454 -^ YEAR OF COST J RICAN NATURAL HISTORY 



ing to the ver^ edge of the almost perpendicular bank. Two 

 young men came wading along the river, each armed with 

 a slender wooden spear eight to ten feet long and tipped with 

 a sharp and very tapering steel point. They were looking 

 for fish and, while I was watching them, speared two "bar- 

 budos" six to eight inches long, from among the roots of 

 a large tree which reached down into the water. These fish 

 are members of the catfish family, probably a species of 

 Rhamdia. My two questions as to whether the fish were for 

 food and were good were both answered affirmatively, and 

 before I left Santa Cruz I had opportunity to assure myself 

 of the good taste of barbudo. 



This day (Sunday) was the first of a three days' fiesta 

 in Santa Cruz. The preceding afternoon an image of the 

 saint, which had been making a circuit of the neighboring 

 country, was brought into the church, followed by a long 

 procession, chiefly of women, whose bright-colored rebosos 

 of various shades of reds, blues, yellows or greens made a 

 vivid contrast to the background of whitewashed houses and 

 church and dust-colored roads. Sunday's procession was of 

 different, non-religious, character and consisted of the local 

 brass band, a decorated chariot drawn by two oxen, with a 

 canopy under which sat the "Queen" (queen of what I could 

 not learn nor what she represented) with an attendant 

 page; boys and men in masks and clown's attire on foot 

 and a "giganta" or giantess about twelve feet high. This 

 last was a figure representing a woman, the face rather 

 crudely moulded and painted. She was dressed in pink, 

 with a wide-brimmed fashionably trimmed straw hat and 

 long white gloves. The skirt, and perhaps the bodice, were 

 simply stretched over a light wooden frame inside of which 

 walked the man who carried the whole, and of whom only 

 the feet were visible. The upper part of the giganta was 

 inclined to topple over so that usually a man walked on each 



