OCR Text |
Show Catalina Island Yields Many Ancient Treasures Avalon, Santa Catalina Island, Cal. An attempt to follow ancient trails to the long-lost island temple of Chinigchinich, the Sun God, has resulted re-sulted instead in the discovery of the burial place of a small Indian princess prin-cess of 3,000 years ago and evidence Indicating that child sacrifices were made in wholesale fashion by tribes of the Channel islands, off the coast of California. Within a stone urn- weighing 134 pounds and fashioned skillfully as though by modern tools was found the skeleton of an Indian girl between be-tween five and seven years. Her hands apparently bad clutched the rim of an urn, whose rich ornamentation ornamenta-tion of wampum bespeaks her royal lineage. In a circle with the urn as a center cen-ter were counted by I'rof. Ralph Gl id-den, id-den, curator of the Catalina museum of Channel island Indians, the skeletons skele-tons of C4 . children buried in tiers four deep with small heads touching each other, . Beneath them was the skeleton of a seven-foot man. A spear blade still was fixed in the ribs. The sand within the funeral urn had the appearance of ground crystal apparently, according to the discoverer, discov-erer, a sacred sand used in the burial of Indian royalty and was far different dif-ferent from that which bad - sifted over the graves of the other children. These finds as well as a wealth of obsidian knives, spear points mid arrow ar-row heads and hundreds of other articles ar-ticles of wampum-inlaid stone nnd bone have provided , material over which Glidden has puzzled since 'lie discovered them. One thin piece of slate he believes to be a stone map, holes having been drilled to indicate trails to the four main burying grounds on Santa Catalina Cata-lina island. "It is plausible," Glidden said, "that the strange child burial within the urn and those .surrounding it were the result of a natural death of a Utile girl of high rank and the slaying slay-ing of G4 attendants and playmates with her. Or they all may have been killed in some religious ceremonial rite. -"It Is even possible the princess may . have been given. some potion nnd buried bur-ied alive. The way the small hands clutched the outer rim. of the bowl makes this a possibility." Wampum inlaid in four broken circles on the rim of the urri with "gates" leaditig.-to.tlie four points of the compass lead Glidden to" -believe the burial pliK?e may be near the site of the temple of Chinigchinich. r - - ' : - |