Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/235

 1851.] ORNAMENTS. 203

it so highly, and only in the greatest necessity will part with it.

Attached to the comb on the top of the head is a fine broad plume of the tail-coverts of the white egret, or more rarely of the under tail-coverts of the great harpy eagle. These are large, snowy white, loose and downy, and are almost equal in beauty to a plume of white ostrich feathers. The Indians keep these noble birds in great open houses or cages, feeding them with fowls (of which they will consume two a day), solely for the sake of these feathers ; but as the birds are rare, and the young with difficulty secured, the ornament is one that few possess. From the ends of the comb cords of monkeys' hair, decorated with small feathers, hang down the back, and in the ears are the little downy plumes, forming altogether a most imposing and elegant head-dress. All these dancers had also the cylindrical stone of large size, the necklace of white beads, the girdle of oncas' teeth, the garters, and ankle-rattles. A very few had besides a most curious ornament, the nature of which completely puzzled me : it was either a necklace or a circlet round the forehead, according to the quantity pos- sessed, and consisted of small curiously curved pieces of a white colour with a delicate rosy tinge, and appearing like shell or enamel. They say they procure them from the Indians of the Japura and other rivers, and that they are very expensive, three or four pieces only costing an axe. They appear to me more like portions of the lip of a large shell cut into perfectly regular pieces than anything else, but so regular in size and shape, as to make me doubt again that they can be shell, or that Indians can form them.

In their hands each held a lance, or bundle of arrows, or the painted calabash-rattle. The dance consisted simply of a regular sideway step, carrying the performers round and round in a circle ; the simultaneous stamping of the feet, the rattle and clash of the leg ornaments and calabashes, and a chant of a few words repeated in a deep tone, producing a very martial and animated effect. At certain intervals the young women joined in, each one taking her place between two men, whom she clasped with each arm round the waist, her head bending forward beneath the outstretched arm above, which, as the women were all of low stature, did not much interfere with their movements. They kept their places for one or two