414 NOTES OF A BOTANIST chap, xn 
minutest are preferred. From the quantity of 
these used it must be to them a costly article and 
weeks must be spent over its manufacture. (I saw 
one in process of formation, the frame on which it 
was woven being merely a small stick bent into a 
bow by a string attached to its ends.) I doubt, 
therefore, that the guayuco is not worn en famille, 
especially as the first woman we met was quite 
naked, and I presume it to be only put on at some 
feast or when some stranger visits them. 
[The accompanying engraving from a French 
explorer shows a group of Maquiritari Indians 
from the Orinoco, above Esmeralda ; and it will be 
seen that they agree very closely in costume and 
ornaments with those here described by Spruce. 
This traveller nearly reached the sources of the 
Orinoco, as noted at the end of this chapter. — Ed.] 
I stayed two nights with Tussari, and bought of 
him a large quantity of mandiocca, guapos, etc. 
On the second night he invited all his people to 
drink jaraki and exhibit the native dances to the 
white man. Men came with bodies smeared all 
over with anatto.^ Necklaces of beads, others of 
tiger's teeth, or peccary's or monkey's teeth. 
Pieces of arrow-reed a foot long were stuck through 
the lower part of their ears, and projecting in front 
of the face, looked like a pair of tusks. At their 
backs were hung skins of birds (such as macaws 
and toucans) and monkeys' tails, and he who was 
rich enough to possess a knife carried it either 
^ The illustration on p, 419 shows this beautiful shrub, cultivated all over 
the Amazon valley for red colouring matter in the arillus of the seed , 
called Anatto, or Urucu in the Lingaa Geral. Its native country is not 
accurately known, but is believed to be near the base of the Andes. The 
plant photographed (at Para) was only three years old. 
