Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 43.djvu/774

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

except with reference to their custom of wearing the large and broad lip and ear ornaments shown in the accompanying illustrations. Fig. 1.—Botocudu Woman. The flesh band of the lip has been broken and the ends tied together with a piece of bark, that the lip ornament may be used. An opening has been made in the ear lobe, but it is not of the customary size. Several travelers in Brazil have given figures of Indians using such ornaments, notably Spix and Von Martins, Maximilien Wied-Neuwied, Hartt, Jean de Lery, Bigg-Wither, and Von Tschudi. It may be said of the illustrations given by those writers, however, that they, without exception, fail to give the characteristic features and expressions of the Botocudus, or, for that matter, of any Indians. Those used in the present article, on the other hand, have been carefully drawn from photographs made a few years ago by M. Marc Ferrez, photographer to the Imperial Geological Survey of Brazil, and may be relied upon for their accuracy. The Fig. 2.—Botocudu Woman, with both lip and ear ornaments of average size. subjects chosen for the photographs were selected with a view to securing the best types that could be had, but it should be remembered that the Botocudus of to-day are rapidly approaching extinction, and that their customs are probably modified to a considerable extent since the visit of Spix and Von Martins, which was made in 1817 to 1820.[1]

The custom of wearing the lip and ear ornaments is a very ancient one among the Botocudus, for the earliest travelers found it in vogue when the continent was discovered. Hans Stade, who lived among the Ay-


  1. Rum has much to do with the wiping out of the native Indians of Brazil. The whites, especially the original settlers of the country, treated them without pity, enslaving them and killing them upon the slightest provocation or with no provocation whatever.