MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 



457 



even sufier very seldom from it in 

 the Spanish colonies, at least in 

 the warm regions, where the 

 temperature is so uniform. They 

 are more exposed to it on the 

 back of the Cordilleras, at Santa- 

 Fe, and at Popayan. 



The Chaymas, like almost all 

 the native nations I have seen, 

 have small, slender hands. Their 

 feet are large, and their toes 

 retain an extraordinary mobility. 

 All the Chaymas have a family 

 look ; and this analogy of form, 

 so often observed by travellers, is 

 so much the more striking, as 

 between the years of twenty and 

 fifty difference of age is no way 

 denoted by wrinkles of the skin, 

 the colour of the hair, or decre- 

 pitude of the body. On entering 

 a hut, it is often difficult among 

 adult persons to distinguish the 

 father from the son, and not to 

 confound one generation with 

 another. I attribate this family 



custom of stimulating the organs of 

 taste by caustic lime, as others em- 

 ployed tobacco, the chimo, the leaves 

 of the cocca, or hetel. This practice 

 is found even in our day«, but more 

 toward the west, among the Gua- 

 jiroes, at tlie mouth of the Rio la 

 Hacha. These Indians, still savage, 

 carry small shells, calcined and 

 powdered, in the shell of a fruit, that 

 serves them as a vessel for various 

 purposes, suspended to their girdle. 

 The powder of the Guajiroes is an 

 article of commerce, as was an- 

 ciently, according to Gomara, that 

 of the Indians of Paria. In Europe 

 the immoderate habit of smoking 

 also makes the teeth yellow and 

 blackens them : but would it be just 

 to conclude from this fact, that they 

 who smoke with us do it because we 

 tiiink yellow teeth handsomer than 

 white ? 



look to two different causes, the 

 local situation of the Indian 

 tribes, and their inferior degree 

 of intellectual culture. Savage 

 nations are subdivided into an 

 infinity of tribes, which, bearing 

 a cruel hatred toward each other, 

 form no intermarriages, even 

 when their languages spring from 

 the same root, and when only a 

 small arm of a river, or a group of 

 hills, separates their habitations. 

 The less numerous are the tribes, 

 the more the intermarriages, 

 repeated for ages, between the 

 same families, tend to fix a 

 certain equality of conformation, 

 an organic type, which may be 

 called national.* This type is 

 preserved under the government 

 of the Missions formed by a single 

 horde. The isolated state is the 

 same, and marriages are contract- 

 ed only between the inhabitants of 

 the same hamlet. Those ties of 

 blood, which unite almost a whole 

 nation, are indicated in a simple 

 manner in the language of the 

 Indians born in the Mission, or 

 by those, who, taken from the 

 woods, have learned Spanish. To 

 designate the individuals, who 

 belong to the same tribe, they 

 employ the words mis parientes, 

 my relations. 



These causes, which depend 

 only on the isolated state, and the 

 effects of which are found among 

 the Jews of Europe, among the 

 different casts of India, and among 

 mountaineer nations in general, 

 are connected with causes hitherto 



* Nullis aliis aliarum nationem 

 connubiis infecta, propria et sincera, 

 et tantum sui similis gens. Unde 

 habitus quoque corporum, quam- 

 quam in tanto hominum numero, 

 idem omnibus. 'lac. Germ. c. 4. 



neglected. 



