m_), the head pointed with the flinty chonta and
tipped with bone, often anointed with poison. At the base two rows of
feathers are spirally arranged, showing the Indian's knowledge of the
rifle principle. When they have fixed abodes several families live
together under one roof, with no division separating the women, as among
the Red Indians on the Pastassa. The roof is not over ten feet from the
ground. The Piros are the highest tribe; they have but one wife. The
Conibos are an agricultural people, yet cannibals, stretching from the
Upper Ucayali to the sources of the Purus. They are a fair-looking,
athletic people, and, like the Shipibos, of ten wear a piece of money
under the lip. The Campas are the most numerous and warlike.[185] They
are little known, as travelers give them a wide berth. Herndon fancied
they were the descendants of the Inca race. They are said to be
cannibals, and from the specimen we saw we should judge them uncommonly
sharp. He was averse to telling us any thing about his tribe, but turned
our questions with an equivocal repartee and a laugh. The Cashibos, on
the Pachitea, is another cannibal tribe. They are light colored and
bearded. The dwarfish, filthy Rimos alone of the Ucayali Indians tattoo,
though not so perfectly as the Mundurucus, using black and blue colors.
The other tribes simply paint. It was among these wild Indians on the
Ucayali that the Franciscan friars labored so long and zealously, and
with a success far greater and more lasting than that which attended any
other missionary enterprise in the valley.

[Footnote 182: Near the sources of this river Castlenau locates the
Canamas and Uginas; the former dwarfs, the latter having tails a palm
and a half long--a hybrid from an Indian and Barigudo monkey.]

[Footnote 183: Query: Is the name Yagua (blood) derived from the
practice of coloring the body red?]

[Footnote 184: Compare the ancient burial custom on the Andes: "On the
decease of the Inca his palaces are abandoned: all his treasures, except
those that were employed in his obsequies, his furniture and apparel,
were suffered to remain as he left them, and his mansions, save one,
were closed up forever."--_Prescott_.]

[Footnote 185: The women circumcise themselves, and a man will not marry
a woman who is not circumcised. They perform the singular rite upon
arriving at the age of puberty, and have a great feast at the time.
Other tribes flog and imprison their daughters when t