The Makuna, who dwell to the north of the Kuretu on the other side of the Apaporis, affect a small belt of beaten bark, from which depends in front a long apron of bast. The Kuretu group, who inhabit both sides of the Japura to the east of the Menimehe, improve upon the habit of their neighbours. Over the loin-cloth the men wear a bast kilt, or petticoat, which dangles as low as the ankles. When walking, this garment is tucked up between the legs, something after the manner of a Malay sarang. The loin-cloth is retained below.
All the tribes on the right or south bank of the Japura follow the fashion of the Boro; the men wear only breech-cloths, the women go absolutely naked.
Thus it will be observed that the fashion of dress falls into a definite geographical progression,[65] and there is no sudden change in passing from one neighbouring tribe to another, although the tribal distinctions are very marked.
The natives wear no head-covering as a protection. In a heavy rain an Indian on the trail will tear down a palm-leaf and carry it over his head as we should an umbrella, and he will adopt the same rough-and-ready though effective means to shield himself from the sun.
No gloves are worn nor coverings for the feet. Boots of any sort, in fact, would be impossible wear; even Europeans dispense with them. Still, it is not possible for the white man to go through the forest bare-footed. Personally, I used carpet slippers, which were washed every evening after the day’s trek, and dried during the night.[66]
If for ordinary everyday life the attire of the Indian is of the slightest, on the occasion of a festival or a dance the most elaborate sartorial preparations have to be made. Wallace has enumerated no less than “twenty distinct articles forming the feather head-dress,” which is worn by the Menimehe and the Nonuya, as well as by the Uaupes Indians of whom he wrote.[67] Then there are the feather armlets—ruffles of bright-tinted plumage worn on the arm,[68]—wooden combs decorated with tufts of feathers, and curassow down for the women, anklets and strings of rattles hung round the legs, aprons of painted bark or belts of beads, earrings, and necklaces, and, supreme vanity, there are the elaborately-painted designs on the skin that are to the Indian belle what the latest Paris “creation” is to her civilised sister.
According to Sir Everard im Thurn every tribe makes its own feather head-dress after a special colour scheme.[69] I did not find this to be the case with the Issa-Japura tribes. Instead of making them according to rule, rather do they make them according to luck. Whatever they can get in the way of gay plumage, feathers of the parrot, the macaw, or the toucan, especially the macaw, because its feathers are the longest, be the colour what it may, is employed indiscriminately. The effects are very brilliant, but there is nothing made in these districts of such elaborate description as the gorgeous feather-cloaks manufactured by the Napo Indians, which are veritable works of art. The Issa-Japura tribes content themselves with a coronet of the gayest breast-feathers, plumed with tufts of the long feathers from the tail, all tied together with fibre thread.[70] The Boro men on festive occasions also stick these long macaw feathers into their arm-ligatures. The chief’s head-dress is more lavish than those of his warriors. The only boy I ever saw wearing one was the young son of a chief. Women do not wear the feather head-dress, but they attach the white down of the curassow duck by means of some resinous substance—such as rubber latex, or the milky secretion of the cow-tree—for decorative purposes round their legs, between the ligatures. The result of this is to make the calves look enormous. The men do not decorate with down. The Indians are invariably most careful of their feather ornaments. At the end of a dance an old man, so Koch-Grünberg noted, will come round and knock the dust off the feathers with a long cane. I have myself observed Indians, when overheated by their violent exertions at a dance, take off their feather ornaments to preserve them from sweat. They will never part with them, as they are communal, not personal, possessions, and I found they objected extremely to any attempt I made to photograph them when wearing their dancing feathers.
PLATE XI.
WITOTO FEATHER HEAD-DRESSES.