Chap. VI. CAISHANA INDIANS. 375 



on purpose to obstruct the way to their habitations. 

 Half-a-mile of this shady road brought me to a small 

 open space on the banks of a brook or creek, on the 

 skirts of which stood a conical hut with a very low 

 doorway. There was also an open shed, with stages 

 made of split palm-stems, and a number of large wooden 

 troughs. Two or three dark-skinned children, with a 

 man and woman, were in the shed ; but, immediately 

 on espying me, all of them ran to the hut, bolting 

 through the little doorway like so many wild animals 

 scared into their burrows. A few moments after, the 

 man put his head out with a look of great distrust ; 

 but, on my making the most friendly gestures I could 

 think of, he came forth with the children. They were 

 all smeared with black mud and paint ; the only cloth- 

 ing of the elders was a kind of apron made of the inner 

 bark of the sapucaya-tree, and the savage aspect of the 

 man was heightened by his hair hanging over his fore- 

 head to the eyes. I stayed about two hours in the 

 neighbourhood, the children gaining sufficient confi- 

 dence to come and help me to search for insects. The 

 only weapon used by the Caishanas is the blow-pipe, 

 and this is employed only in shooting animals for food. 

 They are not a warlike people, like most of the neigh- 

 bouring tribes on the Japura and Issa. Their utensils 

 consist of earthenware cooking-vessels, wooden stools, 

 drinking-cups of gourds, and the usual apparatus for 

 making farinha, of which they produce a considerable 

 quantity, selling the surplus to traders at Tunantins. 



The whole tribe of Caishanas does not exceed in 

 number 400 souls. None of them are baptised Indians, 



