A MüMOKY OF Sill Walter Ealeigh. 
345 
eat but uucooked routs, cas.sava broad aud water. At tiie end of this 
time the operation was repeated aud only after the expiration of the 
third mouth was the ordeal finished. 
837. Their marriages are celebrated exactly as among the Maeusis: 
iu the same way lying-in is also practised, Next to the chief, the first 
person in the settlement is the Piai who is generally feared, .When a 
resident dies, he is either buried outside the house and the grave opened 
again after a time, the relatives taking up the bones and dividing them 
among the dependents, or else the body is laid in a hauimock where it is 
washed and watched by the women and nearest relations, so that it may 
not be disturbed by birds of prey or insects. AVlien putrefaction has set 
in sufficiently, the women clean the bones, paint them and put them in a 
basket, wherein they are carefully preserved. If the settlement is 
abandoned by the occupants, tlu' bones are taken with them. The women 
Avho prepare tlu^ bones are (■(>nsi<lered uudea^ lor scAcral nu)iit]is after. 
838. From the time of tlu^ discovery of this important continent, 
none of the remaining tribes of ^^outh America received such notoriety 
in Elurope as the Caribs : tlds was due a good deal ])esides, to tlie impeach- 
ment of cannibalism, aud the news of the wealth of noble metals which 
the}' understood how to woik. With Sir Walter Raleigh begins the 
series of uuii vellously fantastic accounts of the tril»e aud of the district 
which it occu]nes as well as of the wealth of metal that must be hidden 
in it: he wanted to substantiate the truth of his statements by the 
quantity of sterling gold he had obtained from theifi, so as to serve the 
purpose of making Queen Elizabeth turn a favourable ear to his far- 
reaching ])rojects. Raleigh had associated a good deal with the Caribs 
and Bancroft relates in Iiis Katural History of Guiana* the following: 
"The Carribee Indians retain a tradition of an English chief who many 
years since lauded amongst them, aud euconraged them to persevere in 
enmity to the S])auiards, promising to return and settle amongst them 
and afford tliem assistance, and it is said that they still preserve an 
English Jack which he left them, that they might distinguisli his 
countrymen." This was witliont doultt Sir Walter Raleigh, who in 1595 
landed on the coast of Guiana to find the wonderful golden city Mauao 
El Dorado, aud captured Fort Joseph on the Orinoco. As to the wealth 
of gold, the reports of the oldest travellers, especially of some of the 
missionaries of the Society of Jesus who Avere sent to the Orinoco 
district, correspond with Raleigh's accounts. Gumilla, Gayley, 
Lawrence Keymis, d'Acufia and Herrera all speak of the large quantity of 
gold and silver dust, aud the amulets of gold found amongst the Caribs, 
which they themselves knew how to work. Gumilla reported that a 
century previously the Caribs in the environs of the Orinoco wore as 
ornaments gold plates which they themselves manufactured : a state- 
ment that is strengthened by that of Alexander von Humboldt, who at the 
same time states that even up to ITOO the independent Carilts bad gone to 
the Cerro de Pacaraymo, to collect gold dust in their drinking cups and 
to sell it to the Dutch on the Essequibo, as the Caribs of the Essequibo, 
€aroni and Cuyuni know how to wash gold out of the earth. 
* LoTxlon, i7r,ri, p. 2m. 
