Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The Custom Of Painting Is Not Equally Ancient Among All The Tribes Of
The Orinoco.
It has increased since the time when the powerful nation
of the Caribs made frequent incursions into those countries.
The
victors and the vanquished were alike naked; and to please the
conqueror it was 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, and Paraguamuzi; but
the Caribbean fashion of painting the whole body is still preserved.
The custom has survived the conquest.
Does the use of the anato and chica derive its origin from the desire
of pleasing, and the taste for ornament, so common among the most
savage nations? or must we suppose it to be founded on the
observation, that these colouring and oily matters with which the skin
is plastered, preserve it from the sting of the mosquitos? I have
often heard this question discussed in Europe; but in the Missions of
the Orinoco, and wherever, within the tropics, the air is filled with
venomous insects, the inquiry would appear absurd. The Carib and the
Salive, who are painted red, are not less cruelly tormented by the
mosquitos and the zancudos, than the Indians whose bodies are
plastered with no colour. The sting of the insect causes no swelling
in either; and scarcely ever produces those little pustules which
occasion such smarting and itching to Europeans recently arrived. But
the native and the White suffer equally from the sting, till the
insect has withdrawn its sucker from the skin.
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