6 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 177 
their slightly fermented drinks when we paid a visit to any village, 
and in return we offered the Wai Wai whatever exotic foods we had 
at the moment—cookies, sugar, crackers, guava paste, or fried 
plantain strips. 
Traveling along the river in a dugout (pls. 7, a; 40, a), we always 
joined in the paddling, partly to avoid the necessity of taking addi- 
tional paddlers and thus diminishing the space available for potsherds, 
and partly for enjoyment. The first day a few muscles ached but 
afterward we made long trips with constant paddling and felt little 
or no fatigue. We learned to hit the hull at each stroke of the paddle 
in good Wai Wai fashion, and engaged in several races with the saucy 
otters who sped ahead underwater and then raised their heads and 
jeered at us for falling behind. When we came to rapids, the Indians 
took over and steered us skillfully through fast water and between the 
rocks. Once through, they always wanted to stop to try their luck 
at catching the large, flat, red paku (Myletes setiger; M. paku), a 
delicious fish that lives in the rushing water and puts up a strong 
fight when shot with a harpoon arrow. 
Locating sites in this area would have been difficult and slow without 
a guide. The river banks are densely forested, and vegetation con- 
ceals the ground so effectively that hills are often not visible from the 
river. An interview shortly after our arrival with the Wai Wai chief, 
the oldest man in the tribe, produced a long list of places that he said 
were “old villages.” On questioning, he was firm in his identification, 
although he had never seen potsherds at any of them. We were con- 
sequently somewhat dubious as we proceeded to the first such spot. 
Testing revealed sherds, however, and we found this to be true of 
all the places listed by the chief with rare exceptions, which probably 
were old field clearings. Tests on high spots above the flood level not 
mentioned by the chief always proved sterile. 
The return from Kanashen to Lumid Pau on the southern Rupununi 
savanna took 8 days. The first 4 were by dugout with three Wai Wai 
paddlers plus the two of us, down the Essequibo and up the Kas- 
sikaityu River to a point where the trail began (fig. 1). We had 
radioed for two savanna Indians to meet us on a specific day with 
bullocks to carry our essential equipment, leaving all archeological and 
ethnological specimens and expendable baggage at Kanashen for 
later removal by plane. Miraculously, the bullocks arrived shortly 
after we did, and we began the second part of the trip on foot. The 
trail was generally clear and passed through virgin forest, now and 
probably always uninhabited. The only living things we saw during 
the first 3 days of walking were a tortoise and a few birds. On the 
third night we emerged into savanna and slept at the Wapisiana 
village of Tararton. The following day we reached Lumid Pau, 
