miserable when they heard the
unwelcome sounds of the _ajie_, and, truly believing in its approach,
retired quickly to their huts, where, shivering with fright, they cried
and implored to have their lives spared.

The boy who whirled the magic tablet was, of course, bound to keep the
secret of the _ajie_ from the women. Let me tell you that one of the
chief virtues of the Bororo men, old and young, was the fidelity with
which they could keep secrets. The youngest children were amazing at
keeping secrets even from their own mothers. There were things that
Bororo women were not allowed to know. Boys attended the tribal meetings
of men, and had never been known to reveal the secrets there discussed
either to their sisters or mothers.

When I said it was a virtue, I should have added that that virtue was a
mere development of an inborn racial instinct. Young and old among the
Bororo were extremely timid and secretive by nature. They feared
everybody--they were afraid of each other. It was sufficient to watch
their eyes--ever roaming, ever quickly attracted and pointing sharply at
anything moving anywhere around--to be satisfied of the intense
suspiciousness of these people.

The Bororos were restless nomads and could never settle anywhere. They
were always on the move--hunting, fishing, and formerly on warlike
expeditions with other tribes. They showed great skill with their arrows,
which they threw with wonderful accuracy even under conditions of unusual
difficulty. When fishing, for instance, they showed remarkable
calculating powers when the line of vision became deviated by the surface
of the water and made it difficult to judge the exact position of the
fish at different depths, quite removed from where the eye saw it. Their
long arrows had a double-barbed bone head, which was poisoned when
fighting men.

The Bororos were not quarrelsome by nature; on the contrary, they were
dignified and gentle. They always avoided fighting. It was only when
driven to it, or when hunted down and attacked, that they naturally
endeavoured to defend themselves. This has brought upon them the
reputation of being barbarous and cruel savages. Even among themselves
they seldom quarrelled; they never offended one another with words. They
had great respect for their elders.

At night the men collected in the village. One of them spoke aloud to the
crowd, delivering a regular lecture on the events of the day, their
hunting or fishing adve