PLATE XIX.
BORO LEG AND ARM LIGATURES
WITOTO LEG LIGATURE
The leg rattles are made of polished nutshells, and garters with beaded tassels and nutshells are fastened below the knee. The nutshells vary in size and shape, though all are approximately bell-like when cut and strung, with or without beads, on fibre thread. They give a tinkling sound if shaken, and for this reason, as they play a distinct part in the native dances, they are dealt with in a later chapter among the musical instruments. In addition to these rattles strings of feather-tufted reeds or bits of bone are also worn. The reeds, cane, or bones, are about three inches long, with a small bunch of feathers secured to one end by means of pitch. The other end is pierced, fibre thread strung through, and the intervals between the reeds are kept by means of knots.
Similar little bits of cane are worn in the ears, which are bored by all these tribes at the age of puberty. These ear ornaments are frequently decorated at one end with a tuft of gay feathers. These are very neatly arranged in some cases; a ring of fine blue feathers may surround a red tip. They are fixed to the cane with latex or pitch. Orahone, which simply means Big Ears,[82] is a name given nowadays to many distinctly different tribes who follow the fashion of the Indians on the Uaupes and the Napo and insert large wooden plugs into the lobes of their ears. The Orahone and some Issa-Japura tribes—especially among the Boro-speaking group—use a disc of cabbage wood. The Orahone smear this with a red vegetable colouring matter, the Boro fix an ornamented shell into the wood.
These wooden plugs are extremely light, about two and five-eighth inches long, and three inches across at the widest point, that is the front rim. This end is hollowed like a shallow egg-cup, and the shell set in it is decorated with a fine pattern done in black-and-white. In one earring in my possession the shell, so far as I can judge, is a portion of some hard, dark nutshell. The pattern is grooved, or scratched on the shell, and filled in with a fine white clay. This gives the effect of an elaborate black-and-white inlay. The shell is secured in the hollow with pitch. The back part of the plug that fits behind the ear is not decorated in any manner.
Very effective earrings are made with round discs of a pearl-coated river-shell fastened to a short piece of bamboo with pitch. The mother-of-pearl is of a deep blue colour, and of a good quality. In shape these earrings are not unlike certain kinds of toadstool with a thin stem and an inverted cone head.
With the Boro and other Indians near the Japura the lip also is perforated for the insertion of an ornament, except among the Witoto, who do not use the labret. This, as a rule, is made of metal, if it is in any way possible to secure some. Silver is occasionally seen, and brass is obtained from old cartridge cases, that are beaten flat and rubbed to shape.
Nose-pins are another fashionable adornment of the forest Indians. The Makuna wear a long black pin, a palm-spine, through the cartilage of the nose. The Yakuna also wear a long pin, and the Muenane and Witoto women wear nasal ornaments. The nose-pins of the Kuretu-speaking tribes, Yahabana and others, must be somewhat of an obstruction to the wearer, owing to their exaggerated length, 30 centimetres. In the central Igara Parana district the Boro, especially the women, insert feathers into small holes made in the wing of the nose. Boring the algæ is peculiar to the Boro-speaking group of tribes, and to the Resigero. The women bore holes in the top of the nostril, into which they insert bits of quill to keep them open till such times as a dance is held, when the quills are removed and small ornaments with feathers are put in their place. No other tribes have this fashion. The Saka, who are of the same language-group as the Karahone, wear the bones of birds instead of a palm nose-pin through the septum. Robuchon confirms my observation that the septum of the nose only is perforated by the Witoto in the upper Igara Parana districts, and that a goose feather is then worn. He also mentions the use of the labret, and the elongation of the lobe of the ear. There are many varieties of ear ornaments, but most of them are big and enlarge the lobes.