XI.] THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 437 



call themselves Nac-nanuk, Nac-pomc, "Sons of the Soil," and 

 they have no traditions of ever having migrated from any other 

 land. All their implements spears, bow and arrows, mortars, 

 water-vessels, bags are of wood or vegetable fibre, so that they 

 may be said not to have yet reached even the stone age. They 

 are not, however, in the promiscuous state, as has been asserted, 

 for the unions, though temporary, are jealously guarded while 

 they last, and, as amongst the Fuegians whom they resemble in 

 so many respects, the women are constantly subject to the most 

 barbarous treatment, beaten with clubs or hacked about with 

 bamboo knives. One of those in Ribeiro's party, who visited 

 London in 1883, had her arms, legs, and whole body covered 

 with scars and gashes inflicted during momentary fits of brutal 

 rage by her ephemeral partner. Their dwellings are mere branches 

 stuck in the ground, bound together with bast, and though seldom 

 over 4 ft. in height accommodating two or more families. The 

 Botocudos are pure nomads, roaming naked in the woods in quest 

 of the roots, berries, honey, frogs, snakes, grubs, man, and other 

 larger game which form their diet, and are eaten raw or else 

 cooked in huge bamboo canes. Formerly they had no hammocks, 

 but slept without any covering, either on the ground strewn with 

 bast, or in the ashes of the fire kindled for the evening meal. 

 About their cannibalism, which has been doubted, there is really 

 no question. They wore the teeth of those they had eaten strung 

 together as necklaces, and ate not only the foe slain in battle, 

 but members of kindred tribes, all but the heads, which were stuck 

 as trophies on stakes and used as butts for the practice of archery. 

 At the graves of the dead fires are kept up for some time to 

 scare away the bad spirits, from which custom the Botocudos might 

 be credited with some notions of the supernatural. But perhaps 

 it would be more correct to say that at this low stage of their 

 evolution they have not yet realised the distinction between the 

 natural and the supernatural. We are too apt to read such ele- 

 vated ideas into the savage mind, which is essentially anthropo- 

 morphic, attributing all mysterious manifestations to perhaps 

 invisible, but still human or quasi-human agencies. All good 



Botocudo may perhaps be connected with bcto-apoc, the native name of the 

 ear-plug. Milliet gives quite a fantastic derivation (i. p. 162). 



