562 ARTS AND GRAFTS OF GUIANA INDIANS [ETH. ANN. 38 
on him at the first opportunity ” (RO, 548-549). So in Cayenne, 
Barrére reports how husbands would kill their wives for adultery 
without mercy, even on suspicion alone (PBA, 222). The offense 
was treated with similar severity in Surinam. Thus on the slightest 
appearance or the least suspicion of infidelity, the husbands have the 
right either to send their wives back or to kill them, without more 
formality and without any fear of being expostulated with or pun- 
ished (FE, 80). “On the Orinoco,” says Gumilla, “all recognize 
adultery, notably when women commit it, but the Carib is the only 
nation which has a punishment fixed for adulterers, who are put to 
death by the whole village populace in the public place. In other na- 
tions the injured husband swallows his grievance and troubles no more 
about it, cohabiting as many times with the wife of the adulterer as 
the latter had committed the offence with his own” (G, 1,132). <Ac- 
cording to Bancroft, to violate the chastity of a wife among the 
Akawai is almost the only injury that draws down the fatal ven- 
geance of alleged secret poison (BA, 268). Finally, speaking appar- 
ently of Indians generally, Hilhouse has stated that most of the 
blood feuds originate in jealousy and the revenge of connubial in- 
juries, of which they are highly resentful (HiC, 230). On the other 
hand, there is Crévaux’s opinion of the Guahibo of the Vichada 
River, on the extreme west of the Guianas, that they possess very lax 
morals, and sell their wives or daughters to travelers, though the 
same author very pertinently makes the inquiry as to whether such 
a practice existed among them before the advent of the whites (Cr, 
547). In this connection it is interesting to refer to Alonzo de 
Ojeda’s account of the condition of affairs prevailing still more to 
the westward at the time of the conquest in 1499: “ Neither did the 
men [at Maracaibo] display in the least degree that jealousy which 
prevailed in the other part [east side] of the coast, but, on the con- 
trary, permitted the most frank and intimate intercourse with their 
wives and daughters” (WI, 618). 
734. Mention of the alleged poisoning of food and drink in cases 
of secret enmity or punishment—e. g., for women who viewed the 
Jurupari trumpets—is common throughout the literature from 
Gumilla down to such late times as that of Crévaux. So far, how- 
ever, as evidence is forthcoming, the charge of such a widespread 
practice among the Indians is, in my opinion, not proven. Neverthe- 
less, here are the alleged facts from which the reader will be able to 
draw his own conclusions. “ For mixing with their food or drink 
the Indians of the Orinoco,” says Gumilla, “use ant poison... 
Certain large kinds of gaudy colored ants are carefully picked up 
one by one with a pad of cotton and held over the edge of a clay 
pot, where they are cut in two, the tail ends dropping into the 
water, which is then put on to boil. A fatty scum forms on the 
