346 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 177 
to the Spanish nation: it is founded upon a lake of salt water of 200. leagues 
long like unto Mare Caspium. And if we compare it to that of Peru .. ., it 
will seeme more than credible . . . because we may judge of the one by the 
other. [Ralegh, 1811, p. 1238.] 
During the 17th and 18th centuries, European powers fought to gain 
control of the region, inspired in part by the tales of El Dorado. 
However, when exploration dissolved these tales into mythology and 
colonization revealed the harsh realities of exploiting the tropical 
lowlands, attention was turned to more promising lands and the 
Guianas sank into obscurity. In the 20th century, experts have been 
sent by the United Nations and other organizations to analyze the 
problems and potentialities and to suggest means of furthering eco- 
nomic development. Their reports are not very encouraging (e.g., 
Evans, 1939). 
Against the argument that this history is an accident, reflecting only 
the whims of fate or of mankind, there are two kinds of evidence. One 
is embodied in this book, which shows that in pre-Kuropean times 
the Guianas occupied a position similar to the one they hold today. 
They were far removed from the centers of New World civilization, 
and basic inventions and discoveries reached them not only centuries 
but millennia after their introduction to the western coasts of the 
continent. Once agriculture replaced hunting and wild food gather- 
ing, the foundation was laid for the kind of development that brought 
dense populations and elaborate sociopolitical systems elsewhere. In 
the Guianas, however, the primitive pattern of small, semipermanent 
villages and simple, kinship-based societies was never superseded. 
Historical records of the post-European period refute the implica- 
tion that this failure to reach a higher level of cultural development 
is the result of the marginal geographical position occupied by the 
Guianas with reference to the centers of New World civilization. With 
reference to Europe, the Guianas were more accessible than southern 
South America or western North America during several centuries. 
For a long time they were on a main trade route that sent ships to 
the mouth of the Amazon, then along the coast to Trinidad and the 
Caribbean Islands before turning homeward. When transportation 
was exclusively by water, their geographical position was ideal in 
terms of accessibility or proximity to the centers of civilization. The 
fact that nothing came of this suggests that geographical marginality 
was not the crucial factor in the pre-Columbian situation either. 
If population composition, accessibility to centers of civilization, 
and economic conditions are all variables between the aboriginal and 
the modern situation, none of them can be used to explain the fact 
that the Guianas then and now have remained underdeveloped in com- 
parison to other parts of South America. The explanation must lie 
