Napo Indians. 169 



turn three steps out of their ways." They maintain a pass- 

 ive dignity in their bearing not seen in the proudest pope 

 or emperor. They seldom laugh or smile, even under the 

 inspiration of chicha, and months of intercourse with them 

 did not discover to us the power of song, though Yillavi- 

 cencio says they do sometimes intone fragments of prose 

 in their festival orgies. They manifest little curiosity, and 

 little power of mimicry, in which wild men generally ex- 

 cel the civilized.* The old Spartans were never so la- 

 conic. In conversation each says all he has to say in three 

 or four words till his companion speaks, when he rephes in 

 the same curt, ejaculatory style. A long sentence, or a 

 number of sentences at one time, we do not remember of 

 hearing from the lips of a l^apo Indian.f 



The women do most of the work, while their lazy lords 

 drink up the chicha and swing in their hammocks, or pos- 

 sibly do a little hunting. :j: They catch fish with bone 

 hooks, seines, spears, and by poisoning the water with har- 

 hasco.% This last method is quite common throughout 

 equatorial America. Masliing the root, they throw it into 

 the quiet coves of the river, when almost immediately the 

 fish rise to the surface, first the little fry and then the larger 

 specimens. The poison seems to stupefy rather than kill, 



* All savages appear to possess to an uncommon degree the power of mim- 

 icry. — Darwin. 



t Gibbon observes of his Indian paddlers on the Marmore: "They talk very 

 little ; they silently pull along as though they were sleeping, but their eyes are 

 wandering all the time in every direction." 



X Some of these feminines, however, have a method of retahation which 

 happily does not exist farther north. They render their husbands idiotic by 

 giving them an infusion oifioripondio, and then choose another consort. We 

 saw a sad example of this near Riobamba, and heard of one husband who. 

 after being thus treated, unconsciously served his wife and her new man like 

 a slave. Floiipondio is the seed of the Datura sanguinea, which is allied to 

 the poisonous stramonium used by the priests of Apollo at Delphi to produce 

 their frantic ravings. 



§ Jacquinia armillaris, an evergreen bush. The Indians on the Tapajos 

 use a poisonous liana called tiinbd {Paullinia pinnata). 



