The Siboneyes were armed with the bow and arrow, dart and mace; the arrow and dart were tipped with fish bones; the mace was a heavy club made of hardwood and seems to have been their favorite weapon. They also construed clever traps to ensnare game.
They had a primitive idea of weaving and wove cloth from the wild cotton plant that appears to have been indigenous to Cuba.
Fire was made by rubbing a piece of hard wood between two pieces of softer wood.
Fishing was one of their pursuits many of the houses of the noble were built upon piles along the shores of streams; this was probably a means of securing themselves against surprise by the cannibals.
The hardships to which the Siboneyes were subjected has caused them to rapidly disappear, with the exception a possible few among the mountains of Santiago. The race has entirely disappeared even as early as 1532 but 5,600 of the original population of two hundred thousand (according to Las Casas 1.000.000) remained in 1511. Moreover in 1553, Fray Luis Beltran writing of the travels in Cuba in 1551 claims they were entirely exterminated.
“Los 200.000 indios que entonces contenía serían exterminados por los tratamientos de que eran víctimas.”
Some Cuban Shrines
In Cuba as in all pro-Catholic countries the natives have a host of saints to whom they attribute various supernatural powers; they are held in greater or less esteem according to the miraculous cures they have achieved or the concessions they have granted their followers.
Each family or individual has a special saint to whom they appeal in times of trouble or sickness. Sometimes however when a saint has repeatedly proved inefficient or has failed to grant the wishes of a devotee, it is cast aside or exchanged for one that has been recommended by a friend. It is no unusual thing to hear one lady advising another to try such and such a saint. “Rece á San José, él me ha concedido todo lo que yo le pedí”. Pray to San José he grants all I ask him.