962 NATIVE INDIANS. 
assumes a black colour, and acquires the properties 
of caoutchouce. 
The natives of these countries live in hordes of 
forty or fifty, and unite under a common chief only 
when they wage war with their neighbours. As 
the different tribes speak different languages they 
have little communication. They cultivate cassava, 
plantains, and sometimes maize; but shift from place 
to place, so that they entirely lose the advantages 
resulting in other countries from agricultural ha- 
bits. They have two great objects of worship,—the 
good principle, Cachimana, who regulates the sea- 
sons and favours the harvests; and the evil prin- 
ciple, Jolokiamo, less powerful, but more active and 
artful. They have no idols; but the botuto, or 
sacred trumpet, is an object of veneration, the ini- 
tiation into the mysteries of which requires pure 
manners anda single life. Women are not permit- 
ted to see it, and are excluded from all the ceremo- 
nies of this religion. | " 
It took the Indians more than four days to drag 
the boat upon rollers to the Rio Pimichin. One of 
them, a tall strong man, was bitten by a snake, and 
was brought to the mission in a very alarming con- 
dition. He had dropped down senseless, and was 
afterwards seized with nausea, vertigo, and a de- 
termination of blood to the head, but was cured 
by an infusion of raiz de mato; respecting the plant 
furnishing which Humboldt could obtain no satis- 
factory information, although he supposes it to be of 
the family of Apocynee. In the hut of this indivi- 
dual he observed balls of an earthy and impure salt, 
two or three inches in diameter. It is obtained by 
reducing to ashes the spadix and fruit of a palm-tree, 
