AMONG THE YURACARE INDIANS 305 



proach the hidden dwelling suddenly, surround it, and 

 persuade the occupants to accompany them immediately, 

 giving them only an hour or two in which to collect their 

 few belongings. Occasionally the Indians whom they seek 

 learn of the approach of the emissaries and hide before their 

 arrival; then the priest returns to the mission, his long trip 

 having been made to no purpose. When, should the expe- 

 dition prove to be successful, the families have departed 

 to the waiting canoes, their huts are burned and the plan- 

 tations destroyed. Knowing that neither home nor food 

 have been left behind, they are not so apt to run away 

 from their new quarters and go back to their old dwelling- 

 places. I heard of no instance where they resisted this 

 deportation. 



The Yuracar^s are a tall, well-built people of a rather 

 docile disposition; however, the older generation never 

 wholly becomes reconciled to the new mode of life, and re- 

 mains at the mission only for reasons which I will explain 

 later. 



In their wild state they live in small family parties, ob- 

 taining their subsistence from the forest, which abounds in 

 game, and from their fields of yuccas. Their native costiune, 

 a long, shirt-like garment called tipoy, is made from the 

 fibrous bark of a tree; at the mission this has largely 

 been replaced by cotton clothes. Each family has been 

 provided with a separate hut of adequate size^ where the 

 parents and very small children hve. The boys and girls 

 over five or six years of age are under the constant super- 

 vision of the priest, and attend his classes; at night they 

 sleep in separate locked dormitories, which prevents their 

 returning to their homes, and also keeps the parents from 

 rurming away, as they will not leave without their children. 



Padre Fulgencio also explained that this kept them from 

 observing and copying the customs of their elders. He 

 recognizes the impossibiUty of reclaiming the forest-reared 

 savage, and devotes practically all his efforts to the younger 

 generation. 



