196 WANDERINGS IN 



JOURNEY. 



customs 

 and cer 

 monies. 



THIRD th e lancet. I never saw an idiot amongst them. 



if\wm iwc 1 v 



nor could I perceive any that were deformed from 

 their birth. Their women never perish in child- 

 bed, owing, no doubt, to their never wearing 

 stays. 

 Religious They have no public religious ceremony. They 



customs 111 i i 



and cere- acknowledge two superior beings, a good one, 

 and a bad one. They pray to the latter not to 

 hurt them, and they are of opinion that the former 

 is too good to do them an injury. I suspect, if 

 the truth were known, the individuals of the 

 village never offer up a single prayer or ejacula- 

 tion. They have a kind of a priest called a Pee- 

 ay-man, who is an enchanter. He finds out things 

 lost. He mutters prayers to the evil spirit over 

 them and their children when they are sick. If a 

 fever be in the village, the Pee-ay-man goes about 

 all night long, howling, and making dreadful 

 noises, and begs the bad spirit to depart. But he 

 has very seldom to perform this part of his duty, 

 as fevers seldom visit the Indian hamlets. How- 

 ever, when a fever does come, and his incantations 

 are of no avail, which I imagine is most commonly 

 the case, they abandon the place for ever, and 

 make a new settlement elsewhere. They consider 

 the owl and the goatsucker as familiars of the 

 evil spirit, and never destroy them. 



I could find no monuments or marks of an- 

 tiquity amongst these Indians; so that after 

 penetrating to the Rio Branco, from the shores 



