128 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 



The people of Api, one of the lowest in the scale of civiliza- 

 tion, have peculiar modes of burial. They keep the body until 

 decomposition sets in, when the bones are carefully removed, 

 painted red, and wrapped in bark and buried. A stout post is fixed 

 upright at each corner of the grave, and the sides ornamented with 

 large shells, skulls, and bones of the dugong. In all cases these 

 people tatoo and paint themselves. The present North American 

 paints himself; the ancient inhabitants of Britain, according to 

 Caesar, dyed themselves with woad, and there is evidence that the 

 reindeer hunter also decorated himself with paint, using the red 

 hseaiatite or oxide of manganese for that purpose. A shell full of 

 red haematite was found in a eave on the banks of Gardon, and 

 close to the shell a mortar, which had been used to grind the color 

 and mix it with grease. 



Now we have evidences shewing that what a man used or 

 valued most during life was buried with him at death. We also 

 know that what a man places the highest value upon he is most 

 likely to take greatest care of, carrying it carefully, and perpetually 



watching, lest it be lost or injured. 



Knowing this savage love of ornament and their habit of bury- 

 ing with the dead his personal effects, let us look at the contents of 

 the various caves and tumuli, and examine the articles found. In 

 these burying grounds we will find many substances, in the shape of 

 ornaments, of such tender a nature as to preclude the idea of their 

 having been deposited by any other agency than by man. 



The beauty and great variety of marine shells no doubt were 

 reasons for their being used as articles of personal adornment. 

 They were used for other much more commercial as well as his- 

 torical purposes among the tribes of North America. 



Shells have been used in both the new and the old worlds as 

 currency. The Cowrie shells, which are the most familiar to com- 

 mercial students, are procured on the coast of Congo, the Philippine 

 and Maldive islands. Of the Maldive group they form the chief 

 article of export. The Philippine islands are in the Southern 

 Pacific, and the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, yet these shells 

 circulate as currency in Southern Asia, and, almost into the heart of 

 Africa. 



