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April 12, 1919.

Sr. Dr. Carlos de la Torre y Huerta
Universidad, Habana, Cuba.

Dear sir:

I am happy to tell you that I sail for Cuba on the Ward Line Steamer Monterey, April 19, [[strikethrough]] I [[/strikethrough]] due to arrive in Habana April 22. My instructions are to study the collections in Habana, to get photographs if possible of specimens not represented in our collections, and to get a resume of the archaeological work done by yourself and Dr. Montana in Cuba. In addition to these things I am to look up printed works dealing with the Cuban Indians which are not accessible in New York.

When those things are done I am to dig out the ancient rockshelter at Guane I found on my last trip, after which I am to go to Cabo San Antonio for a preliminary  examination, and to see if there are any persons of Indian blood surviving in that district. These things finished I am to visit the surviving Indians in the mountains back of Baracoa, photograph good types, and buy specimens of anything of aboriginal character they may still make and use , also visit the Yateras Indians. This I think will complete the work for this present trip, altho I may also look around in Camaguay Province with a view to locating aboriginal sites to explore later. It is not our object to make any extensive excavations this time, but merely to secure missing data for my book.

We wish to do this work on the same basis as before, and I personally would like it very much, if you could accompany me; but if this is not possible I hope you can detail Dr. Victor Rodriguez to accompany me wherever I go. I have the same old permit that you gave me, also the permit for carrying a thirty two or thirty eight calibre revolver for personal defense. Do these have to be renewed?

You will be interested to read the conclusions I have formed from a study of our collections. In the first place, I found two aboriginal cultures in Oriente Province, the most advanced of which is almost identical with that of [[?]], Puerto Rico and the Bahamas, and probably came from Haiti a few hundred years before the Discovery. They artificially flattened the skull, but were not Caribs, but Arawaks: their culture was in a late Neolithic stage.

The second culture is much more primitive, and had been in Cuba a very long time, occupying the coasts of Oriente , and , from what little data I now have, probably a large part of the Island West of Oriente. They were probably also of Arawak stock, and did not flatten their heads. Their culture was in the Paleolithic stage but in some places at least they used a plain form of pottery like that of