50 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [VOL. 50 



have their shoulders gummed and plaited with white feathers, 

 somewhat resembling a shirt-vest. Other young men wear feather 

 armlets. One woman was covered with white feathers from head 

 to foot, with a brilliant plume in her hair. All young men and 

 boys wear suspended from a hole in the lip, bored during infancy, 

 a kind of chain called nogodau, about six inches long, made of flat 

 oval-shaped bits of shell, terminating in a red feather. The older 

 men have a plug in this hole, for if left open it causes difficulty in 

 drinking. The young males wear around their loins a girdle over 

 an inch wide woven from long tongue-like palm leaves. All males 

 who have reached the age of puberty are obliged to wear a shield 

 called ba. A large crescent is worn on the breast, suspended from 

 the neck. A charm, worn on the breast and greatly prized, is made 

 of rows of monkey teeth bound to bamboo rods sometimes eight or 

 more inches long. They are loath to part with this, having re- 

 ceived it as a present, and for other reasons. The huge horn claws 

 of the tatou canastro (Priodontcs gigas) are also worn on the breast 

 and are much esteemed. Coils of square plaited cord hang around 

 the neck, and 10 or 15 yards of hair cord, made of the hair torn out 

 of or cut from the heads of mourners during funeral ceremonies, are 

 worn by men wound around the head. Beyond the ornaments 

 above described the males dress or bedeck themselves only on 

 special occasions. 



Females above six to nine years of age also wear a sort of corset, 

 made of the inner bark of a tree, especially tanned and prepared, 

 and which encircles the body twice or nearly so. It is much like 

 a bottomless cheese-box or bushel measure, and evidently at first 

 causes much discomfort. Another strip of bark about six inches 

 wide and four feet long, so prepared that it is almost like cloth, 

 passes between the legs from front to back. With this gear, a 

 female is considered properly dressed. When she becomes old, she 

 often discards the corset and uses the soft bark instead. 



When a handkerchief or a small piece of cloth was obtained from 

 us, the men tied it around the head or waist, with the points in 

 front and the fly falling behind. The females and boys would hang 

 it shawl-like over the shoulders or around the waist. 



There were thirty huts in the village that encircled in a very 

 irregular way, facing in every direction, a very large hut that stood 

 in the center and was called baehytu. Bae (by) is the name of the 

 ordinary family hut. This baehytu is the bachelors' hall, the 

 headquarters of all the unmarried men, the workshop where the 

 men make weapons and ornaments and instruments, the dining- 



