1895.] Archeology and Ethnology. 191 
barbaric peoples the new comers regarded the gleaming white shell 
mounds of their predecessors with superstition, attached to them a sa- 
cred significance and were not long in incorporating the shell into their 
own ritual. This we see in the shell covered mounds and burial hills 
of the Parifias Valley. In the Chira Valley we find that an advance 
has been made, the burial mound of the Parifias here becomes the 
temple platform and the shells appear on the hillocks surrounding it 
and in the grave fillings. It is true that these hillocks seem to have 
been ovens in which pottery was baked, but this in no way alters the 
significance of the shells which cover them. The pottery, especially 
the fantistic and carefully finished pieces found in the graves, must 
have had a ritualistic meaning and the ovens in which it was baked 
must.also have been regarded as sacred, and when no longer used were 
consecrated with a covering of the revered shells. 
A more difficult problem seems to present itself in the difference 
which exists between the remains of the Parifias and those of the Chira. 
Tradition again aids us in overcoming it. There is astory that the 
Parifias Valley was once thickly populated (it is now practically un- 
inhabited), and that for some reason, probably drought or plague, the 
people were compelled to abandon it and seek homes in the valleys to 
the south. This migration probably took place prior to the epoch in 
which the custom arose of symbolizing the mound in the temple, and 
before the pottery art was so highly developed as it latterly became. 
This desertion of the Chira Valley at so early a period has therefore 
preserved for us an important link in the chain of the nation’s progress. 
This view of the adoption of the shell of the old kitchen mounds as 
a sacred token by the conquerers or successors of the primitive race, 
serves also to explain the comparatively limited extent of such mounds, 
for undoubtedly the shells of the graves and ruins were obtained from 
these deposits and in this way many of the old mounds were destroyed. 
This theory also accounts for the absence of shells in the other grave 
fields of the coast. 
As I said before this necropolis of the Chira is new to science and is 
deserving of attention and exploration. It presents many unique feat- 
ures in Peruvian Archeology. The bodies are buried horizontally at 
full length, with the head resting on the left shoulder and the face 
turned in the same direction, whereas in other regions the body is in- 
variably trussed up in sitting posture with the knees drawn under the 
chin. I also found that the use of the labret was common among the 
females, a custom hitherto unknown among the tribes of the coast 
regions of Ancient Peru. 
