Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 November 1893 — A DEPRAVED PEOPLE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A DEPRAVED PEOPLE.

A Barbarous Custom of tfra Botocudus Indians, Brazil. The Botocudus Indians, inhabiting the country along the upper portion of the Rio Doce, 200 miles northeast

of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, are little known to readers and are among the most depraved people of the southern republic. Formerly These Indians worn no cloth at all, hut now,

[Ornament removed tndhajnnrta.o trromt,the distended lobe hang- a S real ing free.] er or less degree influenced by civilization, clothing is coming into more general u-e among them. The children are dirt eaters and are sold as slaves, usually for the merest trifles. The custom of wearing lip and ear ornaments is very ancient among them and is very general. The open-

ing in the lower lip, where the ornament is worn, is made when the person is quite young by piercing it with a long, slender thorn that grows in a : kind of palm tree; this opening is enlarged with the point of a deer’s horn and a stick or small stone is

inserted and: the wound is greased with some kind of salve. These openings are gradually enlarged by forcing bigger and bigger plugs into them until the desired size is attained. The ornaments worn aregreen stones, polished bones, and clay burned like pottery. The ear ornaments do not essentially differ from those worn in the lips. The plugs are of the same materials, size, and appearance; they differ only in that they are worn in the openings made in the lobes of the ears instead of in the lower lip.

BOTOCUDP MAN.

BOTOCUDU WOMAN. [With both lip and ear ornaments of average size.]