208 SINGULAR METHODS OF EDDY-PAINTING. 



women belonging to nations of which the manners are not 

 much depraved, to that rude state of slavery to which 

 the sex is reduced in South America by male injustice and 

 tyranny? 



When we speak in Europe of a native of Gruiana, we 

 figure to ourselves a man whose head and waist are deco- 

 rated with the fine feathers of the macaw, the toucan, and the 

 humming-bird. Our painters and sculptors have long since 

 /egarded these ornaments as the characteristic marks of 

 an American. We were surprised at not finding in the 

 Chayma Missions, in the encampments of Uruana and of 

 Pararuma (I might almost say on all the shores of the 

 Orinoco and the Cassiquiare) those fine plumes, those fea- 

 thered aprons, which are so often brought by travellers 

 from Cayenne and Demerara. These tribes for the most 

 part, even those whose intellectual faculties are most ex- 

 panded, who cultivate alimentary plants, and know how to 

 weave cotton, are altogether as naked,* as poor, and as 

 destitute of ornaments as the natives of New Holland. The 

 excessive heat of the air, the profuse perspiration in which 

 the body is bathed at every hour of the day and a great part 

 of the night, render the use of clothes insupportable. Their 

 objects of ornament, and particularly their plumes of fea- 

 thers, are reserved for dances and solemn festivals. The 

 plumes worn by the Gruipufiavest are the most celebrated ; 

 being composed of the fine feathers of manakins and 

 parrots. 



Tlie Indians are not always satisfied with one colour 

 uniformly spread; they sometimes imitate, in the most 

 whimsical manner, in painting their skin, the form of Euro- 

 pean garments. We saw some at Pararuma, who were 

 painted with blue jackets and black buttons. The mission- 

 aries related to us that the Gruaynaves of the Eio Caura 

 are accustomed to stain themselves red with anato, and to 

 make broad transverse stripes on the body, on which they 

 stick spangles of silvery mica. Seen at a distance, these 



* For instance, the Macos and the Piraoas. The Carihs must be ex- 

 cepted, whose perizoma is a cotton cloth, so broad that it might cover 

 the shoulders. 



f These came originally from the banks of thi Inirida, one of the 

 rivers that fall into the Guaviare. 



