nglish as _neay_.
_Translator's Note._]

[Footnote 11: In chapter XIV speaking of the superstitions of this
people I have mentioned those which refer to the birth of a child and
the strange ideas they have concerning this event.]

CHAPTER XI.

A Sakai village--The "elder"--The family--Degrees of
relationship--Humorists disoccupied--On the march--Tender
hearts--Kindling the fire--A hecatomb of giants--The
hut--Household goods and utensils--Work and repose.

A real village, such as we understand it to be, does not exist among the
Sakais, but I have been obliged to make use of the word for want of a
better one to explain the meaning. Each hut is some hundreds of yards
distant from the other so that altogether a village covers an area of
from twenty to forty miles. Nearly always the boundaries of village
territory are marked by secondary water-courses (the true Sakais never
encamp near a navigable river) which give their names to the people
living round the shores.

Only the width of a brook or torrent divides two of these settlements
that I have called villages, therefore the distance is much less than
that lying between the two extremities of a single village.

And yet, beyond being on neighbourly and friendly terms, they have
nothing to do with each other, for one Sakai tribe does not like mixing
with another and will not recognize any tone of authority, or receive
any word of advice unless proceeding from a close relation, and even
then it must be given in the form of fatherly counsel or affectionate
exhortation otherwise the person to whom it is addressed would probably
leave his own people, not to have further annoyance from them, and go to
live among his wife's kinsfolk.

The inhabitants of a village are all one family, belonging to the first,
second, third and even fourth generation for they are all descended from
the same old man, who is called the "Elder" and who is regarded with
esteem and consideration by everybody.

It is he who acts as magistrate or arbitrator in any dispute or quarrel
(that very rarely takes place) amongst his offspring and the sentence
pronounced by him is rigorously respected. It is he, too, who selects
the spot for a clearing when, as often happens, the Sakais change their
place of encampment, forming their village in quite another part of the
forest.

Besides this he has nothing else to do, unless he is still able to work.

The Elders of the various villages a