The North-West Amazons: Notes of some months spent among cannibal tribes

No individualism--Effect of isolation--Extreme reserve of Indians--Cruelty--Dislike and fear of strangers--Indian hospitality--Treachery--Theft punished by death--Dualism of eth...

Although the Amazons have been known to Europe for fully four hundred years, exploration has been confined almost entirely to the main river and its great tributaries. Little ad...

Judged by some of the pictures in books purporting to give accounts of the South American Indians, the photograph adjoining (Plate VIII.) would represent an Indian chieftain dec...

Classification of Indian races--Difficulties of tabulating--Language-groups and tribes--Names--Sources of confusion--Witoto and Boro--Localities of language-groups--Population o...

The Indians’ magico-religious system--The Good Spirit and the Bad Spirit--Names of deities--Character of Good Spirit--His visit to earth--Question of missionary influence--Lesse...

In the spring of 1908, having been among the Unemployed on the Active List for nearly two years on account of ill-health, and wearying not only of enforced inactivity but also p...

Indian dances--Songs without meaning--Elaborate preparations--The Chief’s invitation--Numbers assembled--Dance step--Reasons for dances--Special dances--Dance staves--Arrangemen...

Though so recognised an authority as Bates is responsible for the statement that the fecundity of the Amazonian Indians is of a low degree,[224] because as many as four children...

Agriculture--Plantations--Preparation of ground in the forest--Paucity of agricultural instruments--Need for diligence--Women’s incessant toil--No special harvest-time--Maize th...

Life in Amazonia to the man is occasionally strenuous, frequently a veritable _dolce far niente_; to the woman it is a ceaseless round of toilsome duties, broken only by the exc...

Food is the dominant problem of an Indian’s existence. The food quest is to him no indefinite sociological issue of future “food control,” but an affair of every day. Living, it...

The medicine-man of the South American Indian tribes has been described as “the counterpart of the shaman type.”[292] There would seem to be hardly need for any qualification--h...

The Indian armoury--Spears--Bows and arrows--Indian strategy--Forest tactics and warfare--Defensive measures--Secrecy and safety--The Indian’s science of war--Prisoners--War and...

Songs the essential element of native dances--Indian imagination and poetry--Music entirely ceremonial--Indian singing--Simple melodies--Words without meaning--Sense of time--Li...

Out of the silence and gloom of the forest the traveller will emerge into the full light of a clearing. Though it is the site of a tribal headquarters there is no village, no cl...

Indians, like most coloured races, are abject cowards in pain or disease. They will bear torture stoically enough when deliberately inflicted, but should they suffer from any, t...

Darkness feared by Indians--Story-telling--Interminable length of tales--Variants--Myths--Sun and moon--Deluge traditions--Tribal stories--Amazons--White Indians tradition--Boro...

At the beginning of my stay among the tribes, I thought, as many have asserted, that polygamy was common among the Indians. The reason for this belief is simply the fact that it...

Limitations of speech--Differences of dialect--Language-groups--Tribal names--Difficulties of languages--Method of transliteration--Need of a common medium--Ventral ejaculations...

If the Indian eats but little during the day, he drinks to excess whenever opportunity offers. In the early morning a beverage somewhat akin to tea, but colourless, made from an...

No individualism--Effect of isolation--Extreme reserve of Indians--Cruelty--Dislike and fear of strangers--Indian hospitality--Treachery--Theft punished by death--Dualism of eth...

The Indians’ magico-religious system--The Good Spirit and the Bad Spirit--Names of deities--Character of Good Spirit--His visit to earth--Question of missionary influence--Lesse...

Indian dances--Songs without meaning--Elaborate preparations--The Chief’s invitation--Numbers assembled--Dance step--Reasons for dances--Special dances--Dance staves--Arrangemen...

Agriculture--Plantations--Preparation of ground in the forest--Paucity of agricultural instruments--Need for diligence--Women’s incessant toil--No special harvest-time--Maize th...

Classification of Indian races--Difficulties of tabulating--Language-groups and tribes--Names--Sources of confusion--Witoto and Boro--Localities of language-groups--Population o...

The Indian armoury--Spears--Bows and arrows--Indian strategy--Forest tactics and warfare--Defensive measures--Secrecy and safety--The Indian’s science of war--Prisoners--War and...

Songs the essential element of native dances--Indian imagination and poetry--Music entirely ceremonial--Indian singing--Simple melodies--Words without meaning--Sense of time--Li...

Limitations of speech--Differences of dialect--Language-groups--Tribal names--Difficulties of languages--Method of transliteration--Need of a common medium--Ventral ejaculations...

Darkness feared by Indians--Story-telling--Interminable length of tales--Variants--Myths--Sun and moon--Deluge traditions--Tribal stories--Amazons--White Indians tradition--Boro...