ILLTJSTKATIONS (50). THE OTOMACS. 145 



necessary to shut children up in order to prevent their run- 

 ning into the open ah* to devour earth after recent rain. 

 The Indian women who are engaged on the river Magdalena, 

 in the small village of Banco, in turning earthenware pots, 

 continually fill their mouths with large lumps of clay, as 

 I have frequently observed, much to my surprise.* Wolves 

 eat earth, especially clay, during winter. It would be very 

 important, in a physiological point of view, to examine the 

 excrements of animals and men that eat earth. Individuals 

 of all other tribes, excepting the Otomacs, lose their health if 

 they yield to this singular propensity for eating clay. In the 

 mission of San Borja we found the child of an Indian woman, 

 which, according to the statement of its mother, would hardly 

 eat anything but earth. It was, however, much emaciated, 

 and looked like a mere skeleton. 



Why is it that in the temperate and cold zones this morbid 

 eagerness for eating earth is so much less frequently mani- 

 fested, and is indeed limited almost entirely to children and 

 pregnant women, whilst it would appear to be indigenous to 

 the tropical lands of every quarter of the earth ? In Guinea 

 the negroes eat a yellowish earth, which they call caouac; and 

 when they are carried as slaves to the West Indies they even 

 endeavour there to procure for themselves some similar species 

 of food, maintaining that the eating of earth is perfectly 

 harmless in their African home. The caouac of the American 

 islands, however, deranges the health of the slaves who par- 

 take of it ; for which reason the eating of earth was long 

 since forbidden in the West Indies, notwithstanding which a 

 species of red or yellowish tuff (un tuf rouge jaundtre) was 

 secretly sold in the public market of Martinique in the year 

 1751. 



" The negroes of Guinea say that in their own country they 

 habitually eat a certain earth, the flavour of which is most 

 agreeable to them, and which does not occasion them any in- 

 convenience. Those who have addicted themselves to the 

 excessive use of caouac are so partial to it, that no punishment 

 can prevent them from devouring this earth : "f In the island 

 of Java, between Sourabaya and Samarang, Labillardiere saw 



* This was also observed by Gilj, Saggio di Storia Americana, 

 t. ii. p. 311. 



+ Thibault de Chanvalon, Voyage a la Martinique, p. 85. 



U 



