– The ‘water monster’ seems to have moved away

WHILE residents of Waramuri in Moruca cannot say for sure just what the story is behind the famous Shell Mound, many accept that there is something unique, even special, about this location. Something happened here many moons ago, but just what remains a mystery.

One of the oldest residents in the village, 83-year-old Sylvester Abrams, recalls hearing a story about how “something” prevented people from passing in the vicinity of Shell Mound; even capturing their boats.
“The thing is not there anymore; it moved out. People were scared to go there back then, but now, you can take a walk,” Abrams told Pepperpot Magazine in an interview recently.

“It was something like a crocodile in the water; a ‘monster’. The older persons didn’t allow people to go around there because they said it was serious,” he related.
As a boy, though, he recalled that his teachers would ask him and his classmates to go to the location and pick the coconuts off the short trees that were there. “Since I left school, I haven’t been back to Shell Mound. It was pure bush and garbage, but it has now been cleaned up,” Abrams said,

Archaeologist Dr. Dennis Williams reportedly did some excavations back in the 1980s on Shell Mound. Among the items found were pots and pans, and more interestingly, skeletal remains.
“Without his work, as a child, I can remember there was evidence of human remains there. It is believed that the sea would have been closer. The Amerindians would have all been coming here to do their celebrations and dumped their stuff here,” retired head teacher Festus Williams shared in an interview with Pepperpot Magazine.

“But there’s another story I was told by my late father, who would have been about 102 years old by now. He told us years ago that you could not have traversed on the river in the vicinity of where the mound is. People would have had to pull their boats at the side of the river or else if you come this way, you’d never pass. It was a mystery.”

Growing up, Williams said he was always scared to pass Shell Mound. “When you pass that area after dark, you have that eerie kind of feeling. It’s not like that anymore, though. As a member of the village council, it’s my desire to have these stories documented,” he said.

It is also believed that there is a cave underneath Shell Mound, which was visible in times past but has been covered over the years. “We have to do some excavation work and look for it,” Williams noted.
Meanwhile, at Heimaracabra, a satellite community under Waramuri, it is believed that there are remnants of the tools that the Indians used. The village was famous for its Mora wood which the Amerindians used to make their canoes. There is evidence in Warapoka, another village in Moruca, that they’d have taken their tools to have them sharpened on the rocks there.