684 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 102 



many leagues over it in dugouts ; when it stops raining, it dries off 

 immediately. This country is full of cattle. 



Chapter XLII [32] 



Continuing the Account of the Customs of the Tribe of the Guay- 

 curus, and Other Features of the District of the City. 



1802. The Indians of this Guaycurii tribe are very warlike and 

 savage, and have greatly molested the peaceable Indians in the region, 

 nor have the Spanish residents been able to help matters. When 

 they are not on the warpath they wear as a sign of it a net over 

 their head like a coif ; they act like stallions with mares with their 

 young women, to debauch them, and for that reason each has his 

 home or establishment off by himself. When they go to war and 

 want to show they have fought bravely and killed their foes, they 

 have a barbarous custom, initiated by the Devil and a bestial practice ; 

 it is as follows : to prove that a young man has been courageous, 

 for which reason they entitle him a warrior, and to make him con- 

 sidered and respected as such they hold an assembly before the 

 cacique their leader, and all the men of the tribe, and he chooses 

 two sponsors from among the bravest ; a quantity of their beverage 

 has been provided, and they have a formal drinking bout. Then 

 they put the new warrior who is to receive this title, before the 

 cacique, with his sponsors beside him ; and after having given him 

 a long talk about the dignity of the title of warrior which they are 

 bestowing upon him, and drinking a toast to his sponsors, they pierce 

 his penis with a very sharp-pointed bone from a ray, and run it 

 through ; and squeezing out that blood, they anoint and wash his 

 face and breasts with it, as a sign of the bravery he will have to 

 demonstrate and of the title of warrior which they confer upon him ; 

 and then the cacique sets him beside him, to honor him and drinks 

 his health. Thus he is made one of the warriors and given the title 

 of brave. They carry out this barbarous custom at all lunar con- 

 junctions. They go naked, with nothing but a tendon from a horse 

 or a deer attached to the left wrist, for their bowstring, and with 

 another tied around the waist. They part their hair into plaits 

 (? tresquilan a carreras) and paint themselves with different colors; 

 they pierce the tip of the nose and insert a feather of a parrot or 

 other bird ; they pierce the ears and the lip also, and from these holes 

 they suspend numerous stones of different colors ; they likewise put 

 on a sort of diadem with different sorts of colored feathers, for their 

 festivals and drinking bouts. 



