416 ARTS AND GRAFTS OF GUIANA INDIANS [BTH, ANN. 38 
very handsomely adorned with tufts of black feathers at their ex- 
tremities (Br, 268), birds’ heads, chiefly those of the humming bird, 
and a small creeper of a brilliant blue color (ScF, 204) ; the Oyana 
have gorgeous red and other feathers attached to the ear stick (GOK, 
pl. iii, fig. 2). A Makusi youth is described as wearing a piece of 
bamboo (ScF, 198), though Crévaux speaks of “ certain silver tri- 
angular ear pendants like those of the British Guiana Makusi,” 
similar to those made by the Roucouyenne (Cr, 358). I observed 
silver crescentic earrings (pl. 147 C) among the Arekuna, who told 
me they had obtained them in the course of trade from the Maiong- 
kong, but all these were of undoubted European manufacture. 
In the early days these ear pendants would seem to have been 
made locally by hammering the silver either in the rough or in the 
coin. All the pendants that I saw among these people were attached 
by a twine, usually beaded, to a small wooden splinter. This latter 
was passed through the hole and held like a toggle. Bamboo reeds, 
for females also (ScG, 226), and jaguar teeth are mentioned as ear 
ornaments for the Carib of the lower Cuyuni River (SR, 1, 260). 
Island Carib wore caracolis (crescentic metal plates) as ear pendants 
(RO, 446). The piercing of the ears, nose, and underlip of these 
people would appear to have taken place at the same time as the 
naming of the child (PBR, 247). Of Arawak stock, the Guinau 
thrust through the ear cartilage a piece of bamboo, one end of which 
is ornamented with.the feathers of parrots, macaws, the black 
powis, or, in lieu of the bamboo, they wear the tusks of the wild hog 
(ScF, 225). The Wapishana have their ears pierced, one individual 
being described as wearing a letter-wood ear stick 6 inches long (SR, 
u1, 39). The Taruma have theirs pierced in two places—one in the 
usual position, in the lobe, the other toward the upper and outer edge 
of the organ (JO). Speaking apparently of the Caberre (also Ara- 
wak), Gumilla says that the women on days of festival were wont to 
put in their ears an immense tooth of a cayman (G,1, 126). This is 
paralleled by what Pinckard mentions having witnessed in some In- 
dian women at Berbice who wore in their ears thick pieces of wood, 
of the size and shape of a wine-bottle cork, not suspended to the 
part, nor hanging by a ring, but pushed through a large hole cut in 
the substance of the ear itself (Pnk, 1, 26-27). The Warrau also 
bored their ears, but no information is available as to the decorations 
worn, Ear deformation, however, appears to have been carried to an 
extreme on the Orinoco among the Abane or Abano females and the 
Guamo men. The former make a hole in the lower fleshy portion of 
their little daughters’ ears, and gradually increase the aperture as 
development proceeds. The result is that when the latter is mar- 
riageable there hangs from each ear a circle of flesh which is wide 
