Page:Anthropology.djvu/97

 by the Spanish clergymen of the expedition to prominent Indians—reckoned as converts at the time—and that their fellows, in obedience to a custom long established and maintained even to the present moment, upon the death of the fortunate owners, buried them in the grave-mounds erected for their sepulture.



We regret that we have no suitable references at hand which would enable us to determine, at least approximately, the date of the manufacture of these crosses. The silver of which they are made is seemingly quite pure, and each cross is about the thirtieth of an inch in thickness.

Some intrusive engraving appears on the face of one of these objects. Behold the delineation of the head and neck of a horse! Even the most superficial examination will convince any one that this figure was not made with the graver's tool which wrought the other ornamentations, but that it was more rudely done, and, in all likelihood, with the sharp point of a flint flake.

Why an owl should have been figured on the other face of this cross, I know not. Were this a Roman relic our wonder would not be excited.