WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 239 



Their women never perish in childbed, owing, no doubt, to 

 their never wearing stays. 



They have no public religious ceremony. They acknow- 

 ledge two superior beings, — a good one, and a bad one. 

 They pray to the latter not to hurt them, and they are of 

 opinion that the former is too good to do them an injury. 

 I suspect, if the truth were known, the individuals of the 

 village never offer up a single prayer or ejaculation. They 

 have a kind of a priest called a Pee-ay-man, who is an 

 enchanter. He finds out things lost. He mutters prayers 

 to the evil spirit over them and their children when they 

 are sick. If a fever be in the village, the Pee-ay-man 

 goes about all night long, howling, and making dreadful 

 noises, and begs the bad spirit to depart. But he has 

 very seldom to perform this part of his duty, as fevers 

 seldom visit the Indian hamlets. However, when a fever 

 does come, and his incantations ai'e of no avail, which I 

 imagine is most commonly the case, they abandon the 

 place for ever, and make a new settlement elsewhere. 

 They consider the owl and the goatsucker as familiars of 

 the evil spirit, and never destroy them. 



I could find no monuments or marks of antiquity 

 amongst these Indians; so that after penetrating to the 

 Eio Branco, from the shores of the Western Ocean, had 

 any body questioned me on this subject, I should have 

 answered, I have seen nothing amongst these Indians 

 which tells me that they have existed here for a century ; 

 though, for aught I know to the contrary, they may have 

 been here before the Eedemption* but their total want of 

 civilization has assimilated them to the forests in which they 

 wander. Thus, an aged tree falls and moulders into dust 

 and you cannot tell what was its appearance, its beauties, 

 or its diseases amongst the neighbouring trees; another 

 has shot up in its place, and after nature has had her 



