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458 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
turn their backs. "These women appeared to be 
very tall, robust, and fair, with long hair twisted 
over their heads, skins round their loins, and bows 
and arrows in their hands, with which they killed 
seven or eight Spaniards." This is all that they 
profess to have seen with their own eyes of those 
warlike women ; and, as Herrera remarks on it, " it 
was no new thing in the Indies for women to fight, 
and to use bows and arrows, as has been seen on 
some of the Windward Islands and at Cartagena, 
where they displayed as much courage as the men." 
In the account of the return of Columbus from 
his second voyage we read that when he arrived 
at Guadeloupe (having started from Hispaniola), 
numbers of women, armed with bows and arrows, 
opposed the landing of his men. This is one 
instance, of many such, recounted by the Spanish 
historians. 
I have myself seen that Indian women can fight. 
At the village of Chasuta, on the malos pasos of 
the river Huallaga, which in 1855 had a population 
of some 1800 souls, composed of two tribes of 
Coscanasoa Indians, the ancient rivalry of those 
tribes generally breaks forth when a large quantity 
of chicha has been imbibed during the celebration 
of one of their feasts. Then, on opposite sides of 
the village, the women pile up heaps of stones, to 
serve as missiles for the *men, and renew them 
continually as they are being expended. If, as 
sometimes happens, the men are driven back to and 
beyond their piles of stones, the women defend the 
latter obstinately, and generally hold them until the 
men are able to rally to the combat. At that epoch 
there was no permanent white resident at Chasuta, 
