Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/224

 194 TRAVELS ON THE RIO NEGRO. [June,

The men and boys appropriated all the ornaments, thus reversing the custom of civilised countries and imitating nature, who invariably decorates the male sex with the most brilliant colours and most remarkable ornaments. On the head all wore a coronet of bright red and yellow toucans' feathers, set in a circlet of plaited straw. The comb in the hair was ornamented with feathers, and frequently a bunch of white heron's plumes attached to it fell gracefully down the back. Round the neck or over one shoulder were large necklaces of many folds of white or red beads, as well as the white cylindrical stone hung on the middle of a string of some black shining seeds.

The ends of the monkey-hair cords which tied the hair were ornamented with little plumes, and from the arm hung a bunch of curiously-shaped seeds, ornamented with bright coloured feathers attached by strings of monkeys' hair. Round the waist was one of their most valued ornaments, possessed by comparatively few, — the girdle of oncas' teeth. And lastly, tied round the ankles were large bunches of a curious hard fruit, which produce a rattling sound in the dance. In their hands some carried a bow and a bundle of curabis, or war- arrows ; others a murucu, or spear of hard polished wood, or an oval painted gourd, filled with small stones and attached to a handle, which, being shaken at regular intervals in the dance, produced a rattling accompaniment to the leg ornaments and the song.

The wild and strange appearance of these handsome, naked, painted Indians, with their curious ornaments and weapons, the stamp and song and rattle which accompanies the dance, the hum of conversation in a strange language, the music of fifes and flutes and other instruments of reed, bone, and turtles' shells, the large calabashes of caxiri constantly carried about, and the great smoke-blackened gloomy house, produced an effect to which no description can do justice, and of which the sight of half-a-dozen Indians going through their dances for show, gives but a very faint idea.

I stayed looking on a considerable time, highly delighted at such an opportunity of seeing these interesting people in their most characteristic festivals. I was myself a great object of admiration, principally on account of my spectacles, which they saw for the first time and could not at all understand.