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Show MALLERY] PETROGLYPHS IN GUIANA. 43 the older practitioners inflict this self- torture with the utmost stoicism, I have again and again seen that otherwise rare sight of Indians, children, and even young men, sobbing under the infliction. Yet the ceremony was never omitted. Sometimes when by a rare chance no member of the party had had the forethought to provide peppers, lime- juice was used as a substitute; and once, when neither peppers nor FIG. 3.- Shallow carvings in Guiana. limes were at hand, a piece of blue indigo- dyed cloth was carefully soaked, and the dye was then rnbbed into the eyes. These, I believe, are the only ceremonies observed by the Indians. One idea underlies them all,' and that is the attempt to avoid attracting the attention of malignant spirits. The following extract from a paper on the Indian picture writing in British Guiana, by Mr. Charles B. Brown, in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 1873, Vol. 11,254- 257, gives views and details somewhat different from the foregoing: These writings or markings are visible at a greater or less distance in proportion to the depth of the furrows. In some instances they are distinctly visible upon the rocks on the banks of the river at a distance of one hundred yards; in others they are so faint that they can only be seen in certain lights by reflected rays from their polished surfaces. They occur upon greenstone, granite, quartz- porphyry, gneiss, and jasperous sandstone, both in a vertical and horizontal position, at various elevations above the water. Sometimes they can only be seen during the dry season, when the rivers are low, as in several instances on the Berbice and Cassikytyn rivers. In one |
