468 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
beyond the last were the Amazons. These man- 
Hke women," he says, "have their abodes in great 
forests and on lofty hills, amongst which that which 
rises above the rest, and is therefore beaten by the 
winds for its pride with most violence, so that it 
is bare and clear of vegetation, is called Yacamiaba " 
{Yacami, the Tupi name of the Trumpeter bird or 
Agami ; Aba or awa, people). 
When I read this account of Acufia's, some years 
after I had left the Amazon, I was struck with the 
connection of the name of the hill Yacamiaba with 
that of an Indian dance I had seen on the Upper 
Amazon in 185 1. The dance was called Yacami- 
cuna (Agami woman), and the performers in it 
moved to the rude music of a pipe and tambour ; 
and to the words of a song, which I unfortunately 
neglected to take down at the time. A lot of young 
people joined hands to form a ring, in which males 
and females alternated, and danced round and round, 
singing the song of the Yacami. At the words 
" Yacami-cuna-cufia ! " the ring suddenly broke up — 
the partners turned tail to tail and bumped each 
other repeatedly, with such goodwill that one of 
the two (and as often the man as the woman) was 
frequently sent reeling across the room, amidst the 
uproarious laughter of the bystanders. The Yacamis 
or Agamis are, as is well known, birds without any 
tail-feathers, those appendages having diappeared 
from the birds continually rubbing their sterns to- 
gether — so, at least, says Indian tradition, which has 
been embodied in the dance ; and it is easy to under- 
stand its application to a rocky hill, shaggy below 
with woods, bare at the summit, such as I have 
seen many in both Brazilian and Spanish Guayana. 
