135 Timehri. 
interior. But death was always claiming them. The wearing of clothes even 
when wet would bring on pneumonia and similar troubles; vicious men debased 
some of the Indian women ; unwholesome and, to them, unnatural food mili- 
tated against health and the rumshops undermined their constitution. 
There the Indian seemed indeed to belong to a dying race. 
Then the scene of work was changed. Now it lay chiefly among the Macusis 
and Patamonas inhabiting respectively the Savanna and the forest country, 
bounded for ordinary purposes, by the Rupununi, the Essequebo, the Upper 
Potaro and the Ireng rivers. The people living over this vast extent of country 
live more nearly their own primitive native life as they have had but little 
contact with the inhabitants of the Coast. 
Here a noticeable characteristic of the Indian is his independence which 
shows itself in more ways than one. It is doubtless one reason why he lives 
in a single house or at least in a very small community far from others because 
he has no use for his neighbour in the daily concerns of life. He builds his 
house, cuts and plants his field by himself, the members of his own family each 
contributing such aid as each severally wills ; he carries a log and although the 
weight oppresses and a neighbour is standing by neither the one asks nor the 
other offers any assistance. The principle seems to be to leave undone any- 
thing you cannot do by your own unaided exertion. Then too, the Indian is 
not amenable to force. Of course, he has, like everybody else, to submit to the 
inevitable but he will seize the earliest opportunity to withdraw from what must 
seem to him a form of oppression. Self-will is encouraged in the Indian boy 
from his tenderest years ; it seems to be looked upon as a necessary feature of 
perfect manhood and it is probably on account of this veneration for self-will 
that the Indian respects, or ought one to say fears, the self-will of others and 
so retires before self-assertion. To bend the Indian to your willis therefore a 
matter of example and rersuasion as force will not doit. Let him feel assured 
that you are working for his good ; lay down the law in the form of suggestion, 
show him that it is for you as well as for him and ke will probably learn to do 
as he is told. But put yourself on a pedestal, look down upon him as a menial, 
blurt out your command as to an inferior and even if the necessity of the 
moment may produce compliance be sure he will learn to hate you and your 
influence over him will be nil. 
The Indian is often accused of being lazy. It is quite true he has not all the 
incentives to labour which prompt so many to work; he has no desire for 
material prosperity ;to desire more than the supply of his immediate needs 
would strike him as being greedy ; nor has he yet acquired any idea of the 
sanctity and duty of labour inculcated by religion. But the world-wide in- 
ducement to work, namely, the struggle for existence compels him to a maxi- 
mum of labour for a minimum of result. The Macusi woman and the Patamona 
man have to collect daily the fuel needed for the cooking and warming required 
by the household. Several times a day all the females from the old “ gogo” 
to the little child carry the gourds to the water-side and bring loads of water 
varying from 5 or even more gallons to half a pint. Every day or every few 
days the men and boys have to go out to find fish or game for their families ; 
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