Cannibals. 321 



fragments of the great Omagua nation ; but the languages 

 have no resemblance. Of the Oriente Indians we have 

 already spoken. The tall, finely-built Cucamas near Kauta 

 are slirewd, hard-working canoe-men, notorious for the sin- 

 gular desire of acquiring property; and the Yameos, a 

 white tribe, wander across the Maranon as far as Saraya- 

 cii. On the Ucayali are numerous vagabond tribes, Hving 

 for the most part in their canoes and temporary huts. 

 They are all lazy and faithless, using their wives (polyga- 

 my is common) as slaves. Infanticide is practiced, i. e.^ 

 deformed childi-en they put out of the way, saying they 

 belong to the devil. They worship nothing. They bury 

 their dead in a canoe or earthen jar under the house (which 

 is vacated forever), and throw away his property.* The 

 common costume is a long gown, called cushma, of closely- 

 twilled cotton, woven by the women. Their w^eapons are 

 two-edged battle-axes of hard wood, as palo de sangre, and 

 bows and arrows. The arrows, ^yq or six feet long, are 

 made from the flower-stalk of the arrow-grass {Gyneriioin), 

 the head pointed with the flinty chonta and tipped with 

 bone, often anointed with poison. At the base two rows 

 of feathers are spirally arranged, showing the Indian's 

 knowledge of the rifle principle. When they have fixed 

 abodes several families live together under one roof, with 

 no division separating the women, as among the Eed In- 

 dians on the Pastassa. The roof is not over ten feet from 

 the ground. The Piros are the highest tribe; they have 

 but one wife. The Conibos are an agricultural people, 

 yet cannibals, stretching from the Upper Ucayali to the 

 sources of the Purus. They are a fair-looking, athletic 



* Compare the ancient burial custom on the Andes : "On the decease of 

 the Inca his palaces are abandoned; all his treasures, except those that Avere 

 employed in his obsequies, his furniture and apparel, were suffered to re- 

 main as he left them, and his mansions, save one, were closed up forever." — 

 Prescott. 



