(1.) GRAN CHACO INDIANS ON THE MOVE.
(See [page 1213].)
(2.) THE GLOVE DANCE OF THE MUNDURUCÚS.
(See [page 1219].)
On the appointed day, the candidate for manhood and the privilege of a warrior, goes to the council-house, accompanied by his friends, who sing and beat drums to encourage him. The old men then proceed to the test. They take two bamboo tubes, closed at one end and open at the other, and place in each tube or “glove” a number of the fiercest ants of the country. Into these tubes the wretched lad thrusts his arms, and has them tied, so that they cannot fall off. The drummers and singers then strike up, and the candidate joins in the song.
Accompanied by the band and his friends, he is taken round the village, and made to execute a dance and a song in front of every house, the least symptom of suffering being fatal to his admission among the men. In spite of the agony which he endures—an agony which increases continually as the venom from the stings circulates through his frame—the lad sings and dances as if he were doing so from sheer joy, and so makes the round of the village. At last he comes in front of the chief’s tent, where he sings his song for the last time, and is admitted by acclamation to be a man. His friends crowd round to offer their congratulations, but he dashes through them all, tears off the gloves of torture, and plunges into the nearest stream, to cool his throbbing arms.
This fearful test of manhood, called “[The glove dance],” is represented on page 1218.
The Mundurucús seem to be an intelligent race of savages, as may be seen from Mr. Bates’s account of the interest which they displayed in a book of illustrations.
“To amuse the Tushaúa, I fetched from the canoe the two volumes of Knight’s ‘Pictorial Museum of Animated Nature.’ The engravings quite took his fancy, and he called his wives, of whom, as I afterward heard from Aracú, he had three or four, to look at them: one of them was a handsome girl, decorated with necklace and bracelets of blue beads. In a short time others left their work, and I then had a crowd of women and children around me, who all displayed unusual curiosity for Indians.
“It was no light task to go through the whole of the illustrations, but they would not allow me to miss a page, making me turn back when I tried to skip. The pictures of the elephants, camels, orang-outangs, and tigers seemed most to astonish them, but they were interested in almost everything, down even to the shells and insects. They recognized the portraits of the most striking birds and mammals which are found in their own country; the jaguar, howling monkey, parrots, trogons, and toucans.
“The elephant was settled to be a large kind of tapir; but they made but few remarks, and those in the Mundurucú language, of which I understood only two or three words. Their way of expressing surprise was a clicking sound made with the teeth, similar to the one we ourselves use, or a subdued exclamation, Hm! Hm!