GUANACASTE—SANTA CRUZ 465 



been refilled. We gathered round this opening from which 

 some pieces of broken pottery had already been taken. The 

 men used a pole with a square-ended steel tip to loosen the 

 earth and a steel spade to throw out the soil. Then the Padre 

 descended and with one of the men carefully scraped away 

 the bottom soil with his machete. Of course there is no 

 predicting what — if anything — will be discovered in one of 

 these excavations, but we were fortunate; from time to time 

 during the day a number of entire earthenware vessels of 

 different sizes and shapes were uncovered, all standing up- 

 right, embedded securely in the soil and filled with earth. 

 One of the vessels possessed a neck and its walls were per- 

 forated on all sides with holes, so that it had, no doubt, served 

 as some sort of sieve. Some vessels were decorated in black. 

 A celt or spear head of a white stone and a few other stone 

 implements were found. Of the human being only the small- 

 est fragments were discovered — a bit of cranium an inch 

 across, a phalanx or finger bone, an end of a bone of the fore- 

 arm and a few molar teeth. When further search seemed 

 useless the grave was filled again. Not far off were some 

 large trees while a smaller one extended its roots to the grave 

 we had seen opened, and it was hard to realize that of all 

 the objects visible around us — house, road, trees — none 

 except the soil and the nearby Rio Santa Barbara had ex- 

 isted when these vessels were placed beside the dead body 

 in the ground. The objects found in the grave were wrapped 

 in paper, placed in Padre Velasco's saddle bags and carried 

 to Santa Cruz. But some days later, when we said good-by 

 to him, he gave to Professor Tristan some of the vessels 

 and to me one of the fragments bearing a curious face, which 

 I coveted, as souvenirs of our visit to Santa Barbara. 



Professor Tristan and I did not spend our entire time at 

 the excavation but went for an hour or so, with some of the 

 family, to the Rio Santa Barbara, here a rather dirty stream 



