girl's hair and enjoined her to
abstain most strictly from eating flesh of any kind until her hair
should be grown long enough to hide her ears. Meanwhile the diviners
drew omens of her future character from the various birds or animals
that flew past or crossed her path. If they saw a parrot, they would say
she was a chatterbox; if an owl, she was lazy and useless for domestic
labours, and so on.[132] In similar circumstances the Chiriguanos of
southeastern Bolivia hoisted the girl in her hammock to the roof, where
she stayed for a month: the second month the hammock was let half-way
down from the roof; and in the third month old women, armed with sticks,
entered the hut and ran about striking everything they met, saying they
were hunting the snake that had wounded the girl.[133] The Lengua
Indians of the Paraguayan Chaco under similar circumstances hang the
girl in her hammock from the roof of the house, but they leave her there
only three days and nights, during which they give her nothing to eat
but a little Paraguay tea or boiled maize. Only her mother or
grandmother has access to her; nobody else approaches or speaks to her.
If she is obliged to leave the hammock for a little, her friends take
great care to prevent her from touching the _Boyrusu_, which is an
imaginary serpent that would swallow her up. She must also be very
careful not to set foot on the droppings of fowls or animals, else she
would suffer from sores on the throat and breast. On the third day they
let her down from the hammock, cut her hair, and make her sit in a
corner of the room with her face turned to the wall. She may speak to
nobody, and must abstain from flesh and fish. These rigorous observances
she must practise for nearly a year. Many girls die or are injured for
life in consequence of the hardships they endure at this time. Their
only occupations during their seclusion are spinning and weaving.[134]

[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Yuracares of Bolivia.]

Among the Yuracares, an Indian tribe of Bolivia, at the eastern foot of
the Andes, when a girl perceives the signs of puberty, she informs her
parents. The mother weeps and the father constructs a little hut of palm
leaves near the house. In this cabin he shuts up his daughter so that
she cannot see the light, and there she remains fasting rigorously for
four days. Meantime the mother, assisted by the women of the
neighbourhood, has brewed a large quantity of the native into