In particular, a copious extract is given from the recent work Among the Indians of Guiana, by Everard F. im Thurn: London, 1883. His account is so suggestive for comparison with the similar discoveries made in North America that there is a temptation to extract from it even more liberally than has been done.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Deep carvings in Guiana.]
The following is taken from pages 391, _et seq._, of that author:
The pictured rocks, which are certainly the most striking and mysterious of the antiquities of Guiana, are--and this has apparently never yet been pointed out--not all of one kind. In all cases various figures are rudely depicted on larger or smaller surfaces of rocks. Sometimes these figures are painted, though such cases are few and, as will be shown, of little moment; more generally they are graven on the rock, and these alone are of great importance. Rock sculptures may, again, be distinguished into two kinds, differing in the depth of incision, the apparent mode of execution, and, most important of all, the character of the figures represented.
Painted rocks in British Guiana are mentioned by Mr. C. Barrington Brown, well known as a traveler in the colony. He says, for instance, that in coming down past Amailah fall (in the same district and range as the Kaieteur), on the Cooriebrong River, he passed ‘a large white sandstone rock ornamented with figures in red paint.’ When in the Pacaraima mountains, on the Brazilian frontier, I heard of the existence of similar paintings in that neighborhood, but was unable to find them. Mr. Wallace, in his account of his ‘Travels on the Amazons,’ mentions the occurrence of similar drawings in more than one place near the Amazons; and from these and other accounts it seems probable that they occur in various parts of South America. If, as seems likely, these figures are painted with either of the red pigments which the Indians use so largely to paint their own bodies as well as their weapons and other implements, or, as is also possible, with some sort of red earth, they must be modern, the work of Indians of the present day; for these red pigments would not long withstand the effects of the weather, especially where, as in the case quoted from Mr. Brown, the drawings are on such an unenduring substance as sandstone. Some further account of these paintings is, however, much to be desired; for, though they are probably modern, it would be very interesting to know whether the designs resemble those depicted on the engraved rocks, or are of the kind with which the Indian at the present time ornaments both his own skin and his household utensils and paddles. It may be mentioned that in the Christy collection there is a stone celt from British Guiana on which are painted lines very closely resembling in character those which the Indian commonly paints on his own body.