Chap. YI. 
CAISHANA INDIANS. 
375 
on purpose to obstruct the way to their habitations. 
Half-a-mile of this shady road brought me to a small 
open space on the banks of a brook or creek, on the 
skirts of which stood a conical hut with a very low 
doorway. There was also an open shed, with stages 
made of split palm-stems, and a number of large wooden 
troughs. Two or three dark-skinned children, with a 
man and woman, were in the shed ; but, immediately 
on espying me, all of them ran to the hut, bolting 
through the little doorway like so many wild animals 
scared into their burrows. A few moments after, the 
man put his head out with a look of great distrust ; 
but, on my making the most friendly gestures I could 
think of, he came forth with the children. They were 
all smeared with black mud and paint ; the only cloth- 
ing of the elders was a kind of apron made of the inner 
, bark of the sapucaya-tree, and the savage aspect of the 
man was heightened by his hair hanging over his fore- 
head to the eyes. I stayed about two hours in the 
neighbourhood, the children gaining sufficient confi- 
dence to come and help me to search for insects. The 
only weapon used by the Caishanas is the blow-pipe, 
and this is employed only in shooting animals for food. 
They are not a warlike people, like most of the neigh- 
bouring tribes on the Japura and Issa. Their utensils 
consist of earthenware cooking-vessels, wooden stools, 
drinking-cups of gourds, and the usual apparatus for 
making farinha, of which they produce a considerable 
quantity, selling the surplus to traders at Tunantins. 
The whole tribe of Caishanas does not exceed in 
number 400 souls. None of them are baptised Indians, 
