nore] WAR AND WARFARE , 595 
meantime, what with all these tortures one must wonder at the 
courage of the prisoners, which is so extraordinarily great that they 
can thus bring themselves to die in the most horrible and painful 
manner without evincing the least cowardice, comforting themselves 
in this, that at some time or another they will be avenged by their 
friends (BER, 52-55). 
772. Among the Betoya stock there is evidence of the ingestion of 
human flesh, etc., by the Tukano, and Tariana (of the charred re- 
mains of the decomposed corpse, sec. 854), and by the Cobeu (Ko- 
beua). “These latter are real cannibals,” says Wallace. “They eat 
those of other tribes whom they kill in battle, and even make war for 
the express purpose of procuring human flesh for food. When they 
have more than they can consume at once, they smoke-dry the flesh ” 
(ARW, 347). 
773. Were all historical evidence wanting for confirmation of the 
practice of cannibalism, there would still remain the middens, the 
bone and shell mounds, of the Pomeroon, Moruca, and Waini Rivers 
as silent but eloquent testimony of the prevalence of such a custom 
in earlier times throughout the neighborhood. Attention was first 
drawn to these mounds by Brett (Br, 420-444), especially to the one 
opened by him on the mission site of Warramuri, about a two hours’ 
trip up the Moruca River. This tumulus was from 20 to 25 feet 
high, on a sand reef about 80 or 90 feet above the level of the swamp. 
I purposely say “was” because in more recent years it was in large 
measure destroyed by a piece of wanton clerical vandalism for the 
foundations of residential quarters, of which not even a single house 
post now remains. Im Thurn subsequently reported (IT, 410-421) 
the existence of others, and suggested the explanation that they were 
made not by the resident inhabitants of the country but by strangers; 
that these strangers came from the sea, and not from farther inland, 
and that these strangers were certain island Carib. So far as the 
facts were known to him, his reasoning is creditable; but in the 
light of more recent knowledge not conclusive, e. g., the oyster, the 
shells of which are found in the mounds, does occur on the Guiana 
coast along the shell beach just north of the Moruca, and the Ara- 
wak, both island and mainland, like several of the continental tribes 
(secs. 771, 772), were similarly if not equally as anthropophagous 
as the Carib. Among the articles unearthed in these mounds have 
been mentioned human and other bones more or less destroyed, the 
shells of various mollusks, stone implements in the shape of celts, 
adzes, and sharp-edged quartz flakes that could be used as knives, 
hard slabs of clayey substance, pigmented clays, certain ornaments, 
and varying quantities of charcoal and ashes. What is really re- 
quired is a thoroughly searching investigation of all these middens, 
