THE CrSTOM OF DIBT-EAT .KG. 405 



Fhey are men of very robust constitution ; but ill-looking, 

 savage, vindictive, and passionately fond of fermented liquors. 

 They are omnivorous animals in the highest degree; and 

 therefore the other Indians, who consider them as barba- 

 rians, have a common saying, " nothing is so loathsome but 

 that an Ottomac will eat it." While the waters of the 

 Orinoco and its tributary streams are low, the Ottomaca 

 subsist on fish and turtles. The former they kill witli sur- 

 prising dexterity, by shooting them with an arrow when 

 they appear at the surface of the water. "When the rivera 

 swell fishing almost entirely ceases.* It is then very diffi- 

 cult to procure fish, which often fails the poor missionaries, 

 on fast-days as well as flesh-days, though all the young 

 Indians are under the obligation of " fishing for the con- 

 vent." During the period of these inundations, which last 

 two or three months, the Ottomacs swallow a prodigious 

 quantity of earth. We found heaps of earth-balls in their 

 huts, piled up in pyramids three or four feet high. These 

 balls were five or six inches in diameter. The earth which 

 l lie Ottomacs eat, is a very fine and unctuous clay, of a 

 yellowish grey colour; and, when being slightly baked at 

 the fire, the hardened crust has a tint inclining to red, 

 owing to the oxide of iron which is mingled with it. We 

 brought away some of this earth, which we took from the 

 winter-provision of the Indians; and it ia a mistake to 

 suppose that it is steatitic, and that it contains magnesia. 

 Ynuquelin did not discover any traces of that substance 

 in it : but he found that it contained more silex than alumina, 

 and three or four per cent of lime. 



The Ottomacs do not eat every kind of clay indifferently ; 

 they choose the alluvial beds or strata, which contain the 

 most unctuous earth, and the smoothest to the touch. I 

 inquired of the missionary whether the moistened clay were 

 made to undergo that peculiar decomposition which is indi- 

 cated by a disengagement of carbonic acid and sulphuretted 

 hydrogen, and which is designated in every language by the 

 term of putrefaction ; but he assured us, that the natives 

 neither cause the clay to rot, nor do they mingle it with 



* In South America, as in Egypt and Nubia, the swelling of the rivers, 

 which occurs periodically in every part of the torrid zone, is erroneous!) 

 attr.t.-uU d lo the melting of the snow*. 



