ORIGIN 01' PAINTING THE SKIN. 
205 
stature gains with difficulty enough by the labour of a fort* 
night, to procure in exchange the chica necessary to paint 
himself red. Thus as we say, in temperate climates, of a 
poor man, “he has not enough to clothe himself,” you hear 
the Indians of the Orinoco say, “ that man is so poor, that 
he has not enough to paint half his body.” The little trade 
in chica is carried on chiefly with the tribes of the Lower 
Orinoco, whose country does not produce the plant which 
furnishes this much-valued substance. The Caribs and the 
Ottomans paint only the head and the hair with chica. but 
the Salives possess this pigment in sufficient abundance to 
cover their whole bodies. When the missionaries send on 
their own account small cargoes of cacao, tobacco, and 
ehiquichiqui* from the Bio Negro to Angostura, they always 
add some cakes of chica, as being articles of merchandise 
m great request. 
The custom of painting is not equally ancient among all 
ihe tribes of the Orinoco. It has increased since the time 
w hen the powerful nation of the Caribs made frequent in- 
cursions into those countries. The victors and the van- 
quished were alike naked ; and to please the conqueror it 
^as necessary to paint like him, and to assume his colour. 
The influence of the Caribs has now ceased, and they 
remain circumscribed between the rivers Carony, Cuyuni, 
a ud Paraguamuzi; but the Caribbean fashion of painting 
the whole body is still preserved. The custom has sur- 
Vrv ed the conquest. 
Does the use of the anato and chica derive its origin 
horn the desire of pleasing, and the taste for ornament, so 
common among the most savage nations ? or must we sup- 
pose it to be founded on the observation, that these colour- 
ln S and oily matters with which the skin is plastered, 
Preserve it from the sting of the mosquitos ? I have often 
. ar d this question discussed in Europe ; but in the Mis- 
+>. 0Ils ,°f the Orinoco, and wherever, within the tropics, 
ue air is filled with venomous insects, the inquiry would 
appear absurd. The Carib and the Salive, who are painted 
a °”> are not less cruelly tormented by the mosquitos 
I'd the zaneudos, than the Indians whose bodies are 
P astered with no colour. The sting of the insect cause* 
Ropes made with the petioles of a palm-ti S3 with pinnate leaves. 
