WARLIKE WOMEN 469 



May not also both the names, Yacami-women and 

 Yacami-people, allude to the women living alone ? 



Van Heuvel met with a Caribi chief at the head 

 of the river Essequibo, who, when asked about the 

 nation of women, said " he had not seen them, but 

 had heard his father and others speak of them. 

 That they live on the Wasa [the Ouassa of the 

 French maps, a tributary of the Oyapock]. Their 

 place of abode is surrounded with large rocks, 

 and the entrance is through a rock " (El Dorado, 

 p. 124). 



Condamine was informed by a soldier in the 

 garrison of Cayenne, that in 1726 he had accom- 

 panied a detachment which was sent to explore the 

 interior of the country ; in pursuance of which object 

 they had penetrated to the country of the Ami- 

 couanes, a long-eared people, who dwell beyond 

 the sources of the Oyapock, near to where another 

 river takes its rise that falls into the Amazon 

 [the Oyapock falling into the Atlantic in lat. about 

 4 N.]. The country lies high, and none of the 

 rivers are navigable. There the soldier had seen 

 on the necks of the women and girls certain green 

 stones, which the Indians said they obtained from 

 the women who had no husbands (Voyage, p. 102). 



We have mention of the long-eared folk, and 

 of the same kind of savage rocky country as all 

 tradition assigns to the abiding-place of the Amazons, 

 in Unton Fisher's relation of his voyage up the 

 Mariwin (Marony). " The passage to the head of 

 the Mariwin, from the men with long ears (which 

 is the thirteenth town from the mouth), is very 

 dangerous, by reason of the passage through hollow 

 and concave rocks, wherein harbour bats of unreason- 



