206" REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1901. 



number in Central America, at present, several hundreds of thousands. 

 The family group here presented includes the man with staff and bearing 

 a net filled with fruit, one woman working at the mill, a second woman 

 carrying a basket of fruit in her right hand and a gourd bowl in the 

 left, while the girl walks by her mother, and holds a decorated globular, 

 gourd vessel. 



The eleventh group (Plate 33) consists of three figures, a woman 

 of Oaxaca, southern Mexico, and two men, representing the Piro and" 

 Jivaro tribes of the headwaters of the Amazon. The Oaxacan woman 

 is dressed in a skirt of striped native-woven cloth, held by a belt. 

 The upper part of the body is covered with a tastefully decorated 

 tunic. The head is protected b} T a long sash or rebozo. She carries 

 in her left hand a red earthen drinking cup and in her right two 

 gourd vessels. The third figure is a Piro man. Arawakan family, head- 

 quarters of the Ueayle, interesting because tribes speaking the same 

 language were met with by Columbus on his first voj^age to America. 

 He wears a tunic of native make, embellished with artistic patterns, 

 and confined only by a sash of beads decorated with skins of birds 

 passing over the right shoulder and beneath the left arm. The head- 

 dress consists of a bark band in which are set three bird plumes. He 

 holds in both hands a ceremonial baton. 



The Jivaro man lives on the headwaters of the river Maranon. He 

 wears a tasteful and brilliant feather skirt and headdress, ornaments 

 of teeth, beetle wings, and seeds. This tribe, one of the most forceful 

 and independent in South America, preserve the dried heads of their 

 enemies. 



The Patagonians, group 12 (Plate 34), taken as a type of the far 

 southern tribes, apply to themselves the name Tzoneca, .but their 

 neighbors call them Tehuelche, or southerners. They live on the 

 plains and desert areas of southern Patagonia, and all of the arts of 

 their lives grow out of the region. They dress in the skins of animals. 

 Their rude tents, or toldos are made from the hides of the same animals. 

 Their furniture, food, and arts are occasioned by the same environ- 

 ment. Living on animal diet, they resemble the Plains Indians of the 

 United States, being tall, bony, and athletic. When the Spaniards 

 had introduced the horse into America it took kindly to these grassy 

 plains, and the Indians changed their arts to adapt them to this new 

 domestic animal. On horseback they hunt the guanaeo, the American 

 ostrich, and v r arious other animals. 



In the group the family is on the point of breaking camp. The 

 man, wearing a skunk-skin robe, with bolas in hand, is ready to mount 

 his horse. One woman lias already mounted, and the boy assists in 

 completing her outfit. The second woman is rolling up skin robes of 

 the household, while the little girl halters the pet ostrich, and the 

 babe sleeps in its novel cradle. 



