WARLIKE WOMEN 463 



Towards the close of the sixteenth century, 

 F. Cyprian Bazarre, a Jesuit missionary to the 

 Tapacura Indians (a tribe of Moxos), heard accounts 

 similar to those related by Ribeiro, tending to place 

 the Amazons in the country lying southward of the 

 Great River and westward of the Puriis, or very 

 nearly where Condamine many years afterwards (in 

 1741) heard such circumstantial accounts of them. 

 This traveller spoke at Coari with an Indian whose 

 grandfather had met a party of those women at the 

 mouth of the river Cuchinara (now the Puriis). 

 " Elles venoient de celle de Cayame, qui debouche 

 dans 1'Amazone du cote du Sud entre Tefe et 

 Coari ; qu'il avoit parle a quatre d'entr'elles, dont 

 une avoit un enfant a la mamelle : il nous dit le 

 nom ; de chacune d'elles ; il ajouta qu'en partant de 

 Cuchinara elles traverse-rent le Grand Fleuve, et 

 prirent le chemin de la riviere Noire. . . . Plus bas 

 que Coari, les Indiens nous dirent partout les 

 memes choses avec quelques varietes dans les cir- 

 constances ; mais tous furent d'accord sur le point 

 principal." For many other details, tending to the 

 same conclusions, I must again refer the reader to 

 the original. 



The numerous missionaries on the Amazon 

 during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries all 

 testify to the same traditions. It was no uncommon 

 thing, they say, for Indians in confession to accuse 

 themselves of having been of the- number of those 

 who were admitted to visit periodically the women 

 living alone. Their testimony may be summed up 

 in the words of an old Indian at San Regis de los 

 Yameos (a village on the left bank of the Amazon 

 above the mouth of the Ucayali), as delivered to the 



