449 ARTS AND CRAFTS OF GUIANA INDIANS [ETH. ANN. 35 
several tribes who appear entirely naked, not even covering those 
nudities which nature seems to have taught the inhabitants of other 
countries to conceal (BA, 270). On the Corentyn St. Clair found 
(Arawak) women and young girls who were stark naked busily em- 
ployed in their domestic affairs making bread (StC, 1,311). In Cay- 
enne Barrére has recorded how, among the nations bordering on the 
Amazon, the Indians are entirely nude. They regard almost as a cer- 
tain sign that he who would cover what shame obliges us to hide would 
soon be unfortunate, or would die in the course of the year (PBA, 121— 
122). Coming to more recent times, there is Wallace’s account of the 
Uaupes River women, who, while dancing in their festivals, wear a 
small tanga or apron made of beads, prettily arranged. It is only 
about 6 inches square, but is never worn at any other time, and, im- 
mediately the dance is over, it is taken off (ARW, 342, 343). There 
is Koch-Griinberg’s authority for confirmation, even up to the present 
time, of the absolute nudity of some of the women in certain tribes of 
this area. The Zurumata are said by Sir Richard Schomburgk to 
have lived in astate of actual nakedness (IT, 193). The same traveler 
speaks of some Maiongkong women living in a similar condition 
(ScF, 237). So also De Bauve, in 1830, describes the Oyampi women, 
of Cayenne, as being absolutely naked (Cou, 1, 436). On the islands 
at the time of Columbus’s second visit to Santo Domingo the men were 
found as naked as they were born (DAC, 452). In concluding 
these prefatory remarks, it is well to bear in mind what is already 
well known in connection with many other races, but so perti- 
nently expressed by Kirke relative to the Guianese Indian: The 
climate of Guiana is exceedingly warm and moist; up the rivers 
scarcely a day passes without several showers of rain. The 
natives in consequence go about in a nude state, and the rain as it 
falls runs off their oiled backs like water off the proverbial duck. 
But when, by the efforts of some well-meaning but misdirected mis- 
sionary, they don clothes they soon become victims of phthisis and 
pneumonia, their clothes getting wet through and drying on their 
bodies several times a day. It is not from want of knowledge of 
clothes that the Indian goes naked (Ki, 159). As Coudreau pointed 
out, the Indians regard European clothes as ornaments, wearing 
them over their own bead or feathered decorations. He mentions 
how the Atorradis [ Atorai], etc., speak of clothes as the cachourous, 
i. e., beads, necklaces, of the whites (Cou, m, 317). Ule would seem 
to regard loin cloths and aprons as originally designed for protec- 
tive purposes (EU, 291). Certainly to the Carib an aboriginal word 
for loin-cloth would seem to be unknown. This is probably true of 
many other tribes. 
