OF THE AMAZON. 345 



At festivals and dances they decorate themselves with a 

 complicated costume of feather head-dresses, cinctures, armlets, 

 and leg ornaments, which I have sufficiently described in the 

 account of their dances (p. 202). 



We will now describe some peculiarities connected with 

 their births, marriages, and deaths. 



The women are generally delivered in the house, though 

 sometimes in the forest. When a birth takes place in the 

 house, everything is taken out of it, even the pans and pots, 

 and bows and arrows, till the next day ; the mother takes 

 the child to the river and washes herself and it, and she 

 generally remains in the house, not doing any work, for four 

 or five days. 



The children, more particularly the females, are restricted 

 to a particular food : they are not allowed to eat the meat of 

 any kind of game, nor of fish, except the very small bony 

 kinds ; their food principally consisting of mandiocca-cake 

 and fruits. 



On the first signs of puberty in the girls, they have to 

 undergo an ordeal. For a month previously, they are kept 

 secluded in the house, and allowed only a small quantity of 

 bread and water. All relatives and friends of the parents are 

 then assembled, bringing, each of them, pieces of " sipo " (an 

 elastic climber) ; the girl is then brought out, perfectly naked, 

 into the midst of them, when each person present gives her 

 five or six severe blows with the sipo across the back and 

 breast, till she falls senseless, and it sometimes happens, dead. 

 If she recovers, it is repeated four times, at intervals of six 

 hours, and it is considered an offence to the parents not to 

 strike hard. During this time numerous pots of all kinds of 

 meat and fish have been prepared, when the sipos are dipped 

 in them and given to her to lick, and she is then considered a 

 woman, and allowed to eat anything, and is marriageable. 



The boys undergo a somewhat similar ordeal, but not so 

 severe ; which initiates them into manhood, and allows them 

 to see the Jurupari music, which will be presently described. 



Tattooing is very little practised by these Indians ; they all, 

 however, have a row of circular punctures along the arm, and 

 one tribe, the Tucanos, are distinguished from the rest by three 

 vertical blue lines on the chin ; and they also pierce the lower 

 lip, through which they hang three little threads of white beads. 



