Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 August 1903 — A Valley of Death ln Bolivia. [ARTICLE]

A Valley of Death ln Bolivia.

There is a valley in Bolivia, South America, which might well be called the Valley of the Shadow of Death. It has been Inhabited for an indefinite period of years by tbe Kanaa Indians, who are kindred to the various South American tribes and number now only a few hundred souls. That they were once a very powerful tribe is Indicated by tbe condition of the land which they as a tribe still inhabit. One cannot travel any distance through their land without coming upon tbe old and forsaken burial grounds of the Kanaa dead. These places cannot be called graveyards, for the bodies are not buried, but rather placed upon elevated platforms, wrapped in the garments of death and bound to the crossbeams that they may not be displaced. In one of these burial grounds there will be probably fifty high skeleton platforms and ou each will lie from three to five of the Kanaa dead. The air in that part of Bolivia is very pure and preservative, for It is one of the highest plateaus of tbe continent, although Kanaa valley is just a little below the plateau’s height A traveler passing through that laud at night and by moonlight would be awestricken at the gloomy vision those graveyards present. *