They
consider the owl and the goat-sucker as familiars of the evil spirit, and
never destroy them.
I could find no monuments or marks of antiquity amongst these Indians; so
that, after penetrating to the Rio Branco from the shores of the Western
Ocean, had anybody questioned me on this subject I should have answered, I
have seen nothing amongst these Indians which tells me that they have
existed here for a century; though, for aught I know to the contrary, they
may have been here before the Redemption, but their total want of
civilisation has assimilated them to the forests in which they wander. Thus
an aged tree falls and moulders into dust and you cannot tell what was its
appearance, its beauties, or its diseases amongst the neighbouring trees;
another has shot up in its place, and after Nature has had her course it
will make way for a successor in its turn. So it is with the Indian of
Guiana. He is now laid low in the dust; he has left no record behind him,
either on parchment or on a stone or in earthenware to say what he has
done.
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