When a maiden of the tribe attains the age of puberty her mother communicates the fact to the elders of the village, and her daughter is shut up alone in a hut, where she is expected to lie in a hammock, eating and drinking only a little manioc and water. Notice being given, the eligible youths of the community apply to her father for the girl, who is promised to him who shall bring as a present the best piece of curare, the finest hammock, or certain kinds of fish or game. The bridegroom having been thus selected, the girl’s seclusion is over. She is led forth, with eyes bandaged and head covered with a kind of bonnet, to a stake in the centre of the village, where the elders tie up and beat the unfortunate damsel with whips of cord or fish-skin, sometimes studded with sharp stones; the proceedings are accompanied by the blowing of conches. The two senior elders then advance inside the revolving circle and command the supposed demon in the girl to leave her and enter the stake to which she is tied, and presently, at a given signal, the flagellation ceases. The girl, often fainting from pain and weakness, is released and taken away to a distance; her wounds are washed and soothing herbs applied, while the youngest elder present is dispatched to advise the bridegroom that his future wife has been freed from the demon and is to be found in such and such a place. Then he goes from house to house shouting, “Come and burn the demon which would have taken possession of such and such a girl!” Meanwhile the bridegroom has found the bride and taken her to his father’s house, and the rest of the population is collected round the stake, which is surrounded with faggots; the women, wearing fringed belts and holding one another by the waist, dance round in a ring execrating the demon; the men shout and sing and drink strong liquors prepared previously by the girl’s parents. The bridegroom, having left the bride with his mother, approaches with a torch to fire the pile, and apostrophises the demon, telling him that the girl he wished to harm is now his wife, paid for with curare (or whatever the present may have been), and finally, in token of their vengeance, he lights the faggots to the sound of a fearful din from the conches, tambourines, and maracas. All the people dance up to the fire and back again, the men lined up on one side, the women on the other, finally circling round till everything is consumed. In this way the safety of the bride from evil influences is secured, and she is recognised henceforth as the wife of her purchaser.