Page:The Captivity of Hans Stade of Hesse.pdf/191

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TILE CAPTIVITY OF HANS STADE


seemed to be he, and I want up to him and spake to him in the manner of their language, and said: "Art thou Konyan Bebe? livest thou still?”[1] "Yes," said he, "I still live." "Well then," said I, "I have heard much of thee, and that thou art so fine a man." Then he arose, and strutted before me with proud conceit, and he had a large round green stone, sticking through the lips of his mouth (as their custom is[2]). They also make white rosaries from

  1. Yves d'Evreux (pp. 31,96, 221) gives the forms of address as follows:—Ereiup Chetouasap—Art thou come, O my friend? Pa Yes!
    Auge-y-po-That's well!—Marapé derere—What is thy name?— Demoursousain Chetouasap—Art thou hungry, O my friend?
    Pa, Chemoursosain—Yes, I ain hungry!
    Maé pereipotar—What will thou eat? and so forth.
    Alencar borrowing from de Lery (p. 286) says in Iracema (p. 166).
    Ere ioubê—Hast thou come?
    Pa aiotu—Yes, I have come!
    Auge-be—Well said!
    These specimens add another item to the absurdity of popular greetings all the world over, from the English "how do you do?" to the Tupi style of asking the new comer hast thou come?"
  2. For a full description of this labret, lipstone or mouth-piece, ace Part 2, (chap. xv), where four stones are also described. Some tribes wore them of an exaggerated size, hence the carly travellers called the Aymoró savages, Botocudos from botoque a bung. The green stones alluded to may have been jade, of which I have seen a specimen in the Brazil, or possibly a crystal of olive-coloured tourmaline, the mineral which, being taken for emeralds, produced such an effect about A.D. 1562, and has named so many Brazilian mountains Serra das Esmeraldas. The labrets were of two kinds, one a round button (botoque), the other a cone varying from two to ten inches in length, with the small end worn downwards, and the upper worked into a crutch or cross-piece fitting the inner lip and preventing its falling out, (Ewbank sketches them. Life in Brazil, Appendix, p. 459). I sent home a specimen made of Jatahy gum much resembling a bit of barley sugar. Vancouver (iv, xxxvi) found on the west coast of North America oval labrets of polished firwood, from two and a half to three and four-tenths inches in diameter, the latter looking like platters or little dishes. The labret is also an East-African ornament worn in the upper lip by the Wahiáo and other tribes. Cook found it in California, Stedman in Surinam and Belcher amongst the Eskimos who had an upper labret, a lower and two cheek-pieces.