ITINERARY. Ixxiii 



numerous, and the men so few that we wondered what had hecome of 

 them. All we could ascertain was that they were far away. The 

 people call themselves mostly by names taken from the riveis close by, 

 as the Sokorikos from the 8oko creek, and the Quating people from 

 the main river ; but the derivation of the name of the INIonikos was 

 not evident. They were all cleaily of the Carib stock, for both 

 the Arrekunas and the Makushis understood them ; and in one 

 widely scattered village, both Monikos and IMakushis lived in close 

 association. 



A very marked feature among the people of these little-travelled 

 upper savannahs, though not at the two villages near the base of 

 lioraima and Kukenaam, is the smallness of the women's aprons. 

 Beads are evidently scarce, for where the queyus consisted of them, 

 tliey were either very small, of but three or four inches either Avay — 

 contrasting very strongly with the uisual very ample pi'oportions of the 

 othei's, of about a foot or even more, — or but a mei-e central pattern in 

 a cotton fringe. At times the apron was but a small cotton fringe 

 without beads, of the type of those worn by girls at pubert}^, though 

 the latter would be dyed red. One elderly woman wore but a small 

 pendent rag of cloth fi-om her waist, a mere strip suspended as an 

 apron, and it looked much as if it had been improvised on our arrival. 

 Tlie smaller girls were quite nude, except for small necklaces, mainly 

 of seeds — a quite unusxial condition elsewhere. The seed-necklaces of 

 tiie women and chikb-en were seldom elaborate, or of any great size, 

 some of the latter even wearing strings of pieces of crockery and 

 gun-ramrods. The necklaces of the men, on the other hand, were 

 often very line, of the teeth of the aguti, the capybara, or peccary, 

 mostly the last, and occasionally with one or two of those of the 

 jaguar, or of its claws, or of the claws of the ant-beai% and generally 

 with long cotton strings, with or without pendants of feathei's, seeds, 

 insect wings, etc. Supplying the deficiency of bead ornamentation, 

 however, the women were much decorated with red and blue-black 

 dyes, in stripes and dots, over the face, hands, and feet, and occasionally 

 over other parts of the body, especially for the ceremonial dance 

 occasions — the men at times also being thus decorated, but to a much 

 less extent, and with additions of white clay. The arnatto trees grew 

 coinmoidy at the settlements, and .sometimes the good-luck tree 

 {'J'heretia), hom the seeds of which are made the common rattles or 

 shak-shaks, though occasionally they were found made of deer-hoofs. 



In these remote districts, the houses are altogether smaller in 

 every way than those in the more accessible country ; and it is 

 j)rol)ably due to the greater poverty of the people, who are far from 

 chances of employment by which they might furnish themselves with 

 such articles as axes, cutlasses, and large knives, which appear to be 

 very few in the settlements. Considering the number of the people, 

 the houses are also few, and they are thus very much crowded. If the 

 observed scarcity of men in ]iro])()rtion to women is due to a normal 

 deficiency, this no doubt will help to explain the conditions. Where 

 the houses in the open savannahs are far from the som-ces of supply 

 for timber and thatch, this is likely also to reduce the size an<l number 

 of houses, es[»ecia I ly if the uundjer of men is a limited one; and tlie 



