THE
CUSTOM OF
DIRT-EATING.
495
T h e y are m e n o f very r o b u s t c o n s t i t u t i o n ; b u t ill-looking, savage, vindictive, and passionately fond o f fermented liquors. T h e y are omnivorous animals in the highest d e g r e e ; and therefore the other I n d i a n s , w h o consider t h e m as barbarians, have a c o m m o n saving, " n o t h i n g is so loathsome hut that an O t t o m a c will eat i t . " W h i l e the waters o f the O r i n o c o and its tributary streams are l o w , the O t t o m a c s subsist o n fish and turtles. The former they kill with surprising dexterity, b y s h o o t i n g t h e m w i t h an arrow w h e n they appear at the surface o f the water. W h e n the rivers swell fishing almost entirely ceases.* It is then very difficult to p r o c u r e fish, which often fails the p o o r missionaries, o n fast-days as well as flesh-days, t h o u g h all the y o u n g Indians are u n d e r the obligation o f " fishing for the c o n vent." D u r i n g the period o f these inundations, which last t w o or three months, the O t t o m a c s swallow a prodigious quantity o f earth. W e found heaps o f earth-balls in their huts, piled up in pyramids three o r four feet high. These balls were five or six inches in diameter. The earth which the O t t o m a c s eat, is a very fine a n d u n c t u o u s clay, o f a yellowish grey c o l o u r ; and, when being slightly baked at the fire, the hardened crust has a tint inclining t o red, o w i n g to the oxide o f iron which is mingled with it. We b r o u g h t away some o f this earth, which w e took from t h o winter-provision o f the I n d i a n s ; and it is a mistake to suppose that it is steatitic, and that it contains magnesia. Vauquelin did n o t discover any traces o f that substance in i t : b u t he found that it contained more silex than alumina, and three or four per cent o f lime. T h e O t t o m a c s do not eat every kind o f clay indifferently; they c h o o s e the alluvial beds or strata, which contain the most unctuous earth, and the smoothest to the touch. I inquired o f the missionary whether the moistened clay were made to undergo that peculiar decomposition which is indicated by a disengagement o f carbonic acid and sulphuretted hydrogen, and which is designated in every language by the term o f putrefaction; but he assured us, that the natives neither cause the clay to rot, nor do they mingle it with * In South America, as in Egypt and Nubia, the swelling of the rivers, which occurs periodically in every part of the torrid zone, is erroneously attributed to the melting of the snows.