EXCURSION TO MAUHES AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD. 319 



be an excellent thing to get them out to till the soil and 

 make themselves useful above ground. This advice seems 

 to have found favor in the sight of Caro Sacaibu, who 

 forthwith planted a seed in the ground. From this seed 

 sprang a cotton-tree, for into this fantastic tale is thus 

 woven the origin of cotton. The tree throve and grew 

 apace, and from the soft white contents of its pods Caro 

 Sacaibu made a long thread, with one end of which Rairu 

 descended once more into the earth by the same hole 

 through which he had entered before. He collected the 

 people together, and they were dragged up through the 

 hole by means of the thread. The first who came out 

 were small and ugly, but gradually they improved in 

 their personal appearance, until at last the men began 

 to be finely formed and handsome, and the women beauti- 

 ful. Unfortunately, by this time the thread was much 

 worn, and being too weak to hold them, the greater 

 number of handsome people fell back into the hole and 

 were lost. It is for this reason that beauty is so rare a 

 gift in the world. Caro Sacaibu now separated the popu- 

 lation he had thus drawn from the bowels of the earth, 

 dividing them into different tribes, marking them with 

 distinct colors and patterns, which they have since re- 

 tained, and appointing their various occupations. At the 

 end there remained over a residue, consisting of the ugli- 

 est, smallest, most insignificant representatives of the 

 human race ; to these he said, drawing at the same 

 time a red line over their noses, " You are not worthy to 

 be men and women, — go and be animals." And so they 

 were changed into birds, and ever since, the Mutums, with 

 their red beaks and melancholy wailing voiccn, wander 

 through the woods 



