A NATIVE DANCE 193 



green and fleecy-white of the sunlit falling waters. 

 Instead it showed opaline hues and tints of topaz and 

 amethyst. At all times, and under all lights, it was 

 majestic and beautiful. 



Colonel Rondon had given the Indians various pre- 

 sents, those for the women including calico prints, and, 

 what they especially prized, bottles of scented oil, from 

 Paris, for their hair. The men held a dance in the 

 late afternoon. For this occasion most, but not all, of 

 them cast aside their civilized clothing, and appeared 

 as doubtless they would all have appeared had none 

 but themselves been present. They were absolutely 

 naked except for a beaded string round the waist. 

 Most of them were spotted and dashed with red paint, 

 and on one leg wore anklets which rattled, A number 

 carried pipes through which they blew a kind of deep 

 stifled whistle in time to the dancing. One of them 

 had his pipe leading into a huge gourd, which gave out 

 a hollow, moaning boom. Many wore two red or 

 green or yellow macaw feathers in their hair, and one 

 had a macaw feather stuck transversely through the 

 septum of his nose. They circled slowly round and 

 round, chanting and stamping their feet, while the 

 anklet rattles clattered and the pipes droned. They 

 advanced to the wall of one of the houses, again and 

 again chanting and bowing before it ; I was told this 

 was a demand for drink. They entered one house and 

 danced in a ring around the cooking-fire in the middle 

 of the earth floor; I was told that they were then 

 reciting the deeds of mighty hunters and describing how 

 they brought in the game. They drank freely from 

 gourds and pannikins of a fermented drink made from 

 mandioc which were brought out to them. During the 

 first part of the dance the women remained in the 



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