EXCURSION TO MAUHES AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD. 319 
be an excellent thing to get them out to till the soil and 
make themselves useful above ground. This advice seems 
to have found favor in the si^ht of Caro Sacaibu, who 
forthwith planted a seed in the ground. From this seed 
sprang a cotton-tree, for into this fantastic tale is thus 
woven the origin of cotton. The tree throve and grew 
apace, and from the soft white contents of its pods Caro 
Sacaibu made a long thread, with one end of which Rairu 
descended once more into the earth by the same hole 
through which he had entered before. He collected the 
people together, and they were dragged up through the 
hole by means of the thread. The first who came out 
were small and ugly, but gradually they improved in 
their personal appearance, until at last the men began 
to be finelv formed and handsome, and the women beauti- 
/ / 
ful. Unfortunately, by this time the thread was much 
worn, and being too weak to hold them, the greater 
number of handsome people fell back into the hole and 
were lost. It is for this reason that beauty is so rare a 
gift in the world. Caro Sacaibu now separated the popu- 
lation he had thus drawn from the bowels of the earth, 
dividing them into different tribes, marking them with 
distinct colors and patterns, which they have since re- 
tained, and appointing their various occupations. At the 
end there remained over a residue, consisting of the ugli- 
est, smallest, most insignificant representatives of the 
human race ; to these he said, drawing at the same 
time a red line over their noses, " You are not worthy to 
be men and women, go and be animals." And so they 
were changed into birds, and ever since, the Mutums, with 
their red beaks and melancholy wailing voicen, wander 
through the woods 
