I^ATIVES OF GUIANA. 
cular, about ten feet in diameter ; the lower part, for nearly four feet, is 
formed of stone bedded in clay, with wooden spars at certain dis- 
tances ; on the east side a fourth part of each house is left open ; the 
building is finished with a round pointed roof, well thatched with 
long reeds ; from the centre to the back, a round apartment is formed, 
with a narrow top, and in this the head of the family takes his rest, 
while the others sleep in the front, or between the two circles in the 
inside. Every house is enclosed with palisades, and in the space 
formed between the house and railing, their grain and pulse are stored 
in large vessels, made of baked clay in the form of oil jars, and 
these are set on tripods, raised about nine inches from the ground, 
made of the same materials ; they are also covered with a round straw 
roof, supported by poles, and of such a height as to admit a ready 
entrance to the jars, the tops of which are five or six feet from the 
Natives of Guiana, in South America. 
They are divided into different tribes, more or less enlightened and 
polished, as they are more or less remote from the settlements of the Euro- 
peans. They allow polygamy, and have no division of lands. The men 
go to war, hunt, and fish, and the women look after domestic concerns, 
spin, weave in their fashion, plant cassava, and manure the other 
plants which are cultivated by the natives. Their arms are bows and 
arrows, sharp-pointed arrows blown through a reed, which they use 
in hunting, and clubs made of a heavy wood called Iron-wood. They 
eat the dead bodies of the slain, and sell for slaves those whom they 
take prisoners, their wars being chiefly undertaken to furnish the 
European plantations. All the difierent tribes go naked. On parti- 
cular occasions they wear caps of feathers, but, as cold is wholly 
unknown, they cover no part but that which distinguishes the sex. 
They are cheerful, humane, and friendly, but timid, except when 
heated by liquor, and drunkenness is a very common vice among them. 
Their houses consist of four stakes set up in a quadrangular form, 
with cross poles bound together by slit wihes, and covered with 
a particular kind of large leaves. Their life is ambulatory, and their 
houses, which are put up and taken down in a few hours, are all they 
have to carry with them. When they remove from place to place, as 
they inhabit the banks of rivers, they go by water, in small canoes ; a 
few vessels of clay made by the wmmen, a fiat stone on which they 
bake their bread, and a rough stone on which they grate the 
roots of the cassava, a hammock, and a hatchet — are all their 
furniture and utensils : most of them, however, have a bit of looking- 
glass framed in paper, and a comb. Tlieir poisoned arrows are made 
of splinters of a hard heavy wood called cacario ; they are about twelve 
inches long, and somewhat thicker than a coarse knitting-needle : one 
end is formed into a sharp point; round the other is wound some cot- 
ton, to make it fit the bore of the reed through which it is to be 
blown. They will blow these arrows forty yards with absolute cer- 
tainty of hitting the mark, and with force enough to draw blood, 
which is certain and immediate death. Against this poison no anti- 
dote is known. The Indians never use these poisoned arrows in war. 
