Old Time Indians. 63 
come from Trinidad, and the delta of the Orinoco. From this rough survey, 
it will be easily recognised that a satisfactory enquiry into the life-history of the 
British Guiana Indians, entails the study of many tribes, occupying originally 
large areas of country, miles and miles beyond the present day boundary limits 
of this colony. To put the matter shortly, it would be just as ridiculous to 
arrive at a proper ethnographical survey of the whole African race by a study 
limited to the members met with in Georgetown. i 
Of course, I am well aware that the manners and customs of our native Indians 
are matters in which the majority of you are well versed. I only propose to bring 
before your notice a few notes concerning certain manners and customs of the 
old-time Indians which may be regarded as not generally known. 
My investigations have been limited to the study of the old-time Indians 
occupying the triangle formed by the Orinoco, the Amazon and the Atlantic 
seaboard. 
When the Guiana Indians were first visited by Europeans, they were still in 
what is known as the stone-age, although the Indians living along the Cordillera 
of the Andes, from Chili to the Caribbean sea, already knew how to extract and 
work various metals. For a long time, we have been sure of the presence among 
these metals of gold, silver, and copper, but we have been much less certain with 
regard to the use of bronze. It is also within the last few years, however, that 
some 50 analyses dealing with specimens as different in their nature as in their 
origin, furnish us with decisive proofs of an actual alloy of copper and tin. Such 
bronze objects have come from Lake Titicaca, north of the high Bolivian plateau 
from the vicinity of Yura, between Uyuni and Potosi, from the Republic of 
Ecuador, and from general localities north of the Argentine Republic, between 
Salta and the Bolivian frontier. It is quite possible, therefore, that a systematic 
search for examples of bronze work in the Guianas may ultimately be successfully 
rewarded. 
Now because in those times our Indians lived in a so-called stone-age, it must 
not be concluded that they necessarily used only stone-axes or stone hatchets. 
Either before, or simultaneously, as we know to have been the case with other 
savage races, fire and water, bone and shell, each had its use and importance in 
the domestic arts and handicrafts. We have historical evidence that the Indians 
of the Western Guianas could manufacture their weapons, drums, and canoes 
with fire and water only, though at the cost of much time and tediousness. An 
old Jesuit tells us that by means of fire, blowing on the cinders, they remove and 
destroy so much of the timber as is not required ; with water, which is always at 
hand, they quench the fire so as not to render waste more than is necessary. 
So slow is this labour that its advance could be almost compared with the rate 
at which plants grow. After having removed sufficient of the timber, to take 
the shape of a spear, club or arrowpoint more tedium presents itself, no less weari- 
some and troublesome. They seek or already possess a quantity of snails of 
extra large size which are met with in areas subject to inundation : they break 
the sbell in pieces, these having a cutting edge just like we find in a glass jug when 
broken. With these chips, coupled with time and determination, they give the 
last finishing touches and gloss to their bows, and in credible fineness to their 
spears and arrows, 
