Chap. I. 
INDIAN PEOCESSIOF. 
9 
disgLiised with a peculiar kind of light gauze mask. The 
troop, with a party of musicians, went the round of their 
friends' houses in the evening, and treated the large and 
gaily-dressed companies which were there assembled to 
a variety of dances. The principal citizens, in the large 
rooms of whose houses these entertainments were given, 
seemed quite to enjoy them ; great preparations were 
made at each place ; and, after the dance, guests and 
masqueraders were regaled with pale ale and sweet- 
meats. Once a year the Indians, with whom masked 
dances and acting are indigenous, had their turn, and on 
one occasion they gave us a great treat. They assembled 
from different parts of the neighbourhood at night, on 
the outskirts of the town, and then marched through the 
streets by torchlight towards the quarter inhabited by 
the whites, to perform their hunting and devil dances 
before the doors of the principal inhabitants. There 
were about a hundred men, women, and children in 
the procession. Many of the men were dressed in the 
magnificent feather crowns, tunics, and belts, manufac- 
tured by the Munduructis, and worn by them on festive 
occasions, but the women were naked to the waist, and 
the children quite naked, and all were painted and 
smeared red with anatto. The ringleader enacted the 
part of the Tushaua, or chief, and carried a sceptre, 
richly decorated with the orange, red, and green feathers 
of toucans and parrots. The paje or medicine-man came 
along, pufifing at a long tauari cigar, the instrument by 
which he professes to make his wonderful cures. Others 
blew harsh jarring blasts with the ture, a horn made of 
long and thick bamboo, with a split reed in the mouth- 
