468 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



beyond the last were the Amazons. " These man- 

 like women," he says, "have their abodes in great 

 forests and on lofty hills, amongst which that which 

 rises above the rest, and is therefore beaten by the 

 winds for its pride with most violence, so that it 

 is bare and clear of vegetation, is called Yacamiaba " 

 (Yacamf, the Tupi name of the Trumpeter bird or 

 Agami ; Aba or awa, people). 



When I read this account of Acuna's, some years 

 after I had left the Amazon, I was struck with the 

 connection of the name of the hill Yacamiaba with 

 that of an Indian dance I had seen on the Upper 

 Amazon in 1851. The dance was called Yacami- 

 cuiia (Agami woman), and the performers in it 

 moved to the rude music of a pipe and tambour ; 

 and to the words of a song, which I unfortunately 

 neglected to take down at the time. A lot of young 

 people joined hands to form a ring, in which males 

 and females alternated, and danced round and round, 

 singing the song of the Yacami. At the words 

 " Yacami-cuna-cufia ! " the ring suddenly broke up 

 the partners turned tail to tail and bumped each 

 other repeatedly, with such goodwill that one ot 

 the two (and as often the man as the woman) was 

 frequently sent reeling across the room, amidst the 

 uproarious laughter of the bystanders. The Yacamis 

 or Agamis are, as is well known, birds without any 

 tail-feathers, those appendages having diappeared 

 from the birds continually rubbing their sterns to- 

 gether so, at least, says Indian- tradition, which has 

 been embodied in the dance ; and it is easy to under- 

 stand its application to a rocky hill, shaggy below 

 with woods, bare at the summit, such as I have 

 seen many in both Brazilian and Spanish Guayana. 



