Salt Lake Tribune | 1914-01-18 | Page 13 | Amazonian Indians Are Proud of Scars

AMAZONIAN INDIANS ARE PROUD OF SCARS English Explorer Sheds Light Upon .Strange Tribal Custom Among Primitive People. Special Cable to Tho Tribune. LONDOX, Man. 17. Dr. Hamilton Rice, member of the Ifoyul Geographical Geographi-cal society, has an account of- further explorations he made in the northwest Amazon valley in a pnpor read before the society at the last mooting, On the bodies of almost all the male Indians of tho region, he said, could be seen scars varying from one to six inches long. These wero tho result of sovero flagellations practised ou each other during festivals, and of their scars the men seemed very proud. Theso festivals wero sometimes the occasion for partaking of caapi, a drink manufactured from a vine. Its effects were immediate, the subject becoming be-coming worked up to an insane frenzy, .followed b3' a stago of narcosis, a phantasmagoria of mental sensations varying from tho glorious and the mag-nulcont mag-nulcont to the ropulsivo and horrible, analogous to those produced by opium and possessing a markodl3r rapid and violent action on tho nervous system. Only men partook of it. Tho one melody, a simplo rhythm of four notes, played on all the wind instruments in-struments of those peoplo, meant always al-ways dancing, drunkenness and dissolute disso-lute revelry.