208 



PROVENCE OF MATTO GROSSO. 



abscond, as their masters do not occupy them in any thing. It is reputed 

 highly degrading for a senhor, or lord, to contract marriage with his slave ; the 

 son treats with contempt the mother who bore him by a slave. 



The Guaycurus are of medium stature, well made, healthy, robust, and appear 

 formed to the most painful and laborious undertakings. They eat many times 

 in the day, very slowly, and their provisions are generally over-dressed, and 

 cooked without any attention to cleanliness. They never suffer from indiges- 

 tion. They are most particular in the diet which they use on occasions of their 

 unfrequent indispositions. The scurvy never makes its appearance, and sudden 

 deaths are never known. Bodily defects are exceedingly rare ; blind persons 

 sometimes are seen, but none are ever bald. Their teeth are almost universally 

 irregular, in consequence of not extracting the first teeth of the youth when they 

 change them, an omission arising from the tenderness with which they are treated ; 

 but they commonly retain them till death, although black enough, from the pro- 

 digious quantity of tobacco which they use. The women always carry a piece 

 between the under lip and gums. They paint the body with the dye of the 

 urucu and jenipaj)o, in which operation much symmetry is preserved. The 

 youth have no certain usage in the disposal of their lank hair; the aged shave 

 their heads similar to the lay Franciscans. 



The women likewise shave their heads around, and clip the hair, leaving it 

 three inches in length at the top. Their physiognomy is broad, and presents 

 nothing agreeable in consequence of the dye which they introduce into the skin 

 with thorns, forming lines, that commence at the roots of the hair, and termi- 

 nate at the eye-lids or the cheeks, and in some instances at the chin, where 

 they give it the appearance of a chess board, an ash colour being so indelibly 

 fixed, that it continues through life. They are usually wrapped up in a large 

 cotton cloth, from the neck to the feet, striped w ith various colours ; the more 

 ostentatious ornament themselves with shells, the mother-pearl appearing out- 

 wards ; some have upon them the figure of their horses, well drawn in black 

 and white. Below this dress they wear a very wide girdle, called an ayulate ; 

 without which a girl from her birth is never seen. Ornamental strings of silver, 

 in necklaces and bracelets for the arras and legs, and a plate of the same metal 

 at the breast, are generally displayed, for the manufacture of which, a stone 

 anvil and hammer are used. In former times, these ornaments consisted of 

 wood, such as are yet seen amongst some of the poor. 



Early in life they become meagre, and their skins, as well as those of the 

 men at an advanced age, are remarkably wrinkled. 



