" Timehri " or Pictured Rocks. 9 



value and it is a waste of time and space to dwell upon it. However, we 

 are impelled to try to solve this problem and many others ; every new 

 writer throws a little more light upon it. " Cui bono " will always be the 

 objection of some people and yet we are impelled to go forward. It is 

 natural to enquire about everything, but the " Gallios " may go their 

 own way. Problems are all round us, and we are progressive when we 

 try to solve them. Others have been trying for the last eighty years 

 and each has done a little. Some have speculated as I am doing, but 

 they rarely help towards anything certain. When we try to peep into the 

 minds of so-called savages we fail, and yet we shall go on trying as our 

 fathers have done. Much has been discovered and yet the more we find 

 the more problems are revealed. 



I am not prepared to give anything like an account of the pictured 

 rocks, for most of them have been described and many figured. The 

 principal works to be consulted are those of the Schomburgks, Wallace, 

 Im Thurn, Brown, Spruce and Koch-Griinberg. Less available is a 

 pamphlet by A. Winter published in ail of the Potaro Mission in 1881, 

 entitled " Indian Pictured Rocks." Possibly, at some future time, it 

 would be well to give a complete list of the localities, but at present I am 

 not sure that all have been recorded for discoveries are certain to be made 

 in the future. As late as 1914 Mr. Huckerby figured a goodly number 

 of rock pictures in St. Vincent some of which are comparable to those 

 of Guiana ; both shallow and deep forms having been found. 



It would be interesting to identify every figure with a view to finding 

 out their bearing on dances and feasts as well as of possible memorials of 

 the dead with figures of things desirable in the future life. We read of 

 dances in connection with funerals and it is possible that the Timehri 

 rocks may in some cases be memorials like that of the Indian mother as 

 told to Spruce. Scribblings by Indian children are recorded, and like 

 Europeans they draw things most familiar ; we can find the same figures 

 on rocks that we used to draw when we got our first slate and pencil. 



We can divide our actions into two classes, impulsive and rational. 

 Savages, children and women do many things that are quite unreason- 

 able ; there is no real motive but they do them to please their particular 

 tastes or likings, if not through habit and custom. Few of us can justify 

 all our actions ; in fact no one is rational at all times. Boys who have 

 done some mischief make excuses but these were not thought out before- 

 hand. Some travellers ask people they visit the reason for their manners 

 and customs and are either put oft" by excuses or fooled in some way 

 which makes their reports amusing. If the child or primitive man has 

 anything like a belief it differs from that of a civilised man ; we may call 

 it instinctive certainty for it has never been formulated. Wh -n asked 

 for reasons we may get excuses but the primitive requires no reasons. 

 Old travellers put down such excuses and some theories have been 

 founded upon them, but they give us no real information. 



