PETROGLYPHS IN GUIANA. 



43 



the oltler practitioners inflict this self-torture with the utmost stoicism, I have again 

 and again seen that otherwise rare sight of Indians, children, and even young men, 

 sobbing under the infliction. Yet the ceremony was never omitted. Sometimes 

 when by a rare chance no member of the party had had the forethought to provide 

 peppers, lime-juice was used as a substitute; and once, when neither peppers nor 



Frc. 3. — Shallow carvings in Guiana. 



limes were at hand, a piece of blue iudigo-dyed cloth was carefully soaked, and the 

 dye was then rubbed into the eyes. These, I believe, are the only ceremonies ob- 

 served by the Indians. One idea underlies them all, and that is the attempt to 

 avoid attracting the attention of malignant spirits. 



The following extract from a paper ou the Indian picture writing 

 in British Guiana, by Mr. Charles B. Brown, in the Journal of the An- 

 thropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 1873, Vol. 11,254- 

 257, gives views and details somewhat different from the foregoing: 



These writings or markings are visible at a greater or less distance in proportion 

 to the depth of the furrows. In some instances they are distinctly visible upon the 

 rocks on the banks of the river at a distance of one hundred yards ; iu others they are 

 so faint that they can only he seen in certain lights by reflected rays from their pol- 

 ished surfaces. They occur upon greenstone, granite, quartz-porphyry, gneiss, and 

 jasperous sandstone, both iu a vertical and horizontal position, at various elevations 

 above the water. Sometimes they can only be seen during the dry season, when the 

 rivers are low, as in several instances on the Berbice and Cassikytyn rivers. In one 



