The information which we possess with regard to the habits and customs of the inhabitants of Boriquen at the time of discovery is too scanty and too unreliable to permit us to form more than a speculative opinion of the degree of culture attained by them.

Friar Abbad, in the fourth chapter of his history, gives us a description of the character and customs of the people of Boriquen taken wholly from the works of Oviedo, Herrera, Robertson, Raynal, and others.

Like most of the aboriginal inhabitants of America, the natives of Boriquen were copper-colored, but somewhat darker than the inhabitants of the neighboring islands.  They were shorter of stature than the Spaniards, but corpulent and well-proportioned, with flat noses, wide nostrils, dull eyes, bad teeth, narrow foreheads, the skull artificially flattened before and behind so as to give it a conical shape, with long, black, coarse hair, beardless and hairless on the rest of the body.  Says Oviedo:  " ...  Their heads were not like other people’s, their skulls were so hard and thick that the Christians by fighting with them have learned not to strike them on the head because the swords break.”

Their whole appearance betrayed a lazy, indolent habit, and they showed extreme aversion to labor or fatigue of any kind.  They put forth no exertion save what was necessary to obtain food, and only rose from their “hamacas” or “jamacas,” or shook off their habitual indolence to play a game of ball (batey) or attend the dances (areytos) which were accompanied by rude music and the chanting of whatever happened to occupy their minds at the time.

Notwithstanding their indolence and the unsubstantial nature of their food, they were comparatively strong and robust, as they proved in many a personal tussle with the Spaniards.

Clothing was almost unknown.  Only the women of mature age used an apron of varying length, the rest, without distinction of age or sex, were naked.  They took great pains in painting their bodies with all sorts of grotesque figures, the earthy coloring matter being laid on by means of oily or resinous substances extracted from plants or trees.

These coats of paint, when fresh, served as holiday attire, and protected them from the bites of mosquitoes and other insects.  The dandies among them added to this airy apparel a few bright feathers in their hair, a shell or two in their ears and nostrils.  And the caciques wore a disk of gold (guarim) the size of a large medal round their necks to denote their rank.

The huts were built square or oblong, raised somewhat above the ground, with only one opening for entrance and exit, cane being the principal building material.  The chief piece of furniture was the “hamaca,” made with creepers or strips of bark of the “emajagua” tree.  The “totumo” or “jigueera” furnished them with their domestic utensils, as it furnishes the “jibaro” of to-day with his cups and jugs and basins.  Their mode of making fire was the universal one practised by savages.  Their arms were the usual macana and bow and arrows, but they did not poison the arrows as did the Caribs.  The largest of their canoes, or “piraguas,” could contain from 40 to 50 men, and served for purposes of war, but the majority of their canoes were of small size used in navigating the coast and rivers.