Caribs

Caribs, an American Indian race, found by Columbus in possession of a large number of the West India Islands, from which they have since been either exterminated or expelled, but who still form a considerable family along the shores of the Caribbean Sea, from the Isthmus of Darien nearly to the mouth of the Amazon. The pure Caribs, mostly found about the Orinoco and in the forests of Guiana, have preserved the traditional warlike, savage, but intelligent features of the race. The native name is Carina, Callinago, or Calina, from which the term cannibal was derived; and most accounts describe the South American Caribs as still man-eaters. A mixed Carib tribe is found in Guatemala, and a few half-breeds also survive along the Mosquito coast, whither their ancestors were deported by the English from St Vincent in 1738. There is a reservation of land for the Caribs in the island of Dominica. See Ober's Camps in the Caribbees (1880); Paton's Down the Islands, a Voyage to the Caribbees (1888).