Curious Carib Customs. 
of the victory obtained, those trophies played an important role, and it 
was open to anybody to taste the cooked flesh. In order to increase, 
however, their courage and their contempt for death — a property that 
was ascribed to this measure — they cut out the victim's heart, dried it 
at the fire, pulverised it, and mixed the powder with their driidv. 
833. Courage and bravery alone claimed respect : the more foolhardy 
the former, or the more conspicuous the latter, the greater shone the 
name of the hero in their war-songs. If a new chief had to be chosen, 
the candidate for the honour ninst submit l»eforehand to the most 
gruesome and truellest ordeals to ])ut his courage, his endurance, and 
his steadfastness to the test. Such trials were a long, extremely 
stringent fast which ended with the famished individual having to drink 
to the Itottom a large calabashful of a strong decoction of peppers 
without pulling tlie slightest face. Were this successfully accomidished 
he would be placed in a hammock filled with large ants, which would 
be tied tightly al)ove him so as to prevent the tormentors getting away, 
and here without a groan, without a movement, he had to bear for hours 
the attacks of the excited and irritated insects. If he bore all these 
ordeals with equanimity he would be acknowledged chief with cheers: 
his will was thenceforth that of the whole company.' 
834. Scorn and contem]»t were the lot of those who attempted such 
ordeals without being able to stand them. The force of education that 
teaches them already in earliest childhood, to bear pain, and the thirst 
for glory are so sti'ongly developed that they will brave the greatest 
martyr<lom so long as they .succeed in attaining their ambitions. 
835. If the occupants of a settlement wanted to secure victory for 
their Avarriors who had started for the fray, and to refer at the same 
time to the results of the battle perhaps already raging, they took two 
boys, placed them on a l>ench and whipped them mercilessly over the 
whole body, but especially the shoulders. If they bore the pain without 
shedding any teais or sobbing, the victory Avas sure. One of the boys 
was then put into a hammock out of which he had to shoot at a target 
fixed to one of the roofs: the arrows that hit the mark indicated the 
numbei- of enemy that would be slain. 
83G. That the child should inherit his courage the father resigns 
himself, at the birth of his son or daughter, to vei*y painful ordeals, just 
in the same way that the girls had formerly to undergo very gruesome 
tests when arriving at womanhood: the present day has moderated a lot 
of this also. Having first of all had her hair burnt off, the gii'l was led 
to a stone where the piai, with the incisors of the Da-^/fproctn , made two 
deep incisions along her back from shoulder to shoulder which he then 
rubbed in with pepper, without lier daring to utter a single cry of pain. 
After this operation, and with her arms bound to her side, she was put 
in the hammock and an amulet of teeth hung round her neck. At the 
end of three days, Avithout food or drink, and not permitted to say a 
word, she Avas again carried to the slab, without her feet }»eing alloAved 
to touch the ground, her arms untied, and then again brought" to the 
hammock : she must now keep to it for a month and have nothino else to 
