AN INDIAN FESTIVAL, 
281 
1851.] 
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and others were dancing, or playing small fifes and 
whistles. The regular festa had been broken up that 
morning ; the chiefs and principal men had put off their 
feather head-dresses, but as caxiri still remained, the 
young men and women continued dancing. They were 
painted over their whole bodies in regular patterns of a 
diamond or diagonal character, with black, red, and yel- 
low colours ; the former, a purple or blue black, predo- 
minating. The face was ornamented in various styles, 
generally with bright red in bold stripes or spots, a large 
quantity of the colour being applied to each ear, and 
running down on the sides of the cheeks and neck, pro- 
ducing a very fearful and sanguinary appearance. The 
grass in the ears was now decorated with a little tuft of 
white downy feathers, and some in addition had three 
little strings of beads from a hole pierced in the lower 
lip. All wore the garters, which were now generally 
painted yellow. Most of the young women who danced 
had besides a small apron of beads of about eight inches 
by six inches, arranged in diagonal patterns with much 
taste ; besides this, the paint on their naked bodies was 
their only ornament ; they had not even the comb in 
their hair, which the men are never without. 
The men and boys appropriated all the ornaments, 
thus reversing the custom of civilized countries and imi- 
tating nature, who invariably decorates the male sex with 
the most brilliant colom*s and most remarkable orna- 
ments. On the head all wore a coronet of bright red 
and yellow toucans’ feathers, set in a circlet of plaited 
straw. The comb in the hair was ornamented with fea- 
thers, and frequently a bunch of white heron’s plumes 
