nore] SALUTATIONS 623 
chieftain [Wapishana on Takutu] commenced his greeting ceremony, 
as is usually the case, by waving the open hand up and down three 
times close to our face without touching it (SR, u, 73). Here we 
found two huts with 50 inhabitants, chiefly young females. They 
consisted of Guinau and a few Maiongkong. Young and old came 
forward waving their hands, and apparently rejoicing to see us 
among them (ScF, 224). His [the bishop’s] salute was returned by 
Kanaimapo, the principal chief . . . who came to the front of his 
people [Akawai above the Demerara Falls] and, standing on the 
edge of the bank, placed both hands on his breast and then waved 
them in token of welcome (Br, 334). There were only 12 or 13 
altogether, men, women, and children [ Akawai village, Mazaruni]. 
As they arrived they touched our hands and then retired to a short 
distance (BW, 168). Schomburgk was welcomed among the Are- 
kuna, not only by men, but by women, from the oldest to the youngest, 
after the headman had finished his welcome speech, with a handshake, 
the first occasion on which he had been thus greeted by the fair sex 
(SR, 11, 234). The tapping of the visitor on the back of the shoulder 
by the host (BB, 158) has already been referred to. This gesturing 
of the hand by the person visited may perhaps be a remnant of the 
custom of painting and anointing the stranger, a practice to be dis- 
cussed in section 809. 
807. On the islands the reception by the Carib of European 
strangers visiting them as friends—e. g., French and Dutch—was 
of a somewhat more demonstrative nature. After they [the hosts] 
have shouted to them that they are welcome, some cast themselves 
into the water and swim to them, enter into their vessel, and when 
they come near land proffer to carry them ashore on their backs 
as an assurance of their affection. In the meantime the captain 
himself, or his heutenant, expects them on the shore, and receives 
them in the name of the whole island. Thence they are conducted 
by a considerable number of them to the carbet, ... where the 
inhabitants of the island, everyone according to the age and sex of the 
newcomers, bid them welcome. The old man compliments and 
makes much of the old man, the young man and maid do the like 
toward those of their age, and a man may read in their countenances 
how much they are satisfied. But the first discourse they make to 
the stranger is to ask him his name and then to tell him theirs. And 
for an expression of great affection and inviolable friendship they 
call themselves by the names of those whom they entertain. But 
to crown the ceremony they will have the person whom they receive 
in like manner to assume their name. [Nore.—See WER, v1, sec. 
265.] Then they make an exchange of names; and they have such 
excellent memories that 10 years after such a meeting they will 
