4 o2 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



calabashes for carrying water were hung on the walls of the cabin, 

 as were also the spare arrows, the crop of wild cotton, and all the 

 thousand nothings which these big children have the craze for col- 

 lecting. 



The fire is built out of doors when the weather permits it; but 

 when it is raining, or is cold, it occupies the place of honor in the 

 cabin, and men and animals sit around the blaze without seeming to 

 be troubled by the smoky atmosphere. Fire is obtained by means 

 of two sticks of dry wood, one of which, held tight between the feet, 

 receives the end of the other. The second stick is revolved between 

 the hands with a rapidity on the degree of which the production of 

 the desired spark depends. The water is boiled on the fire for the 

 mate, which is taken without sugar by means of a reed pipe; and 

 the game is roasted there. If the weather is rainy, and laziness does 

 not overcome the disposition to work, as it generally does, the man, 

 smoking his pipe, weaves baskets and sieves for household use, and 

 his wife oversees the preparations for the meal, or spins cotton, from 

 which she makes a very durable cloth. 



The men are generally well built and of medium stature; their 

 limbs, especially in youth, are well developed — a result of their con- 

 stant handling of large bows and their fondness for long walks. The 

 color of their skin is a fine bronze, with variations that are largely 

 dependent on the relative cleanliness of different individuals. With 

 the bachelors, the ebony hair is worn flat, and covers the nape, while 

 the married men wear it short and curled. Generally they wear no 

 ornaments on the hair; but if there is occasion for it, the Caingua 

 bind their locks with a colored kerchief and perhaps put in a few 

 feathers. Some travelers have spoken of tribes marked by their 

 lighter tint and blond hair; so far as we have been able to find, there 

 exist a few families in which albinism is hereditary, and this is proba- 

 bly what gave origin to the legend. Their face is full and round, 

 the nose somewhat flattened, and the nostrils open, made so by the 

 people's enlarging them with their fingers. The middle part of the 

 lower lip is turned outward and pierced. The eyes, oblique, and 

 always looking outward, give the physiognomy a very mild, even 

 feminine, character. 



The masculine dress consists of drawers terminating in fringes 

 and bound in front and behind by a belt of braided hair; and 

 for ornament a double collar is worn of the hard seeds of cer- 

 tain vegetable species mingled with variously colored bits of glass 

 and vertebrae of small reptiles colored brown with quebracho. 

 Under this collar a little pocket of raw hide holds the chewing 

 tobacco. All, young and old, men and women, wear the barbote, 

 or a hole in the lower lip, by means of which they can perfectly imi- 



