TARAPOTO TO CANELOS 113 



thick, nose straight or slightly Roman, forehead 

 lowish, rather receding, and with the bump of 

 locality universally strikingly developed. Their 

 hair is cut off straight just over the eyes, and 

 allowed to hang down long behind, usually reach- 

 ing the middle of the back. They streak their 

 faces daily with anatto, and sometimes pour the 

 juice of jagua over their bodies, but this is not done 

 (as by the inhabitants of Tarapoto) to hide spotted 

 skins, as they are quite free from caracha. 



The characteristic dress is a sort of poncho called 

 a cueshma, which is a long narrow rectangular piece 

 of cloth (coarse cotton, the manufacture of Anito or 

 Tarapoto) with a slit in the middle through which 

 the head is passed ; as it is narrow it covers the 

 body before and behind to below the knees, but not 

 at the sides, so that the arms are free. The legs 

 are encased in breeches of the same material, tight, 

 but not fastened at the knees. ... A few of them 

 who have been down to the Amazon wear shirt and 

 trousers. The women are none of them pretty, 

 though there are some countenances not unpleasing. 

 They cut their hair like the men, and as the latter 

 are of slender make the two sexes can scarcely be 

 distinguished at a distance. Generally a pollena 

 constituted the article of dress of the women, the 

 body from the waist upwards being naked, but they 

 hang a profusion of beads (white, red, ami 

 round their necks, and sometimes use armlets ot 

 the same. . . . 



The forests on the opposite side ot the river 

 abound in animals, and those who go in search of 

 the tapir rarely fail in killing one. 

 and I paid two men to one three yards of 



VOL. II 



