KOTHJ MISCELLANEOUS BELIEFS 365 



knowing well that the others do not come to fight, but are their friends, they lay down 

 their arms, and all run into the canoes or other little vessels of these Indians, and each 

 Amazone takes the Hammock (a cotton Bed they hang up to sleep in) which she finds 

 next at hand; tliis she carries home [Sect. 275] and hangs up in a place where the 

 owner of it may know it again when he cnmos; after which she receives him as her 

 guest, and treats him those few days they continue together. These Indians after- 

 ward return to their own dwellings, and never fail to make this \oyage every year at 

 the appointed Time. The girls which they bear are brought up by their mothers. As 

 for the male children, it is not certain what they do with them. 



Father Acuna saw an Indian who told Mm that when he was a child 

 he was with his father at such an interview, and assured him that they 

 gave the male children to their fathers the next time tliey came sub- 

 sequent to the birth. But the common report is that they kill all 

 their males as soon as they are born. Schomburgk gives us the fol- 

 lowing particulars: 



334. According to the statements of Mahanarwa, the last Eazike of the Caribs, 

 they [Amazons] live at a place on the River Wara, quite enclosed by mountains, to 

 which there is but a single entrance: he also mentions the tribe which the Amazons 

 annually visit — it is the Teyrous or Tairas in Cayenne. . . . Among the Makusis 

 and Arawaks, we found the accounts of the Amazons to be widely scattered . . . 

 each tribe, however, gives a different locality to where these women are to be met 

 with. ... An Arawak chief told me that hw brother, who lived on the upper 

 Mazaruni, had visited them on one occasion, and that he received one of those green 

 stones as a present from the Wirisamoca, as he called these Amazons. [ScR, ii, 330.] 



There are three opinions worth considering as to the origin of the 

 myth, those of Wallace, Schomburgk, and Humboldt. In describing 

 the Indians of the River Uaupes, Wallace says: 



The men, on the other hand, have the hair carefully parted and combed on each 

 side, and tied in a queue behind. In the young men, it hangs in long locks down their 

 necks, and, with the comb, which is invariably carried stuck in the top of the head, 

 gives to them a most feminine ap]>earance: this is increased by the large necklaces 

 and bracelets of beads, and the careful extirpation of every sjTnptom of beard. Tak- 

 ing these circumstances into consideration, I am strongly of opinion that the story 

 of the Amazons has arisen from these feminine-looking warriors encountered by the 

 early voyagers. I am inclined to this opinion, from the effect they first produced 

 on myself, when it was only by close examination I saw that they were men; and, 

 were the front parts of their bodies and their breasts covered wdth shields, such as 

 they always use, I am convinced any person seeing them for the first time would 

 conclude they were women. [ARW, 343.] 



Schomburgk bases the fable on the "warlike reputation of the 

 women of certain tribes, namely, the Caribs. Columbus in his 

 second voyage gives proofs of the courage of the women folk of 

 Guadalupe — and Peter Martyr d'Anghieri says of the inhabitants of 

 this island that both sexes possess great strength and sldll in the use 

 of the bow and other weapons. . . . Columbus had already on his 

 first voyage found fighting women, and m them recognized Ama- 

 zons: what had lieen told him in the old world, he believed to find 

 again in the new" (ScR, ii, 330). Humboldt recognizes a motive 



