372 



The National Geographic Magazine 



Photo from Mrs Harriet Chalmers Adams 



Native Indian Girls in the Bush. 

 The ones with curly hair show a strain of negro blood 



sents the family wealth, and many of the 

 rings and bracelets are of home manu- 

 facture. 



Now and then, in a crowd of negroes, 

 "Kottomissis," and Orientals, all jabber- 

 ing "Taki-Taki," we saw a new type 

 of African, unlike any other in the New 

 World. This is the Bosch, or Bush, 

 negro, who inhabits the wilds of Dutch 

 and French Guiana. Occasionally he 

 comes into town to trade. 



In the seventeenth century the owners 

 of plantations in Surinam sent their slaves 

 into the forest for a time in order to 

 avoid payment of taxes. Many of the 

 blacks did not return to the estates, es- 

 caping to the depths of the forest, where 

 they have ever since maintained them- 

 selves as free men. Their habits are not 



unlike those of the negroes in the wilds 

 of Africa. They are virtually unclothed, 

 have thatched shelters, and worship the 

 ceiba, or cotton tree. 



On the streets of Paramaribo we met 

 these men, wearing only an apology for 

 garments, and at times, in the diversified 

 group, saw another forest type, the right- 

 ful lord of the country — the native In- 

 dian. He had come from his home far 

 up the river to sell baskets, hammocks, 

 and featherwork of his own manufacture. 



To study the life of the oriental, one 

 need go only to the coolie villages in 

 the suburbs of the city; but to know the 

 ways of the Bosch negro and the abo- 

 rigine one must travel by canoe and 

 trail to the "Bush." 



Throughout the Guianas the habita- 



