404 EXCURSIONS BEYOND EGA. Chap. VI. 



standings. It is vain to try to get information out of a 

 Tucuna on this subject ; they affect great mystery when 

 the name is mentioned, and give very confused answers 

 to questions : it was clear, however, that the idea of 

 a spirit as a beneficent God or Creator had not entered 

 the minds of these Indians. There is great similarity 

 in all their ceremonies and mummeries, whether the 

 object is a wedding, the celebration of the feast of 

 fruits, the plucking of the hair from the heads of their 

 children, or a holiday got up simply out of a love of 

 dissipation. Some of the tribe on these occasions deck 

 themselves with the bright-coloured feathers of parrots 

 and macaws. The chief wears a head-dress or cap 

 made by fixing the breast-feathers of the Toucan on a 

 web of Bromelia twine, with erect tail plumes of 

 macaws rising from the crown. The cinctures of the 

 arms and legs are also then ornamented with bunches 

 of feathers. Others wear masked dresses : these are 

 long cloaks reaching- below the knee and made of the 

 thick whitish-coloured inner bark of a tree, the fibres 

 of which are interlaced in so regular a manner, that 

 the material looks like artificial cloth. The cloak covers 

 the head ; two holes are cut out for the eyes, a large 

 round piece of the cloth stretched on a rim of flexible 

 wood is stitched on each side to represent ears, and 

 the features are painted in exaggerated style with 

 yellow, red, and black streaks. The dresses are sewn 

 into the proper shapes with thread made of the inner 

 bark of the Uaissima tree. Sometimes grotesque head- 

 dresses, representing monkeys' busts or heads of other 

 animals, made by stretching cloth or skin over a basket- 



