RoTH] DEFORMATION, DECORATION, ORNAMENTS, CLOTHES 439 
iwe (CC, 47). If the disk be made of shell, this was the large conch 
of the West India Islands, or of the large fresh-water snail uruabi 
(sec. 584). The Carib and Makusi place woven bands of cotton 
around their infants’ arms below the biceps (BB, 247). 
541. Bark bracelets were found among the Waiwai (Cou, u, 
357), while an Arawak chieftain on the Corentyn is said to have 
sported around his wrists and ankles bracelets or bands of the bright- 
est feathers (StC, 1, 305). The strings of jangling seeds, etc., fas- 
tened around men’s ankles and arms on occasions of dance and 
festivity can be regarded in the light of musical instruments (secs. 
574, 575). Carib, Warrau, and Arawak infants are often to be seen 
with a bracelet (pl. 151 B) carved from the hard akkoyuro seed. 
These bracelets the Warrau call mohoro-motu. 
542. On the Essequibo [and Pomeroon] it was the awarra and 
kokerit seeds that the Indians sometimes cut into rings (pl. 151 C) 
to adorn the fingers of their wives and children, and they take a 
beautiful polish [by rubbing with oil] (StC, m, 24). Perhaps the 
Indians first learned of these finger rings from the Negroes, who 
certainly manufactured them both in Cayenne (FE, 174) and in 
Surinam. Thus in the latter colony the awarra or avoira... is 
much esteemed by the Negroes, who exercise their ingenuity in form- 
ing rings out of the stones, which they decorate with ciphers, initial 
letters, and other devices, and then dispose of them to the Europeans, 
who mount them in gold (St, 1, 22). 
543. Belts or girdles are made of hair, either of man or monkey, of 
cotton bands variously woven, of threaded teeth, beads, or fruit 
shells, and of kamwarri strips. It is to this belt or girdle that the 
apron or lap may be attached. Thus in Surinam many [women] 
wear a girdle made of human hair around the waist, through which, 
before and behind, they fasten a square broad piece of black cotton, 
but lighter and without a train, like the camisa of the men, both 
sexes wearing these belts or girdles so low that they almost slide 
down over their buttocks and make their bodies appear wonderfully 
long (St, 1, 386). These human-hair belts, matupa (fig. 153 A) in our 
own colony, were met with among the Wapishana (SR, u, 55, 56). 
the Arekuna (SR, 11, 221), and the Maiongkong men. In the last case 
the bigger and thicker such a belt a surer sign of the valor of the 
wearer, as the hair of slaughtered enemies only was used (SR, 1, 403). 
From what has been said, however, of the use of this material 
under armlets, and of its employment by women, it is quite possible 
that in many cases the human hair in question may have been their 
own. Monkey-hair girdles were worn in British Guiana by the 
Arekuna (SeF, 204), in Surinam by Carib women, who employed 
that of the Stentor ursinus (AK, 171), and in Cayenne by Roucou- 
