128 ARTS AND CRAFTS OF GUIANA INDIANS [ETH. ANN, 38 
canoes one piece or image of gold, with three heads; and after that 
rate for their lesser canoes they receive pieces of gold of less value”’ 
(Ti, Dec. 1887, p. 351). We have the following record from Surinam: 
“A Yaio, an ancient man who came down from the head of the River 
Selinama [Surinam] . . . showed me before his departure from me a 
piece of metall fashioned like an Eagle and as I guesse, it was about 
the weight of eight or nine ounces troy weight, it seemed to be Gold 
or at leastwise two parts Gold and one Copper. I offered him an axe 
which he refused, to which I added foure knives, but could not get 
it of him. . . . I demanded where hee had that Eagle, his answer 
was, hee had it of his uncle who dwelt among the Weearaapoyhs in 
the Countrie called Sherumerimary neere the Cassipagotos Countrie 
where is great store of these Images. Further he said, that at the 
head of the Selinama and Marwin there were great store of the Halfe- 
Moones which he called by the name of Unnaton”’ (Ano, 405-409). 
An early account of gold is given by Harcourt from Cayenne: ‘‘As 
I daily conversed amongst the Indians [at Rio Oyapock] it chanced 
one day that one of them presented me with a halfe Moone of metall 
which held somewhat more than’a third part Gold, the rest Copper: 
another also gave me a little Image of the same Metall, and of another 
I bought a plate of the same (which he called a spread Eagle) for an 
axe. All which things they assured mee were made in the high 
countrey of Guiana, which they said did abound with Images of 
Gold, by them called Carrecoory” (HR, 387). The Nolague, who 
lived at the head of the Approuague, were celebrated for their brace- 
lets and collars of massive gold (Cou, 1, 146). 
It would be interesting if it could be shown that the moons or images 
of gold with three heads mentioned above refer to the shape of 
crescent seen in the silver earrings of the Arekuna, ete. (pl. 147 C), 
that is, two “horns” and a central boss. 
86. As already mentioned, silver was worked to a very small degree 
in the Guianas, as compared with the richer metal. Indeed, the 
following is the only reference to it that I have so far discovered in the 
literature, from the Orinoco Indians: “Those who can afford it 
{adorn their ears and nostrils] with little thin plates of silver or gold 
which they themselves fashion after their style (laboran @ su modo)” 
(G, 1, 124). Such ornaments are described and figured elsewhere 
(sees. 505, 506). Strange as it may seem, I can find no native name 
for silver, the term prata used by the Indians being, of course, cor- 
rupted from the Spanish, and yet it would appear that the metal 
must have been known to them. At Koumaka, Serima Creek, 
Essequibo River, ‘One of the natives returned . . . with a lump 
of silver clay in his hand which he informed us was the produce of a 
spring about three hours’ distant in the woods. We found it strongly 
impregnated with that ore” (StC, m, 136). So, also, at Fort St. 
