314 THE INDIANS OF PERU. 



of water, the unbomelike look of their habitations, the untilled nature 

 of the soil, where vegetation crowds up to the very doors, the unoccu- 

 pied character of their life, their inability to tell us of themselves, their 

 forefathers, of the scenes of the laud they live in, all go to show a for- 

 eign extraction of not many centuiies past. In fact some of the tribes 

 living now on the TJcayali and on the MaraSon did come from the slopes 

 of the Andes far away to the northward in Ecuador, and others arrived 

 there from the upper country about the Huallaga, and Upper Marauon ; 

 while the name "Oraaguas," which appears on the JMarauon in the name 

 of an abandoned village site, and a member of which tribe rarely is 

 heard of iu this western part of the great Amazon Valley, comes from 

 the south and east under the name of Tupi or Guarani. The physical 

 characteristics applied to this stock by La Coudamine will answer for 

 many of the tribes encountered in this section of South America. It 

 seems not improbable that the oldest of the tribes living some few cen- 

 turies back in the low country of the Ucayali and Maraiion have been 

 replaced by the stronger red races from the Andean slopes, who iu their 

 turn have withered under the influence of their new climate and its 

 debilitating tendencies. To this cause for disappearance must be added 

 small j)Ox as a large factor. During the past year this scourge has 

 desolated the river country of the borders of the Brazilian and Peru- 

 vian frontier, and has caused the entire disappearance of one of the most 

 docile and iihysically the handsomest of the tribes about the mouth of 

 the Nape, the Yaguas, who died by families, and were eaten by the wild 

 beasts and birds of the forest about them. The custom of piercing the 

 lower lips and the ears for the purpose of placiug wooden plugs therein, 

 which was characteristic of the old Tupiuamba race of Brazil, is to be 

 found now and then among some of the tribes of the Ucayali and the 

 Napo, on which latter stream the enormous dilatation of the lobe of the 

 ear by these plates is a striking peculiarity among one of the tribes known 

 as the Cotos. But as far as I could learn there seems to have been 

 given to none of the Ucayali or Maraiion tribes that organized faith in 

 religious matters which some writers have discovered among the tradi- 

 tions of the Tupinambas of Brazil. 



In reference to the breadth of chest and size of the lung-case noticed 

 among the dwellers on the Andean slopes, I may state as the result of 

 my own observation that this development is oftener to be encountered 

 among the mixed breeds, the cross of the Indian Jind white, and more 

 particularly in the female, than among the pure-blooded Indians whom 

 I have seen from there ; and I am disposed to ascribe this to the fact that 

 the female is the burden-carrier not only among the pure Indian races, 

 but also among the half-castes of Peru, and iu her relations with the 

 whites has more drudgery of life to perform in many instances. The 

 custom among them of carrying burdenson the head, while it contributes 

 to expansion of the chest, gives them an erectness and elegance of move- 

 ment of the body which is frequently noticed. The absence among the 



