We were struck to see in the Parurama camp that old women were more preoccupied in painting themselves than young ones. We saw an Otomac woman having her hair rubbed with turtle oil and her back painted with annatto by her two daughters. The ornaments consisted of a kind of lattice-work in crossed black lines on a red background. It was work needing incredible patience. We came back from a long herborization and the painting was still only half done. It is all the more amazing that this research into ornament does not result in tattooing, for the painting done so carefully washes off if the Indian exposes herself to a downpour. Some nations paint themselves to celebrate festivals; others are covered in paint all year round. With these Indians annatto is seen as so indispensable that men and women have less shame in appearing without a guayuco (97) than without paint. The Orinoco guayucos are made from bark and cotton. Men wear larger ones than women who, according to the missionaries, seem to feel less shame than men. Shouldn't we attribute this indifference, this lack of shame in the women in tribes that are not depraved, to the state of numbness and slavery to which the female sex has been reduced in South America by the injustice and power of men?