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their children. If they be distinguished from 

 other nations by a thin beard, they try to eradi- 

 cate the few hairs^ that nature has given them. 

 They think themselves embellished in proportion 

 as they heighten the characteristic marks of their 

 race, or of their national conformation. 



We were surprised to see, that, in the camp of 

 Pararuma, the women far advanced in years 

 were more occupied with their ornaments than 

 the youngest women. We saw an Indian wo- 

 man of the nation of the Otomacks employing 

 two of her daughters in the operation of rubbing 

 her hair with the oil of turtles* eggs, and paint- 

 ing her back with onoto and caruto. The orna- 

 ment consisted of a sort of lattice work formed 

 of black lines crossing each other on a red 

 ground. Each little square had a black dot in 

 the centre. It was a work of incredible patience. 

 We returned from a very long herborization, and 

 the painting was not half finished. This re- 

 search of ornament seems the more singular, 

 when we reflect, that the figures and marks are 

 not produced by the process of tatooing, but 

 that paintings executed with so much care # are 



* The black and caustic pigment of the caruto (genipa 

 Americana) how ever resists a long time the action of water, 

 as we found with regret, having one day, in sport with the 

 Indians, caused our faces to be marked with spots and strokes 

 of Caruto, When we returned to Angostura, in the midst 

 of Europeans, these marks wcre still visible. 



