Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/55

Rh unintelligible to a Witoto than the speech of a Friesland Hollander would be to a Briton from the North, and these groups differ from each other not only in linguistic but in physical details. Their order in the cultural scale approximates to the physical features and colouring of the Indians belonging to the group. The Andoke and the Boro, the better-looking, better-developed, taller, and lighter-coloured groups, are also the most intellectual. The lighter-skinned Indians look down on and despise the darker tribes, and those of the lowest grades, such as the Maku, are regarded as slave tribes by all the others. There is extreme animosity between the different groups, in addition to recurrent warfare between individual tribes of each group. These patrilineal exogamous tribes dwell apart, and but little communication exists between even those of the same language-group. There is no organised trade, no recognised trade routes nor trade centres. An intermittent, irregular barter is carried on by individuals only. Every tribe has one, (or possibly two), maloka, a tribal house in which every member of the tribe has a right to food and lodging. Every maloka has its absolutely independent Chief, who is subservient to no higher power, answerable only to his own tribal council. The maloka are built on a wooden framework, and thatched from the ridge-pole almost to the ground with layers of palm leaves. The average size of these buildings is about seventy feet in diameter, but they differ in accordance with the numbers of the tribes. They are not permanent habitations. After two or three years the maloka ceases to be weather-proof ; the soil of the plantation also is impoverished by successive cropping. No attempt to better either is made. The community merely abandons its old headquarters, and makes tracks for another site. The forest furnishes all it needs for house-building ; fresh ground is cleared for the plantation ; and life continues as of old. A further reason that induces the Indian to submit to these unsettled conditions