Oct. io, 18S8.] 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



405 



dome-shaped, but 7 feet long, and rounded off at the 

 ends, not squared, as in the smaller grave. The height 



Fig. 4. — Seals. 



fflth more at floor to the highest point of the roof was 

 3 feet 9 inches, and in width the grave was 22 inches. 

 I noticed the direction in which the bodies had been 



cemetery, where there must have been several hundred 

 mounds, the marked difference in the size of the lava piles 

 was most noticeable. The largest were quite six times 

 as big as the smallest. Some of the large ones, instead 

 of following the usual oblong shape, were circular. 



Position of their Women. 

 A significant sign of the character of a people is 



Fig. 5. — Guanche Pottery. 



always the social and political position of its women. 

 Whether they are used merely as beasts of burden, as 

 valueless appendages to the men, or as worthy of con- 



Fig. 7.— Guanche Cemetery. 



laid in the ground, and had expected to find that the old 

 Canarios buried east and west; but such was not the 

 case, for the first narrow trench ran due north and south. 

 The next lay north-east and south-west, and of the 

 fifty or sixty graves which were examined, more lay 

 north and south than in any other direction. It must 

 have been from mere cursory examination or mere hear- 

 say evidence that Gaptain Glas, in 1 764, asserted that the 

 Canarios buried their dead with their heads towards the 

 north, and that later Messrs. Berthelot and Webb said 

 that they buried east and west. Together, these asser- 

 tions are correct ; singly, undoubtedly they are incorrect. 

 If they intended to bury in any particular direction, 

 they were most careless in the way they did it. The 

 inspection of the cemeteries of Agaete and the Isleta, 

 the disposition of the mounds, and a close examination 

 of the open graves, forced the conviction upon me that 

 no particular direction was followed. At the Isleta 



sideration in the nation's deliberations and councils, 

 whether, in short, they are looked down upon or looked 



Fig. 6. — Guanche Pot. 

 up to and honoured, are questions well worth attention 



