Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The Indians Informed
Us That The Fresh Corpse Is Placed In Damp Ground, That The Flesh May
Be Consumed By Degrees; Some Months Afterwards It Is Taken Out, And
The Flesh Remaining On The Bones Is Scraped Off With Sharp Stones.
Several Hordes In Guiana Still Observe This Custom.
Earthen vases
half-baked are found near the mapires or baskets.
They appear to
contain the bones of the same family. The largest of these vases, or
funeral urns, are five feet high, and three feet three inches long.
Their colour is greenish-grey, and their oval form is pleasing to the
eye. The handles are made in the shape of crocodiles or serpents; the
edges are bordered with painted meanders, labyrinths, and grecques, in
rows variously combined. Such designs are found in every zone among
nations the farthest removed from each other, either with respect to
their respective positions on the globe, or to the degree of
civilization which they have attained. They still adorn the common
pottery made by the inhabitants of the little mission of Maypures;
they ornament the bucklers of the Otaheitans, the fishing-implements
of the Esquimaux, the walls of the Mexican palace of Mitla, and the
vases of ancient Greece.
We could not acquire any precise idea of the period to which the
origin of the mapires and the painted vases, contained in the
bone-cavern of Ataruipe, can be traced. The greater part seemed not to
be more than a century old; but it may be supposed that, sheltered
from all humidity under the influence of a uniform temperature, the
preservation of these articles would be no less perfect if their
origin dated from a period far more remote.
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