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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These Tribes For The Most Part,
Even Those Whose Intellectual Faculties Are Most Expanded, Who
Cultivate Alimentary Plants, And Know How To Weave Cotton, Are
Altogether As Naked,* As Poor, And As Destitute Of Ornaments As The
Natives Of New Holland.
(* For instance, the Macos and the Piraoas.
The Caribs must be excepted, whose perizoma is a cotton cloth, so
Broad that it might cover the shoulders.) The excessive heat of the
air, the profuse perspiration in which the body is bathed at every
hour of the day and a great part of the night, render the use of
clothes insupportable. Their objects of ornament, and particularly
their plumes of feathers, are reserved for dances and solemn
festivals. The plumes worn by the Guipunaves* are the most celebrated;
being composed of the fine feathers of manakins and parrots. (* These
came originally from the banks of the Inirida, one of the rivers that
fall into the Guaviare.)
The Indians are not always satisfied with one colour uniformly spread;
they sometimes imitate, in the most whimsical manner, in painting
their skin, the form of European garments. We saw some at Pararuma,
who were painted with blue jackets and black buttons. The missionaries
related to us that the Guaynaves of the Rio Caura are accustomed to
stain themselves red with anato, and to make broad transverse stripes
on the body, on which they stick spangles of silvery mica. Seen at a
distance, these naked men appear to be dressed in laced clothes. If
painted nations had been examined with the same attention as those who
are clothed, it would have been perceived that the most fertile
imagination, and the most mutable caprice, have created the fashions
of painting, as well as those of garments.
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