My first introduction to the savages in Chaco territory was at their village of Teepmuckthlawhykethy (The Place Where the Cows Arrived). They were busy devouring a dead cow and a newly-born calf, and I saw their naked bodies through such dense clouds of mosquitos that in one clap of the hands I could kill twenty or thirty. This Indian _toldo_ consists of three large wigwams, in which live about eighty of the most degraded aborigines to be found on earth. When they learned I was not one of the _Christians_ from across the river, and that I came well introduced, they asked: Did I come across the _big water_ in a dug-out? Was it a day's journey? Would I give them some of "the stuff that resembles the eggs of the ant?" (their name for rice). I was permitted to occupy a palm hut without a roof, but I slept under a tiger's skin, and that kept off dew and rain. They reserved the right to come and go in it as they pleased. The women, with naked babies astride their hips, the usual way of carrying them, were particularly annoying. A little girl, however, perhaps ten years old, named Supupnik (Sawdust), made friends with me, and that friendship lasted during all my stay with them. Her face was always grotesquely painted, but she was a sweet child. These Indians are of normal stature, and are always erect and stately, perhaps because all burdens are borne by straps on the forehead. The expression of the savage is peculiar, for he pulls out all the hair on his face, even the eyelashes and eyebrows, and seems to think the omission of that act would be a terrible breach of cleanliness. These same individuals will, however, frequently be seen with their whole body so coated with dirt that it could easily be scraped off with a knife in cakes, as the housewife would scrape a burnt loaf! The first use to which the women put the little round tin looking-glasses, which I used for barter, was to admire their pretty (?) faces; but the men, with a sober look, would search for the detested hair on lip or chin. That I was so lost to decency as to suffer a moustache to cover my lip was to them a constant puzzle and wonder, for in every other respect the universal opinion was that I was a civilized kind of "thing." I write _thing_ advisedly, for the white man is to them an inferior creation--not a _person_. In place of a beard or moustache, the inhabitant of the Chaco prefers to paint his face, and sometimes he makes quite an artistic design. These wild inhabitants of Central South America generally wear a skin around the loins, or a string of ostrich feathers. Some tribes, as, for example, the Chamacocos, dispense with either. The height of fashion is to wear strings of tigers' teeth, deer's hoofs, birds' bills, etc., around the neck. Strings of feathers or wool are twisted around ankles and wrists, while the thickly matted hair is adorned with plumes, standing upright.