32 ANTIQUITIES IN TENNESSEE. 



" No traces of the precious metals have been found in the cayerns which have served the natives 

 of Guiana for ages as sepulchres. This circumstance proves that even at this period, when the 

 Caribs and other travelling nations made incursions to the southwest, gold had flowed in very small 

 quantities from the mountains of Peru towards the eastern plains. 



" Wherever the granitic rocks do not present any of these large cavities caused by their decompo- 

 sition, or by an accumulation of their blocks, the Indians deposit their dead in the earth. The 

 hammock (chincoro), a kind of net in which the deceased had reposed during his life, serves for a 

 coffin. This net is fastened tightly around the body, a hole is dug in the hut, and there the body is 

 laid This is the most usual method according to the account of the Missionary Gili, and it accords 

 with what I myself learned from Father Zea. I do not believe that there exists one tumulus in 

 Guiana, not even in the plains of the Casiquiare and the Essequibo. Some, however, are to be met 

 with in the Savannahs of Varinas, as in Canada, to the west of the AUeghanies. (Mummies and 

 skeletons contained in baskets were recently discovered in a cavern in the United States. It is 

 believed they belonged to a race of men analogous to that of the Sandwich Islands. The descrip- 

 tion of these tombs has some similitude with that of the tomb of Ataruipe.) It seems remarkable 

 enough that, notwithstanding the extreme abundance of wood in these countries, the natives of 

 Oronoco were as little accustomed as the ancient Scythians to burn the dead. Sometimes they 

 formed funeral piles for that purpose ; but only after a battle, when the number of the dead was 

 considerable. In 1748, the Parecas burned not only the bodies of their enemies, the Tamanacas, 

 but also those of their own people who fell on the field of battle. The Indians of South America, 

 like all nations in a state of nature, are strongly attached to the spot where the bones of their 

 fathers repose. This feeling, which a great writer has beautifully painted in the episode of Atala, is 

 cherished in all its primitive ardor by the Chinese. This people, amongst whom everything is the 

 produce of art, or rather of the most ancient civilization, do not change their dwelling without 

 carrying along with them the bones of their ancestors. Coffins are seen deposited on the banks of 

 great rivers to be transported, with the furniture of the family, to a remote province. These 

 removals of bones, heretofore more common among the savages of North America, are not practised 

 among the tribes of Guiana; but these are not nomad like nations who live exclusively by hunting.'" 



Dr. Morton, in his " Crania Americana," gives, as an additional evidence of the 

 unity of race and species in the American savage nations, the singular fact that, 

 from Patagonia to Canada, and from ocean to ocean, and equally in the civilized 

 and uncivilized tribes, a peculiar mode of placing the body in sepulture has been 

 practised from time immemorial. This peculiarity consists in the sitting posture. 



Dr. Morton illustrates this characteristic by a plate and drawing of the mummy 

 of a Muysca Indian of New Grenada. In this instance the body is in a sitting 

 posture, the legs being flexed against the abdomen, and the feet turned inwards. 

 The arms are also bent so as to touch the chest, the chin being supported in the 

 palms of the hands, and the fingers received into the hollow beneath the cheek 

 bones. This interesting relic was brought from New Grenada, in South America, 

 by the late Charles Biddle, Esq., who presented it to the Academy of Natural 

 Sciences, of Philadelphia, where it is now preserved. The body is not embalmed, 

 but only desiccated ; yet the muscles are so well preserved as to render it probable 

 that some antiseptic fluid may have been applied to them. 



Dr. Morton traces this singular custom from south to north, and we give his 

 observations in full, as they possess great interest to the present inquiry, premising 

 that a large number of the examples to which he refers have already been referred 

 to. 



' Personal Narrative, Trans., vol. ii, pp. 482-489. 



