XXVI Congreso Internacional de Americanistas

The false heads of perUVlan
mummy~bales
BY
H. .NEWELL W ARDLE
The fUfH:ral customs of hUl11 anity preStnt no more 1110ving and convi
ncing evidence of belief in the post-morten continuance of personality
than that which is yielded by the nitrous soil of coastal Peru. There,
whether in shallow graves or in walle'd and thatched chambers deep in
the sands, the ancients rest in the customary crouching posture of repose,
enveloped and sllrrounded by worldly gear appropriate to their rankuntil
disturbed by the spade of the excavator.
The aridity of the climate and the salts of the soil are responsible for
the remarkabl: preservation of the dead and of their possessions. But behind
the CUSt0111 of swating the body in sea'weed, leaves, or cotton, of ad­