ROTH] DEFORMATION, DECORATION, ORNAMENTS, CLOTHES 445 
ing, shows close analogy with that of the baby sling (fig. 226), the 
only essential difference being, apparently, that the original cotton 
cord has not passed direct from top to bottom of the frame (fig. 211), 
but through the intermediary of a head stick (fig. 199), so as to 
allow of its ultimate release (sec. 465). There are records of women’s 
aprons composed of loose cotton strings, arranged in a fringe (pl. 
154 C), from the Arekuna (App, u, 308) and Maopityan (SR, nu, 
472). According to Kappler, hair from the couata (Ateles) and 
howler (Mycetes) monkey was knitted by the Surinam Aloekoejanas 
(Alukuyana) for aprons (PEN, 1, 95). 
549. The glass-bead apron (pls. 154-157) was of course a later de- 
velopment. Bancroft describes the Arawak apron as a covering of 
small glass beads of different colors,strung on threads of cotton and so 
disposed that, when woven, they form different figures by their differ- 
ent colors. This covering is as large as the two palmsof aman’s hands 
and almost square except that the upper angle is narrower than the 
lower. It is fastened before by strings of beads tied around the 
waist and hangs before (BA, 273). Pinckard [at Berbice] describes 
it as made of small beads of different colors, ingeniously’ put on 
threads of cotton or of the silk grass so as to give the apron the ap- 
pearance of being woven in a variety of figures. This is used as 
high dress and is much valued (Pnk, 1, 516). Duff also speaks of 
its use on high days and holidays or festivals, and of their being 
tastefully worked with beads to represent the flowers, fruits, and 
animals around the Indians in the bush, and of their costing from 
6 to 10 shillings when sold to Europeans (Df, 261). In Surinam, 
Stedman talks of an apron of cotton with parti-colored glass beads 
strung upon it... of no great size, being only about 1 foot in 
breadth by 8 inches in length, ornamented with fringes, and fastened 
around the waist with cotton strings (St, 1, 386). It is true that a 
pattern may be common throughout a certain area, e. g., the Wapi- 
shana and Atorai women very commonly wearing an apron of white 
beads with a large black cross in the center (Cou, 1, 317), and 
the idea that, according to their different tribes, the women gen- 
erally make their aprons of particular colors and patterns (IT, 194) 
is correct within limits. Certainly at the present day many of the 
patterns are in common, while the colors will, of course, depend upon 
that of the raw material obtained through trade and barter (sec. 535). 
There is one very curious thing, however, that does practically 
run in common, and that is the shape, for the apron, large or small— 
and for little children it may have a width of but 3 inches or so— 
the lower edge is invariably wider than the upper, very much after 
thestyle of a truncated isosceles triangle (fig. 232). The Warrau wo- 
man’s bark apron (sec. 547), as described by Schomburgk, was nar- 
