used. It is safe to say that when the corpse is to be buried im- 

 mediately the vase is not made on purpose. It takes time to 

 make and ornament an earthen vessel, and true burial vases in 

 Brazil will usually be found to contain only the cleaned bones of 

 the dead. Those of Maraj6 are often made with the greatest care 

 and most elaborately ornamented. I have already called atten- 

 tion to the facts that they are often true gesichtsurnem, wonderfully 

 resembling those of the old world, about which so much has of 

 late years been written by German archaeologists. 



As to the antiquity of the interments in the Gruta das Mumias, 

 nothing whatever can be at present determined. At first sight, 

 the state of preservation in some cases of hair of the skin of car- 

 tilages and dried muscles, of hammocks and bags, etc., would ap- 

 pear to indicate that the bodies were buried at an extremely recent 

 date, but it is well known that, for very many years, no savage 

 Indians have existed in the vicinity. 



In the decomposition of a human body in a dry place, the soft 

 parts disappear quickly, but the skin, the cartilages and other 

 parts, may dry up and be preserved indefinitely. This loose ma- 

 terial in which the bodies were buried was extremely dry, so dry 

 that, though our explorations were made in the wet season and 

 even during heavy rains, the negroes in working raised a thick 

 cloud of dust, that at one time drove us from the cave. This dry 

 material, probably containing much saltpetre, is particularly 

 adapted for the preservation of organic substances. The human 

 remains of the cave may be many hundreds of years old. 



In the present state of our knowledge of Brazilian archaeology, 

 it is impossible to determine the tribe to which the cemetery be- 

 longed. We are ignorant of the epoch of the interment and of 

 the history of the different tribes, that in turn have occupied the 

 locality. Indeed, the little information that we possess of the 

 aborigines last known to have existed in this part of southern 

 Minas is meagre in the extreme. 



