BY ANCIENT INHABITANTS OF CHIRIQUI. 13 



Referriug to the question of tbe authenticity of the specimens them- 

 selves, I may note that observations bearing upon the actual discovery 

 of particular specimens in the tombs are unfortunately lacking. Mr. 

 McNiel acknowledges that with all his experience in the work of exca- 

 vation no single piece has been taken from the ground with his own 

 hands, and he cannot say that he ever witnessed the exhumation by 

 others, although he has been present when they were brought up from 

 the pits. Generally the workmen secrete them and afterwards offer 

 them for sale. He has, however, no shadow of a doubt that all the 

 pieces procured by him came from the graves as reported by his col- 

 lectors. 



The question of the authenticity of the gilding will not be satisfac- 

 torily or finally settled until some responsible collector shall have taken 

 the gilded objects, and with his own hands, from their undisturbed 

 places in the tombs. 



There are many proofs, however, of the authenticity of the objects 

 themselves. It is asserted b^^ a number of early writers that the Amer- 

 ican natives were, on the arrival of the Spaniards, highly accomplished 

 in metallurgy; that they worked with blow-pipes and cast in molds; 

 that the objects produced exhibited a high order of skill; and that the 

 native talent was directed with unusual force and uniformity toward 

 the imitation of life forms. It is said that the conquerors were " struck 

 with wonder" at their skill in this last respect. And a strong argu- 

 ment in favor of the genuineness of these objects is found in the fact 

 that it is not at all probable that rich alloys of gold wottld have been 

 used by Europeans for the base or foundation when copper or bronze, 

 or even lead, would have served as well. We also observe that there 

 is absolutely no trace of peculiarly European material or methods of 

 manipulation, a fact hardly possible if the extensive reproductions were 

 made by the whites. iSTeither are there traces of European ideas em- 

 bodied in the shape and in the decoration of the objects, a condition 

 that argues strongly in favor of native origin. An equally convincing 

 argument is found in the fact that all the alloys subject to corrosion 

 exhibit marked evidences of decay, as if for a long period subject to 

 the destructive agents of the soil. In many cases the copper-alloy base 

 crumbles into black powder, leaving only the flakes of the plating. 

 Lastly and most important, the strange creatures represented are in 

 many cases identical with those embodied in clay and in stone, and for 

 these latter works no one will for a moment claim a foreign derivation. 

 At the end of this paper I present two cuts of objects modeled in clay, 

 intended to illustrate this iioint. 



Considering all these arguments, I arrive at the conclusion that the 

 ornaments are, in the main, genuine antiquities, and that, if any fraud 

 at all has been practiced, it is to be laid at the door of modern gold- 

 smiths and speculators, who, according to Mr. McNiel, are known iu a 

 few cases to have "doctored'' alloyed objects with washes of gold, with 

 the view of selling them as pure gold. 



