CAVE OF ATARUIPE. 230 



" The most remote part of the valley is covered by a cuap. xix 

 dense forest. In this shady and solitary place, on the ^^^ ~r 

 declivity of a steep mountain, opens the cave of Ata- Aturuipe. 

 ruipe. It is less a cave than a projecting rock, in which 

 the waters have scooped a great hollow, when, in the 

 ancient revolutions of our planet, they had reached to 

 that height. In this tomb of a whole extinct tribe we 

 soon counted nearly 600 skeletons in good preservation, 

 and arranged so regularly that it would have been 

 difficult to make an error in numbering them. Each skeletons, 

 skeleton rests upon a kind of basket formed of the 

 petioles of palms. These baskets, which the natives 

 call mapires, have the form of a square bag. Their size 

 is proportional to the age of the dead ; and there are 

 even some for infants which had died at the moment of 

 birth. We saw them from ten inches and a half to 

 three feet six inches and a half in length. All the 

 skeletons are bent, and so entire that not a rib or a 

 bone of the fingers or toes is wanting. The bones 

 have been prepared in three different ways, — whitened 

 in the air and sun, dyed red with onoto, a colouring 

 matter obtained from the Bixa orellana ; or, like 

 mummies, covered with odorous resins, and enveloped Mummies. 

 in leaves of heliconia and banana. The Indians related 

 to us, that the corpse is first placed in the humid earth, 

 that the flesh may be consumed by degrees. Some 

 months after it is taken out, and the flesh that remains 

 on the bones is scraped off with sharp stones. Several 

 tribes of Guiana still follow this practice. Near the 

 mapires or baskets there were vases of half-burnt clay, 

 which appeared to contain the bones of the same family. 

 The largest of these vases or funereal urns are three feet 

 two inches high, and four feet six inches long. They 

 are of a greenish-gray colour, and have an oval form 

 not unpleasant to the eye. The handles are mado in 

 the form of crocodiles or serpents, and the edge Ls en- 

 circled by meanders, labyrintlis, and grecqucs, with 

 narrow lines variously combined. These paintincs are 

 seen in all countries, among nations placed at the 



