method of preparing it. Thus not only is an explanation afforded of the simultaneous use of the better and the worse method, but additional light is thrown on the Carib migration into Guiana.

Each of the three kinds of fibre is used in the simple form of string. Tibisiri, which is coarse and makes but rough strands, is used for the rougher purposes, as for the laces of the sandals used on the stony parts of the savannah, for hammocks, and occasionally for hammock-ropes. It may perhaps be as well to note here that for rough tying purposes -as, for example, in lashing together the beams and posts of his house, in fastening on the thatch, in fastening together the various parts of his boats, and in many other such ways -the Indian uses no artificial rope or string, but the natural ropes or strings afforded by the larger or smaller stems of certain pliant creepers. Crowia fibre, since it can be made into much stronger and more even string, is used for all more important purposes-for bow-strings, fishing-lines, and especially for hammock-ropes. Entire hammocks are occasionally, but very rarely, made of it. Cotton is used for many such purposes as binding on the heads of arrows, and for ornament, as in the numerous long streamers which float from the feather head-dress of the Indian and hang from his necklaces and other ornaments, and from his arms.

It is in the manufacture of their hammocks that the Indians first exercise the art of weaving their thread into textile fabrics, though only of a very simple kind.

The three kinds of hammocks chiefly produced in British Guiana are made either of cotton or of tibisiri fibre. Cotton hammocks are made by the Macusis and Wapianas, and occasionally-though. in a slightly different way-by the True Caribs. They are made on a square frame, formed of four bars of wood. These bars are so fitted together that two of them-those forming the top and bottom of the framecan be slid along the other two, so as to reduce the size of the rectangular space which they enclose and make it correspond with the size of what the intended hammock is to be (Fig. 23).

A continuous length of cotton thread is then wound round and round the frame, from side to side, or from top to bottom, in such a way that the threads lie parallel, and are equidistant from each other. These lengths of the thread form the longitudinal bars of the hammock. The cross-bars are then put in. Three reels, or shuttles, charged with cotton thread, are provided. Each cross-bar consists of three strands of cotton-from the three reels-which are simply plaited together, each of the longitudinal bars of the hammock being successively inserted into one of the plaits. When the first cross-bar has been carried entirely across the width of the hammock, its three threads are broken, and a new

FIG. 23.

CARIB METHOD OF MAKING A HAMMOCK,

cross-bar is begun parallel to, and a short distance from, the former. When all the cross-bars have been inserted, the hammock is taken off the frame. So far the work has been done by the women. The hammock is then handed over to the men, who always prepare and add the scale lines. These scale-lines are of much thicker cotton than is the hammock; to fit them properly, so that the hammock hangs evenly, is an operation requiring extreme care. At each end of the hammock is a series of loops, formed by those parts of the longitudinal threads which passed round the side-bars of the wooden frame. The scale-line having been fastened to the first of these loops, a certain length of it is allowed to hang

U

loose; it is then passed through the second loop and a slightly longer length is allowed to hang loose, and in the same way it is passed through each successive loop, a certain definite length being left to hang loose between each two. These loose loops of scale-line must be very nicely measured and adjusted; for only if the centre one is the shortest, and each successive one, on either side, is made longer than the one before it, so that the outermost is the longest, will the hammock hang evenly and comfortably. Lastly, when the ends of these scale-lines furthest from the hammock have been bound together, the hammock is finished.

Fibre hammocks, made in the same way, but of parallel threads of tibisiri fibre, with cross-bars now generally of cotton but formerly probably also of tibisiri, are made by the Arawaks. Similar hammocks are probably made by the remote Woyawais and Tarumas; though, as hammocks made by these Indians are never seen outside the country in which they are made, it is impossible to speak with certainty as to their kind.

Another kind of fibre hammock is made only by the Warraus. These are also made of tibisiri fibre, but the thread, instead of being arranged in straight lines, is netted as in an old-fashioned silk purse. The square wooden frame on which these hammocks are made lies on the ground; and the whole hammock is netted of one continuous string.

Each tribe, besides the large hammocks of its own peculiar kind, makes small hammocks, or rather broad endless bands' of the same kind, in which, being worn by the women over the shoulder, the children are carried.

All these hammocks, are, however, almost too loose in their texture to deserve the name of cloth. Cloth, indeed, as we have it, is but little needed by Indians, in that they wear hardly any clothing. Yet these people do make some fabrics of far closer texture than that of the hammocks above described. One example is to be seen in the so-called Brazilian hammocks, which are woven of cotton, often coloured, as closely as felt, by some few True Caribs; but it is certain

that this art has merely been copied from some of the halfcivilised Brazilian-Indian half-breeds who have settled on some of the rivers. A genuine Indian advance in the art of weaving is, however, to be seen in the broad cloth-like cotton bands which are worn by some tribes round the legs and arms, being, curiously enough, woven on to the limbs, and so without seam; and also in certain narrow cotton fillets, of equally compact texture, which the women wear round their hair, on certain festal occasions, and the men wear round the lower edge of their feather crowns. In both these cases the web is put together by means of a number of sticks like knitting needles; and the stitches are all of one kind. A further and very much greater advance in the art is to be seen in certain curious strips of cotton cloth worn by men (Fig. 6, p. 200) from shoulder to shoulder during feasts, in which, by means of various stitches, a distinct pattern is produced; but the art of making this particular cloth has already been lost, and the cloths themselves are exceedingly rare. Of the only two which I was able to procure, or, indeed, ever saw, one is now in Georgetown Museum, the other in the British Museum.

Before Europeans went westward and supplied the Indians with ready-made cloth, it is probable that some of these people wove for themselves, in the way that the leg bands are now woven, both the long narrow strip of cloth which, passed between the legs, forms the only garment of these men, and the small apron which serves a similar purpose in the case of the women. In some tribes, however, then, as now in very rare cases, the soft cloth-like inner bark of a tree (Lecythis) was used for these purposes. Some of the Arecuna women in very remote places still make their aprons of cotton, adorned with seeds instead of beads.

The invention of the simple art of plaiting probably is of older date than that of weaving; but it seems more convenient to speak of it, as practised by the Indians, in this place. It is employed chiefly, if not only, in making the belts which the men wear round their waists to support the

cloth passed between their legs. These are plaited, apparently of different materials by different tribes, sometimes of cotton, sometimes of fibre, sometimes of strips of the material used for basketwork, and sometimes of hair, either of men or monkeys. Schomburgk speaks of human hair having been frequently used for this purpose only forty years ago; but, probably because intertribal war has now almost ceased to be waged, monkeys' hair is now far more commonly used.

Lastly, it may be pointed out as somewhat curious that, though the work of spinning and weaving is in other respects naturally enough distributed between the sexes, the cotton fillets worn by the women round their heads are made only by the men.

Not the least admirable of the simple arts of the Indians of British Guiana is that of working in wood. Only the men do this. The axes, scrapers, and chisels of stone which once formed their whole stock of wood-working implements are no longer used. Yet even now, as a rule, the only tools used to transform the rough block of wood into the required shape are an axe, a cutlass, and a knife. Sometimes a small adze is also used; nails too are now sometimes obtained from Europeans and used. But an Indian is quite capable of building his house, or hewing a beautifully neat boat, stool, or other such article, from a rough block of wood, without the use of any implement beyond his axe and cutlass.

So much of the life of these Indians being spent on the water, boat-building is the most important form of carpenter's craft practised by them. The boats made are of four kinds -the canoe, the corial, the buckshell, and the woodskin. Each of these forms was possibly once peculiar to a special tribe; but they are now nearly, though not quite, indiscriminately used. The Warraus on the coast, and the Wapianas in the interior, are the most apt boat-builders, and the canoes which these make form their principal article of barter with the other tribes.

When a canoe is to be made, a suitable tree is carefully