40 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. 



tlie wrong-doer, or, failing to find Liui, any of Lis kindred, is no longer a respecter 

 of persons ; for the time being he has neither clan nor family ; he disappears in 

 the depths of the forest, and does not again show himself in public until he has 

 throttled, poisoned, or even tortured his victim. But the kenaima plays many 

 parts, and to his malevolence are usually accredited all diseases ; hence to circum- 

 vent him trees are often cut down and strewn across his presumed track. 



In some tribes, and especially amongst the Roucouyennes, the dead are still 

 occasionally cremated, all their belongings being heaped on the pyre and con- 

 sumed with the body. All travellers are unanimous in asserting the former 

 prevalence of anthropophagy. But the chief tribes that were addicted to this 

 horrible practice, such as the Nouragues of the Approuague valley and the 

 Acoquas of the Tumuc-Humac mountains, have already disappeared. Amongst 

 the descendants of these cannibal tribes are mentioned the Tairas and the Oyampi. 



So recently as 1830 the Oyampi still sang the burden of the songs celebrating 

 the old rites : " In the olden time we were men, we ate our enemies ; now like 

 women, we eat nothing but manioc." The very word Oyampi would appear to 

 mean " Men-eaters." But it may be confidently stated that since the close of the 

 eighteenth century cannibalism has completely ceased amongst all the known 

 tribes. The Caribs burnt the heart of the vanquished foe, and mingled its ashes 

 with their drink. 



The largest share in the steady decrease of the native populations is taken by the 

 warlike tribes, who have generally best preserved their racial purity. More than 

 half of the groups mentioned by the old writers have already disappeared. 

 Nevertheless the survivors are still far more numerous than is commonly suj)posed. 

 Explorers ascending the rivers often overlook the groups encamped in the recesses 

 of the forests. The indigenous population of the Guiana seaboard, exclusive of 

 the Amazonian slopes, would appear to still number about 8,000. 



The Blacks — the Bush Negroes. 



Thanks to the slave trade an African population has been introduced into the 

 Guianas, chiefly by the Antilles route, which, jointly with the half-castes, far 

 outnumbers the aborigines. Distributed at first in the plantations of the coast- 

 lands, and afterwards removed by their owners to the towns as domestic servants, 

 the negroes have everywhere throughout this region supplanted the aborigines, 

 who have retired before the progress of culture farther and farther into the back- 

 woods. 



A stop was put to the importation of black labour in the Guianas by the 

 abolition of slavery, first proclaimed in the French territory in 1794, and later 

 carried out effectively in British Guiana in 1838, and successively thereafter in 

 the other colonies. Nevertheless a part of the overflowing black population of 

 Barbadoes found its way to the Guianas, thus continuing the movement of African 

 immigration by new elements under new conditions. Thousands of free Kroomen 

 from Liberia also find employment in the timber-yards and as sailors on board 

 the coasting vessels. But after procuring by strenuous efforts enough money to 



