RoTH] DEFORMATION, DECORATION, ORNAMENTS, CLOTHES 493 
the pigment is preserved. The paint dissolves quickly enough in the 
fatty matter and it is sufficient to pass the hand over the body to 
make it as red as a boiled crab or an English soldier (Cr, 366). 
Other body paints were the bignonia and the genipa. On the Orinoco 
they (Caberre and many Carib) would knead up some carafa gum 
with the different pigments and smear the mixture upon certain deli- 
cate plaited strands, curiously diversified in tolerable patterns, and 
then press the colored plait work on their arms, legs, thighs, and 
over the whole body. The result was that, at a distance, they appeared 
to be clothed in a coarse striped linen (G, 1, 124). On the upper Rio 
Negro the Indians use an engraved roller with the genipa for print- 
ing the pattern on the body (KG, 1, 249). In the same area, a special 
paintbrush, made of three wooden pencils closely affixed, is employed 
with the bixa and bignonia (KG, 1, 174-176). On the islands, in 
painting their little children, they are said to have used brushes made 
of their hair (PBR, 248). Occasionally, the design of the pattern is 
previously traced on the body in black lines (PBA, 197). 
513. Among the special occasions upon which the unguents, pig- 
ments, and other contents of their toilet boxes are brought into requisi- 
tion for the painting of their bodies in more or less complicated 
patterns must be included a general drunk, a wedding, the religious 
services performed on the anniversary of a caciqué’s or captain’s 
death, and always on the return from a long journey (G, 1, 124), as 
well as upon the start of one (Cr, 112). There was one other occa- 
sion that must not be lost sight of. The Makusi mothers were said 
to rub the red paint (aromatic) as a ceremonial onto the heads of 
their children, as they were then protected from illness and from 
the power of evil spirits (SR, 1, 365) [see also WER, vr, sec. 240A]. 
It seems to have been almost the rule for the women to effect or at 
least to assist in the body painting for the men. On the islands, if 
the wife was not present to assist in the painting and combing, the 
husband expected others to render him this service (PBR, 240). 
Under circumstances of the special occasions above mentioned the 
general run and trend of the body painting was as follows: Arawak 
. were painted on the face and on the arms, breast, etc., either with 
genipa or bixa. The women were usually the painters and delineated 
various figures, according to their different fancies (BA, 275). The 
Guinau (Arawak stock) women painted their bodies with a black 
dye, perhaps from the genipa (ScF, 225). The Wapishana had their 
whole body painted black, some of the figures exhibiting labyrinths, 
others grecques (ScT, 69). Warrau males had their faces alone 
painted in lines and terminal dots, while the females wore but two 
bands around the upper arm and a single one below the knee. The 
pigment employed was the bixa, known to them as mubosimo, which 
