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Méegers| ARCHEOLOGY IN BRITISH GUIANA 339 
upper Essequibo region. The Taruma are described as living in com- 
munal houses surrounded by slash-and-burn garden clearings, having 
a social organization based on kinship, and a rudimentary development 
of religious ideas. Disposal of the dead was by cremation or inhuma- 
tion, with the remains deposited in isolation, explaining the absence 
of any archeological evidence. The Taruma population, never very 
large, was decimated by disease and the culture became extinct about 
1925, when the few individuals that remained went to live with other 
tribes. Four adult men living with the Wai Wai in Brazil and British 
Guiana were the only known survivors in 1952. 
For at least 100 years prior to their extinction, the Taruma are 
reported to have traded with the Wai Wai (fig. 126), a Cariban- 
speaking tribe living at the headwaters of the Mapuera River in ad- 
jacent Brazil. By the beginning of the present century, the Wai Wai 
had begun to filter across the Acarai Mountains into British Guiana 
and this migration has been accelerated since 1950 (fig. 127). Wai 
Wai pottery is sand-tempered and undecorated except for occasional 
crude incision (Erefoimo Incised) or painting (Erefoimo Painted). 
Neither stone nor pottery artifacts exist, except for pottery spindle 
whorls and pot rests. In recent times, accessibility of European 
trade materials has led to the deterioration of pottery making as 
well as some of the perishable crafts, and the Wai Wai Phase is 
consequently growing increasingly difficult to detect archeologically. 
Ethnographically, the culture is a typical representative of the 
Guiana variant of the Tropical Forest pattern and is in many re- 
spects virtually identical to that of the Taruma Phase. 
Introduction of Tropical Forest culture into the Rupununi savanna 
took place even later than on the upper Essequibo (fig. 126). Infor- 
mation derived from historical accounts and from the analysis of 
European trade materials at Rupununi Phase sites indicates that this 
group moved into British Guiana from adjacent Brazil sometime 
during the 18th century (fig. 127). The pottery is the crudest of 
all the archeological Phases in the colony, and decoration is almost 
completely lacking. Stone tools, however, are relatively abundant 
and include notched axes, hoes, and hammerstones as the most numer- 
ous forms. Habitation sites vary in area but the refuse is consistently 
limited to the surface of the ground, indicating a very slight degree 
of village permanency. Disposal of the dead was by secondary 
burial in urns placed under the shelter of a granite outcrop, and some- 
times accompanied by beads or other trinkets or by small bowls 
presumably once containing food. Shallow bowls found in isolated 
locations have been interpreted as representing offerings of a cere- 
monial nature. Although contact with Europeans appears to have 
occurred since the introduction of the Rupununi Phase into British 
Guiana, there was little acculturation until after about 1925. Since 
