Many Europeans spoil their beauty by eagerly imitating foreign customs, and always seeking new methods of adorning their persons. The Abipones disfigure and render themselves terrible to the sight from a too great attachment to the old customs of their ancestors; by whose example they mark their faces in various ways, some of which are common to both sexes, others peculiar to the women. They prick their skin with a sharp thorn, and scatter fresh ashes on the wound, which infuse an ineffaceable black dye. They all wear the form of a cross impressed on their foreheads, and two small lines at the corner of each eye extending towards the ears, besides four transverse lines at the root of the nose between the eye-brows, as national marks. These figures the old women prick with thorns, not only in the skin, but in the live flesh, and ashes sprinkled on them whilst streaming with blood render them of an indelible black. What these figures signify, and what they portend I cannot tell, and the Abipones themselves are no better informed on the subject. They only know that this custom was handed down to them from their ancestors, and that is sufficient. I saw not only a cross marked on the foreheads of all the Abipones, but likewise black crosses woven in the red woollen garments of many. It is a very surprizing circumstance that they did this before they were acquainted with the religion of Christ, when the signification and merits of the cross were unknown to them. Perhaps they learnt some veneration for the cross, or gained an idea of its possessing great virtues from their Spanish captives, or from those Abipones who had lived in captivity amongst the Spaniards.