488 ATTACHMENT TO BURIAL-PL A.CE8. 



tombs, or, as the Creoles say, employing a word altered 

 from the Inca language, guacas. When in Peru, at Man- 

 cichi, I went into the ffuaca, from which, in the sixteenth 

 century, masses of gold of great value were extracted. !No 

 trace of the precious metals has been found in the caverns 

 which have served the natives of Guiana for ages as sepul- 

 chres. This circumstance proves, that, even at the period 

 when the Caribs, and other travelling nations, made incur- 

 sions to the south-west, gold had flowed in very small quan- 

 tities from the mountains of Peru towards the eastern plains. 

 Wherever the granitic rocks do not present any of those 

 large cavities caused by their decomposition, or by an accu- 

 mulation of their blocks, the Indians deposit their dead in 

 the earth. The hammock (chinch orro), a kind of net in 

 which the deceased had reposed during his life, serves for 

 a coffin. This net is fastened tight round 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 mis- 

 sionary 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 Cassiquiare and 

 the Essequibo. Some, however, are to be met with in the 

 savannahs of Yarinas, as in Canada, to the west of the 

 Alleghanies.* It seems remarkable enough that, notwith- 

 standing the extreme abundance of wood in those countries, 

 the natives of the Orinoco 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 Tamanacs, 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 spots 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 ardour by the Chinese. These people, 



* Mummies and skeletons contained in baskets were recently discovered 

 in a cavern in the United States. It is believed, they belong to a race oi 

 men analogous to that of the Sandwich Islands. The description of these 

 tombs has gome similitude with that of the tombs of Ataruipe. 



