350 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1957 



brought in on donkeyback from some distant deposit of clay or bed 

 of indurated, clayey shale; it is ground into a powder in a hand 

 mortar, mixed with water to achieve the right consistency, and la- 

 boriously, but most dexterously, built up by hand, without the use 

 of the potter's wheel. Once properly fashioned, the jar is dried in 

 the sun for a day or two before it is carefully polished by scraping 

 and sanding, and then crudely painted with bija, a natural-colored 

 red or brown clay. After this it is ready for firing over a slow fire 

 of dried cow dung, the pieces of which are still a little green inside 

 in order to make a slow, hot fire. It is difficult to conceive the mis- 

 erably puny output of a few jars a week that results from this toil- 

 some labor. A large jar holding about 3 gallons sells for a dollar 

 to a dollar and a half, depending on whether the area is under the 

 influence of the Colombian peso or the Venezuelan bolivar. These 

 jars may be fitted into openwork fiber bags which can be hung onto 

 the pack saddles of donkeys for transport over long distances. 



One potterymaker complained that the light had gone out of her life 

 and that she worked on in darkness because her two daughters had 

 left, together with a cousin, in a truck for Ziruma (the Guajiro 

 slum section of Maracaibo), and had not been heard of since. They 

 seemed to have been swallowed up, and try as she might she could 

 find no trace of them. She said that she had cried till the fountain of 

 her tears had dried up, and that life held little attraction for her if 

 she could not find her daughters. Sad and pinched were her features 

 as she tried to force a smile of gratitude when she was offered a little 

 candy and tobacco. She was somewhat vainly hoping to be able to 

 make a better living so that her one remaining daughter, now 10 

 years old and soon to change into a woman, would want to stay on 

 with her and would not turn her thoughts to leaving. She fervently 

 yearned to keep some blood relation with her, to share her life and 

 her work, for at best she could look forward only to a penniless and 

 friendless old age, living alone in the vast, immutable desert, unfeeling 

 and inscrutable, with the trade winds soughing through the spiny 

 branches of the giant organ cactus. She was the epitome of tragedy, 

 of the grief of a mother at the loss of the children of her womb, of 

 sadness as immemorial as man on this earth, and as poignant as the 

 immortal themes rehearsed on the Greek stage during its Golden Age. 



One of the most interesting of the Guajiro customs is that of the 

 encierro or blanqueo, the period of sequestration or confinement of 

 several months, or even years, for the girl during puberty, commencing 

 when, as they say, she begins to "formarse" — to acquire a woman's 

 figure — and lasting from one month to two years, the length depend- 

 ing somewhat on her social position. During that time she is kept 

 indoors and is not allowed to see men or to be seen by them. She 



