APPENDIX.. 433 
more happy world, where her office is still to wait on him as a servant. 
Immediately after the interment the tents are struck, and the tribe marches 
in search of a more hospitable habitation. 
Among the Indian tribes, crimes are not very frequent. They adhere 
strictly to what they consider justice; and any great innovation on, or vio- 
lation of, their established customs is punished with death. A man who kills 
any member of the society is given up to the friends of the deceased, and 
expiates his crime with his blood. This is the right of revenge, which is the 
unquestionable privilege of every Indian; and should it be denied him, a 
civil war is generally the result, and the tribe becomes extinct. Though 
they suppress theft, murder, &c. in their own tribes, he who commits the most 
barbarous outrages on his enemies is considered most worthy of the respect 
and applause of’ every member of his own society. 
There may be considered four orders of Indian society; the caciques, 
priesthood, captains, and people. ‘They live together in the most perfect 
equality and enjoyment of their customs. Their occupations are nearly the 
same, except the priests’; who at different times, and under different cir- 
cumstances, exercise the various functions of priest, prophet, physician, 
bard, &c. ; 
They compute their time by the lunar revolutions, and their. distances by 
days ; thus, two moons mean two months; and the number of days between. 
one place and another, means the time in which an Indian can gallop from. 
one to the other, and gives them a tolerably exact idea of distance. Their 
way of counting is complex and fatiguing. They begin by counting up to. 
ten (which they cannot exceed); then making a mark on their beads, or with 
a piece of stick, they count other ten, which they mark in the same way, and 
so continue to proceed to ten tens or 100, which is marked apart; a fresh 
score is begun, and continued to ten hundred or 1000, known by a different 
mark. Their numeration seldom goes beyond 1000, and cannot exceed 
10,000. A number of men or objects passing 10,000 is expressed amongst 
them by the word Many. 
Their exercise or diversions are performed on horseback with their lances, 
and are adapted to improve their strength and make them fit for war. They 
have also an exercise which they perform on foot with a ball, not unlike 
cricket. In all their exercises, diversions, and fetes, of whatever kind, they 
are invariably naked. 
The dress of an Indian in winter is a poncho, a piece of rug wound 
round his waist, like the chiripa of the peasants in this country, (2. e. Chile, 
3K 
