AN ACCOUNT OF THE OTTAMACS, WHO EAT CLAY. from humboldt’s “tableux de la nature.”

On the coasts of Cumana, of New Barcelona, and of Caraccas, visited by the Franciscan monks of Guyana in returning from their missions, there was a tradition prevalent, that tribes inhabiting the banks of the Oronoco eat earth.

On the 6th of June 1800, we spent a day in a mission in a village inhabited by the Ottamacs who eat earth.

The village called La Conception of Uruana is situated in a very picturesque manner, upon the declivity of a rock of granite.

Its latitude I determined to be seven degrees north, and its longitude four degrees west of Paris.

The earth which the Ottamacs eat is fat and unctuous clay, a real potter’s earth, of a greyish yellow tint, coloured by a little oxide of iron.

They select it with much care, and gather it on particular banks on the sides of the Orinoco and of the Meta.

They distingujsh by the taste one kind of earth from another, for all kinds of clay are not equally agreeable to their palates.

They knead this earth into balls, of from four to six inches in diameter, and bake it at a slow fire, till its outer surface becomes reddish.

Before they eat these balls they moisten them anew.

These Ottamacs are for the most part a very savage race, and have an aversion to improvement.

The nations on the Oronoco that are farthest from that canton, say proverbially, when they wish to speak of any thing very filthy, “It is disgusting for an Ottamac to eat.”

When the waters of the Oronoco and Meta are low, the Ottamacs support themselves on fish and tortoises.

When the fish appear at the surface of the water, they kill them by means of darts, with a dexterity which we have often admired.

When the rivers experience their periodical overflow the fishing ceases, for it is as difficult to fish in rivers become too deep, as in the open sea.

During this inundation, which lasts two or three months, the Ottamacs swallow prodigious quantities of earth.

We have found in their huts immense stores of it, heaped up in pyramids.

Each individual consumes daily threefourths or four-fifths of a pound of earth, according to the account which Fray Romon Bueno, a very intelligent monk who has lived twelve years among these Indians, gave us.

The Ottamacs themselves say, that in the rainy season this earth is their principal food; in addition, they eat little fishes, lizards, and fern roots.

They are so fond of this earth, that every day they eat a little of it after their repast, to regale themselves, even in the dry seasons, and when they have abundance of fish.

These people are of a very dark copper colour; their features are as ugly as those of the Tartars.

The missionary who resides among them assured us, that he has remarked no difference in the health of these savages during the time that they eat this earth.

Such is the simple narration of facts.—It may be asserted, that in all the regions of the torrid zone, this desire for earth has been observed; in Guinea, the negroes eat a yellowish earth which they call caouac.

The slaves which are brought into America endeavour to procure a similar gratification, but it is always to the detriment of their health.