224.—NAYA INDIANS.
“. . . . As we neared the village a great crowd came to meet us, and I noticed that the throng, especially the women, attached themselves to the steps of Cæsar as he marched solemnly along, his tall figure drawn up to its full height, and with the portfolio on his back. So large were the numbers for so small a village, that I asked the interpreter to explain what this signified. He told me that the news of our arrival and the attraction of the dance which was sure to take place in the evening had drawn and would still draw a vast concourse of Indians from the adjoining districts. At sunset we partook of a meal of venison in the chief’s wigwam, and afterwards set ourselves to smoke until night came on. Then in the midst of dreadful yelling, barking, and singing, we saw about a dozen flaming torches approaching the hut in front of which the dance of masks now began. Grotesque is an imperfect word to convey an idea of the incredible eccentricities and buffoonery that took place before us, and Cæsar was seized with such a fit of laughing as to be almost choked. Picture to yourself, fifteen or twenty individuals, all full-grown men, masked or tricked out in the most extraordinary guise, while many spectators, placed in the first rank, were costumed in similar style. A great medicine man was the conductor of the revels and the most whimsical of all. He represented the ‘King of the Bustards,’ another was ‘Monarch of the Divers,’ a third, ‘Doctor of the Rabbits;’ and there were also the ‘Brother to the Devil,’ the ‘Thunder-Maker,’ the ‘White Rook,’ the ‘Night-travelling Bear,’ the ‘Soul of the Caribout,’ and so on, until the names of every animal and every bird were entirely exhausted. The dancers’ masks, of which I procured several, are very ingeniously made. They are cleverly hollowed from a solid block of wood in such a way as to fit the face, and are held inside by a cross-strap which is taken between the teeth, thus enabling the voice to be counterfeited and disguised; they are covered, moreover, with odd patterns in various colours. With the exception of that of the leader of the dance, all these masks had a round piece of wood in the under lip, to recall the singular custom which exists in the country. Entertainments of this description are not confined to the Nayas, for I have witnessed similar recreations in many other tribes in North as well as South America.
225.—A CROW CHIEF.
“They also slit the cartilages and lobes of their ears, lengthen them, and insert little billets as ornaments. Those in the lip are principally worn by the women, though some of the men have adopted this fashion, which becomes more and more in vogue among both sexes as the coast is ascended northwards. The same may be said of the masks, which are to be found as far as among the Aloutis. All the women have not the lip pierced, and those who have do not carry the wooden ornament except on certain occasions, at settled periods, when they don full dress. They remove it when eating and sleeping or if they have to talk much, for there are plenty of words which cannot be pronounced with this inconvenient trinket.
“The lip is perforated at the earliest age, and the aperture thus formed, though almost imperceptible at first when the ‘barbote’ is taken out, is kept open and grows larger daily.”
The same traveller had the pleasure of again meeting the Crows, but as we have already spoken of the Indians of this tribe, we shall content ourselves with reproducing here his very picturesque costume of one of their chiefs ([fig. 225]).