S(;4 ' A VOYAGE TO Book VL 



ibimer lived in villages under some kind of govern- 

 ment, peacefully obeying ilieir curacas or chiefs. 

 Tluy were less barbarous; their manners less turlni-' 

 lent and corrupt than those of most other Indians. 

 The Yurmiaguas formed a kind of lepublic ; and 

 had some laws which \\ ere strictly obscr\ ed, and the 

 breach of them punished in an exemplary manner. 

 But in police the preteience doubtless belongs to the 

 Omaguas: for, besides living in society, there was 

 an apj)earance of decency among them, their nudi- 

 ties being covered, which by others were totally ne- 

 glecicd. This disposition in those two nations for 

 making approaches, however small, to civil customs 

 and a rational life, notalittlecontributed to thespeeuy 

 progress of their conversion. They were n.ore easily 

 convinced, from the light of nature, of the trudiand 

 propriety of the doctrines preached by the passiona- 

 ries; and were convinced, that happiness, both pub- 

 lic and private, was intimately connected with an 

 uniform observance of such precepts, instead of the 

 innumerable evils resulting from the manner of living 

 hitherto preached by them. 



Among the variety of singular customs ¡)revailing 

 in these nations, one cannot help being surprized at 

 the odd taste of the Omaguas, a people otherwise 

 so sensible, who, to render their children what they 

 call beautiful, flat the fore and hind parts of the head, 

 which gives them a monstrous appearance ; for the 

 forehead grows upwards in proportion as it is flatted ; 

 ,so that the distance from the rising of the nose, to the 

 beginning of the hair, exceeds that from the lo\ver 

 part of the nose to the bottom of the chin \ an(i the 

 same is observable in the back part of the head. 

 The sides also are very narrow, from a natural conse- 

 "quence of the pressure ; as thus the parts pressed, in- 

 stead of spreading, conformably to the common course 

 of nature, grows upwards. This practice is of great 

 antic^ulty among them ; and .kept up so strictly, that 

 3 » they 



