Old Time Indians. 75 
The clearing of the fields then, as now, invariably proved irksome and 
toilsome to the men. The Salivas would appear to have practised a good 
treatment for this complaint, because when the time arrived for the clearing, 
the young men were placed in lines, one individual separate from another, a 
certain number of the older men providing themselves with whips and thongs . 
As soon as intimation was given that it was time to begin work the whipping 
of these young men commenced, and notwithstanding the cuts and marks which 
their bodies received, neither groan nor complaint escaped them. It was said 
that the object of the whipping was to prevent laziness. 
Amongst the many economic plants, other than those found wild, which were 
cultivated by practically all the Guiana Indians, may be mentioned maize, 
cassava, yams, plantains, pine-apples, paw-paws, and water-melons, various 
palm fruits (jigirri, camuirri, veserri, etc., which so far I have been unable to 
identify) and several dyes. On the authority of Gumilla, sugar-cane appears also 
to have been cultivated previous to the advent of the Europeans. The same 
missionary also tells how he, the first European visitor to the Orinoco district, 
obsreved wild rice growing, increasing, and ripening, throughout the moist 
soil subject to inundation, without anyone sowing or cultivating it, but that 
the inexperienced Indians did not recognise the use of the precious grain, 
although the little birds did. It is this same authority who speaks of a parti- 
cular kind of maize, which might probably be searched for now with profit. 
In his own words, he says that “the Otomacs, Guamos, Raos, and Saruros, 
sowed a peculiar kind of maize which has not spread, nor have I seen it 
amongst other nations ; in their own language, they callit onona or 2-month 
maize, because in two months from sowing, it grows, throws out ears of corn, 
and ripens, with the result that, in the cycle of the year, they collect six 
harvests of it. 
In the old days also, as now, the women planted im the fields, a sight which 
excited the compassion of one of the first Missionaries in Western Guiana. 
This dear old Spaniard tells us in his quaint way, the explanation which he re- 
ceived for this. “ Brothers, ” I said to them—‘* Why don’t you help your poor 
women to plant ? They are tired with the heat, working with their babies at the 
breast. Don’t you recognise that it is making both them and your children sick ¢” 
“You, father,’ they replied, “don’t understand these matters, and so they 
accordingly worry you. You have yet to learn that women know how to bring 
forth, and that we men don’t. If the women plant, the maize stem gives 2 or 3 
ears of corn; the cassava bush gives 2 or 3 baskets full of roots, and similarly 
everything is multiplied. The women know how to induce the grain to grow, 
but we men don’t. ” 
At the close of the lecture, an Aboriginal Indian brought to the meeting for 
the purpose of Dr. Roth, gave an exhibition of how to make fire with two sticks, 
