E d 
oane an ARCHEOLOGY IN BRITISH GUIANA 267 
to as “Kushar’s Village.” Farabee (MS., Notebook A) gives the fol- 
lowing description : 
A short days journey further up the HEssequibo & on same right bank is the 
2nd T.V. situated on a little hill 45 ft. above the river and 4 mi. back. The 
houses are new & just in building—it is an old site reoccupied—an excellent 
location—a small stream passes near the house & to the river. 
Provided Farabee is correct, the reoccupation should be a diagnostic 
feature. K-16, one of the two possibilities, has that characteristic, 
while the small refuse area at E-17 shows evidence of only one brief 
occupation. K-16 also resembles “Kushar’s Village” in having a small 
stream running along the edge. The height of the bank and the 
distance of the habitation area from the river differ from Farabee’s 
specifications, the bank being 6 meters high and the refuse deposit of 
Cut 2 (the late part of the site) about 15 meters from the bank. 
The identification of E-16 with “Kushar’s Village” fits the seriation 
picture rather well. The lowest part of Cut 2 (Level 8-16 cm.) falls 
below the lowest levels of Cuts 1 and 2 at E-19 (Farabee’s “Tohi’’), 
which Farabee describes as the older village. However, the per- 
centage occurrences in these three levels are so similar that K-16, Cut 
2, Level 8-16 mm. could as easily have been put above as below the two 
lowest levels at K-19 in the pottery type seriation (fig. 101). If this 
had been done, the sequence would have been exactly as Farabee de- 
scribed. In view of the general assumption that ceramic analyses 
and seriated sequences give only approximate and not absolute results, 
this discrepancy is minor. The archeological evidence permits us to 
add a postscript to Farabee’s account: “Kushar’s Village” was soon 
abandoned, whereas “Tohi” remained inhabited and perhaps was still 
occupied when the Taruma Phase came to an end. 
The last record of a Taruma village appears to have been made by 
Walter E. Roth, who visited the upper Essequibo in 1925. The village 
he saw, 5 days’ paddling upstream from the mouth of the Kuyuwini 
and below the mouth of the Kassikaityu (Roth, 1929, p. ix), is 
described as follows: 
This settlement is situated on the summit of the hill of that name [Wannawan- 
tuk] and consists of two huge houses built on a Wapishana model. The hill 
itself, some 300 feet high, fronts on the right bank of the Essequibo, is flanked 
on either side by a creek, and slopes down into a swamp, an ideal spot protected 
by natural defenses to withstand any surprise attack. :, . I was next led to an 
extraordinary structure at the foot of the hill, which was nothing less than a 
stepladder built up its steep declivity. It was formed of runners with wooden 
rungs tied crosswise, the former running zigzag at:°a greater or less angle 
according to the conformation of the slope. Extra support was afforded by a 
double handrail formed of vine rope attached to gaudily painted stakes driven 
into the ground at distances about 10 to 12 feet apart. In my climb up it to the 
top plateau I counted over 260 rungs and I have often pondered over the labor 
and skill entailed in their fixation and construction. 
513186—60——_19 
