RoTH] DEFORMATION, DECORATION, ORNAMENTS, CLOTHES 447 
on the upper Rio Negro and branches of the upper Amazons (KG, 
Ir, 312). 
552. Leg ornaments.—Leaving aside the strings of jangling seeds 
(GOE, pl. 1, fig. 24), and beetles’ wings, etc., which must be regarded 
as musical instruments, the only ornaments—and it is possible that 
they are articles of sanitary utility rather than objects of decora- 
tion—met with on the legs of the women, are the cotton straps or 
bands. The members of Columbus’s party were able to distinguish 
which of the women were natives of the island (Guadeloupe) and 
which captives, by the distinction that a Carib woman wore on each 
leg two bands or rings of woven cotton, one fastened around the 
knee, and the other around the ankle, by this means making the 
calves of their legs look big. . . These bands or rings of woven cot- 
ton worn by the Carib women were about 2 inches wide, and some- 
times embellished with pieces of gold, pearls, and valuable stones; a 
sort of double garter known to them as llauto (DAC, 440). On the 
mainland similar woven cotton bands were worn by the women of the 
Carib and other tribes (ScF, 215), e. g., Makusi (BB, 247), Arekuna 
(App, 1, 303), Maiongkong (SR, 1, 402), Oyana (GOK, pl. 1, fig. 15), 
Arawak (BA, 274; StC, 1,310), Wapishana. They were either knitted 
onto the child’s limbs direct, i. e., made after the style of a napkin ring 
(Carib, Wapishana),or woven into a broad band which was then fixed 
in position by tying (Arawak, Warrau). The latter is or was certainly 
used both by men and women (sec. 55). The Arawak call these ank- 
lets tukuru-kuri, and the Warrau akkamarabassa. Gumilla informs 
us that in some of the Orinoco nations as soon as the little girl 
is born the mother ties below its knees and above its ankles four 
broad and strong bands made of twisted thread of the pita [silk 
grass]. With these they go to the grave. It is a very ugly thing, he 
continues, to see their calves, because being compressed above and be- 
low by these iniquitous fastenings, the flesh is unable to grow in these 
situations, and the size of the calves is increased out of all proportion 
(G, 1, 126). So, again, on the lower Orinoco, Humboldt writes as to 
how he observed with pain the torments which the Carib mothers in- 
flict on their infants, for the purpose not only of enlarging the calf of 
the leg but also of raising the flesh in alternate stripes from the ankle 
tothetop of thethigh. Narrow ligatures,consisting of bandsof leather 
or of woven cotton, are fixed 2 or 3 inches apart from each other, 
and, being tightened more and more, the muscles between the bands 
become swollen (AVH, m1, 84). With one notable exception, that 
of Bancroft, this extraordinary appearance due to the cotton bands, 
tightly tied below the knees and above the ankles, being responsible 
for the boldly outlined calves of the Carib female has been noted by 
practically all the writers on the Guianese Indian. This is well 
shown in the following excerpts, which at the same time indicate a 
