560 ARTS AND CRAFTS OF GUIANA INDIANS [ETH, ANN. 38 
731. Judging from the following passage relative to the Nouragues 
of Cayenne it would almost seem that a sort of death by exposure 
must at times have been practiced on the infantile population, but 
unfortunately no particulars are forthcoming as to the circumstances 
upon which it was dependent. “I had before baptized,” says Father 
Grillet, “a little girl in the cottage of this Imanan immediately after 
it was born, because the mother of it when she had brought it into 
the world had left it in the dirt [it is the custom of this nation to 
use their children after this manner], from whence they would not 
take it up for a long time. Being told of this disorder, and finding 
they would put nothing under the infant to keep it from the cold- 
ness of the mud and of the night, I baptized it” (GB, 19). It 
has been said of the Ximanas and Cauxanas [Arawak stock], be- 
tween the Issa [Putumayo] and Japura Rivers, that they kill all 
their first-born children (ARW, 355). 
732. Indians are said often to allow themselves to give way to 
despair. Sometimes they do not wish to survive an insult that they 
have received, and it is only too common for certain nations to 
strangle themselves for nothing sometimes. Barrére reports seeing 
a young Indian woman who, because she had had some words with 
her sister, whose part her mother took, undid her hammock ropes 
with which to hang herself in the forest and was only prevented 
doing so by a missionary who ran after her (PBA, 128). Examples 
of both males and females committing suicide are also recorded by 
Pinckard (Pnk, 1, 502-503) and by Brett (Br, 352). An attempt 
at hanging is given by the latter in the case of a woman. Among 
the cases of which I have obtained first-hand information on the 
Pomeroon the means adopted was by drinking “bitter” cassava water. 
The causes were unrequited affection, jealousy, or other “affairs of 
the heart,” and the victims women. On the islands the Indians at 
the time of the conquest, to avoid being persecuted with fire and 
sword by the Spaniards, were said to have committed suicide on a 
wholesale scale by means of cassava juice (RO, 106). 
733. What Schomburgk has stated of the Makusi can be repeated 
with equal truth of all other Guiana Indians. Every girl, without 
in the slightest degree damaging her reputation, can enjoy the favors 
of many lovers, but as soon as she is married the most inviolable ob- 
servance of her honor is demanded (SR, 1, 313). So also Bancroft. 
Though chastity after marriage is required, it is far from being 
deemed necessary even in the females before that ceremony (BA, 320). 
On the Moruca, at the back of many an Arawak house, I have seen 
the carefully weeded assignation spot hidden by foliage, where the 
girls meet their lovers. Though more or less concealed from the 
main pathway these places seem to be known and tolerated by their 
