5 and 6 (right): Additional views of the Iguana staff (fig. 1). Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution. FIG. 8 (below): Stool, duho. Taíno, Caribbean Islands. Wood. Ex. William M. Gabb, Philadelphia. National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution. FIG. 2 (left): Plate from Fewkes, 1907, showing two views of the Iguana staff. Jesse Walter Fewkes, “The Aborigines of Porto Rico and Neighboring Islands.” Twenty-Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1903–1904, 1–220. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1907, pl. LXXXIX. 1887) concerning his work in the Dominican Republic and his donations sent to the institution in the 1870s. These letters represent the only genuine documentation of Gabb’s time spent in the Caribbean. The Smithsonian also has an accession record of Caribbean artifacts sent by Gabb as well as an invoice for two ancient Taíno stools (duhos) that Gabb purchased in the Dominican Republic for $100. There is no information concerning the Iguana staff except that it was donated by Gabb. Gabb makes clear in several letters to Baird that the invoice was incorrect, but apparently the error was never corrected. In fact, Gabb had spent $100 not on stools but on two wooden idols, which he considered to be “the gems of West Indian archaeology.”6 These are among the Smithsonian’s treasures from the ancient Caribbean, having been sent by Gabb via steamship in May of 1877. They were received in July. In a different shipment that same year, he sent the two wooden stools—which he had obtained from a Mr. Firth on Turks Island—along with his collection of surface finds from caves he explored in the northern part of the Dominican Republic. According to Gabb’s correspondence to Baird, he purchased one of the stools for twelve dollars. These objects are all grouped together in the accession records of the Smithsonian, along with the Iguana staff. FIG. 7 (below): Taíno stool, duho, collected by Gabb and sent to the Smithsonian Institution. From Otis T. Mason, “The Guesde Collection of Antiquities in Pointe-à-Pître, Guadeloupe, West Indies,” Smithsonian Report, 1885: fig. 201.
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