270 



INDIAN AND OTHER 



vering, which reaches to the middle of the thigh, is named 

 usti. The married women are invariably clad in a pampanilla 

 of the same stuff, or, in other words, in a short petticoat, 

 open at the sides, which barely reaches from the waist to the 

 knees. In seating themselves, both men and women carefully 

 cross the skirts of their garment between the legs, to cover the 

 parts which decency obliges them to conceal. The unmarried 

 females, however, appear like Eve in Paradise*. When we 

 refle6l that, among the nations in question, there must be 

 many virgins in a state of puberty, we cannot fail to be per- 

 suaded, that custom is a species of antidote against the darts 

 of the impure god of the gardens, whose wounds, beneath the 

 torrid zone, give an impulsion to the sexes, and hurry them 

 on blindly : in fur'tas^ ignesque ruunt. There are other tribes 

 in which all the individuals of either sex present themselves, 

 like the athleta, the wrestlers at the Olympic games, who, 

 after the accident that befel Orcippus, appeared entirely 

 naked. This custom, which was highly reprehensible in a 

 civilized nation, such as Greece, is perhaps not so much to be 

 condemned in our barbarians, who are incited to it by the 

 warmth of the climate, in the particular regions they inhabit. 

 The men cut short their hair, leaving it to fall in front to the 

 brows, and behind as low as the point of the ear : on the top is 

 a knot or wreath, interwoven with long and beautiful feathers. 

 They perforate the chin, and the cartilaginous part between 



* The following problem may be proposed : Why, among these Indians, the 

 married vvomen are coveied, and the virgins naked? — and whence arises the sensa- 

 tion of shame, in the a6t which breaks through the boundaries of that estimable 

 state ? 



the 



