Funeral rites of natives along the Orinoco river (Venezuela and Colombia). The tribe lived in treehouses. The corpses of chiefs were buried until the flesh decomposed; then the skeletons were cleaned; decorated with feathers and hung in the houses. Handcolored copperplate engraving from G. T. Wilhelm's Encyclopedia of Natural History: Mankind; Augsburg; 1804. Gottlieb Tobias Wilhelm (1758-1811) was a Bavarian clergyman and naturalist known as the German Buffon.