312 SOUTH AMElilCA-THE ANDES EEGIONS. 



animais, speak languages radically distinct from the Quicliua-Ayniara family. 

 The Piros and other southern tribes belong to the Antis group, while the 

 Amahuacas, Conibos, Cachibos, Sipibos, Setibos, and Remos of the TJcayali, 

 together with the Christian Hibitos (Itibos) of the Huallaga, form another group 

 with the now reduced Panes, who formerly constituted a great nation on the 

 lower Ucayali and Upper Amazons, The Panes manufactured a bark -paper like 

 the Mexican papyrus, on which they were said to record memorable events and 

 divisions of the year by means of various signs. On their amulets they also 

 painted diverse coloured figures, which were supposed to exert a favourable 

 influence on their destinies. They made wooden and clay effigies, decked their 

 dead and deposited them in large painted jars, did homage to the fire, and, like 

 the Quichuas, worshijDped the sun. 



Converted in the seventeenth century, they relapsed after the massacre of 

 the missionaries in 1767, but were again gathered into the fold towards the close 

 of the Spanish rule. According to Marcoy, the purest representatives of the old 

 Pano nation are the Sensi, a small section of the Setibos, who dwell ajjart from 

 the whites on a plateau east of the lower Ucayali. The Sensi have no chiefs, 

 and recognise no superiors, though they pay deference to the advice of their 

 elders. 



Others, such as the Cocamas, the Iquitos, the Pebas, Ticunas and Omaguas, 

 have either already disappeared, or are being assimilated to the surrounding 

 settled populations. The Omaguas, of whom no pure representatives any longer 

 survive, have played a considerable, although a passive, part in the history of 

 South American exploration. Vague rumours propagated from tribe to tribe, 

 and repeated to the Spanish adventurers in Colombia and Peru, represented them 

 as a wealthy nation, in whose sumptuous capital resided the El Dorado. Nume- 

 rous expeditions were organised to discover these treasures, and thus the work of 

 discovery was stimulated. 



In the forests of the Ucayali and Yavari are situated the camping-grounds of 

 the Mayorunas, who also gave rise to numerous legends. They were supposed 

 by some to be the descendants of the Spanish soldiers left in the country after the 

 murder of Pedro de Ursua by the " tyrant " Lopez de Aguirre, and it was added 

 that they still preserved their European features with thick black beards. But 

 the Mayorunas are, on the contrary, full-blood Indians, and the legend originated 

 in a confusion of terras. The pirates accompanying Aguirre had received the 

 name of Maramnes, that is, " People of Maruilon," a word which came to be easily 

 confused with Mayorunas. 



But this name itself presents a difficulty. In Quichua Mayo Runa means 

 "River People," whereas they are a tribe of hunters, living in the depths of the 

 forest, without boats or rafts. They may, however, have originally come from 

 the unnavigable headwaters of some river, such, for instance, as the Mayo, on the 

 banks of which the Spaniards founded Moj^obaraba, 



The Mayorunas are accused of cannibalism by their neighbours, but without 

 any proof ; they are, however, hostile, and even dangerous to whites A^enturiug into 



